The trip and day 1

  Leiden, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Hello from Leiden, Netherlands!

Minus a few (or a lot of) tears at the airport, my trip went pretty well! Both of my flights were more or less on time. My flight from St. Louis to Detroit seemed like it took all of 10 minutes, and no one sat next to me. The Detroit airport was surprisingly really nice. I had no fear of being shanked or losing any of my 100000 pounds of stuff.
The flight from Detroit to Amsterdam was long. long. long. Besides being, well, long, it was annoying! We had one of those stupid little dogs on our flight. As most of you know my hatred for stupid little dogs, I wasn't exactly "happy." After a crap load of turbulance, they were finally able to serve our dinner. I was planning to sleep after dinner was done, but then came more turbulance and then the stupid dog started barking ... and continued barking until the flight was over ... so ridiculous!
The travel from the airport to school didn't go exactly as planned. About 7 of us had flights that got in w/ in an hour. We thought baggage claim would all be in one general location, but it wasn't. So I wondered around aimlessly looking sad and lost for about an hour, until I finally decided to give up and attempt the train by myself. As I was walking up to the ticket booth, another girl yelled over to me ... she said I looked lost enough to be looking for the rest of the crew. She had found one of the other the guys. The 3 of us waited around for a while and then said screw it, and headed on to Leiden. Apparently the other girls found each other, b/c they were at the dorm when I got there later.
Anyway ... The city is soooooo quaint and cute:

Canals

There are canals and little boats everywhere. The city has quite a bit of history (as I think I said in the first entry). Today we were walking around gathering all of things we didn't manage to fit into our bags, and we found the church where the pilgrims (like the nina, pinta, santa maira pilgrims) took off for the U.S. It's beutiful (Dad, this pic is for you!)

Pilgrim Church

Our dorms are pretty nice, they could use a little color, but I'm not complaining. Our hanging out area, desk, and closet are all on the main floor of the room, and then we climb this little ladder (dangerous regardless of intoxication level) up to our beds ...

Lower Level of Room

Top Level of Room

Looking off the Loft

We went out last night to a local pub/restaurant. It's amazing how fast the dollars disappear (especially when they are Euros ;) The local beers are delicious, and I plan on trying out a few more over the next couple of months!

Other than that, we've been exploring the city and sleeping. Nothing too exciting yet. Orientation starts tomorrow, and we head to Amsterdam again ... hopefully more entertaining things will come!

Don't miss me too much!
Kisses!
B

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