I AMsterdam!
Jun. 12th, 2011 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pikkuinenAlright... I've been wanting to make this post since Tuesday, but I just didn't have any time while I was still with Jenny. Came home from my little trip on Friday after Finnish, started up the laptop, just to have it crash an hour later >.< It was only scare-ware, so nothing dangerous, but I couldn't get rid of it myself. So I took the laptop to the pc-ambulance yesterday morning, they managed to fix it, thank god. It also only cost me 9€, phew.
Does anybody of you people have experience with Avast-antivirus?
We started our trip last Saturday, our prof had rented a little bus for eight plus driver (which was exactly how many we were) and he drove us up to Amsterdam. It took us almost seven hours, but it was quite nice and comfortable :)
Our prof dropped us off at our hotel... after reading some ratings on it the night before I was expecting the worst. I will never go there again, but it wasn't all that bad. The beds and the bathroom were clean enough and that's what is most important to me. We got fresh bedlinen and towels ever day. The floor, walls and windows were quite dirty though. And I never want to think back to the curtains again, that was the grossest thing I have seen in a while :/ The beds were awfully soft, but contrary to what I was expecting, I didn't get any backaches and slept quite well.
We went to get some groceries later that day, then got dressed and went downtown. The boys went to a coffee shop and the other girls and me went for Indian food. They knew I didn't want to because the food is way too spicy for me, but I was overruled because they all wanted to eat Indian. So I tried to find something in the menu. One said 'potatoes and cauliflower with mild spices', so I ordered that... turned out it was the spiciest dish on our table. Some of the others had ordered chilis, mind you. I got some of Diana's coconut-chicken then, no spices whatsoever.
Later we tried to find a bar to have a drink and maybe dance a little. At one point the following conversation happened:
Laura: Oooooh, look! A bar full of good-looking guys! Let's go there!
*everyone is like 'yay!'*
Me: Uhm... girls? You know that's a gay bar, right?
Everyone: Nooooo, it's not! How do you know?
Me: Uhm... there's a rainbowflag above the door. And they're playing Cher.
In the end we went in anyway and we had sooo much fun (although some of the others were not so amused by a few of the lesbian women there trying to get in their pants xD). The music was fantastic and the people were really nice. I want to go there again^^
On Sunday we got up early because it was the only day we could use for sightseeing. We went for breakfast in a café, I had a chocolate waffle and it was sooo good. Hannah, Laura and me wanted to go to the Anne Frank-house after that, but although we arrived really early and it was raining like hell, the queue was several hundred meters long and it would have taken us hours to get in. As time was sparse we decided against going in. We took pictures with the statue of Anne though :)
I then went to get souvenirs at a LGBT-souvenir-shop. How awesome is that? :D They had fridge-magnets saying 'Homo sweet homo' xD I bought lots of things for different people, but nothing for myself. As usual. We didn't have time for shopping, I would have loved to buy a shirt or something. I love shopping in foreign countries.
Anyway, we went for coffee/tea to warm up a little and then we spotted what seems to be common in Amsterdam: having cats in your café! It's so awesome! There was a basket beneath a big table in the middle of the café and there were two cats in it. And they're so well trained, they don't leave the café, they don't take food from strangers, they won't even let themselves be pet by the guests. I wish I had managed to train Minttu that well *g*
We met up with the other girls after a walk through the city and then decided to go see the public library. And oh my god, it is awesome! It's so big and bright and comfortable <3 I'll make another post about it if anybody is interested ;) I think it gave some inspiration for the future.
After all that I wanted to go to the Hard Rock Café, while some of the others wanted to go see the museums. I'm not that interested in arts, just like Hannah and Laura, so we went to the Hard Rock Café together. Just to realize that it's way too expensive and not selling any pretty shirts :( It was frustrating. We went to another café nearby... where I ate the best hamburger ever. A fresh breadroll with salad and veggies, the meat of course and then they topped everything off with a fried egg and bacon. So goooood.
Then I wanted to pay... so I waved to a waitress and said 'I'd like to pay, please'... she answered 'You like to pay? That's good for you!' To which I said 'Uhm... no. Actually it's good for you.' - 'Oh... right.' xD I love Dutch people.
We went for pizza in the evening with both our profs. I couldn't eat anything though, I was still stuffed^^
The next morning we met up with our Dutch partners at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. We had a reason for this trip after all: Planning BOBCATSSS! After 30 minutes I was ready to scream. I am so pissed off at the German side of our team. It's okay that most of them don't speak perfect English, no problem. But at least listen to what people are saying and stop interrupting each other! It would make things a lot easier. Listening is also not that easy for me when there are three people around me who are asking me 'What did he/she just say?' ALL THE FUCKING TIME! There have been so many misunderstandings during our preparations, it's really not funny anymore.
Terri, one of the girls from Groningen, was equally pissed. She's been working so hard together with her best friend Mirry and now the rest of the group destroyed it all. Mirry wasn't there, sadly, she had to attend a funeral... I realized something is missing when she's not there... she's always happy and smiling and making us laugh :) Also, Mirry and Terri are really the ones who did the most for this conference.
I was so glad when we finally had a break. We got sandwiches and milk and fruit^^
We did groupwork in the afternoon and that went a lot better. Mainly because we talked German in our group -.- We only had one Dutch teacher in it, Josef, who speaks German very well. And then I had to do the presentation in the end because Hannah didn't dare -.- And now she's made herself the chair of our group which I don't think is funny, we had agreed that I would be programme-chair. I'll talk to one of the profs about it.
In the evening we went to the place where our welcome dinner will take place in January during the conference. And oh my god, it's so fancy! And teh food was so good. For the first time in my life I had tuna that didn't come out of a tin :P
And then I managed to amaze everyone by opening my braid (after Theresa asked me to) *gigglefit*
Above the room in which we'll have dinner there is another really big room. It used to be a ballroom and we'll have a big party in it :D Selina and me tried it out by doing a waltz all the way through it^^
We went back to the hotel after having food, no energy left for going out. We had a pyjama party in our room, then everyone except Selina and me went to bed. And then the fire-alarm went off at 12:30am. Instead of panicking, I grabbed my jacket and pulled it over my sleepshirt. By the time I was finished, the alarm was over, but I still went downstairs to check. The receptionist told me everything was fine, it was just some idiot smoking in his room. So I went back up, told the girls to go back to bed and then I broke down shaking with panic. That's how my body works.
I didn't sleep all too well that night and got up having stomach aches. I ran off to the toilet every five minutes and was ready to panic 'Oh my god, it's EHEC!', but then I managed to convince myself that it's only my nervous stomach again.
We left Amsterdam around ten. My prof had promised to drop me off at Duisburg mainstation, so I could spend the rest of the week with Jenny in Wuppertal. Only the 'navi' wanted to drop me off at a smaller station in Duisburg -.- Anyway, I told Jenny where I was and she took the subway and got me :) And by the time we arrived at her flat my stomach was fine again.
I rested a bit, then we went to get groceries. And then we cooked. Rice and chicken and veggies, omnomnom. We spent the evening watching Glee. Actually we spent most of our time together in bed watching TV. Or playing FarmVille <.< xD No really, it was exactly what I needed. We went to see Pirates of the Caribbean IV on Wednesday and I really like the movie. And then we went for cake on Thursday... but those were about the only times we left the flat xD
We also failed with planning our holidays, we were too lazy.
I had to leave on Friday and the day already started out awful. Namely, a sex-offender at the station who was staring at us with his hand in his pants making obvious gestures. It made me sick.
The trainride was okay, I shared the compartment with five female teachers who seemed to have a lot of fun xD They left in Mannheim and apologized for keeping me from reading xD
I went straight to Finnish class, the last one for this semester :( Awesomely enough, Marja had a look at her attendance list and realized I was the only one who hadn't missed a single class this semester, so she gave me a book! I got 'Pessi ja Illusia' by Yrjö Kokko, in German though. That made me really happy as I had wanted to buy that book anyway^^
And then the handle of me Whiskas-bag broke on the way home... and then my laptop crashed... and then my sister started being her arrogant self again. And I just hated the day.
Yesterday was nice though. I took my sister to the station, went to get groceries and then drove to Fellbach to let the guys at Arlt (a computer store) check on my laptop. They were supernice and when the guy serving me realized it would take a few hours for the anti-virus-programme to finish, he told me to leave my number, he'd call me when it's ready. So I went home and made Tzatziki. I was halfway finished when the guy from Arlt called, which was perfect as I was able to pick up my laptop on my way to Uschi's house. We had a barbecue there with everyone from Finnish class. We also studied for three hours and by the end of it I was so much into the language that I managed to have a little battle with Marja. I read out questions from our book and she answered. And I had to giggle quite often because her answers were quite funny xD So, reading goes really well already, Marja told me I sounded almost Finnish xD And I'm getting much better at understanding what she says. This makes me happy.
We had a barbecue after studying and it was so good. Everyone had brought something and in the end we had so much food we couldn't even eat it all^^
I stayed much longer than I actually had wanted, but we had so much fun. I left sometime around half past eleven.
I'll miss them so much when I'm in Jyväskylä... some of them have already promised to come visit me though^^
For pictures of Amsterdam, please see my facebook :D
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2022514769807.117868.1452095832&l=a13e328ba3
Does anybody of you people have experience with Avast-antivirus?
We started our trip last Saturday, our prof had rented a little bus for eight plus driver (which was exactly how many we were) and he drove us up to Amsterdam. It took us almost seven hours, but it was quite nice and comfortable :)
Our prof dropped us off at our hotel... after reading some ratings on it the night before I was expecting the worst. I will never go there again, but it wasn't all that bad. The beds and the bathroom were clean enough and that's what is most important to me. We got fresh bedlinen and towels ever day. The floor, walls and windows were quite dirty though. And I never want to think back to the curtains again, that was the grossest thing I have seen in a while :/ The beds were awfully soft, but contrary to what I was expecting, I didn't get any backaches and slept quite well.
We went to get some groceries later that day, then got dressed and went downtown. The boys went to a coffee shop and the other girls and me went for Indian food. They knew I didn't want to because the food is way too spicy for me, but I was overruled because they all wanted to eat Indian. So I tried to find something in the menu. One said 'potatoes and cauliflower with mild spices', so I ordered that... turned out it was the spiciest dish on our table. Some of the others had ordered chilis, mind you. I got some of Diana's coconut-chicken then, no spices whatsoever.
Later we tried to find a bar to have a drink and maybe dance a little. At one point the following conversation happened:
Laura: Oooooh, look! A bar full of good-looking guys! Let's go there!
*everyone is like 'yay!'*
Me: Uhm... girls? You know that's a gay bar, right?
Everyone: Nooooo, it's not! How do you know?
Me: Uhm... there's a rainbowflag above the door. And they're playing Cher.
In the end we went in anyway and we had sooo much fun (although some of the others were not so amused by a few of the lesbian women there trying to get in their pants xD). The music was fantastic and the people were really nice. I want to go there again^^
On Sunday we got up early because it was the only day we could use for sightseeing. We went for breakfast in a café, I had a chocolate waffle and it was sooo good. Hannah, Laura and me wanted to go to the Anne Frank-house after that, but although we arrived really early and it was raining like hell, the queue was several hundred meters long and it would have taken us hours to get in. As time was sparse we decided against going in. We took pictures with the statue of Anne though :)
I then went to get souvenirs at a LGBT-souvenir-shop. How awesome is that? :D They had fridge-magnets saying 'Homo sweet homo' xD I bought lots of things for different people, but nothing for myself. As usual. We didn't have time for shopping, I would have loved to buy a shirt or something. I love shopping in foreign countries.
Anyway, we went for coffee/tea to warm up a little and then we spotted what seems to be common in Amsterdam: having cats in your café! It's so awesome! There was a basket beneath a big table in the middle of the café and there were two cats in it. And they're so well trained, they don't leave the café, they don't take food from strangers, they won't even let themselves be pet by the guests. I wish I had managed to train Minttu that well *g*
We met up with the other girls after a walk through the city and then decided to go see the public library. And oh my god, it is awesome! It's so big and bright and comfortable <3 I'll make another post about it if anybody is interested ;) I think it gave some inspiration for the future.
After all that I wanted to go to the Hard Rock Café, while some of the others wanted to go see the museums. I'm not that interested in arts, just like Hannah and Laura, so we went to the Hard Rock Café together. Just to realize that it's way too expensive and not selling any pretty shirts :( It was frustrating. We went to another café nearby... where I ate the best hamburger ever. A fresh breadroll with salad and veggies, the meat of course and then they topped everything off with a fried egg and bacon. So goooood.
Then I wanted to pay... so I waved to a waitress and said 'I'd like to pay, please'... she answered 'You like to pay? That's good for you!' To which I said 'Uhm... no. Actually it's good for you.' - 'Oh... right.' xD I love Dutch people.
We went for pizza in the evening with both our profs. I couldn't eat anything though, I was still stuffed^^
The next morning we met up with our Dutch partners at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. We had a reason for this trip after all: Planning BOBCATSSS! After 30 minutes I was ready to scream. I am so pissed off at the German side of our team. It's okay that most of them don't speak perfect English, no problem. But at least listen to what people are saying and stop interrupting each other! It would make things a lot easier. Listening is also not that easy for me when there are three people around me who are asking me 'What did he/she just say?' ALL THE FUCKING TIME! There have been so many misunderstandings during our preparations, it's really not funny anymore.
Terri, one of the girls from Groningen, was equally pissed. She's been working so hard together with her best friend Mirry and now the rest of the group destroyed it all. Mirry wasn't there, sadly, she had to attend a funeral... I realized something is missing when she's not there... she's always happy and smiling and making us laugh :) Also, Mirry and Terri are really the ones who did the most for this conference.
I was so glad when we finally had a break. We got sandwiches and milk and fruit^^
We did groupwork in the afternoon and that went a lot better. Mainly because we talked German in our group -.- We only had one Dutch teacher in it, Josef, who speaks German very well. And then I had to do the presentation in the end because Hannah didn't dare -.- And now she's made herself the chair of our group which I don't think is funny, we had agreed that I would be programme-chair. I'll talk to one of the profs about it.
In the evening we went to the place where our welcome dinner will take place in January during the conference. And oh my god, it's so fancy! And teh food was so good. For the first time in my life I had tuna that didn't come out of a tin :P
And then I managed to amaze everyone by opening my braid (after Theresa asked me to) *gigglefit*
Above the room in which we'll have dinner there is another really big room. It used to be a ballroom and we'll have a big party in it :D Selina and me tried it out by doing a waltz all the way through it^^
We went back to the hotel after having food, no energy left for going out. We had a pyjama party in our room, then everyone except Selina and me went to bed. And then the fire-alarm went off at 12:30am. Instead of panicking, I grabbed my jacket and pulled it over my sleepshirt. By the time I was finished, the alarm was over, but I still went downstairs to check. The receptionist told me everything was fine, it was just some idiot smoking in his room. So I went back up, told the girls to go back to bed and then I broke down shaking with panic. That's how my body works.
I didn't sleep all too well that night and got up having stomach aches. I ran off to the toilet every five minutes and was ready to panic 'Oh my god, it's EHEC!', but then I managed to convince myself that it's only my nervous stomach again.
We left Amsterdam around ten. My prof had promised to drop me off at Duisburg mainstation, so I could spend the rest of the week with Jenny in Wuppertal. Only the 'navi' wanted to drop me off at a smaller station in Duisburg -.- Anyway, I told Jenny where I was and she took the subway and got me :) And by the time we arrived at her flat my stomach was fine again.
I rested a bit, then we went to get groceries. And then we cooked. Rice and chicken and veggies, omnomnom. We spent the evening watching Glee. Actually we spent most of our time together in bed watching TV. Or playing FarmVille <.< xD No really, it was exactly what I needed. We went to see Pirates of the Caribbean IV on Wednesday and I really like the movie. And then we went for cake on Thursday... but those were about the only times we left the flat xD
We also failed with planning our holidays, we were too lazy.
I had to leave on Friday and the day already started out awful. Namely, a sex-offender at the station who was staring at us with his hand in his pants making obvious gestures. It made me sick.
The trainride was okay, I shared the compartment with five female teachers who seemed to have a lot of fun xD They left in Mannheim and apologized for keeping me from reading xD
I went straight to Finnish class, the last one for this semester :( Awesomely enough, Marja had a look at her attendance list and realized I was the only one who hadn't missed a single class this semester, so she gave me a book! I got 'Pessi ja Illusia' by Yrjö Kokko, in German though. That made me really happy as I had wanted to buy that book anyway^^
And then the handle of me Whiskas-bag broke on the way home... and then my laptop crashed... and then my sister started being her arrogant self again. And I just hated the day.
Yesterday was nice though. I took my sister to the station, went to get groceries and then drove to Fellbach to let the guys at Arlt (a computer store) check on my laptop. They were supernice and when the guy serving me realized it would take a few hours for the anti-virus-programme to finish, he told me to leave my number, he'd call me when it's ready. So I went home and made Tzatziki. I was halfway finished when the guy from Arlt called, which was perfect as I was able to pick up my laptop on my way to Uschi's house. We had a barbecue there with everyone from Finnish class. We also studied for three hours and by the end of it I was so much into the language that I managed to have a little battle with Marja. I read out questions from our book and she answered. And I had to giggle quite often because her answers were quite funny xD So, reading goes really well already, Marja told me I sounded almost Finnish xD And I'm getting much better at understanding what she says. This makes me happy.
We had a barbecue after studying and it was so good. Everyone had brought something and in the end we had so much food we couldn't even eat it all^^
I stayed much longer than I actually had wanted, but we had so much fun. I left sometime around half past eleven.
I'll miss them so much when I'm in Jyväskylä... some of them have already promised to come visit me though^^
For pictures of Amsterdam, please see my facebook :D
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2022514769807.117868.1452095832&l=a13e328ba3
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 04:40 pm (UTC)anyways, i wanna go to amsterdaaaaaam, it sounds awesome.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 04:42 pm (UTC)We need to go there together, you'll love it!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 04:45 pm (UTC)Later we tried to find a bar to have a drink and maybe dance a little. At one point the following conversation happened:
Laura: Oooooh, look! A bar full of good-looking guys! Let's go there!
*everyone is like 'yay!'*
Me: Uhm... girls? You know that's a gay bar, right?
Everyone: Nooooo, it's not! How do you know?
Me: Uhm... there's a rainbowflag above the door. And they're playing Cher.
HOW CAN THIS CONVERSATION EVEN BE REAL? It's like taken straight (all pun intended) of a movie! Hilarious!
They had fridge-magnets saying 'Homo sweet homo'
I got a giggle fit here. *still giggling* Oh, Amsterdam, you're made of win!
Yrjö Kokko is such an awesome name! What is the book about? Oh and speaking of books, are you on GoodReads? (there is a link to it on my FB)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 05:06 pm (UTC)I KNOW RIGHT? xD Best conversation ever.
I think I'll have to buy one of the magnets in January... this time I didn't because I thought I had no place to put it^^
I'm not on GoodReads yet, but ever since I saw it on your fb this morning I've been thinking about joining^^
The book is actually a children's book... it's about a troll-boy and an elf-girl who meet in the beautiful Finnish nature ;) It's not always happy though as it's set in the times of the Finnish/Russian war. I'm really curious about it.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 05:18 pm (UTC)And the book sounds lovely! Children's books ftw! (I still love Ronja and Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh!)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 05:33 pm (UTC)Children's books are the best <3
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 05:22 pm (UTC)long post is long! glad you had fun though :D i want to go back to amsterdam sometime, have a proper look around. and the pics are great :D
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 05:35 pm (UTC)I loved Amsterdam, really. And I didn't even see a lot, we just didn't have enough time^^ You should really go back sometime :D
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 05:40 pm (UTC):D
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 05:33 pm (UTC)What do you want to know about it?
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 05:38 pm (UTC)I've been using Avira Antivir for the last eight years (meaning: ever since we got internet at home) and it worked okay-ish... but now the guys at the computer store told me it was the most insecure programme ever :/
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 06:12 pm (UTC)I liked what you wrote about Amsterdam.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 10:05 pm (UTC)das mit den katzen klingt toll^^ überall sollte es katzen geben!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 10:13 pm (UTC)Also so literally dann auch wieder nicht... aber sie wurden eben offensichtlich angeflirtet bzw angetanzt^^
Ja! Katzen sollte es tatsächlich überall geben <3 Ich bin sehr happy, dass ich meine nun wiederhabe... noch dazu ist meine Schwester heute Nacht weg, das heißt die Miez darf bei mir schlafen <3
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 10:18 pm (UTC)ah okee, immerhin *g*
darf sie dies nicht, wenn deine schwester daheim ist? :o
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 10:21 pm (UTC)Nein, weil ich muss ja die Tür offen lassen, wenn die Miez bei mir ist, falls sie aufs Klo muss oder so... das wäre viel zu laut, wenn meine Schwester daheim ist. Und ich will auch nicht, dass sie oder ihr Freund oder sonstige Besucher in mein Zimmer gucken können, wenn ich schlafe ;)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-13 10:30 am (UTC)nee ok, das würde ich auch nicht wollen^^