My sleep clock is still not adjusted, and staying awake all night with new friends is making the correction much harder.

I woke up today in the afternoon and went to the kitchen I've been assigned to in the student house, Winschoterdiep. I share this kitchen with roughly thirty others, but this does not include the friends of friends and students who don't like the kitchen that they were assigned to. I've been eating yogurt for the past few days which is odd. My relationship with yogurt I think was originally that of enjoyment, then candy yogurt (e.g. trix yogurt, gogurt), then thinking that eating living bacteria was gross, to finally finding out that probiotics are a helpful and important part of my health. To the point, I like yogurt and the yogurt here is good.

Sharing a kitchen is a new experince for me, but everyone here is very nice and most seem to want to meet new people as much as I do. Everyone speaks english, but most as a second language. This makes conversation somewhat onesided on my part. I'm picking up a little dutch, but I wish that I knew three languages like most of my fellow students. So far French, German, Dutch, and English seem like the most common languages spoken. English ends up being the common tongue between someone from say Nigeria and France, but to me their conversation seems also strained and slightly forced. Ideally I'll learn Dutch similarly well as spanish and I can begin reading the paper and having small conversations with people.

There is an arthouse cinema (images) ten minutes away, which is exciting to me, I've never lived somewhere they had a cinema that could focus on a director like cassavetes for a whole month and still make profit. I look forward to meeting other cinephiles from around the world.
I also live ten minutes away from the football stadium (note: I'm going to call soccer football, and use twenty four hour time) today was some sort of meet and greet with groningen's football team and the place was packed with people.

I went to a neighboorhood gorcery two days ago, but found that the place to shop for cheap was jumbo. Jumbo is in the same complex as the stadium and a movie theater. I bought gorceries for cheap as a mob moved into the store with me. I've never seen fifty people all waiting to rush into a store, that was funny and fun.

I have some un-edited photos to post.

carrots are bigger in the Netherlands

This is what the street looked like on the walk home with my new friends, David and Wilhelm

PHD student Giuseppe, and Wilhelm

This is the Canal that I live on, Winschoterdiep.

Two evenings ago, friday night, I was walking to see some cheap music of local bands at a festival in the park that takes place at the end of every summer. It started to rain so I stopped into a pub, to wait it out. After taking a few notes and drinking a little, Giuseppe approached me and we began to talk over drinks. He's a Phd student in Physics from Milan who is given a large sum in Euro every month to simply do his studies here. He began to teach me some basic dutch words and vowels as well as introduce me around. Wilhelm showed up and began to drink with us as well. He lived on a broccoli and tulip farm in the country but has been in Groningen for six years because he didn't like to farm. Wilhelm and I got to talking and he told me that he has his own film production company in Groningen. Wilhelm and I then went and he took me on a "local" pub crawl. I meet more people through Wilhelm than I've ever introduced to someone in one city, everyone seemed to know him. It was a lot of fun, but not the type of lifestyle I'm used to, can afford, nor think I can get used to. At the end of our conversations both Wilhelm and Giuseppe gave me thier information and told me to contact them if I needed anything.

I like the spontenaiety of my life here so far.

I start classes tomorrow.
Good night to everyone in the states.

I've got time tonight so figured I would write something longer than probably will be normal once school starts.


I woke up around one or two in the morning Charlotte time. After a few hours of sleep I found myself wide awake. I started reading, Lord of The Flies, until we landed around 6:40 this morning Groningen time. I went through a sort of customs and purchased a ticket to Groningen. After I figured out a map and schedule, something that has eluded me before, I toke the 7:49 am train with a transfer at Amersfoort station. Then I got a taxi from the station to the student houses. I checked in to a rather dilapidated building which remind me oddly of a college dorm, go figure. I love this building though, it has nooks and crannies to explore. I share a fridge with three other students and two students a week are on kitchen patrol. Cooking utensils are communal. There is a large garden in the center of our building which is in the shape of the outline of a square with bold lines. I knew that to fully recover from jet-lag they say to stay awake, but I was so tired and hungry I didn't care. I made my bed with the linens I rented and fell asleep. I woke up and at first thought that I must have slept all night, I was wrong and am now very glad of it. I got an Ethernet cable and a plug converter from Saturn (extremely similar to best buy) and found a shortcut back to the dorm...cough...cough...student house. When I returned I couldn't comprehend why my room had seven power outlets and 18 sockets for the internet. I assumed that at some point my room, which is the size of a typical college suite room, and with higher ceilings, had housed many students and the extra outlets were necessary. I couldn't understand why my computer was telling me that a network cable was unplugged. I left in search of food and made a few laps in the city center, which we lie just across the canal from. I walked passed a cafe on a two lane brick road with mostly bike traffic, and noticed plates of food that looked amazing to me. I asked the owner if she would make me a salad. She told me about a small salad then she told me she could make me a larger one. I motioned for the larger and then we agreed on a price. She then asked if I was a vegetarian which I said I was. The owner was a very kind woman and made me a sumptuous plate of greens, tomatoes, blueberries, strawberries, sesame seeds, and a slice of honey dew to top it off. It also came with two pieces of baguette and I got a glass of local, and heavier brew which was nice to sip while I waited for my food. Sitting on the street with my salad and observing the passing people on bicycles along with the cat that watched the same thing across the street from a window above, was very enjoyable. my meal and drink were just what I needed. It made me happy to see friends and couples riding side saddle on the backs of bicycles. I payed me bill and drank in the atmosphere,until the churchbells chimed eight. Incidentally I've had no way of keeping time except for my computer which hasn't been connected to the internet since I left Charlotte and is also locked to my desk. I also have had no conception of the city. Tomorrow I plan to get a map of the city along with train system, and bike system. Some radical cartographers would insist that to know a city freely without the power structures inherent in a map you could use a map of another city. I wish I had the time to explore the city that way, but tomorrow I have to find a place with bikes, and go to see my professors along with other faculty in charge of international students. As I walked back worrying about the setting sun, I realized that the pace here in this city is slow and everyone here is either a student or a clam citizen. Considering this fact, "With a population of 185,000, it is by far the largest city in the north of the Netherlands. Groningen is a university city, inhabited on average by about 50,000 students." (thanks wiki) At dinner tonight the city appeared to have a young face being watched by the many locals. The mood here is mellow. I came back to my room and after consulting my Student Manager was shown that I was attempting to connect to many of the now dead sockets in an old office building for an internet company. When I tried the one labeled internet it worked much better, this set back made me much smarter about potentially difficult network problems, however, I could have simply read the labels.

Sitting in the buisness center printing my flight conformation, and address to give the taxi driver. I'm slightly queasy of the prospects before me, and that USA today is telling the public that half the population is supposed to be infected this flu season resulting in 90,000 deaths. Seems like scare tactics, but what if?

I'm going to miss Annie, my family, some foods, some people, and the comfortability of life in the States. Goodbye to the Woods, baby Simon, Joseph, Sarah, Michale, Rachel, and Daniel. I'm usually not the lettering writing type and I don't think that I've seen the Wood/Hoffman's names in print, I'm sorry if they're misspelled.

My flight leaves at 2:45 this afternoon which gives me five and half hours untill take off, good luck to me, and good luck to everyone I love in the States who (according to mass media) will have to survive a pandemic, joblessness, social upheavel due to the health care reform, and All About Steve.