Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Adjustment process

Living in a new country is always a learning experience. The first few weeks especially.

Especially when an ATM eats your bank card and you need a new one from halfway around the world and the parcel service is a royal pain in the butt. My mother paid a lot of money to get it to me the next day. First they say my address doesn't exist. I googled my address and it comes up. I email them. No answer. Then they say I have to go to a tiny town with no public transport to go pick it up. I have no idea how to get to a town outside of Rotterdam with no public transport so I go ask the Exchange Student Office about it. They tell me that it's better if they send my package to the office so they give me the address. I get an email from the company that they can't help me. I email my mom the office's address and she emails me back later saying they need a phone number too. And all of this madness is happening in two time zones happening 9 hours apart. Hopefully it will come to a happy ending before I run out of money.

Other than that, I've been having a lot of fun here. I like my classes and the people in my program. I haven't seen much of the city yet but I have a great schedule so I have time. I have no morning classes and four day weekends since my classes are Tuesday-Thursday.

Oh, ok-one not so positive thing was having to go with another American girl to the emergency room because she had burned herself. We waited for hours before they'd see her and then told her to just keep doing what she's been doing.

But other than that it's been pretty fun. I live right on campus so that's very convenient.

Today we've had crazy weather. Thunder and lightning this morning, and then intermittent sun, rain, snow and hail. At the moment I have sun but I don't count on it lasting. The wind is very strong and very, very cold so I'm not entirely sure I want to go out tonight.

Still getting used to living here but I'm sure that I'll love it here :)