Seaside.

Finally I managed to get to the seaside. I cycled through the dunes, then sat by the sea, went for a barefoot walk along the water and just enjoyed my time. Good way to celebrate the end of my year abroad. It was hot and sunny, and it was one of very few days when I didn't need to worry about anything.

Shame I don't have enough days now to enjoy such moments more. But exciting things are coming up. Teach First insight programme starts next week, and then there's the summer camp. Something to keep myself busy at last. I'm slightly anxious about all these things, because they're so new, but I'm positive. Getting out of my box is scary, but I will learn a lot I feel. And I'll have fun. I need it now more than ever.

Year abroad roundup.

That's it then. My year abroad is over and I'll soon pack up my suitcase and go on some summer adventures.

It's been an interesting year. I've accumulated some knowledge which hopefully will be useful next year. I've overcome my fears, even though flying is still not my favourite, I can probably handle it now.I've become a theatre director, explored Zumba and found peace in a colouring book for adults. I had plenty of time catch my breath after two year of Oxford marathons, plenty of time to bake, read and drink cup after cup of tea. I've learnt a lot about myself: about who I am, what's important for me and what I would like to do in life.

I became closer to my sister. I had six months of the best relationship in my life. If this wasn't love, then I don't know what is. Now I know how to recognise substitutes for which I'll never settle. Even though there's a lot of pain and tears I need to get through now, I hope I'll manage to gather the pieces together at some point and be happy.

Do I regret going away for a year? Not at all. Quite frankly, I had the best time of my life here. I missed Oxford, all the friends there and the rhythm of life I was used to, but in Leiden I've experienced some of my happiest moments.

But I'm actually glad to be leaving. Captain America made Leiden special for me, but now is the time to move on, I don't belong here. For the next month or so I'll be in and out of the Netherlands and after that I'll need to deal with my stacks of books and notes (- take to Ox - sell on - throw away -), pack up all the accumulated postcards, posters, pictures and other memorabilia, sort out transport and I'll be on my way home. At last.

Too much work. Or too little?

I was repeatedly told that I would have no work during my year abroad. However I was actually kept pretty busy for at least a good chunk of my time in Leiden. And it's only today that I've realised why.

It's not so much that Oxford's workload is so heavy that compared to it my year abroad workload is nothing. At the end of the day across this year I managed to do 11 courses, for all of which I had to read textbooks, cases, articles, write an odd assignment, and pass an exam at the end.

The real issue here is that Oxford workload is crammed into three eight-week long terms and here there are two semesters spanning over eight-nine months. So there's simply more time and the work can be distributed. This year, instead of panicking if I can get through all the assigned reading AND produce some sensible work, I could just plan ahead giving myself enough time for each task, not rushing through it. I simply don't have this comfort at Oxford at all. I need to meet all the deadlines, rush through excessive reading lists and somehow fit in attending lectures and tutorials around all this work. It's no fun quite frankly.

This has probably been the best part of my year abroad. Having time to do work. And other things beside it. I'll miss it in October for sure.

Never as easy as you predict aka Joys of travelling.

It was supposed to be so easy and comfortable. But it never turns out this way.

Obviously something had to happen to my nice and straightforward trip to Munich on a night train from Amsterdam. Obviously. And it obviously did. The Germans decided to go on strike on the very day of my journey. It happens, I had to deal with multiple travel strikes in my life. So after checking my travel options, I’ve cycled to Leiden Centraal in hope that they would be able to help me rebook my travel. They weren’t. Leiden cannot deal with international travel at all. The lady at the service desk kindly sent me to Den Haag. It was just past 11am at this point.

So, with not much choice now, I’ve cycled back home, and no one has ever seen me cycling this fast on an empty stomach. Within less than 30 minutes I managed to: attempt to reach the NS International Customer Service 3 times (no response), pack myself for the week (although packing is a bit of an exaggeration, since it was pretty much just throwing random pieces of clothing, cosmetics and an extra pair of shoes into a suitcase) and unload the washing machine and hang all the wet clothes on a drying rack. I think it’s pretty impressive for 30 minutes.

Then I raced back to the station, with a suspiciously heavy suitcase tucked into my front basket, and caught the first available train to Den Haag. It was 12:02 when I got there.

Of course the ticket service place was crowded with people trying to sort out their journey, thankfully, thought by my entire Dutch experience of queuing, I did acquire a number ticket, which probably speeded things up a bit. The lady at this service desk made a funny face when I showed her my ticket. Presumably I wasn’t the first one enquiring into the German strike situation. After a series of data input operation and a call to someone more competent, I’ve finally got my rebooked ticket. Well, I didn’t actually get a new tickets, instead I got a beautiful blue sticker with a lot of German on it and some scribbles. I was a bit unsure how legitimate such a solution was, but decided to have faith in the competence of the service desk lady.

With my revised ticket in my hand, I caught the first possible train to Utrecht Centraal. Apparently this is the biggest and busiest station in the Netherlands and indeed there was a lot of people running around. With over two hours to spare, I had to organise snacks for the eight-hour journey and some lunch since at this point I could no longer ignore the rambling of my stomach. I’ve had some ready-made AH sushi, which I wouldn’t recommend. It was filling, but you’d probably be better off splashing out on some proper sushi. Not as if I had my choice being rather unkeen on leaving the station and potentially getting lost in Utrecht.

Finally, at 15:02 I boarded the ICE train which was supposed to take me to Dusseldorf. But it didn’t. Somewhere around the Dutch-German border we managed to hit a car. After over an hour of waiting we were assured that the driver was fine. As much as I appreciate the fact that the train I was on did not kill anyone, at that point I was already late for my next connection train and would appreciate some information about the length of the delay, but the only thing we were told was that ‘the waiting time is yet unknown’.

It turned out that our train was unfit for continuing the rest of the journey, so we managed to very slowly roll to Emmerich, which is a small German village in the middle of nowhere, and change trains. At 18:42 I made it to Duisburg. From there, another train (it turned out that the change was completely unnecessary, although this particular train seemed to be going much faster) to Dusseldorf.

At 19:27 I happily sat down on a train to Munich. Or so I thought. When the ticket controller came  round it turned out that I’m on a wrong coach. That part of the train only ran to Stuttgart. And no, it wasn’t possible to simply walked over, I had to wait until we get to Cologne and then get off the train and back on onto the next coach. To be honest I was pretty lucky that the man came over at this time and told me that I was in a wrong place, otherwise I would have ended up in Stuttgart, not knowing that I wouldn’t be going any further.

00:27, finally there. Without any surprises. At a certain point I honestly thought that I would not make it to Munich, I simply had enough of all these train problems. Hopefully when I’ll be getting back next week it won’t be so complicated. But you never know with me. I tend to attract weird chains of events. Just to keep me entertained at all times.

Good Ol' Apple Pie.

Who doesn't like a good old apple pie? Dutch cuisine is not the most elaborate one (mashed potatoes and cabbage seem to be two most important ingredients), but I do like Dutch apple pie. In Amsterdam there is a cafe called Winkel 43, where they serve probably the best apple pie in the city. However, making a 40 minute train trip to Amsterdam every time you feel like having a piece of an apple pie might not be the most cost-effective way to deal with your sweet tooth. Alas!

Thankfully, making an apple pie is dead simple. Here is a recipe which I used to make mine this time. I've made it in a lasagne dish 22cm x 17cm, halving all the amounts from a recipe for 22cm round cake tin.

INGREDIENTS

Pastry

150g flour + extra for dusting

60g caster sugar

salt

100g chilled butter + extra for greasing

1 egg yolk

Apple filling

1/4cupbutter

1.5 tbls flour

1/8 cup water
1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar

3-4 firm apples (Elsar, Jona Gold), peeled and sliced
handful of raisins (optional)

2 tsp cinnamon

METHOD

1. Combine flour, sugar and a pinch of salt. Dice butter and mix into the floor using a knife to cut butter into smaller pieces. Add egg yolk and knead everything together. Press 2/3 of the pastry into a bottom and sides of a 24cm spring form greased with butter. Refrigerate the form and remaining dough while you make the apple filling.

2. Preheat the over to 220C.

3. Melt butter in a pan. Add flour to make paste. Then add water, white sugar and brown sugar, bring to boil and then turn down the heat and simmer for a couple of minutes.

4. Combine apples, raisins and cinnamon. Mix with half of flour mixture. Spread over the pastry base.

5. Roll out the rest of the pastry and cut into 1 cm strips. Arrange a criss-cross pattern on the top of the apple mixture, pressing the pastry edges together. Slowly pour the rest of the

6. Bake for 15 minutes, then turn down the heat to 175C and bake for another 35-45 minutes until apples are soft. Let cool down so that the filling sets.

I think that my apple pie looks rather grand.

Enjoy!

Efteling!

Captain America has been absolutely wonderful and took me to Efteling for our 6 month anniversary! 

Efteling is a theme park and I've been there before, but really wanted to go again. I had so much fun on all of the rides, including the Python on which I was too scared to go last time (a double loop is not necessarily my favourite thing). Conquering my fears it was! Quite frankly, I was pretty excited about it going to a theme park, just like a little child, and I think I really needed to spend a day without thinking about anything serious. And we had ice creams, and baklava, and hot dogs, it was nice and sunny, so what else could I want?

And I found TEA!

It was a wonderful day, made me so happy! Just a perfect way to celebrate ;)

Two months!

There's only two months left from my year abroad, it's absolutely crazy! It feels like I've only arrived a few weeks ago and yet so much has happened since September. I really don't want to leave, especially that next year is finals year and it will be so stressful and busy. Not fun at all when you compare it to my time in Leiden, filled with baking and cycling.

I'm not quite ready yet to make a review of this year abroad, I'm not even ready to commit to a date when I leave the Netherlands. In the meantime, it is my intention to enjoy summer time, explore the surroundings (I'm yet to go to the beach here), keep baking and be happy. Sounds like a good plan to me.

Overgrown with dirt.

Ever since I started sharing accommodation with other people, first in the boarding house, then in college and an apartment in Leiden, I had to deal with filthy people.

And I don't people people who don't shower, or have a bad breath, dirty long nails or something like that. I mean people who, whatever they do, always leave dirt behind. It's completely beyond me how you can go about life in such a way.

Hair in the shower drain or in the bathroom sink is like a never ending story. Same goes for toothpaste in the sink. But the battle really starts in the kitchen. After breakfast time, breadcrumbs take over the kitchen counters. I have a suspicion that people live under an illusion that there is some sort of a breadcrumb fairy in the house who sweeps away all of the breadcrumbs that they leave behind. They must live in Wonderland or something, because neither in Poland nor in the UK have I encountered any breadcrumb fairies. Needless to say, food in the sink is also, apparently, cleaned up by an appropriate set of fairies. Those fairies must be pretty busy by the way, since they also take out overflowing recycling bins, pack and unpack the dishwasher, clean the fridge from mould which inhabited the veg crisper and do all sorts of other stuff too. Oh, and dirty knives and forks left in the sink are the recent occurrence, so our housekeeping fairies need to deal with those now.

I'm quite far from a perfect housewife ideal, but all this dirt drives me crazy! How are people not disgusted to prepare food in a dirty kitchen? Or take a shower in a dirty bathroom? Goodness gracious, it's absolutely awful and this is all I have to say on this matter.

Apocalypse (or about King's Day again).

Preparing for Monday, I felt as if I was preparing for an apocalypse. My fridge has never been so full eggs, milk, butter, veggies, cake (of course!), meat and fish, everything is there so to make sure we, two very hungry people, survive Koningsdag.

I've even polished the entire house, so that when we are stuck at home for almost 48 hours, we don't need to worry about sticky floors,dusty corners and sinks covered with toothpaste. Apocalypse is definitely not the best time to do a spring clean.

And we've survived!

There was a flea market in Leiden: it seems like at least half of families in Leiden decided to get rid off their stuff that morning. There was nothing of particular interest to me there, but it was a sunny day, quite warm, so it was a pleasure to walk around for an hour or so. Party noise have withered away by 11pm (sic!) and the day in general wasn't as apocalyptic as I feared. But in any case I'm glad that we're back to normal now ;)

Orange, Orange Everywhere.

As you probably know, the national colour of the Netherlands is orange. Orange is omnipresent at the moment since it's a week until the King's Day. Apparently the entire country goes crazy for a day (or a bit more, if you count the pre-King's Day parties on April 26th) and I already dread next Monday. I'm not particularily excited about this occassion: it's not my king, not my country and in general I avoid big congregations of people.

In case you doubt the omnipresence of orange, here is a selection of what it on offer in Dutch supermarkets. From donoughts through burgers to potatoes, everything is oranje. You open the frisge and oranje jumps onto your face.

 

Of course, apart from these bizzare orange food items, there are of course banners, wigs, trumpets, flags and whatever elseon sale, everything still in orange. I bet by Monday I'll be sick of all this orange. Until then I'll try to devise a plan how to avoid this craze, since I have no intention to participate. My home will be a safe haven with movies, tea, snacks and peace and quiet to keep us away from the orange.

Done! Now into the sunshine!

Finally, the exams are over!

Now I have a few days off to recover before classes start again. I’m quite excited because on Monday I start criminalistics course and I really hope this will be interesting (I guess it cannot get more boring than my only other non-law course, entrepreneurship & innovation, which was absolutely awful). It involves a trip to the Netherlands Forensic Institute. Of course no actual information about the course have been provided so far, I have no idea what sort of reading I need to do and nobody seems to care about letting us know anything about criminalistics course, even though it’s three days till it starts, if we exclude the weekend.

Now it's time to make most of this beautiful weather in Leiden. Today: an afternoon picnic with fired chicken, salad, tuna macaroni and muffins. It was lovely to sit outside in the park and catch a few rays of sun. I hope there will be some more days like today. It was absolutely perfect.

Things you need to deal with on your year abroad.

You know these days when you come back home and find that your kitchen window is gone? 

Today was the day.

Currently we have a lovely breeze going round the kitchen. No one knows what actually happened: but one part of the window came off the frame and shattered all over the neighbours' garden. As a temporary solution we've employed a lot of packing tape and some cardboard. The result might be far from professional, but we couldn't really do much better on Sunday afternoon.

I've dealt with a lot of things during this year abroad, but haven't foreseen dealing with broken windows. Luckily the weather is nice now, the situation would be much more difficult if it happened a month ago.

Getting treated in the Netherlands.

It's interesting how medical profession differs in European countries, not only in terms of medical procedures used and technological advancement, but also in terms of attitudes towards health in general.

I'm not a fan of doctors, in fact I simply dislike any medical appointments, but since I arrived in the Netherlands in September I had a few contacts with the medical profession.

What needs to be noted is that healthcare in the Netherlands knows no such thing as NHS in Britain or NFZ in Poland. There are no government-provided medical services, even basic ones, so you need to take out a private medical insurance or pay out of pocket. A question about your insurance card is asked again and again, at a chemist's, gp, hospital and any other medically-related places.

The first instance of my Dutch medical exploration was when I needed a prescription. First surprise, the practice actually replied to my email. When sending emails to such institutions you never know whether you'd ever hear back, so it was a plus. The GP spoke English, which is always helpful, especially if your Dutch abilities are rather limited and the appointment was very smooth. So far so good.

What I found interesting was how prescriptions are organised here. You get a piece of paper with a barcode on it which holds all the details. Then, if the medicine is something you need to take regularly, on picking up a dose you get another piece of paper with a renewed prescription. In Poland prescriptions are still usually hand written and need to be renewed in person, which requires multiple trips to your gp, so it was a bit of a novelty. I don't like that prescriptions are tied to a specific chemist's. Your doctor will ask where you usually go to pick up your medicine and each renewed prescription will need to be used at this chemist's, which might sometimes be inconvenient. 

Later I had to see a doctor again. In the meantime I came across this blog post on how to approach Dutch doctors. Having done a bit of research into Dutch healthcare, I was aware that the GPs deal with most things (which is in contrast with health care in Poland which is rather specialist-dependent), medicine is not preventive (so many people see a doctor only when things go horribly wrong), and paracetamol is treated as a miraculous cure (but so is the case in Britain, so no surprises here for me). Equipped with this knowledge, and a list of things I wanted from the doctor, off I went for my appointment and, having come across a trainee doctor, got everything I've requested (probably due to a mixture of her little experience with patients and my inexplicable symptoms).

I also had a pleasure to got for a few medical scans to a nearby hospital (the practice has no diagnostic equipment) and encountered a ridiculous number of ticket dispenser. I guess the Dutch are not so good at forming a queue and a piece of paper with a number is absolutely necessary. What was really annoying is that no one really tells you you need to have a number. Thank God I understand enough Dutch to read the signs and labels on different buttons on those dispensers!

That's all about getting treated  in the Netherlands. Still, I prefer not to see doctors. I'll carry on eating my daily dose of oranges.

Back to normal.

Happy Easter everyone!

I've only got back from an Easter trip home. It was an intense weekend, with some appointments, a trip to Auschwitz, baking, exploring Krakow and Warsaw and enjoying delicious Polish food. Our bellies have been stretched as much as it was possible and I guess now it'll be the time to come back to shape after these few days of indulgence and gluttony.

I must say that showing Captain America around made me appreciate where I come from more. And I've noticed and learnt many things which my brain never registered before. There are so many beautiful details around, so many things to admire as you walk around. And it was a very enjoyable experience to be a tour guide: I like walking and being a guide involves educating people, so I'll keep it in the back of my mind in case no other summer job comes up. 

***

Three exams next week, hooray! Fortunately, all of them are open book exams, so I just need to know my way round textbooks and notes and have an idea what the course is about and I'll be fine. EU law seems to be much more easy to learn, not sure why it is so, maybe just the fact that I've been doing it for the entire year rather than only 8 weeks of term time. I need time for learning. And now I actually have it.

Weather gone berserk.

The wind is blowing here from literally every possible direction and I try to hide in my little second floor hollow as much as possible since any attempts to conquer the weather inevitably end up with me being almost blown off from my bike. Staying indoors is definitely safer.

Although having said that, I left my window open for a little while and ended up with sand/dust being blown into and all over my room, so it's only safe inside if you're prepared not to let any fresh air in.

***

Only a few days till Easter left, but we don't get much time off for this occasion, barely two days (Good Friday and Easter Monday) which is pathetic compared to 6 weeks we get off around Easter at Oxford. In any case, Easter weekend will be so packed! I always try to slow down on such occasions and retain some sanity when everyone else is stressing out about cleaning, shopping and cooking, and this time it might have a different edge to it. I'll probably miss all the cleaning and shopping, contributing to baking more than anything else (well, maybe packing the dishwasher too), but apart from that we'll be doing some exploring with Captain America, so it will be a slow down on a home side and a bit of speeding on having fun side. I definitely need to get away from Leiden somewhere further than Amsterdam to take a deep breath and recharge.

Doing it the Dutch way.

Year abroad is an excellent opportunity to make some anthropological observations. These observations even have a linguistic twist in them.

It appears that the Dutch do not have a phrase 'excuse me' (or sorry for that matter), in their vocabulary. After four years on a Small Island, a placed filled with these phrases to the brim, it was, and still is quite frankly, a rather shocking experience.

So if you want to go through a narrow passage which is obstructed by an unfortunate fellow human being, and if you want to do it the Dutch way, make sure you follow either of these two procedures:

1) mute option: approach the unfortunate fellow human being and stand next to him, very close. Crucially, don't make any sounds whatsoever. Just stand very close to the unfortunate human being and look rather absent-minded.

2) vocal option: if you would rather use your voice strings, embark on the task as in option 1: approach the unfortunate fellow human being and stand next to him, very close. This time, however, you are allowed to make a sound: 'aaaaa' or some similar expression of unidentified emotions. Absent-minded look also welcomed here.

After following either of the procedures, stand there hoping that the person obstructing your way can read your mind even when he cannot see you since he has his back turned to you and is engaged in some intellectually demanding activity which makes it impossible to him to register slight air disturbances when another person approaches. 

***

On a more serious note, this is actually bloody annoying. Don't people know how to use their mouth? I've conducted an experiment this evening: I was washing the dishes when a girl came in and grabbed a kettle. She then stood right next to me with a kettle, but haven't said a word. So I carried on my washing up, silently making bets with myself as to how long she would stand so uncomfortably close to me. Nothing changed for a while, and I started feeling rather weird with her by my side, so I asked whether she wanted to fill up her kettle. What a stupid question to be directed at a person standing with a kettle in her hand next to the sink! But I had no choice! How else could I remedy this situation when she would not use her words? I really don't get it, maybe the Dutch really read each others mind?

Breakfast dinner logistics.

Captain America seemed pretty excited about the concept of having breakfast for dinner and last night was the time to indulge in a delicious full English breakfast for dinner.

There's been quiet a few things that had to be prepared for this dinner: sausages, bacon, hash browns, tomatoes, eggs, toast and baked beans, so a proper action plan was necessary to make sure everything is ready when it was supposed to be.

Of course there's no picture of the dinner itself, I was too hungry and excited to take any pictures. But it was absolutely delicious and it has been actually quite relaxing to prepare it. The last time I made a full English was over a year ago I think, but then it was made for around 12 people if I remember correctly, so I guess it can be counted for a few times.

I did get weird looks when preparing baked beans, eggs and bacon at 7 pm though!

I've also had my first German pretzels adventure today. In the past yeast dough was not my favourite, but I'm getting grips of it now. Apparently real pretzels are dipped in lye solution (also known as sodium hydroxide), but after some deliberation, I've decided to try with bicarbonate soda instead. Firstly, it's much easier to find, secondly, not as poisonous, which is quite important given my clumsiness. These didn't turn out exactly like pretzels I have when I visit Munich, but it was my first attempt and I'll count it as a success (plus Captain America was absolutely delighted that I've finally made pretzels, so I can also place a tick next to making him happy box).

God help me.

Do you ever feel like you had absolutely enough? This was definitely me yesterday.

This year abroad has drained me a bit: it hasn't been intellectually challenging and I struggled to find some stimuli to avoid going mad, I still cannot comprehend the culture here, including terrible smoking habits, a lack of any sensitivity toward fellow human beings and an annoying assumption that you know ins and outs of everything, so no explanation of anything is ever given. Also, what sort of a person starts working outside your window (on the second floor I need to point out) at 8:20am? In any civilised country you are simply not allowed to start any noisy activity before 9am (or 10am, to be on the safe side). Here there's no sense of people simply wanting to sleep in the morning or to have a peaceful morning.

On the other hand, expect for those moments of complete frustration, I'm having such a good time here. Even the Dutch crudeness has it's good sides, since I can get away with saying things rather bluntly. The advantage is that taking a very direct approach ensures you are understood. If you say 'I think this is rather unpleasant to have you singing right outside my window when I'm trying to study', the message won't get through. It's another matter if instead you say 'Be quiet, your singing is awfully annoying.' In this case there's no doubt as to what message you try to convey. No linguistic complications. A clear message (which does sound a bit rude to me who is used to very polite manner, but here in NL it's a safer option).

***

It's only just over two months of classes! And even during these two months it's about 4 hours a week anyway, so I'll have plenty of time in between to have some fun (and revise, of course). After a bit of finals panic, I think I managed to calm myself down: it's over a year until I have to sit these exams so I'll just take my time and do whatever I can to sort myself out. Coming back to intellectually unchallenging courses here, being thrown out of the Oxford system was not pleasant, so I guess being thrown back into it will be a bit painful too, but apparently people after a year abroad get better results in finals, so...

In the world of tulips.

Today we made a trip to Keukenhof. This is a big garden about half an hour from Leiden, open from the end of March till mid-May and filled with tulips. Luckily, the weather was beautiful, so we enjoyed a good few hours there, just walking around, enjoying the sunshine and taking pictures of all those beautiful flowers. I think the pictures speak for themselves: Keukenhof is definitely worth a visit.

Rushing out of the house.

You know, I laughed at all of the Dutch who would flood the streets whenever even the smallest ray of sun would poke from behind the clouds.

I laughed, but after months of living here, I've done exactly the same thing.

Today was a beautiful day again but apart from the sun, we were also blessed with a rather high temperature. It felt like everyone who could decided to live the house. Including myself.

In this country where your life is a constant battle with rain and wind, the sunny spells are fully embraced and made most of. After a string of grim days you just crave some sun and it's impossible to resist the temptation to just abandon whatever you are doing and instead just sit on the grass by the canal and enjoy yourself.

So I rushed out of the house this afternoon in an attempt to hyper-dose myself with vitamin D. Almost like a real Leidener.