Three not so blind mice

As we all know, I have had (R.I.P. Walter #2 and Gus Gus!) two pet rats.

Honestly, could they get any cuter?!

That must mean I loooooove when I see a wild rat crawling around an apartment!!! I'm like the pied piper! False. Yesterday, Sarah, Maddie and I were just trying to enjoy a nice movie when out of the corner of my eye I see a little mouse crawl across the floor.  Now, if you don't know the story about my first pet rat, Walter #1, I will try to sum it up. Here is a rough timeline of what occurred not even 24 hours after bringing home Walter #1 from the pet store (where the worker asked if I was going to feed him to my snake. Rude!) 

• Playing with my new pet ratty, who will be referred to right now as Walter, and feeding him peanuts. 
• Walter crawls off my lap and starts exploring the couch. Who am I to stand in the way of a young ratty exploring?!
• I look away for a single second and turn back to see the tail of Walter disappearing in the couch
• Oh he is just under the cushion! Let me get him before he runs away *lifts up cushion*
• Walter is nowhere to be found
• Panic sets in
• I see a little hole in the couch, and realize that Walter is literally inside the couch
• I place a few peanuts by the opening to lure Walter out
• He peaks his head up to sniff them and then goes back down inside the couch. Guess I fed him too many peanuts -__-
• Start to feel sick as I realize I am going to have to cut out the entire bottom of the couch
• My mom comes down the stairs to find me sweating, hair in a mess, with the couch on its side, and a hole in the bottom
• "You lost your rat didn't you"
• Oops.
• Solution: put couch outside because he will want to go back to his natural habitat
• Bring couch back in after a couple days because Walter is definitely gone
• Get two new ratties!!! Walter #2 and Gus Gus. Can you believe my mom and dad let me get not one, but two more rats?! Me either. 
• All is well in the Darmody household
• A week later and all is definitely NOT well as my mom claims something is nibbling her butt every time she sits on the couch
• "You are crazy mom" say me and my sister as we make faces at each other and laugh
• Another week goes by with my mom claiming Walter #1 is definitely alive and living in the couch, and complaining she can't sleep because she has nightmares of Walter #1 running rampant in our household
• Think about checking my mom into a mental institution 
• A few nights later as I am watching TV, to my surprise I see Walter #1 scamper across the floor with a smug look on his face, almost as if he is mocking me:

Try and catch me now, owner!

• I call in reinforcements and my sister and I get our lacrosse sticks (why?) 
• "We've got you now Walter #1!!" we say as we laugh to ourselves
• But at this point Walter #1 is wise to our plans, and doesn't show himself until we give up
• By now it has been over three weeks and now I'm starting to have nightmares about rats crawling in my bed
• We decide to put the couch up on buckets because then Walter #1 would have to come down for food but wouldn't be able to get back up
• HA! we finally outsmarted a rat
• Then one night I am watching The Office and hear the worst squeal in my entire life, as if a rat was stuck in a trap (nice analogy right?)
• I got my sister and we shined a light in the sun room with the couch (now conveniently renamed the Rat Room) and saw Walter #1 finally caught
• I sprint upstairs to get my dad because at that point Walter #1 was just a once pet rat for less than 24 hours, turned into a scheming, wild rat who was causing emotional distress in our family 
• I never saw Walter #1 again after that

So immediately when I saw that dang rat run across their apartment floor I got flashbacks of rats nibbling my mom's butt and sleepless nights. Hopefully this time we can catch him before he causes too much emotional damage. As of right now, no luck. 

MY PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED

Today I actually made it to orientation! I got a feel for my new school (only two buildings...doesn't have anything on college park!) and met some new people. 

The Ovaal 

BUT THAT IS NOT WHY MY PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED. As February 3rd looms closer and closer, and the amount of TVs I come across dwindles every day, my heart starts to break at the thought that I actually might miss watching the Super Bowl. While I'm pretty sure I could stream it live on my computer, I don't think my roommates would appreciate me yelling and screaming at 4 in the morning when we win. Which we will. Then a nice Portuguese man told us that O'Casey's, an Irish pub not too far from where we live is hosting a huge Super Bowl party! Biggest free Super Bowl party in Holland! Phew. Now I have somewhere to wear my Ravens shirt and fun meter. It's going to be a gRAYt night filled with tons of memoRAYs (see what I did there?).CAW! 

Help me I'm poor

          Yesterday me and my two roomies decided we would try and get some groceries to fill our mini fridge. Yes mini fridge. About three cartons of eggs can fit in this mini fridge. Maybe a bottle of ketchup. A mini bottle. Regardless, we needed food so we went to the grocery store down the street and I filled my cart with the smallest items possible. I went to pay with the "international" credit card my dad had given me to use specifically in Europe since I spent all my cash on my "essential items" (wine, towels, and a hair straightener). I went to type in the pin number on the keypad and saw it was all in Dutch but I just typed away anyway, not knowing what it was asking for. I clearly don't know Dutch so it could have been telling me a joke for all I know. The cashier just gave me a weird look when the machine started beeping and looked at my card and told me that card wouldn't work. I was tempted to just sneak a piece of bread because I was that hungry, but then I remembered what Les Miserables and Aladdin taught us.

So I had to leave my beloved groceries behind, and go back to my apartment with empty hands and an empty stomach. All day I just wandered around feeling like Annie in Bridesmaids.

Do you speak English?

          I had three hours to get from the airport to orientation. Three hours. Did I make it? Of course not. Let me tell you why...

          After going through customs and getting my luggage, I knew I needed to get a train ticket to Holland Spoor, which is the stop for The Hague University. After playing with the ticket machine for a while with no luck, I spotted two girls who looked like they had just as much stuff as I did, and were possibly having more trouble with the ticket machine than I was. Praying to God they were exchange students in the same program as me, I nonchalantly stood behind them hoping I could watch and see how to get a ticket. Right when I came up behind them, they turned to me and told me I could go in front of them, thinking I had a clue as to what I was doing. We got to talking and found out we were all exchange students going to the same university! I was so happy I think I might have cried but at that point it was 4 a.m. east coast time so I might have been delusional. Sarah and Maddie are both students at Colorado State University and are studying business at The Hague University. Once we got introductions out of the way, we decided to talk to an actual human being rather than try using a machine, and eventually got our tickets. We caught a train and a girl who looked to be our age commented on our amount of luggage. After telling her we were studying abroad for six months, hence the excessive amount of luggage, we got to talking and found out Khadijah and her two friends are all students at The Hague! However, I was skeptical because immediately Khadijah said she would watch our luggage once we got off the train and went to get our keys, so we wouldn't have to haul our luggage everywhere. In my mind I was thinking GYPSY!!!!! YOU ARE A GYPSY AND ARE GOING TO STEAL MY STUFF! Simply because she was wearing a head scarf and I had Megan McCawley's warning ringing in my head to watch out for the gypsies. Turns out Khadijah is actually just an extremely nice person (rare to find in the United States) who offered to walk with us to the DUWO to get our apartment keys, and then to our apartments to drop off our luggage. Counting our lucky stars we had someone who actually knew where they were going, we got off the train and went to the DUWO to get our keys. Once we got our keys, we hopped on the tram to go to my apartment first because I was closer and drop off my bags.

          Well. We got to my apartment and none of the six keys they gave me worked. So we rang the buzzer and Khadijah asked them in Dutch if they would buzz us in. Once we climbed the two flights of stairs with all my luggage to my apartment, I again tried all six of the keys to open the door to my apartment. No luck. We decided to go to Sarah and Maddie's apartment so we could put our stuff down and then come back and try the keys again. At this point I knew I was missing orientation but I figured figuring out if I was going to be homeless or not was more important. Once we got back to my apartment again, we tried the keys thinking for some reason it would work this time. Of course not. At that point we hadn't eaten all day and were starving, but first we needed to find a place to exchange our dollars to euros. Khadijah had left once our stuff was safely in Sarah and Maddie's room, so we were on our own. Three hours later, cold, starving, and looking like typical tourists as we ask every English speaking person where we can exchange money and being pointed in a different direction every time, we see a Western Union looming in the light like a gift from God. After exchanging money and grabbing some food (pizza because we aren't ready to embrace the culture just yet) and wine, we decide to try my keys for the third time. After being buzzed in we walk up the steps and look in the window and see an Asian man in my apartment. Now I was thinking either I have an Asian man for a roommate or I'm homeless. Either way it's not looking too good. I decided to knock on the door to see if he was actually living there. Once we quickly realized he didn't really speak English but was definitely living there, we decided to try the apartment next to his because I was getting desperate. Surprise! My keys worked to that apartment and I realized they just wrote the wrong number down on my keys. Because that is not entirely inconvenient at all. Then I met my two roommates, Mary who is from Normandy, France, and Estelle who is from South Korea. Sarah and Maddie helped me move my stuff in and then we went to buy some essentials like towels and a straightener (I mean we are girls) at what we considered to be a Target, and explored a bit. Target, even in the Netherlands version of you I can't walk out empty handed. Bravo. After that we all went back to our respective apartments, sans Asian man thank goodness, and crashed.

         If you got through this entire story without falling asleep, congrats! I owe you a drink when I get back.

I can't put my arms down

          There is always that one person on the flight who you can tell has never flown before, with their overstuffed carry ons all up in your business as they inch plow past you and you duck your head to narrowly avoid being knocked out by their backpack. Well today I was that unfortunate soul. Let me tell you, I have done my fair share of flying and it is not easy to fit six months of clothing into a single suitcase and carry on, not easy at all. Although my mother claims she lived out of a small backpack for five months. Well mom, times have changed, and you came back with purple hair and no eyebrows so I think I'll stick with my 45.5 lb suitcase and two carry ons thank you very much.  
          So of course there I am, sweating bullets because I had a tank top, shirt, sweater, north face, ski jacket  and obnoxiously large scarf on, feeling like Randy from A Christmas Story,

lumbering down the aisle with my checked bag and "personal item" that were both ripping at the seems, and I breathe a sigh of relief as I get to my seat which naturally is the fourth from last row of the airplane. I could almost hear people applauding at the fact that I was finally sitting down and they still had their faces in tact. Then came the moment of truth: would my carry on fit in the overhead compartment. Of course not because that would be easy. After many moments of silence as people held their breath watching me push and shove my carry on, waiting to see if it would fit, (but of course not offering any assistance because what's the fun in that?) a kind flight attendant offered me a trash bag to put some of my belongings in so I could sit down and the plane could take off. Well thank you flight attendant for your unwavering hospitality, even though that is your job. At least I can take off my ski jacket now.

"Not all those who wander are lost"...ha yea right

Well, in a few hours I should be somewhere over the North Atlantic Ocean watching Bridesmaids, trying to block the daunting thought that I am on my way to a foreign country BY MYSELF for seven months. Well not completely alone. I have Mr. Latonya. Though he seems to have trouble fitting in my suitcase and with his lack of an eyeball he just might be worse at directions than I am...

Aw I should fix his eyeball before I leave...and his missing antenna, leg, and stuffing come to think of it. But I can't because they are all somewhere in Hannah Gutcher's backyard, slowly disintegrating, along with Mr. L's dignity. Yes Hannah, you can tell Levi I am still holding a grudge four years later. Besides trying to fit Mr. L in my suitcase, I somehow need to find room for all of my essential items. 

Do I take a winter scent? Spring? Summer?! Epitome of first world pains. 

And obviously...

I'm taking the fun meters global, Dad!!!! Watch out Netherlands!