I'm horizontal running

Maddie and I went to our first gym class yesterday. We figured BodyPump was a really good way to start our day, so even though we didn't know what to expect we saw an old lady going in to the class so we figured it wouldn't be too bad. An hour later I felt like I had just been tortured. In Dutch. At one point the fitness instructor told us to simply jump and I tried and failed miserably.

I just kind of walked out of there like 

But we did get free coffee afterwards so that made it all worth it. Then after we crawled home and went to class, the borrel (yes there is a bar in the school...college park step your game up) for the night was American themed... so naturally they put up pictures of Obama, Beyonce, and the Statue of Liberty. 

And they set up games of beer pong which we lost an embarrassingly large amount of times. 

Then one of the Dutch group leaders for my Europe at home class and his friends could tell I was from America because they said I have nice teeth, and proceeded to call me Oral-B. I wasn't sure whether to be creeped out or flattered. So there you go mom, I told you I still wear my retainers! I also met a girl from Portland, Oregon!! She doesn't go to Oregon State or U of O but her sister is going to the University of Maryland next year! Small world. After the borrel, I was really craving a certain something because I hadn't eaten dinner. You guessed it. A pork gyro. I hadn't had one all week and I know the workers there were getting worried about me so I forced everyone to come with me. And Maddie and I got to ride on the back of a bike for the first time since we've been here. Terrifying.

It was a monumental moment that I clearly felt the need to record. 

I think Maddie had too much fun being the life of the party.

 Hopefully she isn't too tired because today we go to Paris!!! 7 hour bus ride here we come!

Socks and Berger cookies

          Today was a fantastic day. It started off with Sarah, Maddie and I finally getting our residence permit cards. I can now officially say I live in the Netherlands, even if the only thing I can say in Dutch is hello, goodbye, thank you, and no I don't have a Bonus Card. After that we had some time before school so we got coffee at a bakery and I had a delicious ham and cheese croissant. We then passed by Claire's where Maddie insisted she needed a small hairbrush so she can brush her hair after she walks to school because "it just gets so ratty" and "I can't put my hair up because it's too heavy and gives me a headache". Okay. I haven't been in a Claire's since I had braces, and even then I at least went to the more mature store for tweens, Icing. BUT THEN my eyes gravitated towards this notepad!

Penny HIIIIII!!!!!!!! 

I resisted the urge to buy it, but I applaud Claire's for their wonderful taste in 

hedgehog shaped notepads. 

          After Maddie got her hairbrush (with pink polka dots obviously), we went to school where I finally put money on my student card! Now I can buy food and coffee! This doesn't seem like a large feat but after almost a month of walking past coffee every day and not being able to buy it, it is. After class we went in search of a gym membership (my pants are starting to feel the effect of too many stroopwafels and pita gyros) at a women's only gym right by our apartments. After being told they only offered year memberships (sad face), we found another gym that allowed us to have a 6 month membership after about an hour of haggling! Our new gym is awesome, with tons of classes, a swimming pool, free coffee and tea which is a HUGE plus considering a shot of coffee is about 2.50 euro, and brimming with tons of good looking, fit, single men middle aged people who only speak Dutch. 

          Feeling awesome, I walked home and to my surprise my roommate, Mary, told me I had a package from the United States! Me?! A package?!?!! Okay I eagerly check my mail box every day but I never expected a package! And there, waiting for me outside my door, is this beauty. 

          I ripped open that bad boy like it was Christmas morning and could not believe my eyes. 

At last but certainly not least....

          You may think, Laura, why would Megan's mom send you socks? Well my friends, I seemed to think three pairs of socks and some slipper-like socks would suffice for six months. This is not the case. So I proceeded to buy more socks so I didn't have to wear the same pair of socks three days in a row (sometimes more). Somehow I'm again having to wear the same pair of socks multiple days in a row. Either my roommates are stealing my socks or the washing machine is eating them. Either way I could not be happier about ten new pairs of socks. Say socks again. Socks. 

          And while there is a part of me that asks myself, "Laura you just joined a gym, you are going to share those Berger cookies with your roommates so they are able to experience the Maryland slice of Heaven that is a Berger cookie, right?" The sad answer is no, probably not. Does that make me a bad person? If you are from Maryland, you already know the answer. If you aren't, I don't want to hear your answer.

          So THANK YOU Mrs. Tish and Mr. Pat for my wonderful package!! Even though I sort of gave you the wrong address, it found it's way to me and my feet and I couldn't be happier! 

          After the excitement of my package, I received an email from my mom telling me my family officially booked their flight to the Netherlands for my 21st birthday! Okay, it wasn't exactly for my birthday, but my dad conveniently has a conference in the Netherlands the day before my birthday, so my entire family will be here for ten days! They are going to stay in Amsterdam for five days, and then go to France where hopefully I will be able to travel with them! My family is nuts (see picture below) and I miss them so much. 

If only Penny could come! Any takers for who wants to babysit her?!

Here you go Lauren

Since Lehrlich reminded me that it has officially been a full week since I have posted and she was feeling "extremely disconnected" I will fill you in on all the exciting things that have happened this past week.

• Made the worker at Ramazotti (Netherlands version of Ratsies but can actually stand to go there sober) make us pizza at 1 a.m. even though they stop making pizza at 11 p.m.
• Then proceeded to tell him we would only pay 5 euro instead of 5.50 euro unless he gave us free french fries
• For some reason he agreed 
• Made plans to go to Ikea 
• Ended up going to Pita Gyros where they just laughed when I walked in and started making my usual
• The fact that I have a "usual" though...

• Took a walk to a park where we felt like we stumbled upon a "zoo" but turned out to be fenced in deer (?) 
• Saw a guy do wheelies on a motorized wheelchair 
• Successfully made chili (take that tomato paste!) 
• FINALLY BOUGHT A COAT
• Stumbled upon this gem from the night before the Ravens won the Super Bowl 

• Pretty sure they said "Go Ray Bands"...but hey they tried 
• Booked my trip for Saint Patty's Day in Ireland! 
• And most importantly booked our trip for spring break!!!! Paris and Brussels here we come! 

Seollal!

          Since it is the last day of the celebration of Seollal, the Lunar New Year, my Korean roommate, Estelle, and her friends cooked us a delicious traditional Korean meal! I managed to stop eating long enough to snap a pic.

   It was definitely not something I would have normally tried but I loved it!!! And I was so happy because I really didn't feel like going to the grocery store again to buy food for a single meal. Estelle if you are reading this, I apologize in advance for the butchering of some facts. I learned that their Korean age is actually different from their international age! Each passing of the Lunar New Year adds one year to their age, and a newborn baby is already considered to be one years old because their first year of life is counted in the womb!! How crazy is that?! So Estelle is 22 years old, but her Korean age is 24! We then somehow got on the subject of the drinking age, and Mary, my French roommate, asked if the red Solo cup was just a stereotype. I really got a kick out of that one. Mary also asked me if Americans actually eat that many burgers or if that is just a stereotype as well. She was really nailing down our culture. Hopefully I can make them dinner soon! On second thought, after the way my chili turned out, maybe I'll just take them to McDonalds...

     

I Amsterdam

          This weekend I went to Amsterdam with Katie and Chelsea and their friends from Rome! It was so nice being around people who speak English and I obviously missed my roomies an absurd amount. I was a little bit nervous traveling alone, but I got from HollandSpoor to Amsterdam Centraal flawlessly. *Waits for applause* I then needed to take trams 1, 2, or 5 to get to Prinsengracht, and then "From Prinsengracht make a left once you step off the tram (the canal should be on your left) Then, take the first right which is Leidsekruisstraat. Welcome!" Wow that sounds easy!!!! I'm really going to impress some people when I tell them that I arrived all by myself! And right on time too! I hop on a tram and just wait patiently for the flashing sign to say Prinsengracht. About twenty minutes go by and I'm starting to get a little nervous because I didn't think the tram ride was supposed to be that long. Oh well, Prinsengracht hasn't come up yet so I'll just stay on. Yea that's definitely a good idea. Forty minutes later and we stop moving and I hear the only thing I have heard in English all day. "This is the last stop." Hmm. Let me look at a map and see where I am.

See that arrow? That's where I am. See that circle? That's where I'm supposed to be. 

          Well great. An hour later and I'm back where I started. At this point I'm two hours late to meet Katie and Chelsea but thank goodness they know about my sense of direction, so I figured they weren't too worried. Once I get off the Prinsengracht stop, the email said, "make a left once you step off the tram (the canal should be on your left) Then, take the first right which is Leidsekruisstraat." I see a canal on my left! *Turns to the right* I see a canal on my right....Crap. Now it's snowing, I don't know which way to turn, and I'm really hungry which is the most important thing. After wandering the streets for about a half hour, praying to God that somehow Katie and Chelsea will miraculously spot me on the street, I'm about to turn the corner when I hear the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. I turn around and see Chelsea and Katie running towards me screaming my name!!!!!!!!!! I was so relieved I just started bawling and laughing at the same time. Good thing they found me too because I had already past our hostel and was going to keep walking! We put my stuff down and then went to meet their friends from Rome, Stefanie, Zach, Pat, and Ben to eat some delicious Nutella and banana pancakes. 

It was so big I couldn't even finish it all!

If you believed that, get out.

Once we ate our calories for the entire week, we went to the Heineken museum which was amazing! We got to see how Heineken was made, taste Wort which is heated and filtered water and Barley, and lots of other cool things. 

Kady I didn't know your eyes could open that wide!!! Good job.

        After the Heineken experience, we decided we simply hadn't eaten enough, so we went to a tapas place for all you can eat tapas (when in Amsterdam?) After trying to communicate with our waiter for about 15 minutes, he got another waiter to come out who just took our menus from us and told us the kitchen would decide what we were going to eat. Before he took our menus, we saw some of the options were anchovies and raw Spanish ham which we thought the kitchen would give us since we were being difficult. 

We were right.

        Surprisingly the anchovies weren't that bad! I probably wouldn't ever say, "Wow I could really go for some anchovies right now" but they were tasty. The kitchen just kept sending out different plates which we all shared and I'm pretty sure we tried everything on the menu. Shrimp, mussels, olives, cheese, ribs, chicken wings, corn fritters, garlic chicken, potatoes with spicy sauce, potatoes with garlic sauce, more potatoes with garlic sauce because they were that good, empanadas, mushrooms, meatballs, calamari. Everything was so delicious and I loved how they brought us whatever they wanted to make. 

          After our meal feast, our pants were feeling uncomfortably tight, so we decided to walk it off and go to the Red Light District. Definitely an experience, but somehow I don't think I'm going to take my parents there when they come to visit. Still, it was a gorgeous night!

          The next day we went to Anne Frank's house, saw the infamous I AMsterdam sign and took the typical touristy pics. 

We then decided to go on a pub crawl (some of us didn't make it out but I won't say who). We quickly found out we were the only Americans in the entire bar when the announcer said, "All the Americans make some noise!!!!" and we screamed expecting the entire bar to join in but it was dead silent except for us. Apparently everyone is from England. However, it didn't matter where you were from when this song came on. 

That bride-to-be was really having the time of her life.

          On Sunday we forced ourselves to get up early and go to the Van Gogh museum with Gangnam Style still ringing in our ears. I don't have a passionate love for museums as much as my dad wants me to, but this museum was amazing. I actually recognized a couple of the lesser-known paintings from when we studied Van Gogh in grade school and patted my fourth-grade self on the back for paying attention in art class. My only complaint was that Starry Night wasn't on display, but other than that it was incredible to see how he taught himself different techniques and how his paintings changed over time. Thank goodness we got up early too, because it snowed the night before and was the most gorgeous thing I had ever seen. 

          After the Van Gogh museum, Stefanie, Ben, Pat and Zach had to catch their flight, but Katie, Chelsea and I couldn't get the thought of those delicious pancakes out of our mind, so we naturally went back. 

This one had onions, bacon, ham, and mushrooms on it. Some serious nomming was happening. 

          After our breakfast we had to catch the train home so Katie and Chelsea could go back to Rome. 

As sad as I was, I will be seeing them in Ireland for Saint Patty's Day and in Rome!

My Apartment!

My Apartment!, a set on Flickr.

Some of my apartment and making crepes with my roommates!