The Kalina's take on Amsterdam

Hello dedicated readers and people who have nothing better to do. Last week I was fortunate to have my parents and brother fly out here to see what it's all about. We had a blast. We were able to hit up all of the local hotspots: Anne Frank, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, the markets, the Jewish Historical Museum, the Red Light District, the pubs, the coffeeshops and we even had enough time to go on an excursion outside the city of Amsterdam to various fishing towns, a cheese farm and some place with lots of windmills. We also had an excellent diet as we ate from all of the major food groups: Dutch, Italian, Argentinian, Chinese, and of course, the bakeries. This is making me hungry.

It's Saturday afternoon and I have a lot going on. John and Dave arrive in Amsterdam today. I'm going to meet them at their hotel shortly. My friend Bryan from Marist is currently visiting, he's actually asleep on the couch right now. As expected October flew by. It's just one thing after the other. My parents were here from last Wednesday-Sunday, Bryan arrived Tuesday and is here until Monday, John and Dave arrive today for a few days and then Thursday I'm off to Prague. Life's tough huh?

All in all, everything is just going by so fast. I'm trying my best to keep up and take in everything. Tonight there is a big event in Amsterdam called Museumnacht. It is difficult to describe so I'll just quote the handbook: "On Saturday the 1st of November 2008 Amsterdam will celebrate Museum Night. For the ninth year in a row 41 museums and institutions will open their doors and organize special events. The programme includes DJ's, bands, dance performances, film, food & drinks amongst the permanent and temporary exhibitions of the museums themselves." I'm not sure exactly what to expect but it sounds pretty cool so I'll let you know how it goes. I have updated the pictures on my other website so go check them out at http://community.webshots.com/user/bkalina.

That's all for now, thanks for reading.

The days go by and I'm still alive...

Hey everyone! It is currently 11am on Thursday morning. It is officially my weekend as I only have classes Monday-Wednesday. Mairead was here last Thursday-Tuesday and we had a GREAT time. We went to Van Gogh and all of the outdoor markets which she really enjoyed. On Tuesday, we did the Anne Frank house. It was almost surreal knowing what went on in there. They have the diary on display. The walls of Anne's room are exactly as she had left them (with the pictures of famous people). We were able to go behind the bookcase into the secret annex and see where it all took place. That was very cool. However, my favorite part was the end. They have a video that described when Otto (Anne's father) returned from Auschwitz to find out that he was the sole survivor of the family. At first he was unaware of the fate of his two children, but then a woman came to him with a declaration of their deaths (which they also have on display). Shortly after Otto discovers his daughters diary and offers his reaction to it in the video. It was just so bizarre knowing that all of this happened right on my street.

In my Dutch Social Policy class on Monday morning we had two trans-gender people come and give a presentation to our class. They represented an organization called "De Noodles" that works to put pressure on politicians with their main focus being health care and legislation. I'm not going to comment too much on this, but one thing that is worth noting is that the Dutch health care system will pay for sex reassignment surgery, should one so desire (no joke).

The future for me consists of my family coming Wednesday, John and Dave coming Nov. 1 (and Bryan?), I'm going to Prague November 6 to see Mairead, Florence Nov. 13 to see Bryan, and hopefully Paris the last weekend of November. Basically I'm trying to travel as much as I can while I'm here. There's not much else going on, it's the same old Amsterdam. I'm going to watch last nights debate now to feel somewhat connected to what's going on over there.

That's all for now, thanks for reading.

My Trip To Belgium

Waffles, chocolate and beer. That is what Belgium is known for and for good reason. I woke up bright and early on Saturday and hopped on a 9 o'clock bus headed towards Brussels, Belgium. I went with two friends that are in my program here in Amsterdam named Chris and Gin. We had a hostel booked for us for Saturday night but other than that, we really had no idea what we were going to do. Despite our lack of Belgian knowledge we had a great time!

The bus ride was 3.5 hours so by 1 o'clock we were roaming the streets of Brussels. It was a very cool city. The architecture was absolutely ridiculous. I'm not even going to try to justify the detail that was put into some of the buildings, you'll just have to look at my pictures (they'll be up shortly). We saw the Grand Place, the Royal Palace, some giant cathedral and the Justice Palace among many other breathtaking sights. We wandered around trying various Belgian beers all of which were soooo good. The Stella Artois we had there could give any beer in the world a run for its money (and it was cheap too).

Sunday morning we woke up and had a famous Belgian waffle. Mine had whipped cream and chocolate sauce on it. It basically tasted like I was eating heaven. We wandered around for a couple more hours in the pouring rain and saw some more really cool buildings. I can't say enough about the architecture in this city. We then picked up some of those famous chocolates to bring back and caught a 6:30 bus back to the 'Dam. All three of us were talking about how cool it is that we get to go home to Amsterdam. We were disappointed to leave Brussels, but we got over it pretty quickly. So now it's back to reality and I have a ton of work to do because I have a special visitor coming this weekend.

That's all for now, thanks for reading.

My pictures are now up at http://community.webshots.com/album/567738502RhEhiv

Hey!

Alright, so I decided that I should probably do a blog to let everyone know what I've been up to. I've been in Amsterdam for about 5 weeks now and I love this place. Everything is backwards and upside down but it works. Everyone (myself included) rides a bicycle. All of the roads cater to cars, pedestrians and bikes. Biking is really the best way to get around here as I can ride to the complete opposite side of the city in 20 minutes or less, making all of Amsterdam easily accessible.

So I've been keeping really busy. I'm taking four classes that require lots of work. My favorite is Dutch Social Policy. Topics that we cover include drugs, prostitution, gender & sexuality, etc. As I'm sure you all know The Netherlands have very liberal views on just about everything. Drugs are legal. Prostitution is legal. So it is interesting to find out the effects these laws (or lack thereof) have on society and see if their way works. I'll talk about that some other time if you're really interested. My class took a trip to a homeless/drug user shelter. These are your typical homeless shelters except many of them are equipped with what are called "user rooms" for the purpose of providing a safe and clean environment for the drug addicts to come and, well, do their drugs (we're talking hard drugs here, not marijuana). That was very interesting because in America, they would be thrown in jail and rehab and be forced to quit whereas the Dutch let people live life however they choose (even if they don't agree with it) and try to make it as safe as possible. Today my class took a walking tour of the red light district. Oh yeah, our tour guide was a prostitute. She talked a lot about prostitution from her unique perspective and then opened up a window for us to go in and check out. So technically I was sitting in a window in the red light district. Ha.

I've also done a lot on my own outside of class. I've been to the Van Gogh museum. That was very cool. I went to a city about 1.5 hours away called Den Haag or The Hague. The International Criminal Court and the World Peace Palace are just some of the many important government buildings in this city. I also got to see the capital of the EU and the Queen's palace at The Hague. Anne Frank used to live right down the street from me. I pass by it everyday and there are usually massive lines out in front of it. I haven't been inside yet only because I'm sure some of my visitors will want to.

The nightlife is fun. The beer is great. There's live music everywhere. Everyone speaks English. The Dutch are very nice. There are a whole lot of coffee shops. I've had 3 friends come visit already, that was fun. I don't really know what else to say. Hopefully I'll keep this up and let you know what it's like to live in The Netherlands. I miss being home, but I don't regret doing this.

That's all for now, thanks for reading.