the netherlands

utrecht (i think this is how you spell it)



raw haring with onions. quite the delicacy here in holland

eating at a pancake house for dinner
in utrecht
dinner in utrecht with marco, denny, and jan
playin soccer, i mean futbol. i had one of me playing but for some reason it wouldn't upload. but no worries, i'm awful at soccer.
random deer park here in oistervijk. i have no idea how they get these deer to stay inside the fence

in the fire station with our dutch friends




as you can probably tell, this uniform was way to small for me.
jan learning how to use chopsticks

US vs the Netherlands. as you can tell, we were gettin pretty bored waiting for our train

denny, jan, myself, and marco. overall a great day.

so i recently realized that I haven't updated this blog in quite some time. the last three weeks we have been in a conference center in oistervijk. during this time we have had class everyday (monday thru saturday) from 8:45 am to 12:15pm. the classes here, international trade and finance and global marketing, have been pretty interesting but at the same time, i'm glad they are over. in the course of these past three weeks, i have had 4 tests, one 6 page paper, a multitude of small assignments and article summaries, and a 30 minute presentation. but don't worry, it hasn't been all work and no play here. most days a group of us will get a ultimate frisbee game or soccer game going, which has been a great way to relieve stress and get some excercise in. another cool thing is we all have bikes here, which is great cause we have been able to tour around towna and see some of the neighboring town. the weather here is kinda funky. most days it has rained for part of the day, then been sunny and nice, but the last 3-4 days have been overcast and rainy. but due to the fact we have had two finals in the last two days, we've been quite busy studying and haven't been too distracted to go out side.

i think i mentioned this in a blog post before this trip, but in january, myself and my roommate and buddy, Denny, hosted a dutch student, Jan. Last week, our group visited his university in Ede, had a tour of the school along with some presentations, and then we went to a nearby town, Utrecht, for a city tour and dinner. what was sweet about all this is Jan was there and we were able to catch up with him and several other dutch students we had met. then this past tuesday, Jan and Marco met up with denny and I for the afternoon and evening. we hopped on multiple trains until we reached were jan works, which is at a firestation. after a quick tour of the station, we proceded to put on the uniforms and pose in front of the firetrucks (see photos above). after that we had chinese food and headed back to oistervijk. i think we were together from 1:30pm to 10:30pm and i'd say we spent about 6 of those hours on a train or in a train station. but it was cool to see the majority of western and southern holland in that time period and we had lots of time to catch up and stuff.

tomorrow we head out to the hague for a few days and amsterdam for one. after that paris for a few days (where we will finish up our final class days) and london for several days (where we will have our last final!!) then home on the 31st.