Thoughts about Groningen/Europe

1. Dutch people are SO friendly! Last night we were at the grocery store deciding on a new kind of beer to try. This complete stranger recommended a beer to try and told us that the name of the beer "Duvel" means "devil" in Dutch.

2. Groningen is NOT very close to any bigger city. So, any trip we take will include a 2 1/2 hour train ride to Amsterdam or a 2 hour bus ride to Bremen, Germany.

3. I liked having classes 2 days a week when I was in college...and grad school, but now I'm just kind of bored. I only have classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which makes traveling easier, but when we're not traveling I don't have much to do other than homework.

4. The streets with brothels are bizarre. It is really difficult to differentiate between those streets and the normal side-streets. The other day Josh was taking pictures of a little street with cute houses when the guy in a car rolled down the window and said "no foto maken." Then this woman on a bike said "no pictures!" Then this woman in her NEON PINK BRA AND UNDERWEAR came running out of one of the houses yelling "no pictures." Finally, he understood, it was a brothel street. Yikes.

5. It's nice to have a kitchen. I've been cooking all of our meals lately. This summer we were eating in restaurants the ENTIRE time. That may sound great, but after a while it's frustrating not to be able to eat something if it's not on the menu! So we've been eating lots of Italian and Mexican food :)

6. Europe is exciting! We're going to Vienna and Prague for a week, we're going to Scotland for a long weekend, Paris for a long weekend, and Italy for 11 days! In November, Mom, Paul, Hilary, and Zak are meeting us in Florence and we're renting a villa in Tuscany for a week, then we're going to Rome. That'll be for my birthday!!! (I'll be 27...)

7. Stores don't take Visa. This is a little frustrating, since my financial aid hasn't come yet it would have been nice to be able to use my credit card for my school books. BUT no, none of the stores take a credit card. Visa, it's NOT everywhere you want to be.

8. Josh is really happy here because my mentor recommended a basketball club for him to play with. He used to play with a group of guys in Cambridge and has been missing that. It strange to have a fiance who is so athletic...but I used to play...soft ball...

9. We could live in the Netherlands for a longer period of time. We like the way people interact with strangers. We like the walking/bike-riding instead of driving everywhere. We even like the weather (never too hot, but never too cold).

10. There are things that I miss about home. The cheese in the grocery store is almost all Gouda, so cheddar is sorely missed. Bagels are not a staple in the Dutch diet, and I love bagels. I miss being able to go see my mom whenever I want to. I miss having a cell phone to call people when I'm walking by myself. So there are plenty of reasons for why I would like to live in Europe, but there are also reasons, that are irreplaceable, for going back to Wisconsin.

Me exhausted, dirty, homeless in Groningen...that was the entire first week that we were here! At least the gelato is delicious!

Smart Car meets F-150?

This is seriously the smallest truck I have ever seen.

Groningen, experience the quaintness!

I decided that the slogon for Groningen's tourist board should be "Groningen, Experience the Quaintness" because every street looks as cute and homey as the one before. This picture is of a canal on the northern side of the city. People generally live on those huge boats! We wish we had known that we could just live in a boat before we rented our apartment (JUST kidding). The city center is demarcated by a series of four canals that create a square around downtown.

OH and if anyone wants to know our address its:
VanHeemskerckstraat 28a
Groningen, Nederlands 9726

(We have internet in our apartment! And it's a cable modem instead of wireless, so pictures can be added really quickly! This means you finally get to see some of Groningen!)

Classes have begun...

The good news is that I only have classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The bad news is that none of them seem that interesting. I'm taking: European Union External Relations Law, Transformation and Integration in Europe, Law of International Organizations, European Constitutions and Constitutional Law, and Comparative Criminal Law. For those of you who know my law interests, Comparative Criminal Law should jump out as the class that is right up my alley. It looks SO fascinating. BUT in the Netherlands semesters are broken into two parts. Some courses meet in both parts, some only in part 1, others only in part 2. Comparative Criminal Law is in part 2. So I have to wait until the end of October for that one. Blah.

Josh and I are planning our first weekend trip. This one will be to Paris the last weekend of the month. Josh is taking the LSAT there (the Law School Admissions Test), so it won't be entirely for fun that we make that trip. Since I don't have class on Thursday, Friday, or Monday, we may make a long weekend of it. We have both been there, but I haven't been there in over 10 years (can you BELIEVE it, Hilary?). So it will be fun to go again. Maybe we'll do a day at the Louvre...or just walk around. It is a good thing that we both like to wander...it's fun, good exercise, and free!

That's about it. I met some friendly Canadians in one of my classes. Funny how we can all bond together over being "North American." Everyone here (literally everyone) speaks English, but it's nice to be able to speak at your normal pace with people who are not only fluent, but can follow accents, contractions, and colloquialism without effort!

Love,
Elizabeth

P.S. and I promise a picture of Groningen soon. This city is SO quaint! If you want to read about it on Wikipedia, here is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_%28city%29

Fun Fact: Recently the EU conducted a survey of 75 cities in Europe to determine which city's residents were the happiest. The winner? GRONINGEN! This explains so much about the atmosphere of this city. The people are friendly and helpful because they're so happy...Or are they happy because everyone is so friendly and helpful?

We're in Groningen! (For those of you who like to know how to pronounce things, it's sort of hrow-ni-hen, but the h's are sort of gutteral...)

We have an apartment! It is a studio, but it has its own bathroom and kitchen area. It's really small, but we're two pretty small people who don't mind being close to each other. We also have a little balcony, on which we plan to relax, drink wine, and play cribbage. Josh taught me how to play cribbage and is enjoying beating me the majority of the time! The one bad thing is that our apartment will not be "finished" until Wednesday, and we cannot start sleeping there until Sunday night. So we feel a bit like vagrants right now.

Groningen is very nice. I keep saying that the people remind me of my dutch step-family. They are friendly, efficient, and very helpful. There are a lot of shops to get "doner kebaps" which are cheap sandwiches made with chicken that has been slow-roasted on a skewer (like in a Greek restaurant). We have been eating lots of "kebaps."

The one negative thing we have found is that Groningen and Europe in general are very expensive. The numeric values are generally the same in the US, but the dollar is pretty weak against the Euro right now. This means that when something says "5 euros" it actually means 5 euros times 1.38 in dollars. After spending all summer in countries where the local currency was worth a lot less than a dollar, this change has been a little difficult to adjust to!

Hope all is well with you! I promise we will post pictures as soon as we get moved into our apartment. We have wireless internet access there!

Love,
Elizabeth