Central College Abroad

Well, the grand adventure of studying abroad has now ended as of Monday the 24th. I write this final blog from my home in Riceville, Iowa. I actually got home a few days ago, but have been and am still so busy unpacking and rearranging my life from abroad while preparing for my next adventures. It was truly a strange feeling when I realized that upon leaving, cleaning, and packing up my apartment that my almost four months in the Netherlands fit into my two (though both nicely sized) rolling suitcases, a backpack, and laptop case. It is just a strange feeling to me to know that I have done, seen, and experienced so much during that time, yet, I had the same amount of luggage that I arrived with (okay, I admit it, I threw out some things to make room for what I collected throughout the semester).

My last week here since ending finals last Tuesday really flew by. My finals went really well and confirmed to myself that I managed to learn much while abroad. Once finals were over however, I packed extreme traveling into my remaining days from Wednesday the 20th to Sunday the 23rd. During that time I went to pick up my residency permit and explored Delft, The Hague, Amsterdam (twice!), and Rotterdam going to museums and just exploring the cities, though I had visited several of them before. As I visited each city, I thought about how I would miss this Netherlands, this European lifestyle and culture. My final day I spent in Leiden saying goodbye to all the locations I would miss, visiting the botanical garden for the first time, and having a final giant Dutch pancake.

I also said goodbyes to my program, both fellow students and professors, during this time. We had one final meal at a Chinese restaurant together and afterwards a final borrel. It was strange saying goodbye and then having everyone leave over the next few days, either to return to their respective homes or set off for grand adventures in Europe. This process was strange and like my moving out process, all together surreal. In retrospect, I can say that I do have regrets, resentments, and missed opportunities about my time abroad. But, I know that I have had an incredibly unique experience that has allowed me to grow and mature as a person. I also have learned so much about my context in the world, as a woman, as an United States citizen, and as an eager learner of history and culture. I also learned a great lesson about human nature and learned to better treasure those who love and love me for who I am. These are what the most important lessons of my study abroad experience has been. Though I may always carry with me some regrets, and have always wished that I would have been able to go to Prague, I know that overall what study abroad has given me has eclipsed these regrets as it has allowed me to mature as an independent person who now has a better understanding of the world and a better appreciation of those in it.

Well, it has been a busy past few weeks as evident by my tardiness in updating my blog. In fact, this week begins my last full week here in the Netherlands as I leave on Monday, May 24th. These past few weeks have been a blur of both assignments and activities. In this time period, I have written three major papers and have actually completed my Globalization course.

Besides these more academic pursuits, in this time period our group went to Belgium. We left on Monday May 5th taking a train first to The Hague (Den Haag here in the Netherlands) and from there to Brussels. We spent two days and two nights in Brussels. During this time we had free time as well as organized tours around the city and its sights. I made sure to enjoy the sights of churches and the general architecture of the city which is modern with a unique old charm. I also made sure to eat many waffles with chocolate sauce. As a group we also went each night to a bar that holds the world record for having the most beers available at 2,004 varieties. A highlight of this time in Belgium was going to the EU parliament on May 6th. If we had been there a few hours earlier on that day, we would have actually been able to meet Joe Biden, but instead the man in the tour was able to show us a clip of the speech he gave. When seeing this speech, it was important to realize how many languages it had to be translated into. In fact, we were able to see where the EU holds its parliament, especially to see all the different booths for the language translators as there are many languages which must be translated, including Gaelic.

On our last day in Belgium, we took a train from Brussels to Brugge. Brugge is a beautifully preserved old city with a great art history. While there we went to a church that houses a statue by Michelangelo that is protected by glass because people have tried to destroy it so many times. We also visited an art museum while there that had art from medieval to modern times, so that was good to observe for my art history class. This time in Brugge was not very long, but for the amount, we certainly did see a good portion of the city.

Besides these exciting travels, we have been busy with finals as I mentioned above. In fact, I actually need to go and study for my last two finals before I complete my junior year in the Netherlands. Next week my blog will probably be written Monday from my home in Iowa.

This week was a very busy week for me travel wise. On Monday evening my Globalization class attended a lecture at Amsterdam’s Vrije University. This was located near Amsterdam’s trade center as many companies have their headquarters located in the area. Going to the lecture was interesting as its topic about global organizations was relevant and it was presented by a professor from the London School of Economics, who made many jokes about how lucky he was to be here because of Iceland’s volcano.

Wednesday I went to Utrecht to visit the Centraal Museum, work on a project, and do some shopping. I managed to get on a train at 10:22 a.m. and arrive in Utrecht around 11:10 or so. When I first got there, I walked around the mall which is attached to the train station before leaving to go to the street level. Where I came out of the mall ended up being the location of the Wednesday market. I ended up browsing around and looking at some stalls. I finally found an orange dress for Queens Day, which is coming up next Friday. After exploring the market, I walked around and browsed around the shops. Utrecht has the largest university in the Netherlands, so a lot of the stores are geared towards those who are around my own age. I found so many nice places, including some secondhand stores. I wanted to buy several dresses that I found, but I stopped myself after purchasing a shirt for Queen’s Night. After contributing to Utrecht’s economy, I went to the Centraal Museum. Because of my museum card I was able to go for free. The museum is an art museum that spans from the Middle Ages to Modern Art, but it also has some historical information and artifacts about the city of Utrecht that are older. I was really excited to be able to see several paintings that have been talked about in my Dutch Art and Architecture class. After wandering around the Centraal museum, I made my last stop at the Dick Bruna House. Dick Bruna is the creator of Miffy and other characters which he draws and writes children’s books about. While I was in the museum, I got a personalized tour from one of the museum workers, who told me all about the history of Miffy and the actual person of Dick Bruna, who is 82 and still rides bikes in to his studio in Utrecht to work. I really liked learning about Miffy, especially as we do not have her in the United States.

Friday was my last major adventure of the week. We had a planned program field trip to Het Loo, which is a royal palace and the Kröller-Müller Museum, the third most well-known art museum in the Netherlands. Because of the location of these museums, we ended up taking a charter bus. We left at nine in the morning and were on the road for around two hours before we arrived at Het Loo. We then were given a few hours to explore the grounds and palace. I first explored the palace and really enjoyed seeing how each room has been so well restored and the general preservation work of the museum. The rooms were very ornately decorated and the palace overall was quite large. After exploring the palace itself, we went off to explore the palace grounds which were really beautiful because of the all of the flowers in bloom. Eventually we met up as a group again (after getting some pictures of the peacocks) and then went to lunch at the Kröller-Müller museum before exploring the museum itself. This museum is located within a national park, so in order to get there, one must drive through many miles of woods. Where we ate was actually separate from the indoor part of the museum, so we actually walked through some of the outside sculpture gardens in order to get to the indoor part of the museum. The indoor part of the museum has a very impressive range of art from the Middle Ages to as modern as the 2000s. This museum is known in particular for having an excellent Van Gogh collection as well as Modern Dutch Artists in general. The outdoor part of the museum is actually spread out on the grounds of the national park and is one of the largest sculpture gardens in the world. Walking around the sculpture gardens on a nice day made a very pleasant afternoon.

Eventually we left for Leiden and managed to get back by early evening. This certainly was a very interesting group adventure, one that I know I appreciated more with taking the course Dutch Art and Architecture.

The weather here in the Netherlands has finally been warming up (though I really do not want to jinx myself). The past few days we have had a good amount of sun as well as temperatures spanning from around the fifties to the sixties. With this, a lot of flowers have been blooming, including the tulip fields. It really is starting to feel and look like spring!

This week I have been primarily occupied by enjoying the spring weather by trying to be outside at local parks and by just walking around. I know many people in the program have been enjoying the nice weather. There even have been talks of program trips to the tulip bulb fields and also possible canoeing or kayaking on the canals in Leiden. I really am so happy that we have begun to experience warmer weather, though it isn’t the best when you have nice weather and you are in class.

That is all for this week as talking about the spring really makes me want to go off and enjoy the nice weather and my last few weeks in Leiden.

I mentioned in my previous entry that there is a surprising amount of studying that goes into studying abroad. Because of this I am going to take the opportunity to just mention what courses I am taking this semester, primarily to prove to my parents that, yes, I am still getting an education despite being in the Netherlands! Besides the classes I take, some people take courses in drawing, photography, Dutch, and graphic design. Others from our program also take course at Leiden or Webster Universities.

This semester I am currently taking three courses, though I already have completed the required Elementary Dutch Course. Right now I am taking another required course called The Netherlands and Its European Context, which is a class all about the Netherlands as well as its relations with the rest of the world, primarily the European Union. This class really is interesting as I am learning more about the European perspective as well as Europe in general, primarily the Netherlands. The Netherlands really is an interesting country, especially for its social policies, so this course is one that I enjoy, despite the fact that we do have assignments and papers, much like we would in the United States.

The other two courses I am taking are my two electives which are Globalization and Dutch Art and Architecture. Globalization is a course that is all about globalization and looking at different aspects of globalization. One interesting thing about this course is that because it is taught from a European perspective, I am better able to acknowledge and look at the way Europe has contributed to and been impacted by globalization more than I would in a course in the United States. At the same time, because of the European perspective, I really understand how large of force the United States has been in globalization throughout the entire world. This course certainly is interesting to me because of this and also the fact that I normally do not take political science or economics courses because I am a history major. This is also true with my other course, Dutch Art and Architecture. This course is very self explanatory, but is unique in the sense that each week we take field trips to actually see the art that we talk about in class, besides also having the more traditional methods of slides. This week we went to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. There we were able to see many works of art including landscapes, some genre works by Jan Steen, some very interesting still lifes, some Vermeer, and of course, many pieces by Rembrandt, who interestingly enough was born in Leiden. While there, we had the opportunity to see Rembrandt’s “The Nightwatch” which actually has its own room and is much protected both due to its size as well as the fact that people have attacked the painting in order to destroy it. Steef, our professor as well as resident director of the program, told us that people have shot at the painting, tried to take a knife to it, and even have thrown sulfuric acid on it. This is just an idea of the information that we learn on field trips for Dutch Art and Architecture.

Well, I hope that after that explanation that it is evident that there is studying in studying abroad. We do go to classes and these classes even have papers, assignments, and tests. That is it for this week, I just have around eight weeks left here and I hope to enjoy them by continuing to enjoy what the Netherlands has to offer.

It has been another busy week here in Leiden between class, daily life, and going on adventures. One of these recent adventures was a program field trip to Rotterdam. I have been very excited about this for a long time because of the recent history of the city. During World War II, Rotterdam was almost completely bombed by the Germans. Because only a few buildings survived, much of the architecture is modern in nature. This is a huge contrast to many other cities in the Netherlands, such as Amsterdam and Leiden, as they retain much of their original historic buildings. With this in mind, I can begin to describe our day.

We left Leiden at around 9:20 and got to Rotterdam at around 10:00. When we first arrived, Steef began to point out the few buildings that survived the bombing, such as the city hall and a few houses. We then walked around to look at various buildings, many of which were built in a modern architectural style. After this we went to an art museum that has art ranging from religious art from the middle ages to modern artists. I was able to see several pieces by artists such as Rembrandt, Den Bosch, Van Gogh, Dali, Picasso, and Monet. We explored the museum for a few hours and were then given money and time for lunch. After lunch, we continued an architectural tour of the city for the remainder of the day. Throughout the day, we saw many interesting buildings, but my favorite was these cube shaped apartments. We were able to go into them and found them quite small for our large group, but their overall design, layout, and concept made the space constraint worth it. Rotterdam certainly was an interesting city and I am planning on going back soon to visit the Maritime Museum and hopefully do some shopping.

Well, I have to go work on several projects. Believe it or not, at times there is a significant amount of studying that goes into studying abroad! For that reason, the blog is regrettably a little brief this week.

This post Spring Break week was a nice week to relax and get back into the routine of classes. One of the classes that I am currently taking is Dutch Art and Architecture. For this class we have a fieldtrip once a week, either on Thursday or Friday, to a museum or city in the Netherlands. This Thursday we had the opportunity to go to Utrecht which is a city located around forty minutes away by train from Leiden and is one of the Netherlands largest cities. In Utrecht, we primarily observed a variety of architecture styles of the many different buildings. Utrecht was and still is the place where the Catholic Archbishop for the Netherlands resides, so there were many churches built in this city. These churches were located in a way to create a cross in the city, which is really only evident unless you are looking at a city map. Looking at the architecture of these churches was very interesting as many of these churches actually became Protestant churches during the Reformation, and some churches were partially destroyed through natural disasters. One church is actually entirely disconnected, due to a hurricane, from its tower called Dom Tower. Utrecht was a very interesting city and I am planning on going back soon to look at the different museums, and also go shopping as they appeared to have some unique stores.

The Dom Tower in Utrecht

Canals in Utrecht

On Saturday my friends and I went to the Maduradam which is a miniature model of many cities and places in the Netherlands. It is located in The Hague, so my friends and I decided it would be a good short day trip on a day when the weather did not seem entirely promising for a longer adventure. Though it rained a little, we really ended up enjoying our time at Maduradam. We were all very impressed by the level of detail the buildings have and the sheer number as well as variety of what is replicated. I was particularly impressed by the fact that you could look into the windows of the model of the Rijksmuseum located in Amsterdam and actually see works of art. Another incredibly impressive aspect was the fact that they had a model of the entire Utrecht train station that we visited just a few days before as well as a model of the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport complete with moving planes. Some of the miniatures even would make noise or move if you put in a few eurocents, which was really interesting to do. I actually put in money to get little clogs out of a clog factory and also some to get a little chocolate bar out of the Mars factory. This really was a fun excursion that gave my friends and I a better sense of the Netherlands. We may have actually got better pictures of some buildings then we could dream of getting in person due to the sheer size of the actual buildings!

Well, that is all for this week. I am sure you do not need to hear about my doing laundry or eating ridiculous amounts of cheese. Next week we are taking a group field trip to Rotterdam which I will be sure to report on.

Let me apologize blogging world for not having an entry last week. Hopefully this entry will make up for the lack of last week. Luckily, my reason is a good one: I was in Italy for Spring Break. These past two weeks have been incredibly busy both with beginning new classes and also having Spring Break. Because of our late start of this semester our Spring Break came early this year, which was nice in some respects because we do not have too many major assignments due this next week. Sadly my pictures from my vacation to Italy are not able to upload to my computer at the moment, so there will be no pictures from Italy and my post is too big to post pictures from Leiden. This is due to some ongoing semester long technological problems I have been experiencing.

The week before Spring Break, March 1-5th was very busy. After I got out of class on that Monday I went to Delft with a friend. There we were able to look at both the Old and New Churches in the town. At the Old Church, I was able to see the grave of the painter Vermeer and the physicist, Anton van Leeuwenhoek. At the New Church I was able to learn all about the history of the House of Orange, the Netherlands royal family, as it is the location of the family tombs. Delft certainly was a nice city and I hope to go back there soon in order to see several museums which were closed as I visited the city on a Monday.

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week continued to be busy. On Tuesday I went with some friends to the Natural History Museum here in Leiden, which, because of my museum card, I was able to get in for free. Then on Wednesday I went again with some friends to the Ethnology museum here in Leiden. I am really happy that I am able to go so easily to different museums. This is really a great learning experience for me because I am hoping to begin a career in museums so being able to see how different museums are arranged and their collections displayed, is really an important educational experience for me.

Wednesday night however was a different type of educational experience as many people in our program, myself included, attended a football (or as Americans say it soccer) game which put the Netherlands against the United States. The United States lost two to one, but it was a great experience being able to see how excited people in the Netherlands get over their football games as many people had orange flags and wore orange clothing. On Thursday and Friday of this week, some people began to leave for Spring Break. I however had class on both days. However, on Thursday I was able to go on a fieldtrip to Haarlem for my Art History class, so that made me feel better about still being in the classroom. Haarlem was a very pretty city and I hope to return to see its many museums and beautiful churches.

On Saturday March 6th my friend Emily and I began our Spring Break in Italy. We flew into Milan from Amsterdam. Our flight and everything at the airport went smoothly and we were able to be in Milan at our hostel by mid-afternoon. From there we went into the city and began exploring the fashion district, including the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, which is a beautiful semi-enclosed mall. The next day I had a ticket to see DaVinci’s Last Supper. This was a great experience that sadly only lasted fifteen minutes; it was so interesting to be able to see such a famous painting, especially since it is in a continuously deteriorating condition despite the best conservation efforts. The rest of our Sunday in Milan was spent exploring the famous Duomo in Milan, which is a very impressive cathedral that is the 3rd largest in Europe, and other areas of Milan, such as the famous opera, La Scala. After some generous servings of gelato we went back to our hostel for the day to prepare for our early morning departure for Rome.

Departing for Rome on Monday proved to be a little more complicated than anticipated. We were hoping to catch a slow intercity train at 6:50 in the morning in order to cut the price of train tickets by half. However, when we arrived at the metro station near our hostel, we found that the metro would not be arriving at our station until 6:24, giving us little time to connect at our next metro stop, get to the train station, and then buy tickets. We ended up missing our intended train due to ticket lines, but were able to get some tickets that were just as cheap on an intercity train that connected in Bologna. By 7:20 we were on a train heading to Bologna. We did not know we were supposed to validate our tickets, but the conductor on this train understood that we were legitimately unaware and did not fine either of us fifty euros. We eventually arrived in Bologna and after some much needed caffeine and got on another intercity train heading to Rome. During this train ride we were able to see the beautiful Italian countryside as we stopped through a variety of towns of various sizes. Though it takes more time, I recommend the slower intercity train as it is cheaper than the faster trains, usually by around half price, and it also is a great way to see the countryside of whatever country you are visiting.

On Monday afternoon we arrived in Rome and quickly found our hostel which was five minutes from the train station. After walking around for a little bit, we went to the free supper that our hostel offered every night which was a nice option to save money and also to meet new people. There we met a young German woman named Christina who wanted someone to go the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish steps with her that night. Emily and I volunteered to go and the three of us went off to enjoy these two famous Roman sites at night. While we were at the Spanish steps, we were surprised to find three girls from our program who were leaving Rome for Florence the next day. After this we went back to the hostel and met a group of two German and one South Korean girls staying in our room who were taking gap years in Scotland. We then enjoyed talking to them the rest of the evening.

On Tuesday we had our first full day in Rome and found out that the rain followed us from Leiden. It rained the entire day, but we did enjoy a wonderful tour of the Colosseum, Forum, and Palatine Hill. It was so impressive seeing and exploring these ancient sites, despite the rain, and our tour was informative and also very funny. After spending the day in the cold we went back to the hostel and met and relaxed with many people from all over the world, including the United States. The next day, Wednesday, we went with some guys we met at the hostel to the Vatican and the Vatican Museum. Seeing the Vatican was incredibly impressive, both the actual church and the entire experience of climbing to the top of the cupola, which was notable both for its view, its number of steps to research it, and the nature of the steps which at times seem to go sideways. After spending several hours at the Vatican, we had a coffee break before preparing to go the Vatican Museum. In my lifetime, I have visited many museums, but let me say that the Vatican Museum is the most overwhelming one I have ever visited. The Vatican Museum consist of several different museums, and has a collection of art and artifacts, spanning thousands of years, from the Egyptians up to contemporary artists. The pinnacle of this was seeing the Sistine Chapel, which was breathtaking for its detail as well as all the information behind it, such as Michelangelo placing himself in it as flayed flesh. This day was certainly busy and was very interesting. By visiting the Vatican, we also realized that we were able to visit another country on our vacation!

Thursday we spent our time seeing other famous sites of Rome, including the Pantheon, the Colosseum at night, and the Castel St. Angelo, where the Emperor Hadrian was buried. On Friday we again saw more sites of Rome and also continued some shopping that began the day before. The metro was actually closed until 3:00 on Friday, so we walked most of the day. We also both got some amazing gelato before going off to see the impressive monument to King Victor Emmanuel II.

On Saturday we left Rome for Leiden again and had absolutely no transportation problems, arrived in Leiden at around 1:00 and quickly reunited with patats met mayonnaise or in my case satesaus (peanut sauce). Spring Break was definitely fun, but I am now looking forward to relaxing for a little bit before my next adventure begins be it in the Netherlands or in some other country. I cannot wait until class tomorrow to hear about other people’s Spring Break Adventures as people in our program went to places in Germany, France, Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, and Italy.

Dutch is done! This is the main news of my week. We had our final, both oral and written on Wednesday. In retrospect, I really did have fun in class and learned so much about Dutch culture, in addition to learning some of the language. It also was a great way to get to meet people in our program as it was a common class that we all had. In fact, many of us got together on Wednesday night to celebrate being done with Dutch.

With Dutch being over with, I am now starting my other three classes that I am taking here which are: Dutch Art and Architecture, The Netherlands and its European Context, and then Globalization: Theory and Practice. I am really looking forward to these classes, especially Dutch Art and Architecture in which we have weekly field trips. I have very little background in visual arts however; I hope that this class can teach me. On our first day of meeting we took a field trip to the Lakenhal in Leiden. This museum is the city museum of Leiden and is actually an old clothmakers hall. Leiden used to be famous for its textile production and it was in this building where the textiles would be inspected and authenticated. This was especially important because there were many people who tried to make fake “knock offs” of Leiden cloth. Today the building houses many wonderful pieces of art, including the only two Rembrandts in Leiden, which is Rembrandts home town. Here I had my first lesson in art appreciation as Steef, our professor as well as the director of our program, broke us up into small groups to each analyze a painting. We were to look at all components of the painting such as the light, colors, and planes. This was a really great learning experience and I hope that soon I will learn how to better analyze paintings.

I have been here a month and still have not given in to purchasing a bike. Many people in the Netherlands use bikes as their main form of transportation. Because bikes are the main form of transportation, the Dutch are especially intense about biking while using all proper biking rules (well except wearing a helmet!). The Dutch bike everywhere and seem to be able to do anything on a bike. It is not rare that you will see people caring a variety of groceries on their bike or see a parent taking two children to school while on a bike, with each child having an attached seat on the bike. It is not uncommon to see rows and rows of bikes locked up in the street, especially near areas where they have specific bike parking, such as at the train station or the University of Leiden. This intensity, especially the speed at which the bikes go, has made me wary of biking in the Netherlands. This however is just me, many people in the program have bought bikes and enjoy riding them all over Leiden and beyond. As for me, I will just walk and continue to resist the Dutch bike culture.

This week my life has been devoted mostly to Dutch; we had a total of three quizzes and learned 6-7 new lessons. This has been difficult for me as I am horrible at learning other languages and also I need more time to study languages. Because of this, and another impending Dutch test on Monday, I decided to forgo the optional trip to Texel in our program. Though you will not hear about my experience, there will be experiences of other students in my program in an upcoming Odyssey Newsletter. It really did sound like a very interesting trip, so I am excited to hear about it in Dutch class on Monday.

Despite my difficulties with Dutch, I do enjoy learning about the Dutch culture through the class. Our professor, René, always points out culture differences and similarities in relation to each text. This week we discussed the differences in meals, grocery shopping, in social calls, and housing. One is example is that in the Netherlands, what Americans consider the first floor is what the Dutch consider the ground floor, with the first floor being what Americans would consider the second floor. A surprising difference is that at stores cashiers will round either up or down on the price of things in order to avoid having too many one or two eurocents. Since I have known this, I have noticed that I have already saved four eurocents.

One of the most interesting differences that we talked about was the choices of food and overall eating environment. In the United States, many people go out to eat for convenience sake and usually stay at a “sit down” restaurant for no more than an hour. This differs significantly from the Netherlands where people usually only go out to eat if it is a special occasion and then often stay for hours because it is more for the socializing rather than convenience, in addition to having a steeper price. René is also surprised at what Americans eat, such as the many brands of cereal and the soft drink Mountain Dew. These type of cultural differences make the class much more than a language class and also brings a source of fun to the class.

With that mention, I better go off and study Dutch. By the next blog I will have hopefully completed my Dutch course and with that can begin to have more excellent adventures!