First day of school

Today was my first official day of class, and I have to say it was not that bad. If only every class ended with bottomless pancakes. We started off the day with a few little lectures to introduce us to the Dutch Language and Culture class. We learned a little bit about Dutch history and how to get around in their society. We learned some of the essentials like food delivery websites, the Dutch version of ebay, and ways of purchasing sports tickets. Plus today they gave us a museum pass that gets us into all the Netherlands museums free! After taking a few notes, we ran back to our dorms to make a quesadilla in our dirty little kitchen before the next round of lectures. (That's me in front of my classroom building.)

After our lectures finished this morning, we went out into town as a group to pick up some groceries and explore the shops. I am in desperate need of room decorations, so I have been searching for them every time we go shopping but I haven't found anything great yet. We passed by some famous places today on our walk around town. We saw the Rietveld Schroder House (a tiny old building that was once the most modern thing Utrecht has ever seen), a statue of the former queen Wilhelmina, a national monument theater that was built during the World War 2 era, the oldest church in Utrecht, another super old church, and Dom tower. 

We walked through pretty much the entire city and past every store, but didn't have time to stop in any of them for very long so I will have to go back another day. We ended our city tour at a pancake place where students get unlimited pancakes. I got the apple and cheese pancake and some delicious how chocolate. It was at another beautiful underground restaurants by the canal. We ended our night with a good ol' fashion game of Apples to Apples with a German and Brazilian girl. It's quite funny when they don't understand some of the cards because they are American politicians, but they win anyways. 

Some other little highlights to my day were seeing a kitty and getting a delicious cup of hot chocolate from the coffee company... I have a feeling I will be drinking a lot of hot cocoa when it gets colder.