Welcome to Montpellier

Hi from France!

First, the end of the Netherlands. I think I need a new rule-no "going out for one drink." That has led several times to me getting home way later than I am equipped for. Also, no going out the night before traveling--I have now left both Uppsala and Groningen on an hour of sleep each. I am no good at that kind of thing! Particularly when carrying this much stuff (and note you can't see the backpack):

So after a late last night in Groningen, I headed to Amsterdam. I stayed in the A-Train hotel, mainly because it is right across from the train station and has an elevator (nearly impossible to find). It was actually nice though. Train themed (nothing obnoxious, just memorabilia on the walls), and included breakfast, all the various taxes, and internet in the breakfast area for cheap. I recommend it! They also had my room available when I checked in, which was awesome. After a power nap, I headed to the Anne Frank House, which was a great museum. Very well done. I bought her diary there, as I had been meaning to read it for a long time and was so impressed by the museum. I then went home and crashed early, because the next morning, I had to catch...

A train to France! Yippee! Most of us ended up traveling by train, as the planes were more expensive and come with weight and number of bag restrictions, and buses were not good for getting here either. The train though, goes several times a day and has no baggage restrictions--if you can get it into the train, you can take it. So here's how I moved to France: Amsterdam-->Paris Nord (around 3 hours), metro to Paris Gare de Lyon-->Montpellier (3.5 hours), tram to dorm. No taxis! I impress myself :)  I had window seats the whole way and did nothing but stare out the window! It got sunny just south of Paris, and the ride from Paris to Montpellier was absolutely gorgeous. Mountains, hills, forests, ravines with streams, all things I hadn't seen in a while. And there were beautiful chateaus, villas, and a few small vineyards. Just beautiful! I was quite excited. By the time I arrived in my dorm, however, I was utterly exhausted from moving all my stuff!

The dorm room is definitely small. 100sq feet, which includes the bathroom, and most of it is built into shelves and the desk and bed, which is nice, but leaves not much floor space at all. The bathroom is tiny and the shower involves pressing a button every few seconds for the pleasure of an often cold stream of water. And the "kitchen?" It includes 2 sinks and a stove that apparently never works. So while I was complaining about not having an oven in the Netherlands, I at least had things like a microwave, or even say, a trashcan, in the kitchen. Yikes. There is a mini-fridge in my room (phew) but I am still deciding how to go about eating this semester... And my internet is awful! Even with no video, I can barely hear the other person while Skyping. This is going to be less than ideal, definitely. [A side note: I recommend never living in a dorm again once you've had a place of your own. It's not the correct progression of things! I'm already excited for the day I live in a "real place" again. So why live in the dorms you ask? Because it is impossible to find housing in Europe, and so when someone offers to deal with the foreign language and housing market and find you a place to live so you don't show up in town carrying everything you own and go "Now what," you take the offer.]

But the city is amazing. Absolutely the picture of a Mediterranean city. Lots of sandstone-colored buildings, small windy hilly streets, cafes everywhere, tons to see and do, and great vistas. It really is beautiful. Not particularly warm right now (in the 40s during the day, 30s at night) but lovely when the sun shines!

This is a huge hilltop area where I was told the king used to hunt. Great views of the city on almost all sides, and then you can walk through an Arc (de something I can't remember) and head down into the main part of the city. I spent all day Sunday walking around and realized that this place is so big I could never see it all. It should be fun!

The food in France is so much better than the Netherlands! Even just the sandwiches are great. Ahhhhh. And I had amazing lamb the other night, then mussels with fries (actually a Belgian thing) last night. Delicious!

It is also different from Holland in other ways of course. Whereas Holland is kind of unbelievably safe and self-regulated, I had been in town a mere 4 days when I was pickpocketed on the tram yesterday. Lovely. I was, however, filling out paperwork in the police station when someone handed in my wallet, missing only the cash, so I consider myself incredibly lucky. And now to be much more careful!  Haha, but since I had already canceled all my cards, I am now having to borrow money until I get my French card and can transfer money to it, so I'll be able to give anyone who wants it the super-cheap guide to Montpellier!

So, that's my first few days here in a nutshell! A bit of a whirlwind. I'm still trying to catch up on sleep from just finishing the previous semester before we start the next one on Monday. I am finished with all the administrative stuff now (new student card, bank account, phone number, etc.) and so plan to just relax a bit. I'm decorating the dorm room today, which will make it much more "mine" and nicer to be in!

Amsterdam!

Yup, I went. Amsterdam, the place everyone thinks of when you say "the Netherlands." It's like Atlanta--if I tell people I'm from Georgia, they say, "Oh, Atlanta." Or like since I'm originally from Massachusetts, I'm automatically from Boston. You know. THE city of a particular country/state/whatever.

I had actually been once before, six years ago. I hated it. I'm not usually a fan of large, crowded, hot, smelly, dirty cities. And Amsterdam is the king of large, crowded, hot, smelly, dirty cities, particularly in June, when I was there last. But living in the Netherlands, I knew I was going to have to give it another shot.

So, when one of our professors mentioned that instead of having class on Friday (Sept 24, forgive me, I've been busy!), we were going to go to a conference in Amsterdam, I knew the time had come. There were only a few issues. One, although we had been in Europe for more than a month, those scholarships they promised us still hadn't shown up. Two, we hadn't actually been signed up for the conference. We were on the waiting list, which was not good news to people who really didn't want to spend their last 50 euros on a train ticket to Amsterdam only to not get into the conference and not be able to afford a hostel for the night.

After much debate, nearly everyone went in hopes of good news. And good news it was! While we were waiting to see whether there was room for us in the conference, someone went to an ATM and discovered the scholarships had finally come in! And a few minutes later, we were let into the conference! It was a good 15 minutes.

The conference was called Biodiversity: The Decennium Assessment, because ten years ago there was a call to try to slow  biodiversity loss by the year 2010. We've failed miserably, and so 2010 is the year of biodiversity. Anyway. I won't bore you with the details, but I enjoyed it.

We got out of the conference around 6pm, and found ourselves free in Amsterdam with money! It was quite exciting. An issue though, was that since "the weather has been so nice lately" (I have no idea who decided that) nearly all accommodation in Amsterdam was full. When we couldn't find anything, the other girl in the program from the US called her boyfriend and had him do an internet search for us. The result? A Christian hostel right beside the Red Light District. You'll understand I had certain reservations. But, being desperate, we decided to go with it. Verdict? I am staying there every time we go to Amsterdam. It's cheap, clean, quiet, and breakfast is included. Jackpot. All religious aspects are optional. It was really a great place to stay.

So, accommodation acquired. The weather Friday night was actually within the standard (ie, not Dutch crazy person) definition of nice, so we decided to wander. It was beautiful. The hostel, while being near the Red Light District, is actually right beside an area called Nieuw Markt, which is a great square with lots of little outdoor restaurants and bars.  We had some fantastic Thai food, and then we set off. We wandered through the Red Light District, of course. It's a funny area to walk through. Lots of sex (toy) shops, strip clubs, etc, and then the few alleys with the curtains, red lights, and ladies. You've all heard of it.

After the Red Light district, we found a street with lots of bars. None of the people I was with really felt like drinking, so we just walked and people watched, which was great. Even early on Friday, it's clear most people who came to Amsterdam to get "messed up" have succeeded. We only lasted there for a little while.

One thing about Amsterdam is that is is built on concentric half-circle canals. What does that mean in practical terms? Keep walking and you'll end where you started. It was amazing the number of times that night we got back to a place we'd already been and had no idea how we'd done so. But it was fun. Really, when you're wandering around a scene like this, how do you not enjoy it?

So yes, we had a nice calm, boring night wandering around Amsterdam. And then slept in the nice, quiet Christian hostel.

Saturday

We started with FOAM, the photography museum. I had really high hopes, but was unfortunately disppointed. It was small, with only two exhibits, and I wasn't a big fan of either artist. There was also a larger exhibit area, but it was closed.

Oh well. Then it was on to the Van Gogh museum! It was enormously poplar (read crowded) but we were able to see tons of the great art. We also got museum cards, which apparently get us into tons of museums all over the country for free! Excited to try that later.

The diamond museum! Haha. This little building was across the street from the Rijksmuseum, a big famous art museum. After the Van Gogh museum, and seeing the line to get into the Rijks, we decided to go for the little diamond museum instead. Oh, come on, it was two girls, let us be curious! So after filling in the visitor information form, which included where we were staying (were they going to come search our place if something went missing? Hehe and the Christian hostel wasn't on the list :) we went in. It was a room with a few polishing tables, replicas of large diamonds, and some info about diamond qualities. Nothing special. But getting out of there? We deserve an award for that!! After the museum, you go first into a diamond sales room. Then a Swarovski crystal room. Then a fancy sunglasses room. Then general jewelry. Then nice Dutch pottery. Then normal tourist store Dutch souvenirs. Then postcards. Then a stand of diamond museum ponchos, and then finally a garden and a cafe. And then, just when we were beginning to worry we'd come out in China, the exit. Whoa. It was ridiculous.

After all the museums and wandering, we were exhausted. We sat down, got some coffee, and waited for our friends to be done with their conference. After we all met up, we had amazing Thai food again, grabbed a few beers in a terrace cafe, and finally headed back to Groningen. Quiet, clean Groningen. Only this time, I was leaving Amsterdam thinking it was a place I'd check out again, not somewhere I never wanted to set foot in again. Good trip!

And the weather? It was nice except for when it was hailing. Yes, hailing. I was still wearing my sunglasses and suddenly it was pouring. And even more suddenly it was hailing instead. Oh, Dutch weather.