Day Three

Oh man...

so im in my new apartment in Utrecht. it used to be an old US military barracks during WWII, kind of weird but the rooms are big (my single room used to house about 10 bunk beds for soldiers). Ive only been here for three days (and the first day i didnt really do much because I was so tired) so Im just starting to get a feel for the town. Its really interesting because a lot of the stereotypes that you would hear about the Netherlands gets immediately erased.

Some things that have already caught me off guard:

- The lack of things I can eat....being a vegetarian (and not eating dairy for the most part) is almost impossible when you cant read anything on the menu (every place I have gone the entire menu is in dutch...and we havent had much luck finding english speakers)...so I have been sticking to mostly grocery stores...although today I found out something that helps...but was equally as shocking.

- The Netherlands has a surprising amount of Chinese Wok Style places to eat. I had no idea that this existed here let alone is semi-popular. I can find things with no meat and no cheese and everything is a decent price, so for now its working for me.

- They dont provide bags of any kind at the grocery stores. I looked insanely foreign when i put my twenty grocery items down and then the lady scanned them and pushed them aside...when I asked for a bag she just gave me a blank stare and then I noticed that other people were using their own bags or boxes. So I had to stuff everything into tiny shitty produce bags. So i walked back to my apartment with like 8 mini bags of groceries. Im on top of it now though...

- The bikes are insane. Everyone rides a bike. Everyone. Custodians, professors, politicians and even the queen. Literally everyone. Therefore everything turns into a bike lane. And they are very impatient if you get in their way...me and my friends learned that the hard way.

Now pictures (my internet is really fucked up so I couldnt upload more than these pictures...I will get to way more later I promise):

The craziest post office I have ever seen in my life. Its hard to get a feel for it with these pictures but it had a huge arch glass ceiling...



One of the many canals:

It snowed last night...and today when I was walking through the park to get food...everyone was ice skating on the frozen lake bed...


Also...

I have a phone number now...

(31)+0619834869...

Im pretty sure thats how you dial it...the 31 is the Netherlands country code. and the rest was the number that they gave me. if that doesnt work, try it without the zero.

Incoming calls and text messages are free for me. But you have to check how much your cell phone company is gonna charge you to call the netherlands, if you are able to call me...you definitely should. I can also call a land line for 12 cents/min so if you really really want to talk on the phone we'll work something out.