Day five

First off, let me answer some questions I've been asked.

• My classes will start tomorrow, i.e. Thursday.
• I am living in an off-campus apartment, so not in a dorm or anything.
• I'm a 25 minute walk from campus, good exercise 'cause this isn't Dutchy flat.
• The weather is better now, and I have actually already explored the campus quite a bit, enough not to need the map any more. It's beautiful when it doesn't rain.
• I have stayed in Westwood so far, with the exeption of the cab drive from the airport and the drive we took with Nicole. There are many busses though, and Sylvia and I have already agreed to go exploring on weekends.
• The apartment is equipped with a rather large kitchen, including fridge, stove, a lot of dishes, a table, and several bottles of vodka. There's also a living room with a TV and a very comfortable couch, two rooms with each two beds and two desks, a bathroom with a shower, toilet, and a bath that doesn't drain, and some drawers and closets.
• About the vodka (and beer too, incidentally): officially, the cannot be any alcohol in apartments with people under 21, but according to Nicole,they say explicitly at the introduction that this is not enforced as long as you don't exaggerate. I haven't drunk anything yet, but I don't miss it so far.
• I can receive Solismail here, so feel free to e-mail me. And yes, Elspeth, I got your very nice email. Sorry for not replying.
• I am going to follow three courses (I considered four but my schedule is busy enough as is, thanks mostly to my physics course). They are: Elementary Particle Physics, Introduction to Visual Culture (something to do with film, but I don't know exactly what it entails), and Human Genetics.
• Oh, and mom? A sorority is a female fraternity, it's mostly about getting drunk together, apparently, but also about the whole bonding, having fun together stuff. I prefer my group of friends mixed, as in with girls AND boys, so it's not really something for me. All fraternities and sororities have names consisting of three greek letters.
• I don't think anyone asked me about this, but I'll just say it anyway: I'm the tallest of my roommates. It feels good.

I think that pretty much covers it :-D If you have any more questions, feel free to ask, I forget to put so much in these blog entries....Now, back to the chronological description.

After Nicole and Lisa left the day before yesterday, I fell asleep on the couch, again, and slept so deeply until one thirty that Terry said she'd tried to wake me a couple of time but failed. When I finally woke up, I relocated to my bed but found out the whole sleeping-bag-in-duvet-covers thing is not a good idea: the sleeping bag went to one side entirely and I was very cold. I woke up around seven thirty again, and passed the time after that by having breakfast (the croissants here are HUGE), chatting a little and finishing my book until Sylvia showed up around 1 pm. We still had some things to arrange: we needed to check in at the international hall, and we needed to get our e-mail address at the Powell Library. We did both, saw the campus in the sunshine at last, and wanted all our friends to be here to see where we were going to school and be jealous.

We kind of improvised the way back, and when one road we took ended at the door of some building, we decided we'd just go in and see where it would lead. It turned out to be some kind of academic hospital, all kinds of people walking around and doing things, and somehow nobody seemed surprised at our presence. It took us a while to find the exit, but we did, and without asking anyone.

Our next stop was a merchandise store Sylvia had noticed when walking to my apartment that morning. It was amazing. All things Spongebob, Marylin and Elvis, and a lot more. The calanders were "buy one, get one free", so we each bought one: Sylvia a Johnny Depp one, and mine with all kinds of pictures of the beautiful James Dean. Very Hollywood, we thought, very L.A., and our rooms needed decorating. My room looks very strange now, Lisa's side is very decorated, with all her pictures of Angeline Jolie, and mine is bare. No longer! Sylvia also bought a Marylin Monroe wallet, in the spirit of the town.

We'd decided that we'd cook a very Dutch dinner for our roommates, so we bought baking mix (which, according to the package, can be used to make anything from biscuits to pizza), milk, eggs, bacon, raisins, and syrup: pancake night! Unfortunately, it turned out that Nicole wasn't back yet (she only got home around ten thirty), so we ended up making them just for ourselves and Terry. The oddity of combining bacon and syrup turned out to be a common practice in the US too, except it's a breakfast food here. Crazy people. The pancakes in the end were a mix of the Dutch and the American: they tasted rather Dutch, but because we used an American baking mix they burned much more quickly and were much thicker.

Gilmore Girls was on TV after this. An episode I'd already seen! Reruns, or did I just watch too much in advance? It was a nice episode ("We've got ourselves a Pippi virgin"), so I didn't mind. After Sylvia left, I kept myself awake with much effort until eleven, and went to bed. I woke up at seven thirty again, but this time I managed to make myself fall asleep again a couple of times, stretching my time in bed until nine thirty. When I finally got out Terry offered to make me breakfast: scrambled eggs with onion and spinach and bacon, with some ketchup as a bonus. I'd never thought I'd enjoy that for breakfast, but strangely enough, I did.

Sylvia should arrive at eleven today. We'll first go and pick up her key, then we have a meeting at the international center about keeping our visa (help! Didn't know I could lose it....) and after that, we're going to go to Sylvia's hotel, get a taxi, and move her into her apartment, which is just five minutes walking from here.

Then tomorrow, first classes...I'm very curious to see how they'll be.

Cheers,

H.

P.S. If you're interested in Sylvia's version of events, you'll be glad to hear I'm contagious. http://SylinLA.blogspot.com