Day 17: Creating a Routine

Today was an early start. But I am going to have to get used to it, as I have an 8:45am Monday morning class each week! This was the first lecture of the semester for my course, "Theme: History, Culture and Society", CSH for short.

I chose to bike to class this morning, as I had allowed myself just enough time to ride to class, but probably not enough time to walk. After dusting a bit of snow off my bicycle, I hopped on and set off for the 5-minute (perhaps less) ride to campus. This was interesting. A native Floridian, I have never driven in snow, let alone biked in it! But, I chose to be adventurous today and give it a shoot. It actually turned out alright, but it was a really interesting/scary/nerve-racking experience! The snow has been on the ground for about three days now, so in some places it is still thick and others it is just icy. This made for an interesting ride, as I dodged the thick snow with my bicycle, as well as any super icy patches. I had my had ready to brake the whole time, and only had to put my feet on the ground a few times to catch myself or stop from skidding. The ice was the worst, but the thick snow was rather interesting. It almost felt like biking through sand! Made me miss the beach :-)

Class was kind of slow....the professor just spoke about what we would talk about in the course and the grading policy, etc. He did mention that this was the worst winter Tilburg has had in five years....gives me hope knowing that we have survived the worst! As our main assignment for the course, we have to form a group and research two European countries to find the major differences in culture/religion/work ethics, etc. At the end of the course, we will put together a 15-minute presentation to give to the class. The professor told us to form groups that would blend both exchange and Dutch students, since the class is about half and half. My friend Mathea and I paired up with four Dutch students (whose names I butchered as I tried to pronounce) that were sitting in front of us. We will be researching the countries of Turkey and Greece....hmm, maybe  I should visit these countries, so I will have firsthand knowledge....

Since my second class (Organization Development) that I normally have on Mondays was cancelled today (according to the email, "the professor was ill"), I had the afternoon free. I ran a few errands, bought some of my books, collected my residence permit letter, and read three chapters for one of my classes tomorrow. I also went down to the sports center and signed up for a sports card. This will allow me access to the sports center at Tilburg, which is literally a minute's walk from where I live! Hopefully I can get back in shape some this semester after my exercise hiatus of the past semester!

After supper, I headed into the City Centre with Daniel (Scotland) and Shawn (South Africa) for pub quiz at the local Irish Pub, Clancy's. We stopped by McDonald's first so Daniel could get a bite to eat. Let me tell you, McDonald's in Europe is SOOO different! This was the first time I had been inside of one, and it was odd! The menu items are quite different (and look so much healthier!). I ordered a stroopwafel McFlurry....delish! It was the vanilla soft serve with caramel swirled in and stroopwafel bits blended through. TO DIE FOR! Afterwards, we headed to Clancy's, where we proceeded to lose against about 20 other teams at Monday night pub quiz. We won Smarties for our champion loser-ship! However, Smarties are not what you might think....here, they are chocolate, very similar to M&Ms! It was a fun night and I learned a lot of useless facts...too bad I can't take pub quiz as a class to put on my transcript!