So I am officially one week through my exchange experience. I'm not going to lie, the first couple of days were a little difficult but I am getting adjusted to life here in the Netherlands and meeting lots of very nice people. I am starting to feel much more at home in this city.

This first week I got lost, a lot. Most people who know me know that I'm really bad at directions and orienting myself even in cities I am familiar with so you can imagine in a new city my sense of direction was way out of sorts. I have a bike here now and an getting in with dutch culture and biking everywhere. My bike is a little bit run down but it rides so that's all I can ask for.

My first day of school here they had a drinks night for the international students which was great and gave me the opportunity to meet lots of other international students, the weird thing was that the exchange coordinators were there and the ones serving the drinks.

It rains here, like all the time but when the sun does come out it is really gorgeous. Check out my album to see some great photos I took at the school. I even discovered a secret garden inside one of the buildings, just beautiful.

The school system is great here! The professors are very friendly and approachable. On my second day of school, my professor waved to me when I was wondering around in a building which was really cool.

Things I learned this week:

-people here are very direct, apparently if you were at your aunt's house for dinner and you didn't like the meal that she made you would tell her that it wasn't very good

-the dutch love fried foods, tried bitterballen this week and there is even a deep fryer in my res kitchen

-they take coffee breaks all the time, half way through my lecture my prof has a coffee break and when I was working with a group on a project everyone took a coffee break about an hour in. Even during labs they take a coffee break. However the coffees that they drink are really tiny, it looks a little like an espresso shot, no XL tim hortens here

-the people here are exceptionally helpful,on my first day of classes a girl in one of my classes who heard I was an exchange student walked my around to make sure I could find all my classes.

I am just getting to know lots of people here but I can already tell that I am in the process of making some really fantastic friendships.

See: photographic evidence that I am making friends :)