Well, first, the reason I didn't write right away was because the Internet access is secured here and I only lately found out the password; also, I naturally had to sleep for 2 hours once unloading and making my bed (with Ikea linens!!! I can't wait until you can see my room :) ), and then the whole group of kids in our study abroad group (all Americans) went out to dinner, as the study abroad Coordinators had arranged.
I have made friends who want to go grocery shopping with me, so that's nice :)
So, my flight to Philly was TINY. One stewardess, 18 rows, 3 seats (1 on the left and 2 on the right). The only overhead storage was on the right and it was a funky triangle shape. I couldn't fit my backpack underneath my seat, since there was hardly room for my feet, so I got the stewardess to kick it under some chairs on the right, where there was more space.
Notice the 3 seats in a row.
At Philly, after some confusion with my exiting the airport (it's gigantic) and also getting my boarding pass for my next flight so I could come back through security, my grandparents met me and took me to lunch. My grandfather arranged for a shuttle to drive us to the terminal I needed, and my grandmother seemed really reluctant to let me go. I saw them for a good 2 hours and it was very very very nice :)
My flight to Amsterdam only lasted 7 hours (not even; it's 7 including taxi time to the airport from the landing)--at least an hour less than expected! One stewardess spoke Dutch and translated everything into both Dutch & English. They speak FAST and slur everything together. Makes me appreciate Spanish, which is easy by comparison. It was hard to sleep on the flight; they played the new Star Trek movie (which I missed some of because I wanted to sleep sometimes, but I mostly watched the whole thing without sound, because I never plugged my headphones in...) and then some comedy show and then some advertisements and it was just....it felt too hectic to really sleep. The couple next to me was very nice and I sort of wanted them to adopt me for the rest of the flight-then-baggage situations because I was scared.
My vegan meal came at 6pm; they gave it to me without me asking (yay!) before they served anyone else. Here is why I liked the meal:
- They actually had a genuine vegan option. 5 years ago I had to be creative and get the Indian vegetarian meal. I got some spinach dish. It was good. But it's exciting that, 5 years later, vegan meals are an option they give.
- It was balanced and healthy. The airline meals now include a small side-salad and a small (rye?) roll.
- It was NOT mashed mush! Entree: rice with peas, carrots, asparagus (yes!), and maybe something else. Included a lemon to spritz on top, which I did. Really good tasting, too.
- It included a GENUINE vegan dessert! consisting of chilled tender fruit (melon & cantaloupe & pineapple), with coconut sprinkled all over top. So good, and really somehow touching that they gave me a vegan dessert rather than just skipping that part, when everyone else got a nonvegan brownie. So I was really happy :)
- BEST PART: when I heard them going around asking people what they wanted for their meal, the two options were a chicken dish and a (vegetarian) pasta dish. Which is SO exciting for 2 reasons!!!: a) SO eco-friendly to not be serving mammals, b) one of their standard options is now VEGETARIAN!!!! What is that! That's AMAZING! Look at how much progress has come!
We land in Amsterdam and I collect my bags by 8am local time, and CIEE has told us to meet at the "Central Meeting Point" by where the trains meet. Turns out, the Schiphol Airport (which was rated the #1 airport in Europe) actually has a designated place called the Meeting Point, and it's listed on all the signs. It's this big old checkered red & white structure where people can sit and wait (looks like a Lego fortress, kinda), and it includes a HUGE video screen where it displays text messages of people trying to find other people! You send your message addressed to your friend's name to the Schiphol texting number, and it appears. Cool, huh? A whole bunch of CIEE kids gather there, figure out we're all together, then wait for the Airport Pickup to arrive. The Coordinators, Renee and Hannah, are REALLY nice and lead us to our own special bus which takes us to the housing corporation office. We sign our pre-paid leases, receive our Ikea linens in a box, get our keys, and then we're off. The bus drops each of us off really near our "dorms." (My box's handle broke, like everyone else's.....so it was REALLY hard walking while trying to carry a broken box and 2 suitcases). So another kid helped me, then I shoved all my crap through the dorm doorway, closed the door, and took everything up THREE FLIGHTS OF STAIRS to my hall 1 at a time. I'll be fit by the end of this, especially when you add the bicycling in.
The dorms are AWESOME. Mine overlooks the canal, and my room has a sliding glass door that I can open to look out or catch the breeze. It acts like a window, though, because it has metal preventing you from falling outside, and the windows don't open; so it's like a big full-length window. The sight is beautiful. The dorm is like this: you walk in the door, there are mailboxes, and then there are the 1st-level halls. The first-level rooms all walk out into the back patio of the dorm, which you can access from the lobby, which is right next to the canal. They even have small gardens by their doors. Each hall on each floor has its own lock, so each hall (of 6 people) operates effectively as an apartment unit. Then you each have access to your own door. Plus mailboxes, so I have 4 keys. Anyway, each hall has its own lounge (with TV), 3 rooms of single showers, 3 rooms of single bathrooms (tiny but still, it's nice), and a kitchen that's already equipped with everything from past participants. On the first floor, there is a lounge with a beanbag chair and a hammock.
My room includes:
- curtains
- bedside lamp
- desk lamp
- trash bin
- AWESOME bookshelves (like Ikea ish & black; it's 5 storeys)
- lots and lots and LOTS of coathangers (shouldn't have brought any, then...oops)
- 2 wooden chairs
- bed & mattress
- desk
- wardrobe with shelf space (shelves in the closet?) (it's big and NICE!)
- a phone???
- and two TINY TINY TINY sets of drawers (one is a "chest of drawers" with 3 small ones, and one is a "bedside table" with 1 small drawer. Plus it looks kinda like a really short chair).
My room!
View from my window.
Sad side of the story: TSA violated my new suitcase and left a little notice telling me they'd done so. I don't know if it's because of them or not, but now it has two small snag-holes in it near the zippers.
At noon local time / 1pm we are all settled in our respective rooms. I put all my stuff away, &c., then crash. I wake up 2 hours later at 5pm DESPERATELY wanting to sleep more, but I have no alarm clock (and my cell phone clock won't work because there's no reception, so it doesn't know the time) and I only have a half hour before the group leaves for dinner. I change and brush my teeth, &c. Dinner is at an Indonesian restaurant, and there's a vegetarian/pescatarian (veggie who eats fish) who sits near me, and another 2 friends of mine who are totally vegetarian except for they eat chicken (but not fish), and we accidentally all sit together. It's a big group, and we're all having a very good time except we're SO tired. The Coordinators walk us all back and we're in our dorms by 8pm or so.
OH! And just before I wrote this post, I had left my door open, and a girl from China who lives on my hall knocks on my door, and we introduce ourselves & get to talking, and then 3 other hallmates and a graduate student from Romania studying Communications who lives a floor above us all come in and we spend about an hour all talking together, and it's really nice. I really like the girl from Romania especially, and the girl from China. 2 of the kids are from Portugal, and 1 is from Spain (I think. He told me and then I got confused, but then he started talking about flying from Spain to Amsterdam in 2.5 hours, so I guess that's where he's from). I had travelled the most: 14 hours total. The girl from China was only 12 hours. We all decided to cook dinner together sometime, and to be friends. The kid from Spain is frustrated with himself for not speaking better English, but I hope that means I can learn better Spanish! I've already been recycling some phrases here...crazy! Never would have expected that.
Also, I'm eating the vegan brownies my mom gave me right now :) Turns out: the reason all my bags was so heavy was medicines + all that food!!! (10 Builders bars, 2.5 cookies, the brownies) + my non-prescription meds (cough meds, Pepto Bismal, &c.) + so many vitamins. Most of those will be gone on the return trip; they take up two shelves in my room! That's how much it amounts to.
Tomorrow I need to take out €300 to pay for a phone and bike and buying essentials like tissues & something else I realised I need that I can't remember now...so maybe I don't need it... Apparently you spend twice as much your first two months as the last two, when it drops, because in the beginning you're building up on essentials and cooking supplies, &c. Hopefully that means I'll be all squared away by the end and not have much I'll need to buy.
Also I've learned the Mac keyboard shortcut for the Euro symbol. It is alt(option) + shift + 2. Voila! The pound is like alt(option) + 4 or something like that.
Anyway, so that's my day in Amsterdam! It's now 10:20pm my time (4:20pm yours), so this has been ridiculously long...
Love,
Miranda
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