Cola Epiphanies and Venlo!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/internationalashley/ LOOK! PICTURES!
Not ALL of them yet, because internet shut off halfway through uploading, but it's something to look at so far :)

Okay, so, before departing to The Netherlands I was warned that my beloved Coca Cola would be scarce. Worse, that it'd be expensive if I did find it. However, I am happy to say this is not true. Not only is Coca Cola in vast abundance, it is cheap! Even including the exchange rate, it's less than its American counterpart. Also! It tastes BETTER. I don't even know how. Usually I prefer fountain coke, but the bottled coke here is amazing. Aparently they use real sugar whereas the US uses some sort of artificial sweetener. So, it's probably bad for my teeth, but delicious nonetheless.

Today a few classes were cancelled since the teacher hasn't flown in yet, so Jill, Eric and I decided to explore the city of Venlo. At first we were a little distraught that it takes 8 strippenkart stamps to go one way to Venlo (its like a bus pass, 45 stamps is 20E) but the town is so pretty it's worth it. The delicious lunch we had in the pub was worth it! I got french bread with ham and cheese (which was served to me on a pretty platter, not sandwich-like in the slightest, and I had no idea how to go about eating it...) and tomato soup with feta cheese. Jill and Eric split tomato soup and a hamburger meal... Dutch hamburgers look so much more high class than ours. They're served on pretty bread rolls and the meat looks a lot more appetizing.
Then we wandered around the shops and such... this is when I finally felt like I was in another country. In Well it's pretty and old fashioned, but it's pretty much like Hatfield: Lots of cornfields, barns, horses, cows, chickens (they look like they have bellbottoms, the chickens, it's crazy) and only a few little shops. But Venlo really feels far away. Cobblestone streets, lots of little buildings, old fashioned architecture... really nice.

I bought a couple of pretty shirts and a long sleeve white t-shirt to wear under the t-shirts I packed so I can wear them longer. I feel a little better now that I have some more dressy-ish shirts. I still need another pair of leggings, but I couldn't find a color I like. It was like 10 Euro for three shirts, meaning only $15 American. I think I did well shopping. There's one more thing I want to buy, which is a pair of calf-high boots with no heel. I found some for less than 20 Euro but decided to wait until we go again (sometime at the end of the week). But no worries, I don't plan on doing weekly mall trips searching for sales like I do back home. I plan on saving my money for my various trips (we can't activate our Eurail passes yet or else they won't last through our Prague trip, so our first few trips we'll have to just pay for transportation) The stores are so cute. We went into a pastry shop that was to DIE for. Jill got a little cake that was delicious.

What's nice is that people just assume we're Dutch. Every store we went in (and the pub too) they greeted us in Dutch and asked if we needed any help--in Dutch. The first time someone did this Jill just stared at them blankly and they repeated the sentence, then she's like "um... sorry... I don't understand..." and the person smiled and repeated it in English. This is probably because Limburg doesn't seem like a very touristy place. I feel like I should be like "Spreek u Engels?" ("do you speak English?") but I feel like I wouldn't say it right and it'd be insulting. Also what's cool is everyone here speaks English with a British accent. One of my professors is Chinese and he speaks English with a Chinese AND British accent. It's really cool.

I would like to say that my Literary Foundations teacher is probably one of the coolest teachers ever. For those of you who went to Smith: he's like... if Mr. Hopkins had a Boston accent instead of a New York one, was a little more liberal with the swear words, and wore his hair in a ponytail. He's so cool. We began The Oddessy, which I've read a couple of times already... but he's making it really interesting so far.

So, in theory, we now have internet 24 hours. The internet was back up and running earlier... but now it won't work again. But when it decides to actually work, it means I can talk to people on Skype at a normal hour. :) And AIM too. That is, if I can afford to go to bed at a late hour. So we'll see. Skype is really helping me cope with missing people. Being able to have a ten minute conversation for 20 cents = awesome.

We're going back to Venlo Thursday or Friday since we only have one class, then BRUSSELS this weekend! Then next weekend we're going to Amsterdam. Should be fun times. I'm excited. That's all for now. Love you all! Comment and let me know you're reading!