Day 31 & 32: More Carnaval and a Series of Unfortunate Events

 On the Monday of the Carnival break, Ashley and I set out to find this nearby farm called "The Seven Goats". Its a local farm that raises goats and produces cheese (presumably goat cheese). We were excited to go, as the advertisement mentioned a 150-flavored pancake menu and "midget golf". (some things don't translate easily :) I had looked up directions (on the net) the night before, and we planned to take the bus to get there. It should be a short journey.

Well, we ended up somewhere in Reeshof, not near where the farm is (or was supposed to be according to my directions!). We finally found a map nearby the bus stop and figured out where we were and where the goat farm was. Quite a ways apart. As we were trying to catch the matinee of the Valentine's Day movie, we decided to abandon going to the goat farm, but I thought it made for a good story :)

So we spent the afternoon watching this American film (with Dutch subtitles) and relaxing in City Centre. That night, it was my turn to cook for the girls! Ashley and I had planned earlier to make a taco dinner to fulfill her Texan appetite! We prepared ground beef, refried beans, home-made guacamole and salsa for supper. (Okay, well Ashley did most of the cooking, but I helped stir!)

Bali, Mathea and Saso (Mathea's boyfriend who was visiting from Slovenia) came over for dinner. This was Mathea and Saso's first time with tacos, but they seemed to really enjoy them! We all ate till we were stuffed and visited for a bit. Saso enjoyed seeing an American dollar bill that Ashley showed him. Guess they don't have those in Slovenia!

On Tuesday, Ashley and I made the most of the sunshine (as it had been pretty cold all weekend!) and went down to walk around City Centre. We bought chocolate croissants for breakfast at V&D, purchased our train tickets for our upcoming journey to Belgium, mailed some postcards and shopped a bit. Then we went to the Scryption, a museum concerning the history of writing in the Netherlands. It was really interesting, especially as we bumped into this Dutch woman that worked there who gave us a personal mini-tour of the museum. She explained the history of how students in the Netherlands learned to read and write Dutch and showed us all of the various writing instruments featured in the museum. It was very interesting! Ashley and I learned a few Dutch words ourselves: "maan", "roos" and "vis". I'll let you look those up :) These are three words that are taught to Dutch children first in primary school to learn the vowels of the Dutch language.

When we got back to my flat, Ashley and I decided to watch a movie on my laptop. To save you the expense of reading an unnecessarily long story, my computer got a horrible virus mid-film and we spent the rest of the afternoon trying to fix it, with little luck. My brother, Drew, was online at this time and we skyped him for some advice, and he offered to help at 6pm (12am my time) once he was home from school. I was grateful!

Tuesday evening got a little crazier. I had told Ashley all about the LG, the infamous dance club and bar where all the Tilburg international students go on Tuesday nights. I was very excited to show it off to her, and there was a special party since it was the end of Carnival. We went down to city centre with Bali and Daniel. Along the way, Daniel mentioned that the trains in Belgium were on strike due to the crash that had happened the Sunday before. This made me concerned, since we were planning on going to Belgium the next morning.

When we got to City Centre, we went to the square where there was a big party. They were playing traditional Carnival music (which isn't very good) and it was cold, so we decided to go inside to a nearby Irish pub and grab a drink before heading to the LG. Daniel treated us to a white Russian...mmm! Then off to the LG. It was one interesting night in the LG. Everyone was in their Carnival costumes and it was pretty crowded as the upstairs was closed. And they were playing horrible Carnival music, described by Ashley as polka-techno, so we decided to leave pretty early and took the midnight bus back to campus.

I had to go to Bali's room to use her computer to Skype Drew, as my internet was no longer working on my computer at this point due to the virus. I spent quite awhile in Bali's room following Drew's instructions on how to get rid of the virus. I shared a nice 2am pasta salad snack with her and her flatmates before heading back to my Verbs around 3:30am with my laptop in hand. It was still running the virus scan Drew had suggested. At this point, I decided to call it a night and resume caring for my computer in the morning.