I forgot to mention last night that some girls helped me cut my bangs last night. I laughed that it's funny to do girly things like spontaneously cutting each others hair when I don't like with lots of them anymore. We cut them quite a bit, but I like how they turned out. They made me do the first chop, because it was probably 3" or more. After that, Emily trimmed it up while five girls watched. (I'm not even kidding... I felt like I was on parade at the circus!)
Today, we had our first photography class, and I finally felt in my element. We talked about really basic things like shutter speed, aperture, ISO and the predefined settings - things I already kind of know about, but have never been formally taught. I could finally answer questions and seem somewhat intelligent!
In the afternoon, we had a group trip to Amersfoort, a small city in center Netherlands. Because we missed a connecting train in Amsterdam, the trip ended up lasting about 2 hours.
We went to a contemporary art museum to see an exhibit called "Wonderland." The art was all mediums and was based off of the "Alice in Wonderland" story. Some of the pieces were very interesting, and some were eccentric or just odd. After the museum, we walked around with our professors for a while.
We saw medieval gates and the houses that comprised the walls of the city. There was also a huge church tower that didn't have a church. There was a small church at one time, but as our director Staaf said, "it disappeared long ago."
This evening, Allison and I discussed our travels. Paris and Rome have always been at the top of our lists, so we focused on them first. Paris seemed more doable this weekend, but it was frustrating to find a reasonably priced train ticket.
Amazingly, a flight on a Dutch airline from Amsterdam to Paris ended being the cheapest option. We leave early Friday morning and return late Sunday evening. Essentially, we will have almost three full days in Paris! I'm very excited, but there is a lot of planning to do in the next two days!!
Tomorrow we're going on another group field trip to Den Haag (The Hague). We really have no idea what we will be doing, but we know we'll be there all day. One thing I do know is that we're going to the M.C. Escher museum, and I am REALLY excited about that!
Mom asked me today whether I can read or understand any of the Dutch language, and the truth is... not really. We make somewhat educated/somewhat logical guesses, but we have been wrong many times. A few words look similar, but many are entirely different.
This is a problem with going to restaurants and grocery stores. We guess at the menu until we have something that sounds like we know what it is (kaas/cheese, tonjin/tuna, koffie/coffee) and/or don't know what exactly we're buying at the store (butter/cheese, turkey/chicken).
It is also VERY hard to understand Dutch when it is being spoken. We didn't even know the names of our professors for almost a week, because we couldn't understand what they were saying. That's not saying their English isn't good though!
This is an example of a menu from a koffie store... I ordered the cappuccino because I knew what it was.
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