Really loving this place you guys. Utrecht is awesome. Such a cool/weird/crowded city. Sidenote: ever since the man who sat next to me on the Dublin to Amsterdam plane smelled like incredible b.o., I keep getting whiffs of that awful stench. Not sure if it's me (I don't think so because I just showered and have been performing all of my routine hygienic procedures) or the people around me or the city but I smell it now and I really hope it doesn't stick around.
I'm staying in a 6 person room filled with girls from the Antioch program and they are all super nice and very interesting to listen to talk about feminism or anti feminism or gender studies in general or anything about life. Everyone here is like that. I love it because I never get bored listening to them. So far I haven't gotten annoyed listening to those kinds of subjects, but we'll see how long that lasts. Just kidding. I do get sort of frustrated talking about feminism etc just because there is soooo much that goes into it and my mind goes off on so many tangents and sometimes my thoughts contradict themselves and also sometimes I can't articulate what I'm trying to say or I don't want to try because I know I won't use the right terminology or vernacular or be able to quote feminist writers or anything like that. Obviously I need to move past that because MY THOUGHTS COUNT TOO (not searching for pity or encouragement or anything - mainly talking to you, aunts - just venting). I'm also starting to feel more confident about my research project (stereotypes of feminists across cultures). I think it will be interesting and after voicing my topic and hearing myself put it into words when explaining it to my peers/teachers I don't feel like it's as useless or childish as I did before. We'll see.
I've been sleeping pretty well at nights. Sometimes I have to put my earplugs in because *~B!g C!tY L!Fe!!*~ is loud at night and we have to keep the windows open because otherwise it gets too stuffy in the room.
This weekend we had orientation during the day on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and then went out on the town at night. On Friday night when we were just sitting on the patio before we went out, I introduced myself to two other kids staying at our hostel, Simeon (19) and Diana (21), who are best friends and who attend Falmouth Uni in the UK as art students. Simeon introduced himself and Diana by saying something like "Diana like the princess and Simeon like cinnamon." I of course used "Eileen, like the song." They loved that. I love them. I invited them out with us and the whole group loved them. We went to a bunch of different bars and it was awesome not even being id'd or anything. I've been legal here for almost 5 years now. Weird. I also loved that, although practically everyone here speaks English, at first many of them begin to speak Dutch to me and some actually tell me they thought I was Dutch so it's nice to think that I'm not a totally obvious American tourist.
Another sidenote/omg: "Joe DiMaggio's Done it Again" just came on in the common area of the hostel as I'm typing. Ugh I love it. They play some pretty good tunes here. Talking Heads, Arctic Monkeys, Latin instrumentals, etc. The owner kind of reminds me of David Byrne. I also keep hearing of awesome concerts happening over here while we're here/around here (David Byrne and St. Vincent, Avett Brothers, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis). Gotta budget.
Anywho, I do like how easy it is to communicate because everyone speaks English, but I also wish I would learn some Dutch (so far I know thank you: danke viel, please/you're welcome/here you go: alstublieft, good day: dag/alles gut and a few more random terms for like food and stuff). I think it's pretty similar to German sometimes. There's also that whole "linguistic imperialism" thing that makes me feel bad. We read an article on that. I need to start being less assumptive that everyone speaks English and more apologetic that I don't speak Dutch.
Saturday I sat with Simeon and Diana for a bit (most of the other Antioch girls had gone to a fem event in Amsterdam - would have been cool to join but I napped instead) and chatted/played cards (I taught them spot it and they taught me Irish snap - hope I don't forget that one so I can teach it to all my US peeps) until we decided that we should go get beer and turn them into drinking games. So the two of them, Ezra, and myself went to the store and got some caramel flavored Heineken - so good - and played some more Irish snap, then I taught them Circle of Death, then they taught me High/Low, then they taught us Good-day Mate, which is hilarious. I taught them Pterodactyl then Up, Down, Look. Then I grabbed a group of Spanish guys and we all went to a bunch of bars. We ended up ditching the Spanish guys because they were loud and annoying and then awkwardly dancing at a bunch of bars/clubs.
Yesterday, I slept in really late and then we had a session of Trans 101 with our TA Lauren and then played a group-building game called Mystery Dream Date that was suuuper hilarious. Trans 101 was totally interesting and very helpful to me, not having ever really known a transgender personally. I took some interesting notes on it all. It makes me feel bad because I want to say I blame society for conditioning me to live by the gender binary, but even more so I blame myself because I could have been a more deliberate, conscious thinker and not assumed the common mindset that physical body parts assign gender to people. So much more goes into it, it's crazy.
After all of that, I went and sat with Simeon and Diana and this kid John who just got to the hostel yesterday and who is from Manchester, but who went to UU (Utrecht University) for a year and just got back from visiting friends in Germany for a little.
Today, after eating breakfast with and saying goodbye to Simeon and Diana (they left to continue their travels today. Really sad to me because I loved hanging out with them especially if I was wanting to switch it up from only hanging out with the feminist gals) I attended a lecture with the group about feminism and multiculturalism that was really interesting. I took some good notes on that if anyone wants to look at them. Let me know. Once again, got really into thinking deeply about it all and got frustrated at how tangential my mind was getting. Then we took a tour of the university library and went to a feminist bookstore (insert Portlandia "Women and Women Now" reference here). Good stuff. Then we came back to the hostel, I made some din, and went on a run around the canal. Really should be reading the incredible amount of reading we have to read but instead of reading, I'm blogging.
Holy cow, sorry this is getting so long. It's turning into more of a diary than a blog. I'll keep it short from now on.
I'll conclude with a few -isms:
- Simeonisms: Blimey, good 'eavens, snogging, crikey, prevening ( pre-evening. Apparently Diana thought of that one but Simeon takes credit for it and they both embarassingly laugh about it and tell us not to take it back to the states but too late for that)
- Britisms: Cool American=Cooler Ranch Doritos (apparently America is the only place that has Ranch dressing. Imagine that), nail varnish=nail polish, and they say yogurt with a short "o" instead of a long one like us. "Y-ah-gurt"
Again, sorry for the novel/for spilling my inner thoughts. Until next time!
xx
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