It's already been two weeks...?

Hellooooo! Or should I say goedenavond? It's already been two weeks since I've arrived in Maastricht; I can't believe it! These past two weeks have been very eventful, with trips and lectures and class and everything. The group I'm with in my program took five four-hour classes of Dutch Culture and Language... In such a short period of time, I went from knowing next to nothing about the language to knowing a lot! I'll put some stuff here that I learned!

• Hallo! Hi! (hello)
• Hoi hoi! (goodbye in dialect)
• 1-10: een, twee, drie, vier, vijf, zes, zeven, acht, negen, tien
• 11-20: elf, twaalf, dertien, viertien, vijftien, zestien, zeventien, achttien, negentien, twintig
• 21: eenentwintig (literally "one and twenty")
• Frietjes (fries) -- one of the most important things

I think I'll leave it at that for now. Anyways, I've learned a lot about the Netherlands in these past two weeks than I could ever have learned on my own. It's really nice to have a schedule and classes to learn about the country, even though sometimes we have to wake up so early.

The group I'm with is really cool! I haven't talked much with all of them yet, but from what I can tell, they're all pretty awesome. I have classes with a few of them and it feels good to be able walk into a class and know someone already. (Classes start in like a week but it's all goooood). I'm kind of looking forward to classes but the class system at the university I'm going to is different than what I'm used to. It's called problem-based learning, and the class sizes are waaay smaller than what is normal for me. I think there will be group projects and participation is a must, so hopefully there isn't a constant shouting of answers by other people so that the quieter people can get in a few participation points here and there (AKA me).

The food here is alrightttt, I cook more than I eat out, which is good! I'm saving money hehe. The fries here are pretty good. And stroopwafels and crumble vlaai and the Basilica bitterballen are so good... I could eat it all day every day. Hopefully orientation on Monday has the crumble vlaai because I have been craving it for the past few days! I had a Maastricht specialty a few days ago; it was meat and fries, but the meat was kind of sour since it was cooked with vinegar and something else that I can't remember. But it was pretty tender! Fries and mayo here are everywhere and that was a side dish that we got for dinner that day.

The weather here has been gloomy. It's been raining almost every day since I've been here... I think it should get better in a bit though! I'm so glad I brought my rainboots and my last-minute purchase of my rainproof thin jacket from Ross that has been keeping me pretty dry these past couple of weeks. Hopefully it stops raining and becomes summer again. I really want it to be warmer because I brought way more warm weather clothes than cold... Gahhh

Anyways, I'll probably have to end this here. These past two weeks have been really fun! I went to Aachen, Amsterdam, Delft, and Brussels! And my friends and I just booked an awesome trip for next week! I'll go into it some other time :) But for now I leave you with a group picture from when we went to Amsterdam last week!