February!

 

So I apparently got really behind in my blogging this month. I didn’t really do any big trips so I couldn’t think of anything to write about 😛 but now that the month is over, I can review a few pretty cool things that have been going on around here!

 

The beginning of February was Carnaval around Southern Netherlands and Germany (and Brazil…. for those lucky enough to go there… *cough* Liisa) It’s basically 4-5 days and nights of drinking and dancing and wearing insanely amazing costumes in the streets. The whole vibe (especially during the day) was so neat, because it wasn’t just rowdy teenagers and young adults! It was grandmother’s who could barely walk covered in streamers and confetti and whole families dressed as tigers and mothers dressed in the skin tight firefighter costume, holding a beer and dragging 3 kids behind it. Definitely a really strange experience. I didn’t travel anywhere for the weekend of Carnaval, but watched the parade in Tilburg and had a few nights out with the international students at Carpe Diem. Here are a few pictures….

The Carnaval crowds in Tilburg

Strange looking lamb float? 

Disturbed by the strange floats and people…

Just hanging out of the windows watching the parade! (thank you insanely good zoom!)

The Family of Tigers!! 😀

Hairy beast!

 Two sailors and a …. long haired person?

Parade Aftermath!

 

SUCH A MESS! First night of Carnaval, all looking quite fashionable! Classy highland coupleGroup shotttt!

The month of February flew by really fast! A few other things that have been happening…

Me and Tina did a little shopping tourist, girly afternoon in Den Bosch, a really cute city near by! We got awesome deals (70% off) on shoes, I finally got some Toms! and super pretty friendship bracelets for me, her and Liisa! We saw quite a few really pretty things in Den Bosch! It also had many antique shops!

Inside of a lovely church!My beautiful best friend 🙂

No tourist day trip is complete without a glass of warm chocomel met slagroom!

Another beautiful church, this is why I love Europe!   Tina’s new car! Cute antique shop we explored 😀 
so prettyyy!

Me and the girls also love cooking together! Tina and I hosted a mentor dinner for more than 40 people a few Tuesday’s ago. We made delicious chili and everyone said it was perfect!  

This past weekend, we did CITY RALLY! An awesome, exhausting day trip to (max) 12 cities around the Netherlands! Our team came in second place, we had visited 8 cities from 9am-7:30pm.

Bikes going for a swim Upside down in Breda On our knees Disco dancing Rotterdam! Pyramid in Delft Fun super excited to be here jumping shot! With pigeons Cuties! With the fresh stroopwaffel stand With Asians Nice February swim!  Hugging the object! So tired by this point! Queen’s pose at a palace!

Other then these exciting adventures, we have been planning quite a few trips in March… from the 7-11, I will  be in London, from the 14-19, I will be in Prague for my birthday! and we booked a one way ticket to Barcelona yesterday for Easter holidays….
Somewhere in between I will study for the three exams I have on April 9-11! Should be a crazy and fun month!
I will definitely try and keep everything up to date with all these insane adventures 😀
Also planning for my mom’s visit in May! And trying to find a sailing trip in either Croatia or Greece in July! ahhh too much to see!

I have also been going to the gym quite a bit with Liisa and Tina. Compared to UW’s gym, the sports centre here is huge!! It’s two floors of equipment! Its really nice to go to a gym where you don’t need to wait in line to use a machine!!

Tot ziens everyone!

First time in Amsterdam!

This past Saturday, me and about 40 other international students got on a bus and went to Amsterdam! This awesome trip was organized by our student group, I*ESN and it was only 30 euros!

Our first stop of the trip was Zaanse Schans, an adorable, old windmill town! Here we got to taste (a lot) of cheese, look at some clogs, and some cute little goats (and not so cute big goats). This place was really beautiful, especially “early” in the morning (10am) and is much better viewed through pictures!

 

After a short hour at Zaanse Schans and a lot of pictures, we left for Amsterdam, which is really close by! At first sight, it was nothing that remarkable… it seemed very industrial!
But once we got off the bus and had an hour to explore, we saw some of the things that Amsterdam is known for… coffeeshops (and people dying outside of them at 11am), sex shops, canals, bikes, house boats! It’s actually a really pretty city with lots to see. I definitely need to go back for a longer amount of time.

We left for the canal tour at 12:30 and it was pretty interesting! Mostly because I love boats and ducks, but also because it randomly started to hail halfway through the tour! Strange Dutch weather, as usual!

After the tour, we walked FOREVER to get to the Iamsterdam sign!

And then we had free time until the Anne Frank house at 5. Since I love learning about the Holocaust and have for a long time (since my 6th grade speech about it), visiting this house was a great experience for me! I even got left behind at the end because I was going so slow and was so into it! Thankfully, my friends were nearby at a restaurant so it wasn’t a huge deal! After that we were supposed to meet the rest of the group for a Red Light District tour, but we were too late cause I had to go back and find someone who got lost!

I will definitely go back to Amsterdam, since I feel like I need at least two or three more days there to explore this beautiful city!
A few random pictures from the day:

 

Belgium – January 25-27!

Happy February everyone! I can’t believe that it’s already been almost a month that I have been away! In some ways it seems like I just got here, in others it feels like I have been here forever!

I wanted to share some stories and pictures from our first trip, which was to Belgium, just a walk away from Tilburg 😉

We went in a pretty big group, people from my floor and a few others, Liisa, Tina, Ash, Eleanor, Nicole, Shannon, Jason, Joel, Rachel, and John! Definitely an awesome group of people from around the world!
We left in smaller groups, since some people had to deal with immigration appointments that day. I left with Tina, Liisa and Eleanor at around 3 in the afternoon on Friday. We had a pretty smooth trip, minus the fact that we got off one stop early in Munchen, instead of at the central stop!  My mistake since it said MUNCHEN in huge capital letters, and then something smaller on the side, oops!

Eleanor (New Zealand) and Tina (USA) on our first train 🙂

After traveling, Tilburg – Rosendaal – Antewerpen – Munchen, we finally arrived in Leuven and tried to find our hostel. Us, being the geniuses we are, didn’t bring the address but thankfully the rest of the group was just a phone call away! We found our way there and checked in. It was a really cute little place and my bed was kind of up on a balcony!

Leuven City Hostel!

We got everything together for the rest of the night, as we would not come back before we visited one of the biggest groups of bars in the world! Unfortunately, it was exam season for all the University students in Leuven, so we were surrounded by a much younger crowd. Since you can drink beer at 16 in Belgium, the high school students have a tradition before their last day of classes. If I remember correctly, they all dress up in hilarious costumes and wander the city all night, don’t sleep and then go straight to their last day of school in the morning.

Either way, we still had a great time! We visited a shot bar that had all sorts of strangely named shots for pretty cheap!

This is the Vulcano shot, with “special effect” to give it that cool green dripping look!

The next day, we just wandered around Leuven, a city with a few preeeetty interesting things to see….

Delicious Lunch!

Julia alcohol…. I think it was brandy?

Overall, Leuven was a really neat city to visit! Our group spilt up at this point and the Canadians and New Zealanders were off to Brussels!
With no plan for the night, we set off to find a place to sleep! We had circled a few places on the map and thankfully the first place we choose was available! The hostel actually used to be much bigger, but due to a fire in the roof last year only one floor was open.

We got a 6 person room for the 5 of us and definitely took advantage of all the space! The room was a mess after only being there a short time. Right after arrival, we all fell asleep for almost two hours and then set off to find some food! We came back and had some wine and set off to explore Brussels at night!

One of Brussels bars is called Delirium and is known for having more than 2000 different types of beer! Obviously, I am not a beer drinker, but it was still really cool to see! It was a very busy place! I ended up drinking a Strongbow Cider, a great gluten free alternative 😀

The next day, we had a massive walking tour planned! It involved us sleeping in until way passed when we were supposed to check out (but the hostel didn’t really care).  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera in my backpack at the hostel!!! I was so sad when I realized, since I knew we would be seeing a lot of neat stuff today and my phone battery was already running low! Either way, the girls started the day with some waffles (chocomel for me). We looked for the 3 important statues of Brussels; a dog peeing, a little boy peeing and a little girl peeing. These were truly inspirational.
 Tin Tin!

 Mannekin Pis

View from a random rooftop garage

The Delirium alleyway, this is all full different bars!

This brought an end to our lovely weekend! I slept almost the whole ride home and really well that night when we got home! It was really fun!
Stay tuned for my post about our I*ESN day trip to Amsterdam!

 

 

First two weeks in Tilburg!

Again, sorry for sucking at posting on my blog, I’ve been SO busy! There’s lots to get organized!

A short overview of my past two weeks:

We arrived in Amsterdam at around 11 on Saturday the 12th, and I met the love of my life in the train station, Liisa from Finland, (yes she made me write this). After arriving in Tilburg, we had a busy day, lots to see and get organized. Of course, we had the first introduction party that night, in Verbs 10, a few buildings over from us. 

The people living on my floor are amazing! We all get along great! (plus our honorary member Liisa who lives like 29837492837 miles away and usually ends up asleep somewhere in our flat…. on the kitchen table, couch, my bed, my floor….. other places…. ahem) 

Sunday, we did the city tour aka look at all the different bars and pubs and clubs and places to drink. Our International student association, I*ESN Tilburg has their own bar in central Tilburg, Carpe Diem, and every Tuesday there’s a party there. So far we’ve had the Glow in the Dark party and the Holland party! I’m also in a mentor group with I*ESN, group one! Everyone in this group is also awesome and really fun!! Minus our somewhat useless mentors…. hahah just kidding 😉 There was also a strange visit to one mentors house, where they have HUGE pigs living in the backyard… not something you see everyday in Canada.

During the week, we had a few academic sessions which were mostly boring and useless, but hanging out with awesome people made up for it! On the Wednesday we visited Efteling, a realllly cool fairy tale theme amusement park with indoor rides as well as a few outdoor rides that were still running. It was really beautiful all covered in snow all sparkly!

The weekend brought the introduction camp, on this adorable little farm half an hour away from Tilburg. The evenings were obviously filled with partying and the daytime we did a scavenger hunt. Group one’s theme was pirates and we looked pretty cool 😉

The first week of school was rather uneventful, as I really only had 2 classes (one was cancelled). The first half of the term is looking to be pretty simple, but quite a bit of work! It will definitely be interesting!

A few awesome Dutch things:

-Bicycles!! Obviously common knowledge that everyone here cycles, but its so useful! I just got my bike yesterday and having it already simplifies life so much! Easy way to get groceries and get home from the bar!

-Chocomel! the most common chocolate milk in the Netherlands. Drink it warm or cold. Comes in many varieties, including a decadent dark chocolate!

 

So I’m heading to Belgium – Leuven and not sure where else yet, in about an hour, and I will be sure to send updates after this trip! Hope everyone is doing well!

Also, if anyone loves me and wants to send me mail my address is:

• Professor Verbernelaan 108, 5037 AK West Tilburg, Tilburg, Noord-Brabant, The Netherlands

   

   

My new true love, Iceland

So I know I said I would be good about the blogging, but alas, I have failed. They have been keeping us so busy and somewhat intoxicated – the Dutch realllly like their beer (wine for me!!).

I’ll start with the rest of my trip to Iceland. We jam packed our short 3 day trip, and let me say, it was one of the most amazing trips I’ve ever taken! Iceland is the most beautiful and diverse thing I have ever seen. In the blink of an eye, the scenery changes, and sometimes even the weather.  Just a note that none of the pictures even close to do Iceland justice. In person it is absolutely stunning.

On Thursday, we woke up early, at 8 to meet our new American friends at 9. We met them at the Reykjavik City Hall the day before and when we discovered we had the same plans for the day, we decided it would just be easier to take one car. That day, we did what they call “the Golden Circle Tour”
We started this cold, dark, rainy morning with a short drive to Þingvellir, a beautiful national park.

As we explored Þingvellir, the day arrived and the sun almost came through… but not quite. The next stop on the trip was the breathtaking site of some geysers. The largest geyser, Geysir, goes off around every 4 minutes, but it usually varies. Armando entertained us and the rest of the onlookers by counting down til when it was going to shoot up into the air. After watching it like 15 times, filming it, taking pictures etc, we finally decided to try and get a pic of us in front of it… you can see how exciting it really is!!

Not only did this site have geysers, but also many beautiful blue hot springs, some even looked closer to purple! The heat of these hot springs varies from 80-100 degrees celsius and standing in the run off in my rainboots quickly warmed my feet up!

The next stop we had was at Gullfoss, one of Iceland’s most incredible and large waterfalls. It definitely outshines Niagara Falls, as it is out in the wilderness, is not very built up. That was probably one of my most favourite parts of Iceland, they let nature be nature. The Golden Circle was pretty touristy, but there were no charges to view these beautiful, natural things, not even for parking!

As the sun was starting to set, we visited Kerið, a volcanic crater. We climbed down to the water that filled it, but the view was much more stunning from above.

After a quick stop in Hveragerði and a ride on an extremely bumpy road in a failed search for hot springs, we encountered the strangest part of our trip. Although all day had been a little rainy, it wasn’t cold enough for snow. Suddenly, the highway and the scenery all around was absolutely covered in snow! We quickly pulled over and took pictures of what everyone THINKS Iceland looks like!

After that, we headed back to Reykjavik ready to rest. We just relaxed and looked at all the amazing pictures from our great day! Later in the evening, we decided to head out and have a little experience of Reykjavik nightlife on a Thursday night. We grabbed a few drinks in a little bar that was mostly occupied by locals, rather than tourists. It was a pretty neat experience! After a huge detour to find a (closed) hot dog stand, we went home to catch some zzzz’s before our early morning!

(See my Facebook for pictures, there are too many amazing things to upload here) The next morning, me and Shannon set off on our own towards Vik, the southern most town in Iceland. It was a beautiful morning, and we finally saw some sunlight peeping through! Our first stop was the most amazing waterfall that you could walk behind. We got completely soaked! The road towards Vik is the most beautiful ride! The scenery is so diverse, me and Shannon were in complete awe the whole time! Words can’t even describe how beautiful it was! The waves on the black sand beach in Vik were hugeeee! We drove back to the Blue Lagoon, and had a peaceful soak! The water completely destroyed our hair though, it took 4 washes for it to get back to normal! We then had the crazy adventure of sleeping in our freezing cold car, until our flight on Saturday morning!

Overall, I DEFINITELY recommend visiting Iceland!!! I am eagerly awaiting when I can go back to visit again! Hopefully in the summer when there are more hours of daylight and the sun will actually shine 😉

Travel and Day One in Reykjavik, IS

Oh. My. Gosh. Iceland is amazing! Even with the rain and five hours of daylight. But let’s start from the beginning!

So yesterday, January 8th, Shannon and her mom picked up me and my lovely mother from my lovely uncles house in Mississauga around 10am for our 1:20 flight to Boston. I was all packed and ready by the door!I did pretttty good with the luggage and nothing was over weight, but not as good as Shannon with her two tiny suitcases! After a bittersweet goodbye and a pretty uneventful customs and check in (only got a few hundred questions from what seemed like a fairly nice American customs dude). We then met our new best friend who checked our luggage, he sang to us about how we are now part of a private party and we don’t need to show our passports anymore (he lied, we had to show them again as ID), but it was really nice and encouraging to see someone cheerful working in an airport! 

Shannon was a plane after a long wait of anticipation for our first short flight to Boston! We boarded at Gate F61 and departed basically on time, only a few minutes delay for a broken lavatory! It was a small plane, only four seats across (sorry aviation obsessed family, I’m not sure the exact name or model, but I’m sure you could tell me) and it was half empty. Smooth flight, smooth landing, but painful on my ears!

As we disboarded in Boston, I think we made the mistake of leaving the secure area, as we were told to stay in it by agents in Toronto. Still not too sure if it was even possible to change terminals in the huge airport while staying behind security. Either way, we took a “courtesy shuttle” from Terminal B to Terminal E and found that we couldn’t check in for our Icelandair flight for a while… probably because we were almost 5 hours early! So we went down a flight of stairs and found a nice group of chairs to settle in for our last hours in North America!

Finally, we could check in and go through security (again) thankfully it was very quick! We went to go find some food! Got a nice salad with balsamic, tomatoes, cucumbers, dried cranberries, cheese and chicken! Great minus the girl working there who, when I asked, “what are the ingredients in the ranch dressing?” responded with “uhhh it’s ranch dressing, don’t you KNOW what that is?!”. >.< Definitely filled me up for the last leg of our trip! 

We sat and chatted and people watched and before we knew it were boarding our Icelandair flight! It left right on time and we got the cutest little pillows and water bottles!
The flight actually went surprisingly well (for me, Shannon thought it was eternity! even though she was talking to a cute Norwegian boy hahah!) I watched Looper (greaaaat movie!!) but fell asleep near the end. After that I half listened to music and half slept and next thing I knew we were in a new country!

First view of Iceland! Landing was bumpy, but we survived and no ear problems at all! Going through customs was annoying, he was bothering us about having visas for our studies etc but it wasn’t a huge issue! We found our Iceland Grayline shuttle to the capital city of Reyjkavik which is around 45 minutes from Keflavik airport, a little bit more with the rush hour traffic we experienced! The busses were brand new looking and had wifi! They’re high-tech here in Iceland 😉 Lots of people out in their cars this morning, but didn’t anyone walking around til we got further into downtown Reykjavik. Switched busses to a smaller one that would take us directly to our place at Welcome Apartments! Talked to a nice Bostonian couple who were coming for the birth of their grandchild! They gave us a few tips about Reykjavik.

We arrived at Welcome Apartments and had no problem entering the door code and were even greeted by someone. We carried all our luggage up to the fourth floor to our adorable studio apartment! It was super cute and clean and had towels and linens provided! The shower is weird because there’s no base and the whole bathroom floor kinda just floods. The water also smells VERY sulphury, which is strange, cause we are taught that is a bad smell in Canada. Apparently you get used to it… maybe not in 3 days hah

Since it was still dark we didn’t really get a good idea of what Reykjavik looked like as we were driving up. We took a short two hour nap when we got in and then woke up to a very rainy, very windy Reykjavik! We sucked it up, got all cozy, pulled out the rain boots, and decided to go walk the city anyways! 

Some pictures from our day: (sorry some are sideways and can’t figure out how to turn them on here and get put in random order.. oops)Shannon outside Harpa, the conference and concert centre!In Harpa, right by the harbour

DEEELISH peppermint hotchocolate after our long walk Ran down to the water first thing in the “morning” ie 12pm! The wind was INSANE!The view from one direction of the Hallgrímskirkja Church! Went up the elevator eight floors and had an amazing view of the whole town.The clock at the top of the church! We were lucky enough to get to hear the bells ring too!Me at the top of the church!Morning time by the water!Sun Voyager Statue, near water and our apartment 🙂 almost got blown into the water taking this picture!The Welcome Apartments!SWAN!AND DUCK! there were about 100 swans and ducks down by the city hall, and they were HUGE, like… I’m talking obese McDonald’s size ducks!Our rock body friendAnother view from the top of the church3D topographical map of Iceland! Inside the City HallHallgrimskirkja Church! So beautiful! The inside of the actual church is currently under construction so we couldn’t see that, but going up the tower was so worth it!

19days19days19days!

I leave SO SOON! Time has definitely flown by and things are slowly getting done! Courses are hopefully pretty settled. Right now, I plan on taking Cultural Psychology, Group Dynamics, Social Cognition, and Organization Development. I also had to choose one more (since the History course I was supposed to take was cancelled :(). I choose Political Psychology and my reserve courses just in case are Political Philosophy and Organization Studies, and Criminal Law in Context, pretty different stuff than I’ve been taking here!

Scheduling for courses over there is pretty strange. Most/all of the courses I’ll be taking are part of the School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, so they are 1/2 term courses. I still get 5/6 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) which is equivalent to the 0.5 credit course here. Someone really needs to get on making a global credit system for universities asap! Since the courses only run for half the term, I have three courses from January til April and then only two from April til June. 

Today, I also started signing up for the Introduction Week which they call TOP week and for the first weekend organized by the I*ESN Tilburg which is the mentor group. I’m really excited to go to a school that has such a strong international community! They also offer volunteer positions in different committees which offer chances to organize events both within the group and in the community as well! 

SO EXCITED for this experience to start and to use this blog to keep everyone up to date with everything that goes on in Nederland 😉 counting down the hours, 473!

Packing!

First of all, yes I am writing this instead of studying for any of my three exams which occur in the next two days. What a crappy exam schedule! At least I get to have almost a month at home before I leave! Which is in 29 days! AHHH! Iceland awaits! We booked an apartment to stay at in Reykjavik, no check in, self check in where you are given a code to retrieve a key from a locker to get into your room! Snazzy stuff. 

This past week instead of studying…  I have been packing. Today, my lovely uncle came to move all my stuff into his basement for the time that I’m gone. My room looks so bare, it’s mostly just study notes! I am thankful that I can leave my furniture here and come back in September 🙂 This is the most amazing group of girls and I’m going to miss them and all their antics so much! Definitely excited for another eight months together come September! 

The next packing adventure is trying to fit all my stuff for 6+ months into a backpack! Once Tuesday is over I will actually have time to start making lists and organizing my life a little more. Wednesday we are having our little Christmas dinner here and I will head out for Ottawa on Thursday! Can’t wait to be at home with my family and all my favourite girls ❤ if I survive these exams that is….!

FLIGHT!

AHHH today me and my new found friend booked our the first part of our adventure! I’m so glad I emailed the others who are going to Tilburg, cause now me and Shannon are going to Iceland together! 
On January 8th, we’re flying out of Toronto to Boston at 1:20pm. We have a long (almost 6 hour) wait in Boston, but its good because we’ll get to explore the huge airport and get our last taste of North America! At around 8, we fly out on Icelandair ahhh! We are then spending 3 whole days in Iceland, that is, if you can even call them days, daylight is only from 11-5ish! Right now we are still planning what do to do and where to stay, but we definitely want to visit the Blue Lagoon hot springs for a swim (hopefully in snow), go to the world’s largest (only?!) penis museum, we are praying to see the Northern Lights, and spend a fun night on the town!

Since Saturday the 12th is our arrival day at Tilburg, we are flying out a 6:40am. The lady on the phone was so nice, asked us where we wanted to sit and said that she’d give us seats on the right side of the plane so we can see the cost of the Netherlands as we fly in! When we get there, we have til 7:30 to catch a train to Tilburg to move in! It’s coming up so fast!

Once the next week of crazyness is over, I will really start to be excited. Not that I haven’t already been completely slacking off and researching gluten free options in Iceland, or awesome tourist things… I think I’m going to have to start eating fish 😦

Counting down the hours now, 1136 hours to go! 

Acceptance!

Today, I finally got my official acceptance email from Tilburg University and I’m SO excited 😀 Arrival day is January 12 so I’m there for TOP week (a frosh week kinda deal), which starts on the 14th.

I apply on the 12th (Monday!!) for housing. I will be living with other international students. Hopefully I will find out more information about location and roommates soon 🙂 hopefully cool travel buddies!

Recently, I’ve just been trying to apply for scholarships and still planning out things for visas (which I don’t need, thank youuuu Switzerland!) and insurance! Looking into train passes!  There’s not much else I can do right now, other than the waiting game… 60 days?!! Ahhh!