The Hotel Benelux

My hotel is very close to where my apartment is, so I will be able to walk my luggage over with no difficulty. The biggest issue I will probably have with the move from the hotel to the apartment is getting my bags down the stairs here at the hotel.

The Benelux Hotel notes in its website that it does not have an elevator. Which was fine. I figured I could carry my luggage up the stairs if I needed to (although I was fervently hoping that I wouldn’t get a room on the 6th floor (7th floor American, because in Europe the 1st floor is the floor above the ground floor). I got a room on the 2nd floor so I only had two flights to carry my bags up. But what flights they are . . .

This is the flight of stairs leading from street level, where there is a café, to the first floor where the hotel office is.

 These are the stairs to the second floor, where my room is located. They are really, really steep. They are also really, really narrow. And really, really shallow. It is rather like climbing a ladder with a 50 pound bag.

 This is my room at the hotel.  It is tiny but it does have an en suite bathroom of sorts, which makes up for a lot.  The chair is folded up because when it is unfolded you cannot open the closet.  The room does have a TV but you can tell they feel kind of guilty about it because they put it as far out of the way as possible.






Dutch TV is funny because most of it was American TV shows with Dutch subtitles but with Dutch commercials.
My favorite commercial is a Burger King commercial which refers to the Whopper's "barbecue smaak" presumabely referring to its flame broiled taste.

Ik ben aangekomen!

I hope that that is the correct way to say, in Dutch, “I have arrived!” If it’s not, I hope I didn’t just say something bad.
I got into Amsterdam just fine. Going through Iceland, I only had an hour-and-a-half lay over and, since they made us go through customs and additional security “before being released to mingle with the general airport population,” I only just had time to get to my gate before my flight to Amsterdam left.
Coming into Keflavik Airport (the main Airport in Reykjavík) was pretty interesting because the airport is right on the edge of the island. Flying in, you are right over the ocean and you fly in very low, over the edge of the coast and land right in the middle of a giant marsh.

Keflavik Airport and IcelandAir are very psyched about being Icelandic. They have all kinds of “fun facts” about how amazing Iceland is on their napkins, walls, and on television commercials. Many of the commercials make fun of Americans and the fact that they do not know that Iceland is part of Europe/is very cool. The Airport itself was very different than your average airport. There was no seating at the gates—the gates were just holes in the hallway between the “Iceland Experience—See, buy, remember” gift shops. Also, there were no boarding instructions—all 180 people on the flight boarded in whatever order they preferred. It made things take a little longer.
I took the train from Amsterdam to Rotterdam Centraal Station. I then took a taxi to my hotel. My taxi driver was very nice. He pointed out several weird buildings (for which Rotterdam is apparently known), suggested good places to catch the tram, and pointed out the local Aldi grocery store.

The Building on the left is the headquarters of a Dutch software company and the slanted face is covered with lights that flash is a variety of patterns all day long.

 This is the newest, and fanciest, bridge across the Maas (also called the Meuse) River which runs through the middle of Rotterdam and which I will have to cross every day on the way to and from school.

 This is a block of “cube” houses. One of them is painted dark purple. They are part of a large apartment complex.

This is a very tall, unbalanced looking building. Apparently, shortly after it was built, they wanted it to be elsewhere, so they put the whole thing on wheels and moved it over a hundred feet or so.

Language School FUN!

I have received official confirmation of my registration for the Dutch Language Intensive course which begins 1 August which means that I should be leaving in three weeks or so, provided my visa gets sorted out.  I will have 6 hours of language training per day for three weeks and then a week or so off before my regular classes starts in which I might get to do some traveling.  Also, if I get passing marks on my final exam in the language class, I get a refund of my tuition money as part of a University sponsored scholarship, so here's hopping that I am better at languages than I thought I was.

I have registered for an apartment as well.  "Stadswonen" is a bunch of apartments and rooms specifically for exchange students where the rents are governed by the University.  My room will be in the "African Inn" which is part of the exchange student housing and community areas (it is several blocks square) generally inhabited by students from Africa (the Dutch had a very recent colonial connection which, apparently, increases their cultural and education associations with lots of different peoples).  It is a little studio apartment and it is ~$800-$820 dollars per month (depending on the status of the dollar) but it has a private bath (which is a given neither in Europe nor in university housing) and a kitchenette, which should be awfully nice, and plenty of security, which should make Mom happy.  It is about 4 miles from the University and across the river but there is, theoretically at least, ample public transportation in case of rain or oversleeping.

In a couple of weeks I will be driving to Michigan again, to get some final paperwork taken care of, and then it is off, into the wild  blue yonder. . .

Rotterdam, the Netherlands

As a part of my PhD program at Central Michigan University (Mt. Pleasant, Michigan), I will (God willing and Dutch customs officials permitting) be studying abroad this coming academic year.  If all goes well, and if I ever get around to writing my thesis, I will even be able to get a Master's degree diploma written in Dutch.

I will be attending Erasmus University Rotterdam, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.  The whole program is in English, which makes it much easier, but I will be attempting to learn enough Dutch to make getting around more entertaining and to make research more convenient.  I will be studying in the "History and Modern Society" program but I will be focusing on Early Modern Dutch political thought (~1500-1700 AD) particularly looking at the ways in which they justified resistance to the Spanish king.  I also might be looking at the influence of English ex-patriots who settled in the Netherlands while fleeing the Marian persecution, some of whom remained and founded English speaking churches which are still extant.

Hopefully, I will also get to do some traveling for fun.  Rotterdam is very convenient for this as it seems like it is just about 2-4 hours from anywhere in Europe.  I am hopping to visit Copenhagen, Denmark (because who doesn't like Vikings and the Little Mermaid), the Czech Republic (because I have a friend who used to live there and who wrote me letters about it and because it is one of the older, cheaper type places in Europe), Albania (because they have a heroic history and because no one else ever goes there) the U.K. (because I have wanted to see the British Museum ever since I started reading about Egyptology, because you can see a matinee of a Shakespeare play, at the Globe theatre, for about $12, and because I know a lot of people there, including Penny (Schultz) Philip) and any place which was formerly inhabited by ancestors of me (because it is fun to say you saw the places that your family couldn't get away from fast enough).  Unfortunately, every time I look at a travel guide, I keep thinking of more places I never realized I couldn't live without having gone to see, so we will see how much time I spend studying and how much time I spend trying to see everything that ever happened anywhere in Europe.

In any case, I thought that, since I tend to be bad about remembering to correspond, and since I might be in places where it would take a really long time to upload pictures to email, that I would try to kill a few birds with one stone by 1) letting everyone know that I am not dead yet, 2) showing off some of my pictures and telling all my funny traveling stories while I still remember them, and 3) allowing everyone to say "Oh, I think I already heard all about that . . ." when I come back to the States and whip out my giant photo album.

Feel free to enjoy, ignore, or share, as seems convenient.