Groningen Life

Where to start writing about the past 3 months of my life? 

Maybe I should just explain the past 3 weeks. That's also a lot of stuff. 

On Tuesday 25/8, I woke up early and took the morning flight to Amsterdam (via Helsinki) and around 1 pm I was already in my new home. No this new home is not in Amsterdam, but a 2 hour train ride away in Groningen. 

The reason for my moving is that in July when the IB results came I knew that I was accepted in to the University of Groningen to study International and European Law. I have been going to lectures and working groups now for a week and have met really interesting people. The lecturers seem to be really good and also explain issues in an understandable way. My week consists of a lecture on Monday afternoon (2 hours) on Law and Legal Skills: the Dutch Example, followed by an 1 hour workshop on starting my academic career. Tuesdays are off, but I spend them doing the assignments for the rest of the week. Tuesdays consist of two tutorials/working groups for English and Law. Thursdays are pretty chill, I only have a two hour working group on IT for lawyers. Fridays are again English and Legal Skills tutorials. 

Even though school has started I have had the pleasure of exploring the city and country to some extent. During the first week (even before uni started for me) I took part in an Introduction Week meant for international students. There I got to know some really awesome people and am so happy that I took part. The week consisted of everything from a sports day to parties and tours in the city. I really recommend taking part in these introduction weeks as you get to know people from other faculties. My group was really nice and I have met them a couple of times after the Introduction Week ended. Yesterday we took the train to Amsterdam and spent the whole day there. 

Something I was shocked about in Amsterdam is that they do not have student discounts for students. It is the first time that I have encountered this. I would have wanted to visit more museums in the city, but felt that around 20 euros for entrance into the van Gogh Museum is too much. In the end we ended up going to visit the Anne Frank House. The visit to the museum was really touching and an emotional experience. Especially as I have read (parts) of the book. I knew to what to expect, but still the house, the rooms, the interviews and all were more depressing and harder to encounter than I expected. I had a constant feeling in the house that I am not worth walking these stairs and being in these rooms as I have been so fortunate to have had freedom for all of my life. 

On a more cheerful note the Saturday last week (5/9) I took a bike ride to the coast with some people from my house. The trip took us the whole day, but was totally worth it. We biked around 70 km all together during the day. The weather on the way to Pieterburn was horrible; it was raining, really windy and cold. However during our lunch break the sun came out and after that we didn't need our rainjackets for the rest of the day. At Pieterburn we visited a seal nursery and from there we continued to the coast and saw Waddenzee. The coast was very naturalistic, in the sense that to reach the ocean we would have had to walk through a swamp. Some actually did, but I decided to stay back at the areas with grass. Another first time experience was biking in the middle of sheep during that trip. The sheep did not react in anyway when 9 people biked near by them. As expected we got one flat tire during the trip, but luckily that person got back to Groningen by train. 

The house has had some problems in the past days. Internet has been down, as the main problem. I actually was forced to go and study in the library on Saturday, as I had not downloaded the necessary reading materials and court cases for this weeks assignments. It was not that bad at the library, I will probably be spending quite a lot of time there. In general my room is okay, not the best one available in the Student Houses, but am not complaining too much. At least I have my own room where I can escape from people, unlike at RCN. 

Another place that I have been spending quite a lot of time recently is the Sports facilities. We have a student sports organization called ACLO and you can get a membership there and also a gym card for like (120 euros per year for both of the items). I've mostly been going to the gym, but tried a spinning class for the first time (here) on Friday. The only downside is that it's located at Zernike-campus (6 km from my home) and all of my classes are at the center campus (2-3 km). Luckily I have to wait only a week and they'll open a new location that is closer to me. 

Anyways life here is going fine and have not regretted my choice of university yet!

P.S. I'll do another post in a couple of days containing photos from the trips and the city!