Celebration

On Friday night, my roommate Marieke turned 22. It was really fun to help celebrate her long awaited birthday. In general, birthdays are celebrated the same as in the U.S., but with a few differences. For example, if it is your birthday, you are expected to bake your own cake. Maybe I am a bit bias, or lazy, but I think I prefer the tradition at home. You are also expected to host your own party or celebration. If you take your friends out for a drink, you pay for their drinks. Another thing I thought was almost a bit strange is the tradition to congratulate not only the birthday girl, but the entire family.

Regardless of minor cultural differences, I really had a fun night with a girl who has to put up with me and my Dutch on a daily basis. Happy birthday Marieke!


Try to ignore the scary guy in the background

Note: I bought her an oven mitt because I set hers on fire the first week I moved in...oops!

BOO!

It finally dawned on me that Halloween is my favorite holiday. Even in a country that does not celebrate Halloween, it was still a blast this year. A fellow American from my program, Nicole, decided to host a Halloween party for the students in our program. What she failed to mention, is that she lives in a former hospital where coincidentally black cats roam around. It was possibly the coolest place to spend Halloween. It was really fun to celebrate Halloween with friends who have never celebrated it before. Costumes were of course required. I resorted to my emergency costume - furby.

The old hospital squat even had a trampoline Jennifer.
Martijn was a blue man (in other words - super scary). I screamed every time I looked at him. Eline is the punk face down on the tramp.

This pic reminds me why I never took up acting

Marije's costume was simply perfect

Although it was one day late, I still managed to share the tradition of pumpkin carving with Eline. I also managed to watched the film Dracula for the millionth time - amazing. Gary Oldman is hands down my favorite dracula. Keanu Reeves is the only mistake in that movie.

Jack actually turned out pretty decent

I passed!

After approximately a one year absence of exams, I had my one and only exam of the year this past week - statistics. In Holland, grades are not very important but whether you pass or fail is very important. In fact, it is quite normal to fail here. If you fail, you have the option of resitting the exam (very new concept for me but I like it). However, the results are in and it looks like a resit will not be necessary. I am so happy that I survived statistics. Some of you are probably wondering why on earth I am taking statistics. To make a long story short, I am performing various research experiments regarding second language acquisition, which involve statistics to interpret the data. It was pretty strange to hear terms like mean, median, mode, and standard deviation again but strangely it was also refreshing to take a break from so much theory and work on problems with concrete answers. I learned a lot through this experience, and I am excited to use statistics for my master thesis. In other words, I'm a huge dork.

As you can imagine, the week was a bit stressful. To cope with the stress I simply enjoyed my favorite season. There is nothing better than a good walk to clear your mind.

A pic my mom will appreciate

The pic of Eline is way cooler.

Sunrise from my window - only on exam day would I be up early enough for such an event.

my home away from home

This past weekend I went back to Berlin with a good friend of mine here in Groningen, Coraline. She had never been to Berlin before which made the trip even more exciting. I could not decide if I was more excited to see my friends or to show her around. The combination of the two and simply being in Berlin was exactly what I needed. Berlin remains my favorite city but I also realized that Groningen is the perfect place for me now.

Berlin Wall

Did I mention that fall is my favorite season?

Coraline trying a Berliner curry wurst.

The modern 'center' of Berlin, Potsdamerplatz

We took advantage of 2 euro black and white photo machines twice!

The Festival of Lights is taking place in Berlin right now - lucky timing.

My View

View from my bedroom window.

Rainbows seem to be a permanent fixture here in Groningen.

The International Games

This past Thursday, I played in a tournament called the International Games, which consisted of four games: Soccer, ultimate frisbee, hockey, and badminton. The day was fun despite our very bad luck; we played twice against a team of huge Dutch guys, and of course were matched against a Scandinavian team for hockey. After losing every game, we still had a lot of fun and enjoyed a dinner together including an after-party.

Team JACK - James (English), Me, Carlos (Colombian), and Amy (Greek/Canadian)

Weekend Getaway

Last weekend I travelled a few hours southwest to a Dutch city called Alphen aan den Rijn. A friend of mine from my program, Danielle, was nice enough to take me to her boyfriend's place for a long weekend. Basically, they completely spoiled me for the whole weekend. We went to a comedy show, shopping, celebrated Danielle's birthday, and consumed every type of Dutch sweets imaginable. I remain utterly impressed by Dutch sweets. They really know what they're doing here in Holland with sweets such as hagelslaag (chocolate sprinkles on their toast for breakfast), lots and lots of licorice, pepernoten (tiny ginger cookies which you can even buy covered in chocolate), stroopwafels (caramel waffle cookies), slices of coconut for your toast, etc. It's like living a real life version of Candyland. I had such a wonderful weekend with Danielle and Edwin. I would really love to spoil those two some day in the U.S.

Danielle and I in the train

A nice shot of Danielle heading home after

a day full of shopping in Alphen aan den Rijn.