The "Night Life"
Good morning, it's currently 11:40am which is 5:40am in Boston and New York. I don't remember where I left off with the last post. I guess I should break the habit of posting every few days and start posting every single night.
If I recall correctly, we left our flat and neither Mair nor I had a tram card so we walked --through the pouring rain-- and arrived to Station Blaak soaked. We were supposed to have the tour guide that day but since it consisted of walking around outside, our tour guide postponed it to Sunday. I was glad she did but we were already there.
That night, we met up with Marina, Nateesh, Holly, and Clare to go to the bar. It was really difficult finding our destination, we got lost. Finally, we arrived to the Tiki Bar in Witte de With strip which is considered one of the "night life" streets. In Rotterdam, everything closes by 6 or 7 on weekdays, with the exceptions of a couple bar-restaurants and convenient stores. I'm sure the "night life" streets are going to be a thing for all of us here in exchange. Beer is only 3 euros which probably equates to $5-6 but I think because I'm handing the bartender coins it feels less. Oh, and another thing! The trams and regular transportations in the day shut down by a certain time. Anyone coming from the night life streets are either walking, taking a cab, or taking the night buses (which are really expensive). We're going to buy bikes but that's not much of a solution when it comes to intoxicated people trying to get home.
The next night, we went out for Marina's birthday to a bar restaurant called The Dijk. That was definitely a conversation starter. They fed me bitterballens so I'm pretty satisfied with the place. Bitterballens are a Netherlands thing. It consists of meat and broth and flour that is rolled together into a ball or a longer stick called "crochets". It sounds disgusting but for the people who aren't vegheads they are ADDICTING. We bought two orders for five people but two were vegetarians so it was between the three remaining. I basically ate an entire order, yeah I said it. I'm not ashamed. They were so good!! Anyone who will visit the Netherlands, I'm confident that there is no way you will not try these at least once (unless you're a veghead) before you leave. They're a thing here. Marina ended up ordering the Rotterdam classic dish which consists of some sort of meat and mashed potatoes but the type changes every week? Our waiter came out with a dish that had purple mush next to a big dry lump of meat. I probably should have tried it before she told the waiter she wanted something else after tasting it. Ah, well.
Are we too old for birthday songs and restaurant birthday slices? When I told the waiter that it was her birthday and if he had some sort of cake thing for birthday kids, I wasn't sure if it would have been weird. He came out with a sunday with a sparkler on it, it was great. I had a really nice time. We were really full from our meals which I think added to our tiredness, so we decided to go back to our flats and maybe get together after we got settled in. Not even ten minutes, I had passed out on my bed. I only realized this after waking up around three in the morning with all my clothes and make up still on. It was a pretty good night for that to happen, I'd have to say.
Yesterday, we finally had our tour! She showed us a place by Kapsalon the hair salon. Two doors down, there is a restaurant with a history connected to the hair salon. There's a dish also named Kapsalon. After the tour was over, Bert, Evan, David, Sarah, Tea, Holly, Clare, and I tried the Kapsalon. We split one between two of us each. It was perfect since we were going to have a potluck later that night. It was so good. It consists of fries, lettuce, meat, with yogurt sauce on the side. For my New Yorkers, it was basically Halal food from the street carts but with fries. It was really good.
Today is our "official" first day of classes? But we're all traveling to a destination to check out our studios which turns out to be away from our school. That's going to be difficult for those of us who make giant sculptures but I guess that's basically the same when I was in New York. I did most of my work in my apartment and then lugged it to class when it was due for critique.
I'm going to sign off and go before we're late to our "first official day".