If she likes me, does that mean we've bonded for life?

Even though I've now lived in Holland for over a year, I still have these moments sometimes where I think "what the f'***?". Today I had my first encounter with the Dutch health care system. It was really one of those moments.

In Holland they don't have free health care like we do in Sweden, so if you want to go to a doctor, you have to contact a huisarts (housedoctor). Last night I googled on how to find these huisarts, and got to a website where I had to fill in my postcode and then got a list of practices that are located nearby. Each practice had a grading of 1-10 with comments on how good the service was - as if I was choosing a restaurant or something? 

I found one that had a good rating and that was very nearby my street and called them this morning. That was by far the strangest conversation ever. I got to the receptionist, and first of all, she spoke good English but kept mixing in Dutch words - especially the word "hoor" (pronounced like "whore"). This is a word that Dutch people say sometimes and it literally means "hear" but I still haven't figured out when or how to use it. You can imagine how it might come across when you say that particular word in an English sentence.

Anyway, I asked if I could get an appoinment and she said yes, and I gave her my date of birth and my address. Yes, I lived in the neighbourhood.

So far so good. 

Then she realized that I wasn't a patient of that practice and said that "you first have to make an appointment with the doctor and see if you get along, hoor". 

Excuse me? I don't want to date the doctor?

"You first have to get to know each other and then she will decide if you can become a patient here. We can't take everyobody in, hoor!".

Okay...

So tomorrow I have an appointment with the doctor. Or maybe I should call it an audition?

Better be on my best behavior, I guess.

Thank God it's Monday

You know that feeling when you wake up a bit earlier than your alarm and realize that you can sleep an hour longer? That's what I had yesterday, but times 10, when I realized I don't have classes Monday and Tuesday.

I know, too good to be true, right?

So, today I'm gonna be at home, reading, working on the project etc. Sounds like the best Monday in a long time!

Housewarming - check!

So, Sunday afternoon again. On Friday me and my roommate finally had a housewarming and the apartment was completely full! It was a lot of fun though, and it seemed like everyone liked our apartment. Lately I've been completely nagging on my roommate that we have to get a microwave. NOW. Then it turned out we have soo nice friends that they got together and gave us a microwave as a housewarming gift! Thank you!

Who knew I could get so happy by getting a microwave.

Another very nice thing was that my Belgian friend came to visit for the weekend (she left this morning) and she gave us a gift card from Ikea. Thank you, it will definitely come in very handy!

As most of you know though, the more fun you have at night, the more shitty the next day is going to be. Yesterday when I woke up I fainted in the living room and woke up a few minutes later on the floor next to my bed. Not really a good start of the day. The rest of the Saturday was spent either in my bed or in the sofa, watching movies and eating a lot of unhealthy stuff. Tha was very nice, indeed.

Me and my roomie before all the people arrived

Someone had fun with the snacks...

September 19th

Just got back home from an exhausting day in school. Everyone seems to be sick now (except me, knock on wood!) and the level of enthusiasm is not really high. Although it's really nice that school started and I get to see everyone again, there's just an overload of work to do. I feel like I'm not doing anything else than reading, working on the project, or being in lectures.

A lot of the courses this semester are basically repetitive or building on previous courses, so there's not really much new stuff to learn, just focusing on doing it better and more advanced than last year. For example, last year we had a course in intercultural communication and this year it's cross-cultural management; basically just applying our knowledge to the business world.

I can't stop loving the internationalism that surrounds me here though. It's really something that I wouldn't have had if I would have chosen to study in Sweden. For instance, today we had a 2½ hour break between two classes and were sitting around a table, some chilling and some studying. The conversations were in French, English, German, Swedish and Dutch. I love it! I am 100% sure that this is the type of environment I want to be in when I start working.

Cross-cultural Management vs. H&M catalogue

Guess who won?

Looking for snorers

Today I'm staying home with my roommate. No classes on the schedule but we just finished an online meeting with the project group at Google Docs. It feels like we got a lot of work done, and tomorrow we're going to present it in the coaching session. This wole anti-snoring project makes me think of nothing else than snoring. Is there any snorer out there who would want to do an interview with us? :)

We were just too hungover on our regular cleaning-day. And the week before that too.

Me and my roommate have been procrastinating the cleaning a bit too long now, and you now it's bad when it seems like even your cat (who is the nastiest creature ever) starts to sneeze and show discomfort in the sofa. So today we cleaned.

This morning I went to school for an extra lecture on Integrated Marketing Communications. At 8.45. Normally I would have had Monday and Tuesday off.

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Enough said.

So, after the lecture I met up with a girl that is an exchange student at uni. She wanted to buy a book from me that I honestly didn't have any use of anymore. Finally some incomes again! I can't wait until I can sell the books I'm reading now. And no, I didn't buy shoes this time, okay?

I was going to show photos of the mess here but then I got scared that you would be so horrified that you wouldn't want to follow my blog after that. 

...So I decided on a picture of George after he's conquered the sofa instead :')