This is my room!

Sushi

My new Japanese friend and I were tired of eating spaghetti for dinner, so we went out to eat sushi. We sat in the best part of the restaurant where we were required to take our shoes off. I shocked him with my ability to use chopsticks and I was shocked that he ate the entire ball of wasabi! He explained that the Japanese are not satisfied with their meal until they feel burn of the wasabi! I am quickly learning that everyone in my program is pretty ambitious. My Japanese friend just graduated from college but he has already founded an elementary school in Kenya with 93 students. Pretty impressive! He is here to learn more about securing a future for his students.

Mice Like Dirty Underwear

Tes and I at a nearby park

The university I am attending has a School of Development called Institute of Social Studies or ISS. All the ISS students are from all over the world and live in one of the eight student hostels or dorms. So far, I am living in a building with students from India, Indonesia, Germany, Ethiopia, and Vietnam. Tes, is my new friend from Vietnam and she is Catholic too! She is here to study Children Youth and Development and will do field research in India at Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity. Soo Cool! On Tuesday we helped out the church in the soup kitchen. We carpooled with other parishioners (an Irish and a Sri Lankan- I have only met one Dutch person!) to Rotterdam where the nuns feed and house women and children who have escaped domestic violence. When we arrived, Tes was ecstatic to discover that the nuns we were working with were from the same order as Mother Teresa, Missionaries of Charity!

This is where the nuns live.

After spending time with Tes, she has taught me a few things about Vietnamese culture.Such as "no" means "yes." When you offer someone a favor and the person responds "no" that probably means "yes." Also, it is generous to put food on someones plate while they are eating and you have to eat everything on your plate or its insulting. Later Tes asked me if I wash my underwear everyday. I told her no. She looked at me in discuss as if I said I wear the same dirty underwear everyday. I explained I have multiple pairs. Then she listed the benefits of washing your underwear daily. If anyone was going to convince me to wash my underwear every day, Tes knew exactly how to do it. She told me that if I didn't wash my underwear mice would come! Because mice love dirty underwear! Eww!

Ready, Set, Go!

California from the plane

The Hague

This is a cafe over looking a canal. Visit and we shall go!

Bikes, Canals, Flowers

I am in Holland! I am going to study a Masters in Human Rights, Development, and Social Justice in The Hague! I arrived on Friday with a 50lb suit case and 50lbs in my carry on. Thank you Breana for fitting it all in. This is what packing with Breana looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bd5YUEOwlE   She is Magical! There are plenty of things I left behind thinking I would be able to buy these things here. I went shopping to buy groceries, school supplies, boots, kitchenware, and toiletries. There is no one stop shop store like a Target or Walmart where I could have bought everything on my list in a couple of hours and paid the lowest price. No, I have spent the last few days wondering around store to store and I am lucky if I am able to leave a store with one item from my list. I was already familiar that in Europe there is no such thing as "opened 24hour," everything is closed by 5pm, and the stores are not opened on Sunday. In addition to this, Holland doesn't operate on Mondays. Needless to say, I am making a slow progress on my shopping list.