Yesterday I had my first class for Organised Crime. I find it difficult to understand the lecturer, so I have no idea how all the other exchange students cope, but other than that its a very interesting topic. Human trafficking, drug smuggling, even illegal dumping of waste. Anything to make money, people will do. So now I have to do a research paper on organised crime in NZ. I'm not entirely sure what organised crime NZ has but Im sure there's some. Not as much as all the shinanagans going on in Italy I'm sure! So I have now started all my classes, and I have research papers and class presentations for all of them. For Penal Systems (are ya laughin maa?) I'm doing prison labour, for Drug Policy I am looking at hard-to-treat drug users, I think I will focus on youth and methamphetamine (because over here they don't call it P) and for International Nature Conservation I havent got a topic yet. So now I just have a whole lot of work to do :S Plus keep up with my Dutch which I am finding veeerrrrry difficult at the moment.
Straight after class we then had low countries studies which was on the history of the Dutch language. On the way home from that, we got ourselves stuck in the middle of a protest/demonstration/riot amongst student groups. I'm not sure what was going on as all the news sites I have found about it are in Dutch, but there were riot police EVERYWHERE, there were helicoptors, trucks with water canons pointed at the crowds, the works. At first we didnt realise what was going on, but then bottles started flying and we tried to get the heck outa there. But the Police had cordoned off the square that we were in (which currently has a circus/theme park/show thing in it) so we had to wind our way through this creepy park at night, get our bikes over a fence, and then go around a couple of blocks to get around the police cordon. I think they were expecting a lot of trouble because there were so many police around. Even police on bicyles. I don't think I've ever seen so many police in one place at the same time.
Got back to homes vermeylen and fabiola where most of my friends live, and decided to still go to the tequila party. Found out that it was actually a party at a pub called tequila. hehe. That's the way things work around here, word gets around like chinese whispers about events, but its even worse because the exchange students sometimes get very confused about words in English! For example, I was told there was a shindig on some guy porter's house. I asked who porter was. Turns out they meant The Porter House. They do pretty well really though, English is the second or third language for everyone here. Anyway, discovered I really like Tequila sunrises, stayed there for only a while as I had class the next day, got home at the very respectable hour of 2am. The music in the pubs here I find really not good. I would even opt for the Outback over what I've heard so far hehe. That and the smoking. But of course there are lots of places I haven't been to yet, for example Cafe Centraal, the Salsa bar which I am going to tonight. Am missing home a bit so keeping busy as best I can. Also, we have our weekly International Dinner tonight, with Hungarian gulash, Greek salad, some kind of Portugese octopus dish, some Italian pasta, and NZ dessert - with fresh fruit salad and pikelets with strawberries and cream. Thanks to those of you who came up with ideas for me, I am a bit limited because there is no oven here so everything has to be cooked in a pan!
Anyway hope you are all being good.
xxx
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