I've been putting off writing or trying to establish my first impressions of this place, because i know that first impressions of a place are very important for how you feel about the place for the rest of the time that you are there.
Well when i arrived the whole place was covered in fog, so there wasn't much to see from the train window. therefore i missed a lot of the 'countryside' and the windmills... if you can call it countryside, theres barely any land that doesnt have people on it. This country is just over 200 x 300km square, so its smaller than Southland and Otago combined. but there are an insane 16million people living here!!!
So i tried not to develop an opinion based on what i first saw, which was the awful weather...
And still the weather is awful, it is notorious for it, DONT come to the Kingdom of The Netherlands for the weather.
The Kingdom of The Netherlands is the official title of the country, though most people refer to it as Holland, which is in fact a northern region of The Netherlands, where there were a lot of traders coming and going and refering to the country as Holland. So there you go, ou learn something everyday.
Well i am living in Utrecht (oo - trekt), a student city, half an hour by train from amsterdam, population 200,000. It is nice here (if you ignore the dreary weather), i have yet to explore the city centre properly though the beginning of my impressions is that it is nice.
Today I went on an orientation of the city with The Office for International Relations and the Exchange Students going to the art school. We had a guided tour of the Dom, the tallest church in Utrecht, we climbed the 400 or so very windy stairs to the top of the Dom Tower. The view was really nice, i took a liking to the way the city was laid out and the colour of the roof houses, a mix of orange and brown and greenish, (much more quaint than paris... which is now what i compare everything to)
we then warmed up with a drink in a pub. There are two other girls from my school in Dunners on this exchange, Simone and Aliki, we walked around the city centre streets and found a nice Greek restaurant to have dinner at. Aliki is Greek, so she sweet talked them into giving us a a good deal, us being poor students and having to pay with the euro and all. The meal was soooo good!!! I'm not genreally one to get very excited about food, but my friend the food in Europe is sooo good! Italian, Greek, French, so many difernt kinds of bread and pastries and waffles and crepes and pizza and cheeses and all kinds of things.
I really like the city centre, there are canals running through and cool little bridges, the streets are narrow and cobbled stoned, so there isnt really cars driving through much. The Bike!!!!! The bicycle has a place of great importance in Holland, it is very strange. but that is an adventure all on its own and deserves a post all to itself. There are many different shops and many differnt fashions, it is great! and they have markets in big squares that sell cheap food and other things.
well my opinion of this place is still forming, but i am getting the opinions of my flatmates, which is very interesting.... you could say...
I am living with two Dutch boys both studying at the university and an Argentinian acrobat who has been living here for nearly seven years, he has really been thrust into this culture that was sooo so foriegn to him and has some very interesting stories to tell.
more later...
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