Disappointed

So for a while there my blog had been a place of sanity for me, somewhere that I could express my feelings and tell about my experiences. However, on Wednesday night, after returning to my room from Concordia to find quite a nasty e-mail from my former land lady demanding that I remove her name from my last post, in which I didn't in fact say anything negative about her but that I was glad that I was not living with her, and to be honest I'd imagine she feels the same way. To be fair to her, my blog was comming up if you typed her name onto google, so I did remove her name, however, I still find it ironic that someone who's profession is based on the freedoms of speech and conscience would be so quick to deny it to someone who's writing is contrary to their purposes. I find the entire situation discouraging and regretable.
I will continue to blog, but for the moment I feel stifled.

Room Pictures and Description (for my mom)

But First, LATE BREAKING NEWS. As of Last Friday I have infact finished my sheeo collection! Late Thursday night when shopping with Jay I purchased a small-mid sized black sheep to complete the set! He joins, Fitty Sheep (the white sheep) and Fergie from the Blacked Eyed Sheeps (A Birthday Present fron Jenny, the brown one) and has aptly been named Ringo Sheep from the Beatles, as he is the black sheep from his otherwise rappin' family. In addition, upon her arrival Becca finished my mug collection with the offer of a fourth and final mug in repayment for her free room and board (just room) while she was staying in Holland! Thanks Becca fr contributting to the madness! I guess the sheeps can't be mentioned without also mentioning the cowie bank, who I bought to store a surplus of change and fitty sheep was originally bought to be the cowie bank's friend.
Anyway, Back to rational thinking: So my mom (Hi Mom) asked me to post some pictures of my room so she could see it. So here they are, and now I feel the need to explain a few things. The first thing is that, this is not what my room looks like on a regular basis. Generally it is a bit of a mess, but I cleaned up with Becca comming, and I have actually vacumed it twice in the past week (the horror) However, it should be noted that my Canadian flag has once again fallen off my wall and the clothing is starting to pile up again. (it's not really that bad) (well not as bad as it was)
~General Features~
So my room has some general features. It is approximately 3 meters by 3 meters, it has 3 lights, though one has burnt out, a door, a closet, a desk, a bed a table, 2 chairs, a bookcase and a telephone. \
~Good Features~
it has a large window with a wide window sill on which you can sit and read when weather conditions are appropriate. The view from this window is also quite nice as I back on to houses and trees which cuts down on noise from outside... when I'm lucky. In addition, my room came with a flat mate named Cicek from Turkey, who is wonderful and always so happy. A really good flat mate indeed. Also my room came with No Former Land Lady who's name I am no longer at liberty to disclose which is always a relief.
~Bad Features~
The worst problem is the constantly clogged drains which supposedly have to do with outside blumbing but get worse by the day. Also, the rooms aren't very sound proof and also have an excess of dust. To add to the ghettoness I have to light my stove with a match, but I guess that's not that bad as I now seem to be over my fear of fire. In addition, sticky tack rips the paint off the walls... yeah I don't get it either.
~Personal Touches~
My room has many of these. Of course you have already met the sheep collection and the cowie bank, I also pride myself on my photographs of friends and family which I keep on my buletein board as well as my Canadian flag and my snoopy poster. Recently I've taken to more creative personal touches, first with pastel drawings and then with the comics which you can see in one of the pictures.
The story of my comicing is really quite amusing so I am going to share it. One day in my Comparative Private Law class I was feeling mighty bored (it's not the subject it's the professor) so I started drawing this stick man doing various things, the people sitting behind me were really quite amused and giggled through out the entire class, earning me a new friend. So the next week my drawings became slightly more elaborate and took up a story form, again with people chuckling behind me, so I decided that if my pictures are really that good, that I might as well just by a cartooning marker which I did, which has brought delight to many people, so I am happy.

THE END!!!

Kirsten goes Scottish!

I'm not sure how to describe my trip to Scotland as anything short of amazing. So that's how I will start, My trip to Scotland was amazing! I met at least one million new people, I saw one of the most beautiful places that I've ever seen and I was filled with an awe which may have been just short of animism.
So my good fortune on this trip started off in Rotterdam in fact where I met the two men who you see in this first picture after noticing that they were both wearing poppies and asked if they were Canadian. They were in fact Canadian and the man on the left Mark was visiting the man on the right Milan, who has a family here and is working as a chiropractor. The talked to me non-stop the entire way to Schiphol (the airport in Amsterdam). Half way through the train trip they asked if I wanted Poppy, and I accepted. While a poppy might not seem like much to those of you who are reading this, to me it meant so much because I had really wanted a poppy and they don't sell them in Holland, and two be offered one by complete strangers was just so wonderful and heart warming and really showed the Canadian spirit.
I of course arrived at Schiphol rediculously early so I checked my one bag and wandered around. At the check in I was offered a window seat which made me happy, but then of course there was the wandering. After wandering for some time I went to my gate and got on my plane only to discover that I had the only window seat on the entire plane that did not have a window, which I actually found rather nauseating. In any case, the flight went very smoothly, though we did start our decent 45 minutes before we landed. Unfortunately the weather conditions in Prestwick, where the plane landed in Scotland, were less than favorable and our landing was vary rough, so rough in fact that after landing some of the passengers clapped because we hadn't died.
Anyway so I got off the plane and then had an interesting chat with the Scottish customs officials who were slightly perplexed by me having a Canadian passport with a dutch residence permit in it. In any case, at the customs waiting area I met an Argentinian man also living in Holland who had come to visit his girl friend in Stirling, which was incidentally also my final destination, so we took the train together and met some more people and such. For anyone ever planning on travelling to Scotland by the way Prestwick is FAR away from Glasgow, not as its name would indicate (glasgow Prestwick). So it took some time to get from Prestwick to Stirling. But eventually I made it and the first thing Laura (my friend who's on exchange in Scotland) and I did after meeting up, was buy fish n' Chips. It was so delightful. Afterward we bought some groceries (their grocery stores are a lot more like Canadian stores than grocery stores here. Did I even mention before that they don't store eggs in the refrigerated section here? Who knew...) Then we went home and talked and slept, and then the next day I got a grand tour of Stirling, including the major shopping areas. In the afternoon, we climbed the big hill which is part of Stirling to get to some tourist attractions.
The first place we went was the Old Jail house, which we didn't actually go into but I bought postcards and Laura bought a Moose, and the further up the hill we reached Stirling Castle. As Stirling is at the top of a hill (I'm told it's a hill and not a mountain but after living in flat as a pancake land for so long it seems like a mountain) there was an absolutely spectacular view, which you can kinda of see in one of the pictures, and which I will be more than happy to share more of with people when I go home. It was absolutely breath taking, actually most of Scotland is, as I said previously, my level of awe was approaching animism, From this hill you could see several cities and towns as well as other hills and you could see rain clouds moving past and fog, and areas of sun, and rivers and forests (I like Scotland can you tell yet?)
Anyway, while the outside of Stirling castle is fairly impressive, I felt somewhat dissapointed on the inside, as Historical Scotlanown. SIDETRACK: the first thing and last thing that I did in Scotland was drink special Starbucnd has redone a great deal of it to attempt to look something like what it would have looked like when each building was first built. I think the key word is attempt to look something like, because really it looks like the scenery for a play. But they're trying. Laura and I went on a tour of the castle and learned a lot. In the gift shop at the castle I found the tartan of some of my ancesters from the MacKenzie clan which was very exciting and I bought something for my grandfather with the tartan on it. I hope he likes it.
So then we started back down the hill and stopped at an old house related to the royalty, but it wasn't important enough to know what it was for, though we did go inside. (give me a break I was tired) Anyway, so once we were back in town again we stopped and had coffee at Cafe Nero, which I think is fairly well kks Christmas Coffee because there is only one Starbucks in all of Holland, and it Aint here. SIDE TRACK ENDED. Then Laura and I went home and had pizza with some of her friends. It was very nice to meet them.
Then sleep. In the morning we were meant to go to Glasgow to explore but a combination of sleeping in and Scotland having a crappy transit system lead us to only be able to spend about a half hour in Scotland, though the 1.5 hour bus ride from Stirling to Glasgow did show me a good deal of the Scottish Country side, and 2 Cenitaph processions and a little bit of glasgow, and sheep. So anyway, then I got back on the train for Prestwick. But the fun did not stop there, the train trip also showed me a part of Scotland I hadn't seen before because on the way there it was dark, and for the first time I saw the Atlantic Ocean, well at least from Europe and not in the sky or in Florida, but florida doesn't really count. Anyway I was excited.
The only downer of the trip was that I had some trouble in the line up at the airport, because I was in line behind a large group and another check in open, and the woman took every other person in line starting from the person behind me, even though I was next in line, so everyone else got served before me, and I was mad enough that I went and complained. But then I got on my plane and landed in Amsterdam and went home.
Scotland is a beautiful country, the people are friendly, the babies are cute, I would reccomend to everyone to go and visit there at some point in their life.
Cheers!

2 Months/ My University

So, Given it's been more than a week since my last post, you've likely noticed that from time to time I disappear with no blog entries to be found. Well, contrary to popular belief, it is not in fact because I am off experiencing the brownies of Holland (I really haven't) it is infact that I have piles of school work in front of me and I'm afraid for my academic existence. During these times my clothes get more dirty, my room more a mess, I get circles under my eyes, and, I don't have time to blog. (boo) Well that's what I get for going on exchange to a University with a 40% failure rate.
Sooo, In honour of me having been here for (more than) 2 months, I've decided to enlighten everyone about Erasmus University. The University is located in an area of Rotterdam called Kralinge where some of the oldest remaining houses in the city are to be found. It is a very rich neighbor hood bearing the like of Anna (my former land lady) though it has some shaddy aspects to (like my muggers). The University itself, has a vast array of bike parking lots and the one big car parkinglot seen in the picture above. Much like Carleton Erasmus has a very green campus which makes it quite pleasant to walk through. It also has some very intensive programs, which seem to drive a good deal of the University's student population Mad. The first thing that I noticed about going to school at Erasmus, was that on a whole, the students always go to class very nicely dressed (which is much different from Carleton's anything but naked dress code) But this inspired me to by a pair of leather boots with high heels which I am quite happy with. However, this dress code did not stop me from buying myself an Erasmus sweat shirt, which I wear when I'm studying and I plan to wear around when I'm home.
As for the courses, a great deal of them seem to be centred around economics and international law/relations, which suits my fancy quite nicely. While I'm here I'm taking 6 courses those being: Comparative Law, Introduction to International Law, Advanced Public International Law, Sociology in the Trenches of Cyberspace, Migration aaand Introduction to development economics. I thoroughly enjoy all of my lecturers here, particularly my economics professor (Mainly because he has a job that I want in the World Bank). One thing that I find quite peculiar here is that students often talk during class, without stop and over the proffessors, yet the professors don't usually seemed to be bothered by it. Also I find it quite odd that some classes only have an exam counting as 100% of the mark while others have presentations and massive ammounts of work... I don't get it. But anyway.
As for the student life, there's not much of one, there seem to be very few clubs and societies though many fraternities, though they are different than Canadian fraternities. People generally speak to each other in Dutch, which can make it hard to meet people, and really the only Dutch students I have met are taking my English classes, but I guess it's ok, I'm making friends from lots of other places. Additionally, there are two cafes that sell coffee on campus, and one serves coffee with whipped cream, which delights my taste buds. (I always get the cinnamon sunset)
Also the library is very nice, and has an extensive collection of journals.
So I guess that's it about school, it's not very exciting... One other thing worth mentioning is that I bought a bike on the weekend at the market which you can see in the other two pictures (the market not the bike) I bought the bike, because I saw one of the assholes who mugged me again (How can I find them twice, but not the police?) But anyway I like the bike, it makes me safer, I'm happy... etc.
Also of Importance I am going to Scotland this weekend, to visit Laura from Carleton, so watch for an updated blog about that soon
Cheers!