As soon as I tracked down a grocery store in which to buy my strippen kaart, and did just that, I went down to catch the number eleven bus. Whilst waiting, I met another student from the summer program I was attending. She was odd. We rode the bus to our summer school office and waited in line together to receive our welcome-packets and instructions. Unfortunately my "friend" and I had to part ways at the bus stop to our dorms because she was going to be attending Universiteit Utrecht rather than Universiteit College Utrecht.
On the bus I met another UCU student who I recognized from our orientation meetings at UCSB. We got to talking and missed our stop, but we talked to the bus driver who thankfully was turning around and had him indicate our stop on the way back. The confusion didn't end on the bus. While it was easy for us to navigate our way down Prins Heindricklaan, the street leading to school, when at school, the vague directions given to us regarding our dorms became a real issue. Both fatigued from our long trips, my compatriot and I walked around campus trying to match the letter-number combination from our notes to a building. Our notes indicated that we would be staying at Campusplein, but unfortunately for us, that was marked on every major building and was the name of the field int he middle of campus. After fifteen minutes of desperation, we finally found another student who indicated that the buildings we were by were academic buildings rather than dormitories. We walked until finding a map to guide us and realized that as most customs in Europe are, our letter-number combination was backwards, and the numbers indicated the numbers of each suite in a particular building, while the letters indicated our room within the suite. With this information in mind, we parted ways towards our respective dorms.
Though the walk to the dorm was quick and painless, getting inside was another layer of confusion. Neither of the two keys on our rather bulky fob opened up the front door, leading me to take another couple of laps around the building looking for an alternate entrance. When none was found, I tried again and discovered that the key fob itself was an electronic key that no one had bothered to tell us about. I went in my suite and opened my door. The room was quite spacious and after choosing my bed and exploring my suite, I finally took the opportunity to lay down.
Following my brief rest and unpacking, I took a shower and prepared myself for the event later in the day: a meet and greet. Soon after my shower, I met my new roommate, a fellow UCSB student who I also recognized from our orientation. After he inadvertently set off our fire alarm by walking out of a clearly-marked fire door, I got ready and left with him very early for our event. We successfully bussed back to the main part of the city and with our spare time went exploring.
We walked around for the better part of an hour, getting flicked off after photographing a traveling puppet show (one that you would have to experience to really get the full effect of), and then headed towards our meet and greet.
Time to go out again, more later...
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