Day 6- Uit de baarmoeder gerukte boskabouter

Yesterday was my hell day for classes-6hrs in a row! Thankfully Intercultural Comm. was better than last time and there were some interesting discussions. Art History and Travel Writing were fine, nothing special really happened in either. Dinner last night was a chicken curry which was…eh? I’ve never had a good experience with curry, having it only from a vendor in Faneuil Hall or on an airplane before so it was slightly better than I was expecting. Still, the Dutch should stay away from all things curry. For dessert there was this mousse-pudding type deal that Stephen called “Italian chocolate chip mousse.” BLEH. It tasted like it had some kind of rum in it and the consistency was something that should never be repeated. Ever. After dinner Joe and I booked our plane tickets and hostel for BARCELONA!!! We’re going with 4 other people from February 18-21 and I am so excited! The hostel we found is like five minutes from the main street of the city and looks really nice (and is on the cheaper side too!). I’m so happy that I have at least one trip fully booked and planned out.

After the planning, Cailin, Joe, and I decided to try and teach ourselves Dutch by using a CD we found in the OSA office called “In-flight Dutch-learn in one hour!” It started off pretty well with us learning how to ask how are you and say my name is (Ik ben Michele). We learned some numbers in Dutch too but then got bored so we skipped to the “making friends” section. From there it all went downhill and resulted in us looking up Dutch swear words and insults. The Dutch have some curses that are very strange; one word literally translated to “gnome ripped from a woman’s uterus.” Yeah, the Dutch are a very odd people!

When we were satisfied with our Dutch knowledge we trekked to the Linden for our first American Night. It was crazy and so much fun! At the beginning of the night the owner got on the bar and told us to be careful because Dulcia would have his head if we did anything stupid. He passed out tiny bottles of Flugel which was more delicious than I thought it would be! Flugel, I now officially know, is red vodka flavored with black currant and mixed with a little energy drink. We all took a shot together and started to dance like crazy. A bunch of us have even found ourselves dancing on the bar… Mom, I know you would be proud! It was all in good fun with everyone taking turns to dance to their favorite songs on the bar, even the RA’s got in on the action! The castle kids all bonded that night and I got to talk to a bunch of people that I normally don’t. Lots of crazy pictures were taken and some of them are ok to put up here! It was just a very fun night because no one was worried about what other people thought of them because we were all there to just have some fun.

Afterwards we came back to the castle and just hung out in our room and talked about the night. We skyped some of the Emerson friends and got to see their lovely faces!

Today is just going to be a day of packing for Amsterdam tomorrow and getting some work done. I’m so excited for Amsterdam! I’m doing a tour of the Anne Frank House, Rjiksmuseum, and the Van Gough Museum. So much art!! We’re going to an Indonesian restaurant the first night we’re there and then dinner in the hostel the second night. There’s nothing really planned for us on Sunday so I think a few of us are just going to wander around the city and see as much as we can.

If anyone has any requests for souveniers/ideas for things to do in Amsterdam and Barcelona let me know!