Settled in and loving Rotterdam

I cannot believe that it's almost been one week since I left America and headed to Rotterdam, Netherlands. A little update on what happened between now and then: Sunday morning I left my home in Massachusetts and headed to Logan Airport around five in the morning. After six hours in the air, I landed in London, England for twelve hours where I met a young Brazilian woman named Isabel who had left Germany and was waiting to go back home from London. We spent the entire night running around the airport getting food, having a beer, and planning to leave to get to Central London. Unfortunately, the buses that were coming in and out of the airport ended early so we decided it was best to give up on navigating around a new city when I had to be back in time to check in and NOT miss my plane to Rotterdam where I would be spending six months studying fine arts. I would have to say that without meeting Isabel the twelve hours would have been miserable and I would have been really lost.

Landing in Rotterdam, I took a taxi to my student housing but arrived earlier than they were allowed to let me into my apartment. Fortunately, I met a group of five young Japanese exchange students who had already been staying in Rotterdam for six months. When I asked if I could stay with them for the duration of Monday night to Wednesday morning, they were really nice about it. I stayed in one of their bedrooms. They would be my downstairs neighbors after Wednesday morning when I moved in. One of the guys took me in and brought me to a supermarket close by so I could get food and he showed me around his flat. Honestly, after the plane ride all I wanted to do was shower and be in a warm bed, but it had to be put on hold for a couple days. The school is a bit strict on their contracts and they also seem to think that the city isn't as big because they weren't helpful on giving me thorough instructions of the transportation and building locations.

Wednesday morning finally arrived! It felt like the longest two days of my life. I felt really bad for the guys that let me into their flat. I was becoming more of a burden than anything. By this time,  the area looked more familiar. After going building to building to get my key card, going somewhere else to activate it, and finally going back to my housing to move in. My flat is amazingly spacious and really nice! I'm actually really surprised that I'm paying 350euros monthly for such a nice place. Well, that price is generally what it would cost. I got settled in and waited for my roommates to show up. I am living with another student from my college, Maggie Nelson. She and I were the only two who applied for the Rotterdam exchange program. It's strange to think about all the kids from my school scattered across the world right now. Gen, Gerald, and Brianna are in Rome. Jackie is in London. Other kids who I have met but never really got to know. (Sorry) Our third roommate is Mair Cook, pronounced as Maya. She's from London, England. She's really funny and sarcastic. I can tell that we're going to get along just fine.

Yesterday was our orientation. It was awesome. We showed up at 9:30am (after struggling to find the place). We were given our packets and a free lunch pass with 5 euros on it. They gave us a tour of the place and then we had lunch. No offense to SVA or anything but the cafeteria at Willem de Kooning Academie is amazing. Then again, SVA doesn't really have a cafeteria. I still love Moe. We met our fine arts department head and mingled with the other exchange students. They also gave us three free beers at a bar called Witte Huis. At this bar, they gave out free snacks. It was like a meatball of some sort? It was heavenly. It tasted like a meat pot pie in the form of a ball.

Today a lot things happened but nothing entirely at the same time. We went to the student housing office to give back paperwork, went to another building for Maggie, and miserably walked through the rain to the closest tram (which is like an above ground subway system). Maggie and I aren't from Europe so we have to register for our permit cards to be able to stay in Rotterdam for longer than 4 months so we went to city hall. We didn't get anything that we needed to get done there. We needed to make an appointment but we don't have a phone and everything on the computer was Dutch. On the bright side, Mair and I got our tram cards, all three of us got our school check cards, and we had lunch in our school cafeteria.

Currently, we're in our flat just relaxing and getting a bit more settled in. So far, it's been amazing and unbelievable that I'm living in The Netherlands.

Sidenote, for anyone without an iPhone that wants/needs to contact me you will need to download Viber or Whatsapp. If you don't have my number already, you can go to the contacts page on this website and message me and/or Facebook. For those who are in Europe, I will be getting a prepaid phone soon so stay tuned for that.