First day in Utrecht

Today I'd like to tell you about my first day in Utrecht — enjoy! (because I don't)

Yesterday it was high time I left Belgium to go to the Netherlands, more particularily to the city of Utrecht, where I'm supposed to spend the next five months as part of the Erasmus programme. Unfortunately I still haven't found a room, so my good classmate Magali, who's also staying in Utrecht, kindly invited me to spend a couple of days at her room.

So I left my beloved country round 9.30 with my mother. It took us roughly two and a half hours to get there and find a parking lot in the city centre. Then we looked for the building where I was to have an appointment with a study advisor who wanted to assess my proficiency in Dutch. We met Magali by chance near the Dom (a huge cathedral). We walked to the local KFC (fastfood outlet) to regenerate ourselves and then we headed for the aforementioned office. The study advisor received us at the same time because she understood that we were from the same university. We talked about our past courses in Dutch and things like that. Thanks to her we are now allowed to take a course that had been deleted for exchange students, but a bit later we were sent a confirmation e-mail by the professor, linking to a personal page and then we realized we should perhaps have picked another course… (Go to this address to witness the full boredom of this course.)

After this appointment we went to Zeist, where Magali's room is located. With me I only had clothes etc. for about 20 days, my student files, my laptop and a green camp bed. (I'm really far from the comfort I had in Namur… *Sighs*) My mother took the car and went back to Belgium — I wish I was with her. Honestly. I. Did. Not. Want. To. Stay. In. Utrecht. My first choice to go on an Erasmus trip was Leuven because it's the best Belgian university, as far as I know, and I thought I'd be sent there thanks to my good marks. Apparently the professors were thinking they were doing me a favour by sending me to Utrecht — I'm now fully disappointed with them. Not having a place to live is awful. I feel empathy for bums.

I'd like to make an ultimatum: if I still don't have a room on 13 September, I'm going back to Belgium, no matter what the (financial, academic…) consequences could be. I really hate saying that, but I'm really sick and tired of this Dutch system to find a room: you have to send an e-mail (which isn't free of charge at all) to the owner, who will then contact you if and only if he/she likes your face and your profile. Unfortunately this was hardly the case for me, but I managed to get two positive reactions out of the 35 e-mails that I sent:

• The first room available was located in Wijk bij Duurstede, at 25 km from Utrecht. Unfortunately the room was really a pigsty (e.g. one of the dogs peed on the floor and the owner considered this normal) and far too expensive for what it was, given all the sanitary issues…
• The second room that I got to see was located in Overvecht, nearby a nice shopping mall. The room and the flatmates were great but… they turned me down and chose an Italian exchange student instead, probably because he could cook them Italian dishes or something — I admit not having fully understood what the owner told me on the phone.

Yes, the worst of this is that even if you're elected to come and see a room, you have to be aware that you're a candidate amongst several others — and the big drawback I have is that I'm not Dutch… At least, I guess so.

Back to my first day here.

In the evening Magali and I went to the Zeist city centre to have lunch (roasted turkey under a thick layer of a disgusting brownish spicy sauce) and then we walked a bit, before taking the bus. We then had an awful time finding the right bus stop to get out (because it was completely dark) and the building where we're staying.

Anyway… I'm really desperate, even if the social activities we've been talked about today are great, but I won't fully enjoy them as long as I don't have a room.

Wish me luck!

Back to the… past (for a change) – Part I: Barcelona

Let's go for the account on the first part of my holiday: my tip to Spain with Elodie, my "significant other", as would one of my professors write. ;)

First I had to wake up at 3 am to get ready and go to Brussels Airport by 4.30 am to check in. Thanks to Elodie's parents, we arrived just on time and after checking in we waited in the huge terminal, from which a bus took us to the airplane. Since a passenger hadn't shown up to get into the plane, his or her luggage had to be removed, so we had to wait for an extra 20 minutes before taking off.

Two hours later we landed in Barcelona. Due to a pitiful lack of information we didn't know we had to go to terminal A to get our luggage back, while we were in terminal B… After going through security gates and "talked" to several policemen (I use inverted commas because they hardly know a word of English, and since Spanish is like gibberish to me, communication was hampered), we finally found our luggage, approximately two hours after landing…

Anyway, we had plenty of time at our disposal. It was just unpleasant not to be able to find where our luggage was. Fortunately, everything's well that ends well, so let's forget about that. We took the bus to the city centre, then we headed for our hotel, Barcelona Cathedral, right in the "old city". We unpacked and then went our to get some food:

Yep, we found a Quick restaurant not very far from our hotel. The taste of the "Giant" (my favourite hamburger) was identical. The Coke they gave us, however, tasted awful. Moreover, I took an interesting photograph: I noticed that the cleaning ladies use Dutch (!) signs to warn people that the floor is slippery! (Note that Prof. Mettewie was really amazed when I showed her the picture.)

After that we got back to the hotel and later in the afternoon we went out for a walk in the narrow streets of the old Barcelona. The next day we got up pretty early and we took a metro to go to Barcelona's most famous building: the Sagrada Familia cathedral, Antoni Gaudí's masterpiece.

Usually I hate churches, but I wanted to see this one for its architectural qualities. I was amazed to see all the different techniques that were specially invented to build this monument.

I'm looking forward to seeing this cathedral when it's completed, probably in 2026. It's a brilliant effort to find new ways to build seemingly impossible structures, but I regret that it was done with a religious aim in mind.

After eating at a nearby KFC restaurant (yummy!) we went to a really pleasant park where we relaxed some time.

We also went to the harbour, a commercial mall (not my idea) and to several other places. The next day (i.e. 25 June) we went to Barceloneta, the city's beach, where thousands of people were either sunbathing or playing or sleeping or walking.

We also went to the aquarium, but I was relatively disappointed: I had to pay 16 euro… just for myself! So 16 other euro for Elodie… Outrageous! Inside the building the fish and other sea creatures were all right, with even a conveyor belt in a glass tunnel to let us wonder about sharks and whatever fish — but it was nothing to write home about. Well, I just did, but… Oh, forget about that.

Later we went to the Park Güell (also designed by Gaudí) where I took some nice pictures of the city.

Unfortunately, I ran out of battery power so you (and I, obviously) won't get any pictures from the splendid main terrace, "surrounded by a long bench in the form of a sea serpent" (as said in the Wikipedia entry).

On the last day of our trip we didn't get up very early, so we had to rush to pack things up and leave the room before 12 o'clock. We went for a walk and we ate at a McDonald's (don't worry, we also ate local food on other occasions) and in the afternoon we stayed close to our hotel. We took the bus round 6 pm to go to the airport. We waited a bit, checked in and we took off soon after the semi-final of the European football championship, opposing Spain to Russia, began. We landed in Brussels at 11 pm and got our luggage back without any trouble. Who said everything was more complicate in Belgium?

In conclusion, this was a fantastic trip which I spent with a most delightful person, my beloved one who I'll never thank enough for these wonderful four days. I'm already looking forward to our next trip!