A lovely time in London!

What a weekend I had with my pal Loretta in the great and proper city of London, England! Loretta began her tour of Western Europe on Monday, February 26th so we thought, "Meh... why not go up a few days early and take in some jolly good sights?" And so we did! For those of you who do not know this, Loretta and I have a quirk about us that some may call strange but we find endearing - we like to speak in British accents. We are known among our friends and family for putting on such an accent. After explaining this to my fellow English exchange student Rav before our departure, he told us that our British accent is probably the worst impression he's ever heard and to please never speak like that again. We simply had to find out for ourselves and couldn't wait to observe the accent in its mother country.

We boarded a 6 am train to Eindhoven where a bus took us to the Eindhoven airport. This airport is quite small and so it was relatively easy to check in and board our 9:35am plane to the Stansted airport outside of London. It was cool to see the flat green land leave us behind as we crossed the channel to Britain. We had arranged to take a coach from Stansted and were beside ourselves as we crossed over English countryside to Victoria station in London. Using the Underground (which we now have become experts on) we found our way to the Globetrotter Inn, the hostel we stayed at. Once we had checked in we were back on the 'tube' again to begin the sightseeing tour. We found this great 2 days for the price of 1 deal for an excellent double-decker sightseeing tour bus. We had purchased the tickets online before we left so everything was paid for and ready to go. Equipped with our cameras and headphones to listen to the commentary along the way, we were the ultimate tourists! All of you would be proud to know that us Canadians represented well... when the evening grew chilly and everyone else went to the sheltered part of the bus, Loretta and I stayed put and revelled in the fact that as Canadians, this was nothing more than a cool spring breeze. Unfortunately, my umbrella was not Canadian made and the wind got the better of it! That evening we got some great views of Hyde Park, St. Paul's Cathedral. Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, the London Eye, the Tower Bridge, the London Tower and so much more! The great thing about the tour was that you could hop off any time and get on the next bus. This was so handy throughout the weekend. By 7:00 we were pooped and so after a great little dinner at an Italian restaurant we settled down for a good sleep back at the hostel.

Saturday was jammed packed with more sightseeing as we took advantage of the hop on and off tour bus. Before we headed out though, we thought how AWESOME it would be if we could book some tickets for a real, live musical in London! Loretta had never seen a musical before but as she discovered, finding one we both hadn't seen was quite difficult - I didn't realize how many I had seen until she started listing them. Finally, we saw a great deal for the musical 'We will Rock You' featuring Queen's music for only 25 pounds! We bought them online right away to see the matinee performance on Sunday.

We spent Saturday morning walking around Westminster Abbey, Big Ben at the Parliament, St. James' Park and Buckingham Palace (and the gift shop). It was very surreal to be standing in all of these places I had seen in the media for so long. We were getting so good at the underground but for one exhausting mistake. At one station, we decided to take the stairs and be fit instead of using the lift. After 5 minutes of climbing and no sign of the entrance we saw a haunting sign that read "193 steps, equivalent of 15 stories" Those stairs took ages to climb and we couldn't wait to sit back down on the bus. By midday we had made our way to Piccadilly and were browsing some quirky gift shops when we saw a musical ticket booth... we went over to double check the location of our musical for tomorrow when we realized something disturbing......

It turned out that in our excitement of purchasing the 'We will rock you' tickets we ended up not purchasing 'We will rock you' tickets at all: we had bought tickets for a serious drama about a band in the communist era called 'Rock n' Roll'! Oh no! This turn of events was almost too much! What were we going to do?? We decided it was too important to us to see the musical... so on a whim we purchased tickets for the real 'We will rock you' which was starting in one hour! We were going to try our luck and pick up the communist tickets tomorrow and try to scalp them... as long as we could get back even half of what we spent we would be happy. But having no prior scalping experience, we had no idea what to expect.

'We will rock you', however, was absolutely fantastic! The music was phenomenal and it had a great plot; the perfect choice for Loretta's first musical. By the time the play ended we were gearing up to meet Daniel for dinner! Daniel is one of my really good friends from high school who just happened to be in London the same weekend! Small, small, world. The three of us had a ball at dinner and it was great to catch up with him and hear about his past six months in Scotland as an exchange student. We met up with his two friends at Planet Hollywood and along the way I literally ran into Lubna, one of my Tilburg mentors! Really, small, small world. Soon it was time for Loretta and I to head out but our timing was less than perfect. The tube stations had all closed 10 minutes ago! Personally, I feel one never experiences the true London unless you get stuck in the pouring rain at night with no tube access. Somehow we managed to figure out the buses and find our way home... phew!

On Sunday, my last day, our first order of business was watching the changing of the guards at Buckingham palace. We were unable to secure a good viewing spot so we decided to head out on the sightseeing bus again towards London tower. But before we got there, we decided that we should probably try to sell those darn communist play tickets before 3:00pm when it began. After finding the theatre and obtaining our tickets (of course there were no refunds) we decided to clear our heads and grab a bite to eat at a traditional English pub before working our scalping magic. By 2:30 our selling hats were on and we headed towards the theatre. After failing to sell the tickets to two Hungarian tourists, I spotted two young women, around our age looking quizzically at the theatre entrance. I asked if they were getting tickets to the show and they explained they weren't sure... the price inside was 20 pounds. I said we would sell our tickets for 15 pounds each if they wanted and they replied with an immediate 'Yes!'. Oh what a happy moment, I even took a picture of that momentous transaction.

It was late afternoon and we decided to end our sightseeing tour by visiting London Tower, a magnificent medieval castle that is most closely associated with Henry VIII, it also houses the Crown Jewels! We purchased the recorded tour that you can pause and play along the walk. We actually had a really good time learning this history. The Crown Jewels were so ornate and spectacular. It was amazing to think that real monarchs had worn them.

Feeling happy about our weekend of sightseeing, we couldn't help but realize there was one thing missing from our London experience.....

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING MAY BE TOO DORKY FOR SOME READERS TO CONTINUE

A trip to King's Cross simply had to be made. For those of you who don't know, it is the station where the famous Harry Potter character departs for Hogwarts at Platform 9 and 3/4. And you know what... we actually found the Platform 9 and 3/4 and managed to push our trolley through the brick walls! At last, our time at London was complete!

I had to catch a city bus at 2am to get to Victoria station where a coach would bring me back to Stansted airport. For this leg of the trip, I was on my own and somewhat nervous for everything would work out alright. Now here I am back in my room after taking the London city bus, the airport coach, the plane, the Eindhoven city bus, and the train to Tilburg. It's quite empowering being able to travel like this on your own.

Cheerio for now!

Loretta visits for carnival week

As promised, a more detailed blog has been written about this past week with Loretta. I just got off the plane from my weekend in London but you can expect that blog in the very near future. So carnival started last Saturday on the 17th and ended on Tuesday night. Loretta came to Tilburg on Sunday so she was able to experience most of the festivities. Carnival is actually only celebrated in the southern catholic region of the Netherlands and a few Catholic German cities (like Koln). Young and old get into this event by getting crazy costumes.

It was hilarious to go through the costume stores with some of my friends. I ended up buying this ridiculous cavewoman outfit but what made me laugh the most was seeing Florence in her baby outfit! Annalise dressed up as grass so every night we went out I had great fun making her hair HUGE and spraying it with green hairspray. I even incorporated a few real leaves into her hair from the bouquet Howie sent me for Valentine's Day (awww.. ... thanks Howie!) Loretta explained how confused she would have been if I hadn't told her about carnival... seeing grown men walking around in Elvis and clown costumes would have been a strange first impression of Holland...

The whole centrum of Tilburg was done up with colourful flags, food venues, tents, colourful store fronts and even some live music. At one point a drumming circle began outside among the hoards of people and we danced our little hearts out. There was an outdoor concert in the square on Tuesday night and even though I could not understand those two old Dutch men who were singing, it didn't stop me from dancing along. At this point I would like to offer an official apology to my Dad for the times I made fun of his Dutch soccer music CD.

Once carnival ended I was able to show Loretta the more typical Dutch lifestyle. I wanted her to fully appreciate the bicycle while in the Netherlands but it was a little difficult to convince her to get on the bike again after she fell off FOUR TIMES on the way home Tuesday night!! Being the trooper that she is she decided to mount the bike again to do some grocery shopping. Luckily, the open market was going on that Thursday so Danni, Cheryl (the other one) and I were able to point out some of the wonderful Dutch items. She was VERY impressed with the cheese booth and even got to roll a wheel like she always wanted to do. (I won't mention the 'wheel' was ten centimetres in diameter) While grocery shopping Loretta informed me that we had to get red meat because she had brought over a very special and expensive bottle of red wine that simply has to go with red meat. At this point it got a little ugly because I had to explain that (gasp) I don't particularly eat red meat or like steak. Well this did not sit over well with her but we managed to push through this disagreement and I picked up a package of some sort of rolled meat. Sometimes it's a surprise what I eat because I can't always interpret the name.

I feel that Loretta got a good taste of the Netherlands, but by Friday we were off to our next adventure... London!

Germany today, jacket tomorrow

So today Loretta and I were thinking we might go into Tilburg's centrum to try to find her a winter jacket. But one conversation led to another and by the time we finsihed talking things over with some room mates we decided the jacket can wait, might as well go to Koln in Germany where the carvival is supposed to be HUGE! It has been a busy week to say the least as Loretta arrived on Sunday smack dab in the middle of the carnival festivities going on in this southern Catholic region of the Netherlands. I will explain more about carnival once the festivities end on Wednesday so for now this post will be about my day trip to Germany.

Basically we wanted to see what carnival was like in another city besides Tilburg. We decided to go to Koln or Cologne because this place is supposed to be like the capital of carnival festivities... was it ever!! After eight of us took the train to Venlo which is just outside the border of Germany, we switched onto the German system for a relatively cheap group deal. It was so cool to notice the difference in landscape once we were inside Germany. First of all, I saw rolling hills for the first time in a month - in Holland, there are NONE. The arcitecture was slightly different as well. As we were chugging along, I couldn't help but think how five to six decades ago, this border area would have been so dangerous.

The first thing that greeted us when we stepped out of the Koln station was this MASSIVE cathedral! I have never seen a cathedral before in real life so this building absolutely blew me away! After consulting our Europe guidebook (nerdy I know) we realized that construction on this cathedral began in 1248!! Unbelievable. The parade just happened to be going on as we arrived so we tried to find some good spots to watch. The floats were hilarious and people were just EVERYWHERE! This parade was unlike anything I had ever experienced... first of all, they don't throw out those measly hard candies I was used to with the Santa Claus parade... no... they throw out full size German chocolate bars and boxes of truffles and beautiful bouquets of flowers! It was wild, but you had to be careful you were looking up or you might get hurt. Since we were so far away at first, I was a little over-eager to catch a chocolate bar so when one fell out of a little girl's hand, I snatched it up. I felt really bad afterwards and offered her some chocolate but I don't think she was impressed. This parade though.. it lasted for like six hours! We called it the never- ending parade and we couldn't get to the other side of town till it was over.

We indulged in some traditional food that day like bratworst and gluwein which is a hot red wine and really warms you up. Once we were able to get accross town we managed to find a warm tent to dance to some traditional German polka songs in. There was all ages in here from 7 to 77! Everybody was wearing kooky costumes (ourselves included! One of the most funny parts was when this giant pink rabbit started showing off his polka dance moves! We had the choice to either catch the 8:30pm train or the next one at 3 in the morning. By 8:00, we were all tired enough to go home and enjoyed the relaxing train ride back to Tilburg.

We are the Losers!

Well you can't be a champion all the time, and we certainly weren't on Sunday's Tri-Sport Tourney! ESN organized a fun sports tournament where us exchange students were divided into six teams to compete in games of volleyball, basketball and play out the finals in 'football' matches. I was on a team with my buds Annalise (Australia), Giovani (Italy), Roberto (Brazil) his other Brazilian friend whose name I cannot begin to pronounce, and two other Dutch mentors.

It was clear from the beginning that our team lacked a certain coordination and skill. But where we lacked in skill... we made up for in spirit. Annalise and I even pulled out the ol' Holland shorts to show our team spirit. We lost our two volleyball matches but one match was only one point away. In basketball, a lot of pressure built up on me because word has kind of gotten around that I am supposed to be some sort of star basketball player (I wonder where that rumor started from??) So anyway I had to perform well if my skills were going to match my big mouth.

Unfortunately, the two Dutch mentors had CLEARLY never thrown a basketball in their lives, the Brazilians were in the same boat, our Italian guy was playing with an injury and ball hog mentality so me and Annalise were working double time. Although we lost the first game... I managed to score all but one of our baskets (good work Annalise!) My reputation was not completely damaged. However, in our next game against the board members of ESN (Erasmus Student Network) they put their tallest player against me. And when I say tall, I mean DUTCH tall.... he was 6'9"!! So every single one of my shots was soundly rejected with an overwhelming smackdown.

Nonetheless, we were to play for the ultimate loser position in the final soccer matches. Now the Brazilians and Italian would come in handy. Unfortunately, my skills in soccer are similar to a giraffe trying to do ballet... completely awkward. Instead of trying to play well I decided to get into the motivating dance music playing in the background... it was midway through my amazing still-man-running move that Roberto decided to pass me the ball to my complete obviation. At least I was able to give the crowd a good laugh.

So we ended up being sixth out of six overall... but number one in their hearts!

A day trip to Delft

So this post should have been written about my day trip to Amsterdam ... unfortunately, my procrastinating ways caused me to miss the deadline to sign up for that trip, so I ended up making my own day excursion. Luckily, there were two other people on my floor that had a similar situation. Diana from Toronto, and Roberto from Brazil completed this small tour group.

This would be my first time using the Dutch transit system without the language expertise of Florence (who was staying home sick today). I sort of became the unoffical lead on the trip because of my minimum knowledge of Dutch and my trusty Holland guidebook. With my new Dutch debit card I purchased the train tickets from the machine at the Tilburg West train station and just over an hour later we were in Delft after a brief transfer in Breda.

We decided to go to Delft because I had heard from the other Cheryl that this was the town where the famous Delft blue porcelin originated from. After some excellent use of the tour guide map and directional instincts inherited from my dad, we ended up at 'de Porceleyne Fles' (Porcelin Jar) where we did a tour of the actual facotry where this famous delftware was and still is made. In the museum, there was this amazing full scale recreation of Rembrant's Night Watch which was made up of 480 handpainted tiles. It was interesting to learn that the design only becomes blue after the black ink is heated in the kiln for the second time. I was able to find some very nice souveniors for two certain sisters of mine at the gift shop.

Although the weather was typically Dutch, we didn't let it spoil our day and actually had a really gorgeous walk to the town's centrum. We enjoyed all the interesting front gardens in people's homes and I even saw one of the "lego" trees Florence had described to me. The main centrum still possesses a lot of the 17th century arcitecture with tall old buildings lining the bridged canal streets. On our way to see two famous old churches we stumbled upon Delft's Saturday market. It was so cool to browse all the fresh items - fish, candies, breads, cheeses and flowers of all kinds. I picked up some droppies at the droopie stand. I have a big order to fill for relatives back home. We sat down in a nice cafe to have some expresso and I was able to stutteringly converse with the waitress in Dutch.

We took some great shots of the old town hall and the Niewve Kerk before heading over to the Oude Kerk. It was very cool to see a building that was over 800 years old. The spire at the top of the church actually leans a fair bit to the left. Right outside the church courtyard we walked into a blues festival where it seemed that everyone over 45 in Delft was hanging out. After having een biertje we made our walk back to the train station to end off a very good day in Delft. In fact, I didn't really feel like going to Amsterdam anyway... yeah... this was my plan all along! Amsterdam will be done in the spring when the weather will make for a nicer tour. For now, Delft was an excellent detour of plans. Feeling a new confidence about finding my way around Holland, I look forward to discovering more parts of this great country! Me in front of the "New Church", by new they mean only 500 years old.

We are the Champions!

As some of you know, I've been playing basketball the past few weeks with one of the girls teams here at Tilburg. Unfortunately, I'm certainly not as young and athletic as I used to be so there is A LOT of catch up work to be anywhere close to where I was three years ago. But I made a pretty good start this weekend by participating in the '23rd International Mixed Basketball Tournament' at Tilburg. I wasn't planning to participate but my assistant coach asked me about a day before the tournament started if I wanted to play on his team.

There was 26 teams in the entire tournament and in total we played I think 11 games only losing our first game. Although most of the teams were from Holland, our team was by far the most international with Slovakians, Dutch, German, Spanish and a Canadian participating. I met some really cool people and even have a place to stay in Barcelona with Estephania my team mate. The tournament started on the Friday night and ended Sunday afternoon. On the Friday night, everyone goes into town to party but being me, when I finally got to town on my bike Friday night, I forgot the name of the place we were supposed to go. Luckily, I found a hoard of exchange students I knew to hang out with instead.

After only 5 hours of sleep, we had a full day ahead of us with four games. It was a lot of fun and we played against some really cool teams. The theme of the tournament this year was superheroes, so some teams went all out and actually played in superhero outfits complete with underwear over shorts. As was very Dutch, there was always bread, cheese and meat available to make sandwiches. For supper, they served sausage and that stamppot again - I'm getting to really like that stuff!

On Saturday night there was a social at the gym but I was WAY to sore and tired to go and chose to catch up on some much needed sleep instead! Sunday was a good day as we managed to continue our winning streak and win the finals with some of my flatmates cheering on! After the game our team enjoyed our winner's cake and some sort of local drink they have in Tilburg. In this picture, our team is being congratulated by the committee. It was weird because in Europe the custom when you greet or congratulate someone is to kiss on the cheek, in Holland, it is three times. Not the best thing after you are all sweaty from and bball game. The Slovakians had to leave to catch their plane and I was able to take home some leftover bread and fruit (save on groceries!)

It has been so great to play basketball once again in a competitive setting!

I'm quoted in the newspaper!

During the first week of orientation, a student reporter came up to Danni and I to ask us a few questions about our first impressions of being an exchange student. If you want to check out the article, click here.

Life with the Dutch

The Netherlands and its Dutch people certainly have a defining culture which I've noticed after barely two weeks. I've tried to describe some of these:

St. Joseph's church in the centrum of Tilburg

Greenery
I haven't even seen Holland in the springtime, and already the love of flowers and plant life is so clear. They do the coolest things with even the smallest spaces. It doesn't matter how small their front yards are, but there will be a garden. Even if the front yard maybe has 6 square feet of space - there will be a garden.The windows are large because they love to let lots of light in for the flowers growing on their large window sills. Bouquets of tulips, roses, and every springtime type of flower are quite cheap and readily available. Feeling inspired, I even purchased some potted plants for my window sill, but being the girl who's cactus died due to a lack of water - I fear for their survival. I forgot to water them before leaving for the Introduction Camp. I arrived back to discover the poor wilted flowers barely alive - in a panic - I grabbed the nearest liquid - my Sprite!! And by the next morning - they were back to full life!

Food
In an attempt to embrace the Dutch way of eating - every week I go to the kaaswinkel just down the road to get some delicious Dutch cheese - it is everywhere and it is cheap! Also, I usually make a soup similar to my grandma's and it lasts about 5 days for me. Fries do not come with ketchup here: it is automatically served with mayonnaise - mmmm.
There isn't much fast food - the easiest thing to do is just go to the grocery store. I have a discount card for Albert Hein, or 'a&h'. It can be a bit tricky with the Dutch labels though. I accidentally bought 'added pulp' orange juice instead of the 'pulp-free' orange juice I had wanted. A few people on my floor have been unpleasantly surprised when they discovered their milk was 'karne melk' (sour milk).
The other day on campus there were free poffertjes - they are tiny little pancakes that are served with butter and icing sugar. With all of this - you'd think my jeans would be feeling tighter - but with all the biking Dutch people don't put on many pounds. Above, man making poffertjes

The Weather
Arriving in the wintery months of Holland leave much to be anticipated when spring finally arrives in March. So far, there has been a fair amount of light drizzle - but it is not constant and not bothersome. There have been several clear and crisp days as well. The air here is different too - it smells really fresh and moist all the time.

The People
So far, I have not run into a rude Dutch person. Everyone here (even the bus drivers) have been so helpful and welcoming. I notice that they really appreciate any sort of effort a foreigner makes with Dutch. In my attempts to speak Dutch while out in town, the cashiers have helped me fill in my sentences and then tell me how to pronounce it better. Not to be rude, but to be helpful. You see, people here are blunt. They say it like it is (ahhhh.... NOW I understand where my dad gets this!) Westerners tend to really sugar coat things but to the Dutch people - that is not being honest, that is not being helpful. For example, if you go shopping for jeans with a Dutch person, they will tell the second pair made your legs look fat so get the first pair. Some people here have to get used to this - luckily I have already been exposed back home.

Also, Dutch people as Florence discussed with me, like their privacy, like their space. One of the most evident examples of this is their washrooms. Back in Canada, a public rest room is lined with stalls. You go in, you sit down, and hope no bratty kid looks under the door. You won't find that in Holland. Every toilet in every washroom is in it's own little room where full walls and a full locking door offer you the kind of privacy North Americans long for. It doesn't matter if it is a classy restroom or dirty pub, you will have a private toilet room!

As I've also mentioned in an earlier blog, Dutch people like to sing. It is a marvelous sight to see Dutch people link arms and sway to the tune of "Brabant" by Guus Meeuvis. I will be terribly disappointed in myself if I don't learn that by the end of these four months. There is a certain Dutch word that is used to described warm, friendly, non-stressful and no tension good times. Where everybody is enjoying every one's company - there is no similar word in English - gezellighied.

Final Thoughts
Basically, my first impressions of Holland have been everything positive. I am realy enjoying this experience. Although I do miss people back home, there is so much to do and see that I keep very busy. Now that most of the paperwork and administrative stuff is out of the way - I can really settle into a pattern now. One of the things I am looking most forward to is when my good friend from back at Waterloo comes to visit me. Loretta is coming on Feb. 18th just in time for Carnivale. I can't wait to show her around. She has to be in London by the 25th to start her Contiki tour of Holland so we decided to make a little trip out of it and arrive in London a few days prior to check out some sights and perhaps visit a few Harry Potter landmarks??

(To answer my cousin Cameron's question about what game was my favorite to play: I like the game where you have to hammer a nail into the big logs.)