Dinner at Scheveningen beach

Studying hard...

 Yesterday was a really nice day. The weather is amazing in The Hague this week, and everyone has gone back to wearing summer clothes. We sat in the grass outside school, working on an assignment about branding. So nice! I also got class representative (thank you guys!).

BIG, blue sky.

Having chill drinks at the beach bar.

In the evening we went to the Scheveningen beach to have dinner with the girls and then go for a drink or two in some of the beachclubs. The dinner was a complete disaster. The waitress was so rude, and my friend found a hair in her food, twice. Me and another friend didn't get the fries with our dishes, and everything took an eternity. Good thing we had good company!





 
 Anyway, the night went on and we found this really nice beach club with fires and infra-heating. It was so nice, too bad they're closing down the beach restaurants and clubs on October 2... Well well, going to a couple of friends' housewarming tomorrow so tonight I'm just gonna chill with my books (maybe). 

What a strange country

Today I discovered a couple of things that reminded me how different this country is from Sweden sometimes. For example, today I finally got my new sim-card. I was standing outside, on my way to school and unlocking my bike, when I saw a man walk towards my door with an envelope in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I was expecting my sim-card to arrive today so I asked him if it was for me, and of course it was. Then I noticed he wasn't smoking a cigarette, he was smoking a joint (!). So weird, and really something you only see here in Holland.

Later, when me and a friend went to Albert Heijn, we happened to stop by the medicine shelf. We were shocked  when we saw that they sold Paracetamol for 49 cents. In Sweden and Germany (where my friend is from) they cost at least 8-9 euro. We really don't get it.

Everyday I'm partying...

Carina, Sabrina and me 

This blog post will be a short one, since my energy is completely non-existent after a rough weekend.  On saturday I went to the Municipal Office (or something like that) and registered myself as a citizen of The Hague! Congratulations, my dear city, on another Swedish inhabitant. After the registration I went home and actually studied a little, but it was hard to find motivation because the weather was so nice. Later we went out and had crazy fun as always. Now I have to start getting prepared for another week of studying, probably followed by yet another party weekend. You have to just love the student life.

Prinsjesdag

Yesterday was Prinsjesdag (Prince's Day), which is the day when Queen Beatrix go in a golden carriage from Palace Noordeinde to Binnehof where the government is seated. There the Finance Minister presents to her the budget for the next year aswell with other governmental matters. Anyway, from what I have heard, the big deal is when the Queen, Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Máxima show themselves up on the balcony of Noordeinde. Unfortunately, I was in school and missed this. So typical, because the Noordeinde Palace is like 2 minutes from my house. Well well, I'll watch it next year instead.

Queen Beatrix, I'll be back next year!

It seems to me that the Netherlands has very fond feelings for their Royal Family compared to what we have in Sweden. But then of course, our King is a dyslectic, inbreeded, stupid a**hole who cheated on the Queen. Not much there to like I'm afraid. But here in Holland they have actual holidays to celebrate the Royals. I can't wait to experience Koninginnedag on the 30th April! It's when everyone dresses up in orange clothing and just celebrate out in the streets. Now that's what I call royalists!

Den Bosch Maritiem

Singing sailors

A few days ago, on Thursday, I was at a birthday party of the roommate of a friend of mine. It was a lot of fun, and the craziest thing is that apparently, the birthday child and me has a mutual friend in Sweden who studied here last year. It's a small world I tell you.

Bosschen bollen en een lekker kopje koffie

On Friday I went with a friend to Den Bosch over the weekend, to see the "maritiem", kind of a binnual market/festival. It was interesting, and there were a lot of old "sailors" singing typical sailor songs in the streets. We also went on a guided boattrip in the Binnendieze, the only canalsystem in The Netherlands that go under or behind the houses. Really cool! All of a sudden had we passed under the City Hall in the canal! Another thing I did in Den Bosch was to try the local pastry "Bosschen bollen" (don't know if I spelled it correctly). It is basically flaky pastry shaped as a big ball filled with whipped cream and dipped in dark chocolate. It was nice, but so rich I could barely manage half of it. 

Boat tour in de Binnendieze

A canal full of boats...

When we drove back to Den Haag (yes, I say it the Dutch way now), I had this really strange feeling. I really felt like I was in another country (the higways and the surrounding nature are very different from Sweden) but I still had the feeling that I was going home. When we drove in to my street, I was home. I know the neighbourhood and this is really my street. Very strange feeling and it's hard to describe it.

You probably have to experience it yourself.

Madurodam

Today I went to Madurodam! It is like a miniature city in The Hague with buildings from all of The Netherlands, like the Peace Palace, Utrecht Centraal Station, the cheese market in Alkmaar etc. It was sooo cute, like the essence of Holland in one small area. And they even had the Schiphol Airport there, twice or three times the size of my room (18sqm). Also, there were trains, trams and boats going around the whole "city". Heel leuk! I really recommend people going there, it was a nice way to spend the afternoon before class.

Thoughts about cultural differences...

Hey everyone!

Yes, I survived the weekend. We went out Friday and Saturday was my housewarming, so now I have to detox for the rest of the week. Saturday was also the day when my friend from Belgium and her boyfriend came over to visit me. So lovely that I've only lived here for three weeks and already have visitors!

A hungover Alice with her pimped bike and Belgian friend.

I should have studied this weekend, but all I did was to write down some common stereotypes for my group work in Intercultural Communication. It's quite fun to discuss stereotypes in a group where everyone is from a complete different culture. Swedish girls for example, have a quite bad reputation internationally. People basically think that we're all blonde, tall and easy to get with. Oh, and that we all drive a Volvo, furnish our houses with Ikea, use Snus instead of cigarettes, shop all our clothes at H&M, and drink a lot of Absolut Vodka, and my favourite: We have polar bears walking in the streets. This is all quite fun to hear though, especially the last one.

When we study Intercultural Communication like this, you really start to think of all the small things you haven't noticed before. How difficult it could be to communicate interculturally, and misunderstandings that you don't even notice. I even see cultural differences between me and my Norwegian roommate sometimes. Probably, because we have such similar cultures, we get really surprised when we actually find something that is completely different.

Swedish dinner: meatballs, boiled potatoes, brown sauce, lingonberry jam & mashed green peas.

Yesterday I cooked Swedish food for my roommates, so me and my Norwegian friend could feel a bit like home again. It was quite funny to see the Chinese guys' reactions to Lingonberry jam!

Anyway, got to go and study now, for real.

TGIF

I survived the first week of classes! This morning we had our last class of the week at 8.45 and I woke up 8.05, in panic, and ran to the tram. Fortunately I arrived just in time. Yesterday was also a bit stressful. When I got outside and started biking to school, it started raining like crazy! This is so typical dutch weather, and I have to admit that my little crush on this country temporarily vanished as I walked in to class soaking wet.


But hey, I dried up and after class there was a HEBOS party going on in the school bar. It was unbelievable, they sold drinks for 50 cents (!) each. Crrraazy prices, especially if you, like me, come from a country where a beer costs around 5-7 euro. Some people from European Studies even got a special cup to get free drinks in.

So well, I think you could guess what happens when you put a lot of students in a room with almost free drinks. Yeah that's right, I was only gonna stay for one beer...

After the little "after school" gathering I was going home by bike. A big warning people: watch out for the tram tracks when you bike, you do NOT want to get stuck in those. Enough said about that.

  

It's a crazy life here.

Dutch Class

Yesterday and today we had dutch class. My teacher had to go to a meeting today, so my class got split up to be with the other 3 classes. It was crowded! Fortunately, it was only for today (I hope). We are going through the dutch grammar and also how you greet people and present yourself. Yesterday was quite funny when our teacher sounded like a stereo on repeat; "Dag! Dag! Dag! Dag!". For those of you who don't know this yet, "Dag!" means hello (kind of...). Well, I'm not gonna be completely mean in this blog, I actually think it will be an interesting course. And naturally, very useful when you're supposed to live in the Netherlands for the next three years!

After dutch class today, we had Intercultural Communication. This is a mandatory course for everyone at the university (if I got it right), and how interesting it is! It's all about communicating with people from different cultures with an open mind and without prejudices. That is probably gonna be a useful course too, since I live with two chinese guys and their culture is completely different from mine. Also because The Hague is such an international city (almost half of the population is non-dutch!). But I'll tell you more about all that later!

Got to go, tot ziens!

First impressions of The Hague and Holland

City Hall "Ijs Paleis"

I've now been living here for two weeks, and I am completely in love with this city! We had the first real classes yesterday, and they all seemed so interesting and fun! Last week was introduction week and we did a lot of fun stuff like going on a field trip to Delft, running around the city of The Hague and taking photos, going to introduction lectures, watching a dutch movie, partying and of course, getting to know eachother! Today is my second day of classes. I have Dutch A1 and later on Introduction to Dutch Culture and Society. I'm really excited! So far, I can really recommend people to come to The Hague, despite of all the rain we've been having. In the weekend the weather was actually pretty nice and on saturday I went to the beach in Scheveningen. What an amazing beach! You wouldn't think that of the Netherlands, haha.

Scheveningen Beach

I'm starting to "adapt" to the dutch ways. I've bought a bike and am now biking everywhere I go. Also, I've started listening to some dutch music (probably need to discover some new music soon, been listening to this album about a trillion times now). The food however, is a different story. With an exception of Gouda cheese I mostly eat the same food I eat in Sweden (knäckebröd etc.). I'm even going to IKEA today to buy some Lingonberry jam probably. It's really easy for me to feel at home here actually. I've found that the Netherlands is very similar to Sweden in many ways (but just a lot more happening all the time!).

View from City Hal

That's it for me this time, have to go prepare for class!