Broodjes, Borrels, and aBraxas.

My buds Scott (left) and Owen (right). They saved me with
neosporin and a tuna sandwich when I fell. =)

So, I attempted to do a full picture update on all the highlights that I listed but unfortunately blogger isn't letting me for some reason. I think you can only upload one at a time. bleh. It definitely could be my fault because I'm an idiot when it comes to computers but lets just put the blame on the inanimate object for now. Regardless, I updated my pics on facebook so you can see all the highlights on there:

Amsterdam pictures so far

Other than trying to comprehend technology, it's been a pretty eventful week so far. I started class. Dutch classes are a lot chiller than they are in the states. All we have is a paper and maybe a test at the end of the semester. So your grade is based solely on that, participation and attendance. Seems chill but everything piles up in the end so it can be pretty intense.

Besides class, I've been settling in still. You know, normal errands- laundry, grocery shopping, school supply shopping. It feels like it takes so long to do one errand cuz you have to bike to that destination. I duno, it seems like you can't do too much in one day. Then again, I kinda like it. It gives me really relaxing days and I don't feel like I'm in a rush ever. It's a nice feeling.

On Monday night, my friends and I went to a bar by my place. I duno what it's called but its 181 Prinsengracht in case any of you come to Amsterdam and want a cool bar to go to. A couple of my friends Owen and Natalie wanted to check out the student orgs at the university and we found out that the art student org meets every monday for drinks at this bar. So we thought we'd crash. It ended up being so much fun. I got to meet Dutch students, talk about photography, and they serve 5 beers for 5 euros! (which is a great deal). I think I want to join the photo club. They were all so welcoming so I think it would be a great opportunity to shoot around Amsterdam.

Tuesday was a very great day. I spent the day mostly with buddies Owen and Scott. Had class til 1, Owen and Scott hosted lunch for us for 2 euro haha... took a nap at their place and we rode off to run some errands. Then we found this AWESOME cheap sandwich place called broodje bert. Broodje means sandwich. Definitely recommendable if you're on a budget. That was a delightful dinner. After dinner, we continued on to Abraxas.

Abraxas is a coffeeshop that was highly recommended by one of Owen's friends, and rightly so. It's probably one of the best environments a coffeeshop can have. The whole look of the place was just so welcoming and somewhat random and they played some amazing music. Their music consisted of some hip hop and old school r&b. Scott was SO damn funny:

- Owen and I were trying to remember who sang a certain song and Scott keeps trying to guess also... except his guesses were just way off. This is how it went:
S: Beyonce?
Me: no, older
S: Mariah Carey?
Me: nope, older
S: Brandy?
Me: older than that
S: What's older than Brandy? THE SUPREMES?!

- After our attempts of educating Scott on the Fugees, here's what he comes up with:
S: Okay, the Fugees are... Lauren Hill....
.... Biggie?

Great times at Abraxas. Fully recommendable if you want a coffeeshop with a nice vibe.

Yesterday was run errands at home day. Like I said, I did laundry, cooked, cleaned out my email, cleaned my room, napped. At night we had an International Student Borrel. Borrel means "drink." I swear there are borrels planned every night. So free beer and food again and this was probably one of the funnest nights. After the Borrel, about 20 of us ended up in Scott and Owen's dorm playing Big Booty and Telephone. I have no idea how we got to that point but we loved being there.

People start talking about going to a sex show so we head off on our bikes to the Red Light District. They're all about 25 to 45 euro. We tried to bargain them down to 2 euro but it didn't work at all. lol... so we ended up seeing a peek show for 2 euro. Totally not worth it. You go into this small little booth and watch someone or a couple do their thang for 2 minutes. Quite the tease. I was in the booth with my friend Claire. We didn't find it too fascinating but I think others got a better show than we did. Next time, we're gona pay good money for a good show.

OH YA, i forgot we met some sneakerhead today. We were in a sneaker store and this guy was wearing a kid robot shirt so I asked him about it. Basically the sneakerhead community is really tiny here but its one of those "everyone knows everyone" type community. Anyways, while he was talking he was getting kinda upset over people working for nike or something... not sure but regardless, he's supposed to let amanda and i know about the hip hop sneaker scene here. should be cool.