Bori goes to Holland

My sincere apologies to everyone for having skipped such a huge amount of time since my last blogpost. Fortunately, I have a set of awesome arguments why I had no time to document and share my breathtaking life.

Basically what has happened is that I have gone through all the big steps of becoming a proper working expat in Holland. Expat, meaning expatriot - this is the official term for all these immigrants like me, don't ask me why, I don't know, but that's the bucket I am put in.

1. Finding a Job

First of all, I had been on a serious job hunt last summer. I think I attended like 15 job interviews, for only like 5 positions or so. Every damn job has 3 rounds of interviews! For any job, including customer service agents for crying out loud. So it is a tough process. In the end, I got hired by Booking.com, and started working as a Website Quality Specialist from October 1, 2012 where I work until this day, and I love it. I am really not complaining about this section, because in the end, just after 2 months of having graduated from my master, I already got an awesome job. (pat on the back)

2. Finding a Place to Live

Since Booking.com is located in Amsterdam, and back then I was living in Utrecht, I decided to move.

Let me tell you, looking for rooms in Amsterdam is not the most desirable way to spend your time, especially when you have just started your new job. Kamernet.nl, a room-renting website was of great help here, but honestly, the website is a pain in the ass. As a Website Quality Specialist, I would have some serious remarks on the usability of that site. Add to that, that of course it is not for free, there is a subscription fee involved, which makes it even more a pain in the ass. I seriously recommend to simultaneously also use Facebook groups like Amsterdam Apartments, where the platform is not specifically designed for this kind of interaction, but at least the functions and features work as expected.

Either way, I found myself a temporary place to stay, until I could find a place for long-term. So I just moved, packed all my life from Utrecht, stuffed it into the car of a friend (thank you Attila!), put it down in Amsterdam, and started looking already for a new place. I have been to about 5 proper Dutch kijkavonds, which means that the hosts actually invite all potential new roomies at the same time. First I thought it was a mistake when people kept arriving when I was there checking out the flat. But no, they actually made us sit around in the living room, and then made everyone answer the same questions in a row. It feels like a boring and awkwards quiz-show, or like an audition for a reality-show. Each round you have few minutes to convince your hosts that you would be the perfect new tenant for the team. And it's not about winning a washin-machine, what's at stake is where you are gonna live for the next couple of months! I was exhausted after these, like after job interviews.. You have to be focused, say the perfect things everyone wants to hear from you, be nice and smalltalk for 2 hours.

So I got through these, got my new place, bought furniture for my new place and moved in. I thought this is the end of this moving journey, but my biggest discovery was yet to come: Dutch walls are made out of cardboard. Or paper. I am not sure. What is sure, is that they have no noise-isolation whatsoever. In the first few weeks of living in my new apartment, everytime that my neighbours were walking in the staircase, I frantically ran out from my room to check whether our front door is closed - every damn time I thought someone is actually coming into my flat. Everytime my neighbours decided to listen to music, I had no choice but to listen too. Whenever they decided to not sleep, I also didn't sleep. I was using earplugs in order to not go crazy, but it didn't really help.

Unfortunately, eventually I DID go crazy, and thus moved again, just 2 months ago, to a place where I don't have upstairs neighbours, because it is top floor (smart, ey?). Oh because of course I never lived alone, a studio or appartement for 1 person is WAY too expensive in this city, so I am sharing it with 2 girls. Renting in general is ridiculously expensive in this city - it costs more than buying a house and paying the installments for it. Either way, now I not only have a roof above my head, but also a roofterrace!(again, pat on the back)

3. Finding friends and hobbies

Probably the toughest part is to build up a social life, far away from your home. I can consider myself already lucky, because I work with so many expats, that it is not hard to connect - an Italian or Greek expat working here has much more in common or can connect easier than with local Dutchies, simply due to their situation in life. However, of course, you cannot hang out ONLY with your colleagues. So you try to meet people on Meetup, you keep inviting your friends from home to come visit you (thank you Zsofi and Csoppy!)... but yeah, it will never be the same as being at home. You have to learn that you cannot count on close friends who are there for you anytime, which is a painful and sad lesson, but is very valuable. It took me months to accept this and to realize, that I have to actually invest in this, which is an exhausting process...

But it's worth it! And luckily I still have some people who I know from for example Utrecht. That's why I ended up dressed up in orange with a bunch of Italian and Spanish people to celebrate Queen's (King's) Day! 

Also, just recently I was able to start some musical projects again, so voila, another video for you to enjoy. And, just another proof of how crazy small the world is once more, the guy next to me playing the guitar, grew up in the same street as me, back in Budapest. The last time we saw each other was probably 10-15 years ago in Hungary, and we bumped into each other on Facebook this year (long live Web 2.0), just to realize that now we live ridiculously close again. 

4. Further everyday challenges

All the rest of stereotypical incidents that an expat has to encounter.

Move to Amsterdam, lose a bike

I was sure that sooner or later it will also happen to me, but somehow I was hoping it wouldn't. Apparently, 15 months is the limit in which the laws of this country say: sorry, expired, get a new bike. Honestly, it was probably just a matter of time until the hands of statistics have picked my fate to be the next person to have their bike stolen. Of course it happened on the very first weekend when I first left my bike in Amsterdam. But, my current ratio of having only my second bike while having lived here for already 21 months is still quite ok, so I'll shut up :)

Cultural shock & language frustrations

I thought I have already been abroad enough to not be shocked by having people from different nations around me, talking other languages than I speak, but the change from Utrecht to Amsterdam was much more drastic than I expected. Already in my office, I have approximately 30 different nationalities in my immediate surroundings, but at least there everyone speaks English. However, on the street, surprisingly, not everyone does. The majority of course does, but the Turkish shop assistant in the grocery shop just around the corner will know only the most basic words. Just like the smiley Chinese ladies in massage salons - I think so far Dutch words spoken with a Chinese accent is my favorite combination.

Weather

As soon as you start working full-time, weather on weekends for example becomes crucial. Not daring or wanting to go outside because of crappy weather on a Saturday, ruins your whole next week. That's why the square by my office is crowded with colleagues at lunchtime during a sunny day. Or in fact any park in Holland at any time of the year will be overcrowded as soon as there is sun for longer than 5 minutes.

I think I could keep on listing stuff for this section... it's a constant ongoing process that I am afraid will never end because there are always new things. My last intention is to bore anyone to death, so I will just pick out one thing. There is this miraculous ability of Dutch  people that they can bike while wheeling their luggages next to them on the pavement. I tried that once, but after faling over 3 times I give up. However, at least I figured out how to transport for example moving boxes:

So, this is what it's like to be an expat in Amsterdam. For me. For now.

p.s.: For those of you who have been desperately waiting for me to mention the word porn: my article from my thesis is in progress - but any further development in that will deserve its own blogpost of course! :)

Until now I have talked about the difficulties and joys of writing a thesis about pornography. Once you are done with it, and have gone through the thesis defense, the only thing left is to graduate gracefully from the university, with a 70-paged document on porn under your arm that you will hopefully never have to talk or write about again. At least for a while.

Okay, that doesn't seem to be that hard. No, it's not, especially since for me, coming from Hungary, graduation meant hearing my name, walking up to the dean while people clap, shaking hands, getting some diploma, and walking away. Well, if you have a similar background, there are still some surprises left if you happen to graduate in the Netherlands. The Dutch have this nice habit of each supervisor presenting each student's project - as part of the official graduation ceremony that is public. And by public I mean open for all: friends, families, pets, whatever. Each programme has its own gradution ceremony, that's why there is time to talk about everyone, as opposed to the Hungarian tradition where all programs of a faculty receive their diplomas within the same ceremony (several hundred students).

If you happen to finish an international master, like I did, you will realize, that the Graduation Ceremony is quite a significant happening. Of course, local friends and relatives show up for sure, but in most cases, there aren't any local family members. For the parents who live abroad, this happening is the real marker of their offspring having succeeded in another country, and they are so incredibly proud that they all come in person. Especially, because most of the year they haven't even seen their pretty little boy or girl. In some cases, literally the whole family including all sisters brothers uncles and aunts show up, adding up to an average of 4-5 guests per graduate.

The reason why I am saying this, is to prepare you for the fact, that in a case of a class with 25 studenst, there will be a crowd of 100-150 unknown people sitting in front of you when your supervisor describes what you have been doing in this master. In case you have written your thesis on porn, you get the idea why this gets interesting. 'What is he going to say?' 'How is he going to say it?' 'Is he going to go into detail about it?' - these are the questions that might arise in your head while you wait for the fateful moment.

I cannot talk in generalities from this point on: it is absolutely up to the supervisor to decide on which level he or she talks about someone's thesis. Some professors talk only for 2 minutes, saying only the general topic with some comments on how nice it was to work together, while others hold a 7-minute presentation, with immense details on the research project. Surprise surprise, my supervisor falls into the latter category, and has actually managed to give the longest speech of the whole ceremony about my topic. I know, 7 minutes doesn't sound so incredibly long, but the whole ceremony lasted not much more than 1 hour, so with a class of about 25, the average time spent on each student is around 3 minutes. So about 10% of our graduation ceremony was about me and my research, so basically about pornography. How did the audience handle it? Pretty well. Lot of laughing from all across the room, including us standing on the podium.

Below you can read some of the highlights, taken from my supervisor's talk.

"I have 3 theses in my hand that I have supervised. As you can see, 2 of them have a picture on the cover, the third one doesn't. Let me talk to you about this one first and tell you why this is."

(At about 2:30 of the speech, he says the P word out loud.)

"We agreed that Bori would underline that this topic was chosen by herself and not by her supervisor..."

"I am sure that there is no woman in this room, who has watched so much porn, as her"

Readers of my previous blogposts are aware of the fact that I have gone through much worse episodes than this, and was already well prepared mentally for this occasion. And I also have to admit, this was actually a pleasant experience. Of course, this is also due to the fact that I did not have to do anything, it was much more of a challenge for my supervisor to face a similar drama as I have faced in the last 6 months, by forcing an 'inappropriate' topic into an 'appropriate' context. All I had to do was to stand there and be very proud. Which I was indeed! After all, I have officially graduated from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, with distinction (whatever that means), and porn or not porn, I got a 9 for my thesis.

I apologize for the inadequate pun(s) in the title, but it is kind of representative of how I felt throughout these last 5 months. Anytime I started talking about my thesis, jokes start flying around. Funnier ones, and less funnier ones. And people start asking and talking and talking and asking... This blogpost is dedicated not only tomy actual Master thesis defense that took place last week, but also to all the other less formal or informal oral exams I had encountered.

Since the writing of a master thesis takes at least 3-4 months, it is natural that you end up talking about it from time to time, in different settings with different people. This happens to anyone who writes a thesis. So, why is writing about porn special? The nature of this topic makes discussions much more unpredictable and exhausting, because everyone can relate to porn. If you write a thesis on artificial intelligence, you will probably mostly have silent, respectful glances and nodding heads, or professional arguments with geeks. This is why researching porn becomes a special experience, and this is of course what legitimates its research in the first place: that everybody watches it! Everybody knows some forms of pornography, and therefore has experiences, ideas, and questions about it, and in informal settings, they all seem to come up and result in a conversation that may have started out as your thesis, but eventually becomes anything else related to porn that is of interest to your discussion partner.

So, who are these people that will challenge you to organize your thoughts more or less appriopriately about a topic that is generally considered inappropriate? Below I provide general list of the major settings and contexts which each need different mindsets and preparation. A useful guide for any future porn researcher.

1. Your supervisor.

The ultimate winner of this list is your supervisor. Starting from the very beginning, where you have to 'justify your interest', meaning that you have to provide clear and solid scientific arguments for wanting to watch porn for your thesis. Once this is done, and you actually start reading and writing things, it becomes much easier: the vague and scary 'PORN' label disappears from your mind and you will start to think in academic contexts. This of course changes again when you actually start dealing with the data. Luckily, you don't have to talk about what you see to your supervisor: you just write your observations down, and then the meetings will be just abstract discussions on the findings and the theoretical background of your thesis. Video titles like Hot latina sucks cock or Busty babe takes it from behind are just data identifiers, and will never be spoken out loud during the meetings of your supervisor. Jokes are inevitable, but if your supervisor is cool (like mine was luckily) then you have a good chance of avoiding awkward moments.

2. Your friends.

After the academic context, you will have to make a big switch to the informal world of your friends. Each of your friends has a different background and openness, therefore they all take on different approaches. Some of them, mostly guys, get really enthusiastic, and try to sell their brilliant idea on porn innovation to you, not realizing that the topic they brought up is just as far from your actual thesis as if they were talking about aerodynamics of watercrafts. I don't blame them: the taboo of porn makes an umbrella-term out of it, and if the term eventually comes up, it covers every sexually explicit phenomenon ever created. Trying to explain your discussion partners that you are only researching a very narrow slice of the oh-so-big porn-world, which is not really comparable to all the other parts, is rather unnecessary. So just let them have their fun and try not to get too involved.
Others are skeptical and will make a joke out of it: 'What kind of school is that, stripper academy? I didn't know you could write a thesis on porn'. Well, yeah, again: don't let it get to you. Most people do not realize that pornography is just as much of a cultural product like talent shows, and are equally (if not even more) valid research topics for several study programmes within the field of media, sociology, etc.

3. Acquantainces

Personally I find this category the most annoying. Friends of friends, who randomly slip into the topic by unconcerned follow-up questions on your studies. (How are you? --> What do you do? --> What study? --> What topic?)  These conversations can be pleasantly short and uninteresting, but can also end up to be a real pain in the ass. Friends of friends generally do not consider that when they ask you to explain your topic, you need to summarize the work of 5 months in two sentences that is digestable for them, which means people that you have met probably only 5 minutes ago. Also, you might not be actually too fond of talking about your thesis at 10pm on Saturday evening - but I have to admit here that it really does end up very interestingly sometimes. But in most of the cases they say two sentences about something from their life which is related to porn, which has yet again nothing to do with your thesis, but frankly, noone really cares. It is at this point that your research becomes equal to Dutch weather: it has been degraded to small-talk.

4. Strangers

This category is similar to the previous one, the only risk here is that you really do not know anything about the person you are talking to. It could be a priest just as well as a prostitute - a factor that makes it intriguing to bring up the magical word (yes, I am referring to porn). Since it is a stranger, you don't have anything to lose, but that doesn't mean that you can always win something by it either. When I talked to two guys in their 30s in a pub after 4 beers, I was bored by the jokes whether such a study requires 'field work' or not, but after 5 minutes we reached a pleasent discussion about gender stereotypes. So, you never know if you don't try.

5. Future employers

Apart from academia, this is the only other formal setting where it might come up. Especially if you are a fresh graduate, and they want to know what you have been doing lately. It is much harder than the academic environment, as the whole issue becomes much more sensitive due to the job that is at stake for you. Trying to guess whether that company would appreciate your interest or would be less flattered, is quite tough. Therefore, the best solution is to have an abstract in your head in a CV-compatible format. Exchange each explicit or risky word to a more academic or formal one, which will add up to an intriguing result. Like for example in the case of my master thesis: Gender ideologies on adult video-sharing websites. When they ask me what it was about, I answer something like 'I researched how these web 2.0 platforms are representative of their underlying gender ideologies.' which is definitely true, in manages to grasp the essence without mentioning the P word. In general I would say, avoid the term porn or pornography if possible - that word is too risky and might trigger too many thoughts, questions, etc.

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Well, I have attempted to cover the main settings I have experienced that required me to formulate verbal thoughts on my otherwise written thesis. Actually, if I had to sum up, the major areas where you should be aware of having different approaches is the vocabulary and the jokes. If you manage those, then not too much can go wrong. AND,  the best part is yet to come: after going through all these oral exams for 5 months, you arrive at the master thesis defense. When I'm saying best part, I am serious: after having all those semi-serious conversations about topics that are hardly related to your thesis, the defense is heaven itself. Having two professors sit in front of you, who have read every word of your thesis and actually know your research, is an extreme relief. YES! THANK YOU! It gives you a sense of recognition: it did make sense! It was worth it! I did a proper research! It's science! It's important! It's useful! In my case, the recognition was extreme, as I got a 9 for my thesis, which is an unbelievably high grade in the Dutch grading system. I even quote wikipedia here, just to make sure that I am not talking bullshit

Finally, I have finished my master thesis. Below you can see the exact moment when I am officially submitting the hardcopy to the 'pigeonhole' (postvak in Dutch) of my supervisor.

 And then came the moment of celebration: by opening a bottle of champagne on campus with Brittany and Jessica. We wanted to execute this project outside, but the weather was not cooperating so we sneaked into a building and popped it there.

As further celebration, we had an excellent BBQ at Brittany's and Alistair's place, I would hereby like to thank them again for making this happen. This is how the party looked like from outside, with a lovely HOERA sign in the window (meaning 'hooray' with silly Dutch phonetics).

And from the inside with a backwards HOERA and lots of food - and a happy master's person:

To continue towards the title of this post, my thesis is about gender ideologies on adult video-sharing websites - so basically about a segment of online pornography. The research took me about 3-4 months, and the end product is the wonderful 72 paged document that you can see in the first picture. Apparently my topic still creates some uproar, so I have summed up the convenient and less convenient elements of this process, for my amusement and as advice for future researchers in this direction.

Pros:

+ it certainly grabs people's attention in a conversation
+ it's funny to observe the scale of reactions, ranging from perplex to 'WOW!'
+ it can spark interesting debates with open-minded people
+ makes you feel 'special' because there is SO LITTLE about your topic
+ makes you feel cool because there are so many prude people who would be unable to do this
+ you would never imagine what hilarous storylines they make up for porn! like a guy 'selling' his girlfriend to be able to pay the rent
+ meetings with your supervisor are always 'funny'
+ the thesis defense will surely be even more 'fun'
+ you can write 'cock', 'blowjob' and 'pussy' into your academic text
+ local achievement: encountering only 1 hungarian video among 100 porn clips!!

Cons:

- watching hours of porn is boring
- mainstream porn is extremely boring
- many people don't take your research seriously
- many people don't take YOU seriously
- guys don't take you seriously because they think you're on a 4-months-porn-watching-holiday
- girls only take you seriously if you prove you are a feminist
- there are also annoying reactions like laughing out of embarrasment, or envy for your 4-months-porn-wathcing-holiday
- having to explain your weird bookmarks and browser logs
- having to close the curtains while writing your thesis unless you want your neighbours see that you take notes while watching porn and think that you are a pervert
- huge traffic of pornsites slowing down your work
- noisy pop-up stuff on porn sites killing your computer
- don't bother with screenshots/images: your supervisor will sooner or later tell you to take it out
- there is not much literature on your topic
- if there is, then the librarians laugh and make comments when you borrow books titled like 'porn studies'

I have been taking singing lessons already in Hungary, and recently I started a singing course here in Utrecht as well. My teacher, Eva Kieboom, organized an event where all her students performed one song, as a closing act for our course. Well, here is my part of the evening on video. An interesting additional fact: I came directly from the airport, to perform after 6 hours of travel from Budapest. Thank god I did not miss my own concert. :)

Thanks Eva for everything, thanks Emiel for the awesome piano accompaniment, thanks Anti for recording it, and thanks everybody for coming! :)

Queen's day is probably the biggest holiday in the Netherlands where everybody dresses in orange and goes onto the streets. Already on the day before, tremendous parties take place and the famous flea-market starts, filling the streets with vendors and customers. The vrijmarkt allows the selling of items without a permit and without paying tax: so basically everyone is trying to get rid of their unused/used items for a decent/ridiculous price.

So basically what happens is that you have extemely crowded streets with real treasures/heaps of junks on the sidewalks, with crazy people doing crazy things. And there is a small stage on every other corner where people listen to music and drink beer 24/7 (for 24 hours). This year, Queen's day happened to be clear and sunny for 24 hours, for the first time this year, it was a crazy fortunate coincidence, as it hadn't been really warm before (nor afterwards). I actually got a tan, visible on my wrist where the wrist-watch left a paler line. Queen's day has actually erased and overwritten my Maltese wrist-watch-line.

Paradoxically, the actual big party night does not necessarily take place on Queen's Day, as the next day might be a working day and Dutch are nice and don't take a day off just because of a slight hangover. So this year, we partied on the 29th of April, all in orange!

The hat you see on my head has little flashing lights on them, which allow you to glow in orange in the dark (courtesy of my friend Brittany). And this was only one of the incredible amount of orange merchandise you could buy in shops. I'm surprised I didn't see any orange coloured drinks, although they allegedly exist.

Next Dutch event was a bike-tour, aiming to see the tulip fields which are soon to disappear as they are cut off and sold to tourists (I'm not a flower person, but I can't really imagine locals going mad and buying huge bouquets of tulips to take home). 

The biking turned out to be quite a tour, a 37 km route from Heemstede to Leiden, check out our GPS-track on the fancy map! My first real bike-tour ever, and without rain! :)  

Most of the tulips were already cut, so we only covered a small color-scale of the rainbow, ranging from red to yellow.

It made me feel quite dizzy when we were trying to estimate the number of flowers in this field.. Probably millions! Multiply with a few euros per tulip and BAM, you're a millionaire!

Now back to writing my thesis, yuppeee! :)

Once upon a time, back in the summer of 2011, there was an event called SCIM, where children of all nations have gathered to learn from each other, have fun together, and drink massive amounts of alcohol. On one of these joyous days in Slovenia, I was looking for the hometown of each of us on the map that hang on the walls at trainstation of Ljubljana. As it turned out, Malta did not exist, according to the map, and was thus labelled by us to be not an island, but just a huge boat, floating in the Mediterranean Sea with 400,000 people on it who claim it to be a proper island.

Needless to say, the Maltesers were greatly offended, and had invited us to visit them to verify by our own eyes that Malta exists. It was on this fateful summer day in 2011 that we thought the fun should not end with the end of SCIM and thus swore to meet again, on the boat which is allegedly an island, called Malta.

Therefore, the 'Massive Top Secret Boat Party' group was created on Facebook, and after months of waiting, weeks of struggling with schedule adjustments, a Croatian, an Estonian and a Hungarian had finally booked their flights to visit the two Maltesers.

I left Holland (5°C) and I arrived in Malta (19°C) on the 14th of April, dropped my jaw, and I left it dropped during all of the 3 days that I have spent there. It is the most beautiful place I have ever been to: hills, terraced fields like in Toscany, with cute mediterranean houses (with not only numbers, but each of them has its own name!!), crazy traffic (on the left side!!) with Italian temperament, and amazing sea-shore all around, because it's a fucking island! It was too beautiful, breathtakingly, disgustingly beautiful. I WANT TO GO BACK!! But next time when it's properly summer and warm, but I still managed to get a tan during my short spring stay which was an amazing feeling. 

I am literally unable to pick pictures for this blogpost, so I'd like to share my Facebook album for those who are interested. As a foretaste, two modest pictures with me, first on the beach of Gozo, the (even) smaller island of Malta:

And second, Helen, Dino and me in Valletta, with the gorgeous view from the Baracca garden behind our back:

For a panorama pic of this view, click here.

Thank you Beckie and Charm, my Maltese friends for touring us around, and thank you Dino and Helen for making this boat party happen!

Date and location of the next SCIM reunion to be announced... Estonia? Argentina? Hungary?... We'll see! :)

During the long Easter weekend I went to see the dunes of the Texel island, which is the biggest and southest one from the bunch of islands North from the mainland of Holland, as you can see on this little map with the help of my lovely assistant, Mr. Arrow.

I was hoping to get a taste of a proper vacation, but april doet wat hij wil as the Dutch say (April does what he wants, equivalent of the German April, April, der macht was er will), and bitchy April decided we shouldn't see the sun at all during our stay. It was cloudy, windy and rainy.

Thus, the program was a bit limited, but we did manage to march around those amazing dunes which provided a sight I have never really experienced before. It pretty much consists of 3 things: heather, pine-trees and sand.

The pines only survive on the more 'inner' side from the dunes, by which I mean more far away from the seashore, this way they are more sheltered from the extreme wind.

Then if you walk towards the shore it will suddenly end like this:

Then you keep on going towards the seashore and it turns into this science-fiction Mars-like endless realm of heaps of sand and heather:

Although Texel is said to have more four-legged inhabitants in the form of sheep than humans, in these areas there is not a big chance to meet any animal with any number of legs - the only companions are birds struggling against the wind. We did cross a fence where it said that some farmers keep their animals freely on these fields, so we might encounter horses and such. And indeed, a giant bull crossed our path, which was pretty scary, given the fact the you could only notice it from 5-10 meters because of the small humps all around which make it impossible to see more than 50 meters ahead into any direction.

The other encounter that made this trip even more bizarre was a concrete fort, which hosted probably a few men which had to shoot all the brave warriors who swam all across the sea during the war to storm the country. Peek-a-boo, there's the porthole!

I found this disturbing: standing close there but not being able to look inside, I felt like anything, even human skeletons could be inside there. And if you think about it, how the hell did they build it? Did they bring huge tractors and other equipment through all these slippery sandy dunes? I don't know, it's just scary. Probably the fact that it is surrounded by nothing but nature gives even more emphasis to it, making it kind of ironic.

Anyway, this was Texel. Don't go there in windy weather, as travelling will be hard by bike. Busses are not too frequent. More on islands, their weather and their public transport to be discovered in my next post, which will cover my trip to Malta! Yaay! :)

It's only been 6 weeks and 2 blog posts since it was freezing, and now it's 18 degrees celsius, not to mention the daylight savings time change due to which it starts to be dark only after 8 pm. Despite the fact that in the morning it is only 6 degrees, which I consider to be closer to wintery 0 than to summery 20, Dutchies have changed to flipflops and miniskirts - I feel a bit weird, standing in my coat, scarf and cap next to them in the train station. They get crazy when the sun starts shining.

So, I've been up to a lot of things lately: I started taking singing classes! Am currently talking with several bands, would be lovely to have some action, but it's just not happening yet.
There has also been a little excursion: I visited a little city in the most Southern-West little spot of the country called Valkenburg. You know why? Because that part is almost like Belgium there: IT HAS HILLS! :) And there is also a castle-ruin on top of it, which makes it even more noteworthy. Voila the view from above:

Despite the fact that the earth seemed very porous in that area, there were several cave museums and installations, which we didn't visit because the sun was simply shining too nicely. But we did see a church installed in one of the 'outside' caves:

The second topic is my Dutch: I am getting better and better at this peculiar language! One of the best things that has ever happened to me since I am here in Utrecht was joining the CouchSurfer Dutch class, which is organized via the site of CouchSurfing for expats or anyone who is around. Such open-minden people, teaching their mother-tongue to foreigners for free in their own homes! I have been now on two lessons, and it turned out that I am able to speak proper sentences in Dutch! I just have never been really given the opportunity to do so :) Thing is, I understand now a lot, thanks to my few lessons I had and to my German knowledge, but I don't really speak, so that needs practice. Ik ben ook van plan een video te maken - I am planning to make a video-post about this topic soon.

Another recent happening: my dear Hungarian friend, Tomka, has graduated last week in industrial design, and I attended the ceremony. Look at all the little designers, being all happy about their diplomas, aren't they cute?

As for the last topic of today's little report: I have finished my last course at university with an awesome grade of 8.3, and am focusing now 100% on my thesis (I mean when I am not working), which is also getting on well according to the feedback of my supervisor. I have 2 more months to write it, am now at 22 pages, and it should round up to around 70. Seems doable.

I lied, there is one more thing which just came to my mind: my high-school class started organizing our 5 year meeting for this summer. So it's been 5 years since we've split (split splat splut splitted split? help) paths... and it turns out several all of us ended up abroad, so it will be a quite a challange to arrange it.. 5 damn years! Sounds little but seems a lot.. or the other way round.. I don't know anymore.

This is totally off-topic in regards to my life in the Netherlands, but it is nevertheless a little musical experiment and is interesting to share :)

Not long time ago it came up in a discussion with my friends whether a song sang backwards will sound like the original if the audio file was played backwards. For some reason we chose the Hungarian folk song called 'Boci boci tarka' and tried on the spot, but it turned out that it's not that easy to figure out with a beer in your hand and a loud bar around you. So I took a few minutes here at home to figure out the melody and the lyrics and executed the experiment. So in this video I first sing the original, then I sing the lyrics and the melody backwards, and finally the backwards version has been reversed by lovely Audacity freeware.

So, YES, it works. Although the timing is a bit weird (I am making the pauses in the places I am used to make them in the original, instead of moving that around as well in front of or after the notes) but apart from that it works perfectly fine.

Well, seems like Dutch winter is over. Now we are having 5-7°C again, but for almost two weeks it was -10°C during the day and there was an astonishing -19°c low on one night. As if this would have not been causing enough uncomfortable moments in our everyday lives (especially the biking part, which is quite essential), Nederlandse Spoorwegen, abbreviated as NS, which is the Dutch railway company, introduced an "angepaste dienstriegling". This "adjusted schedule" was a nice euphemism for the actual act of halving the number and/or frequency of trains. So instead of 15 minutes I had to wait 30 minutes everyday for my connection, which in both ways adds up to 1 nice hour, spent in the -10°c.

Yet again, I LOVE NS, I love the yellow-blue design and the trains and the ticket inspectors, the marketing and the efficieny and the quality of the service provided by the whole company is awesome, but I have to admit, I was on the verge of losing faith in their awesomeness during the first few days of this suffering. On one of these grey mornings, when I was freezing on the central station of Utrecht, waiting for my connection, the loud-speaker announced that because of the angepaste dienstregeling, NS gives a free cup of coffee or tea to everyone. I couldn't believe my ears! And even though there were some pretty long queues, I got my hot tea within 2 minutes, for free! And this was like this for the two weeks of the changed schedule! How awesome is that? NS FTW!
 

My second little story for this blogpost is going to be about two interesting bike incidents I had lately. One time, this is how I found my bike:

My front bike lamp was open, with the battery container part hanging out, with one battery missing. Apparently, somebody was really in need of a battey, but didn't dare to take them all. Or maybe he just needed one. He didn't leave a note, so I will never find out the mysterious urge that made somebody steal a battery from my bike frontlamp.

In the other bike story it is me who committed a serious biking error: because the thing that makes it stand on its own is not to stable, I usually just put it in a place where it can lean onto something. At the station there is a nice wall, which is perfect for this purpose. But, the majority of bikes does not have this problem, so they all stand in a nice row, perpendicular to the wall. This way, my bike can nicely be locked in, which happened on this fateful day once more. As I was pushing my way through, cautiously, to get my bike out, my bag got caught in one bike which lost its balance and started falling towards the bike next to it. I was standing there, witnessing this first bike lean slowly, slowly, and hit the next bike, which also started slowly to fall over.. I couldn't do anything but watch the bicycle domino happen. It was like an awful scene of a clumsy character in a sitcom: I was standing there, without being able to do anything, and all these bikes were falling over with a horrible sound. It was a sight of a ridiculous battelfield. 

Ironically, the last one was put to a bigger distance from the others and remained standing, staring into my face from across above the dozen of bicycle cadavers, as it was pointing at me: "YOU did this!"

I was laughing out loud and looking around for advice: how would a Dutch person react? What's the right thing to do? I tried to pick up the first one but the pedal was caught up and I couldnt move it... So I just biked home and was pouring my apologies into the air all the way.

Sorry!

:)

At the very end of January, winter has decided to show up after all.

It was a peaceful Monday morning, I stepped outside to go to work as usual and then something was weird: everything was white. I couldn't believe my eyes, I haven't really seen snow here during this winter. But yes, sure enough, everything was covered in snow. So I interrupted this quiet morning with joyful jumping around and whimpering after seeing the traces I have left on the ground.

At first I thought this is the typical teasing snow, that's like only there for a few hours before it turns into an icky gloss of dirt and ice goo. But to my surprise, it proved to be a pretty damn stubborn layer of snow!

Not enough, temperatures have drastically fallen below 0° C. My weather app has already claimed -8° degree at some point, but thermometers in the city have not yet dared to show less then -3° C.

A non-intended experiment has also taught us, that water not only freezes below 0° C but also increases in volume, no matter what the price.

Another lesson to remind us to not leave our shit around. Thanks Mr Physics, cool project!

A few weeks ago I visited my friend, Tomka in Eindhoven. When I stepped onto the train, I saw a guy with a guitar. As soon as the train started rolling out of the station, he started singing and playing. I wasn't sure if the two guys sitting in fron of him were his friends or just strangers. The whole situtation was kind of magical, and I kept hesitating whether I should join in. It was astonishing, he kept playing songs I knew and really liked, from Fatboy Slim to Nirvana, and I kept singing and humming while listening to it.
After a long tormenting hesitation, I finally went close and joined in, and thank god I did so. We sang through all the way - god how I missed singing! And, just to keep the magical thread, it turns out he has a band, and has proposed to have a jam session together.

Well guess what, that jam session took place yesterday. I went to Hilversum for my very first real band experience in the Netherlands. They have a lot of cool sounds, this song is one of my favorites until now, check it out:

I'll keep posting about the developments of the story! :)

 How unlucky, to write the first blogpost of 2012 on Friday the 13th. And it was also this week that we realized that Utrecht Centraal station does not have a 13th spoor! Are the Dutch supersticious? Don't know about that, but they sure LOVE fireworks, as you will soon learn. Zij zijn gek op vuurwerks, just to show off a bit of my Dutch knowledge which started gaining weight in the last few weeks, thanks to the Dutch lessons I'm taking.

I know its kinda late as topic, but the first blogpost of 2012 absolutely HAS to be about my old/new year's eve experience (somehow that's how they call it in Dutch). I must admit, it was shocking. A thousand words couldn't describe how horrified I felt by the extreme amount of fireworks and explosives in my very own neighbourhood, and in fact everywhere. To sum up: of course it is beautiful, fireworks are beautiful, but when there is so many of them, it sounds like there is a war going on. Instead of trying to describe it, I made a nice video for you to enjoy, with a list of 13 shocks I had, as a tribute for the date. Watch out, its going to be loud. I left the original audio so that you can experience how it was in real life. I simply had to scream, I was so scared sometimes, sorry :)

Last week the Pianobar took place at Maria's cantina on the campus of Erasmus University Rotterdam. We got together, listened to a bit of classical, a bif of pop and of course to some lovely christmas songs. It was awesome. Thanks Erasmus Cultuur for organising it!

And, as you might have guessed, I have been performing myself. A nice picture thanks to Marina:

Since I haven't played the piano for about 5 years now properly, I was extremely nervous (I had a blackout, and did not remember how and what I played after coming off from the stage until seeing the video of myself, phew). But nevertheless, I managed to play Gary Jules - Mad World and one of my own little compositions. Voila, enjoy! :)

Big thank you for Attila for the videos!

This year I have celebrated two things which I have never celebrated before. Both were amazing, so voila, my report.

American-style Thanksgiving

I participated in the first Thanksgiving dinner of my life, thanks to my dear American friend, Brittany. My immediate association to an American-style Thanksgiving was a huge stuffed-turkey, which was actually the only thing that was not present here. Allegedly there are no turkeys available in the Netherlands. So chicken it was, with carrots, beans and lots of other goodies, as you can see in this pic:

While shoveling the gorgeous food into our pieholes, the traditional Thanksgiving ritual took place: everybody had to say what they are thankful for. 

I know, it sounds clichéish, right? But let me tell you something: would YOU know what to say? I caught myself really preparing on summarizing the most important things which I would want to thank for. To say the things that I am really grateful of having, experiencing or whatever. So in the end, this whole little ritual made me appreciate everything I have. It made me feel thankful, goddammit. Even without a turkey.

So, if you ever get the chance, go to a Thanksgiving dinner, or even better, organize one, and feel the magic happen :)

Dutch-style Sinterklaas fun

The second holiday I want to talk about is more in context with the place I live: it is the Dutch Sinterklaas event. Oh dear, this country is crazy.

I don't even know how to begin. Sinterklaas is a weird mixture of the Hungarian Mikulás and Santa Claus. Actually the English name of Santa Claus originates from him: so YES, Sinterklaas was first. I found this fact to be quite disturbing.

Anyways, the tricky part is that unlike Santa Claus and unlike our Mikulás, he looks more like a pope:

To give a background, just like its Hungarian version, the figure originates from Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of children. In Hungary he comes on the 6th of December, here they mainly celebrate on the evening before.

So the thing is, this old man comes from Spain every year in November to the Netherlands on a steamboat, with a lot of Zwarte Pieten, or Black Petes. I mean, for real. This is broadcast on national television every year since 1952. Here you can check the first broadcast:

Then he walks around all Holland and gives presents and chocolate to the good children, which is taken down the chimney by the Black Petes - so they are black because of the soot and dirt, and not because this whole mascarade is a symbolic representation of the Dutch colonizations. This has actually been quite an issue in the last few years: some say its tradition, some say its racism. Well, whatever the case might be, the kids always fancy the Zwarte Pieten more because they are funnier than the old guy sitting on a horse. And also because the bad kids are taken away in bags back to Spain, which is less of a punishment than a reward :)

What we have to learn from this story, is that if I understood it correctly, Sinterklaas is a bigger deal here than Christmas. According to me fellow Dutchies at university, every family has their own little games and rituals to celebrate. One classmate, Romy, invited all of the class over to her house to give a little insight into one version of Sinterklaas games. Similar to Secret Santa, we had to take (two) presents, but unlike Secret Santa, without knowing who would get it in the end. Then we sat in a circle and waited eagerly. 

The game itself was rolling the dice and acting accordingly: we played several rounds swapping giving taking losing and unwrapping gifts, which was a lot of fun. There is some kind of tradition of making a surprise (pronounced in the French way by the Dutch), which we couldn't really decode, so some of us tried to be creative with the wrapping: the pinkish little ball in the middle is my little icecone, and the red milk box is actually also a gift, wrapped up.

What can I say, both newly learned traditions were pretty awesome. So I guess two more entries in my festive calendar from now on. :)

So, ladies and gentlemen, I can finally declare that I have officially finished the first term of my master programme. Only 3 more to go.. not to mention the master thesis, for which we just had to submit our topic preferences.

Anyways, the Dutch grading system, as mentioned earlier, gives grades on a range from 1 to 10. Needless to say, 10 is unreachable. 8 is a veryveryvery good achievement, 9 is probably the work of a genius. In the light of this introduction, I am proud to present my grades:

Media and Cultural Globalization: 8.0

Production and Use of New Media: 7.2

Methods of Media Research: 7.1

This means an overall average of 7.4, which I consider a fair success, considering that these were the first fully English taught higher-education courses I have ever taken in my life. So congrats to me! :)

Last weekend we went to Belfast, well, to Carrickfergus to be more precise, for a nice little late-autumn trip. It was the first time that CouchSurfing worked out for me, previously when I tried to "book" my stay to Berlin, it was impossible to get a response.

But this time we were lucky, probably because of all the clovers. Or Leprechauns. Or however this irish mythology goes.

Carrickfergus is further to the North from Belfast, and it has gorgeous castle. Voila a night pic:

And just so that you get an idea how big it is:

In Belfast there was a statue that really amazed me: 

Probably because it made me feel like home, as it is kind of similar to the Hungarian Citadella:

After the flat Netherlands, it was an extremely "uplifting" experience to see and climb mountains. Cavehill it is called, for obvious reasons.

I was stunned by the beauty of this place. It was misty, but not cold, and it just occurred to me in this place how much I love this hilly smell of air - as I have been living on a hill back in Budapest for at least 16 years.

I also did some tree-climbing, which was out of the repertoire for a few years now:

Of course, we didn't miss to taste some local famous whiskey, Bushmill's it was. The little pub that we found was a whiskey heaven, I liked the enterior a lot:

The stay was too short, only one and a half days. We even had to turn back from hiking before reaching the biggest peak, but we did however, already have a view like this:

It is a beautiful place. Thank you Phil for hosting and helping us throughout this short little trip, this late-autumn project turned out to be a very sweet idea.

 Last week the Sing-a-Song contest took place at the university campus. It was a really nice night, thanks for Erasmus Cultuur for organising it.

They also recorded part of my performance! Watch the video, be part of the event, experience how nervous I was! :)

 .. again.

For my fellow classmates and friends living in the Netherlands, you can experience this live, this Thursday from 8 pm at the Erasmus University Rotterdam Sing-a-song contest.

Wish me luck! :)

First term is OVER! I still have two assignments to do, but I conquered 25% of this master programme. In terms of terms. :D Only 3 more to go.

Next week my first ever CouchSurfing trip will take place to Belfast. Which is good, as I have started to get familiar with a few Irish pubs both in Rotterdam and in Utrecht - they are lovely. :)

Christmas time is nearing, but before that, the lovely Dutch have a lovely thing, similar to Hungary's Mikulás. It's Sinter Klaas, and Zwarte Piet. Sinter Klass looks nothing like the fat guy, it's a skinny pope. Black Pete is like the Hungarian Krampusz.

As you can see below, I am in Santa Claus mood already. Also a nice view onto the lovely Dom of Utrecht.

The looks of the flat has been upgraded once again. Now, everytime I reach for my morning cereal, I can have a close look at North or South America.

When fetching my mug, I can scrutinize the Eastern hemisphere.

For those who havent yet put together the big picture (haha), a world map has been glued to our kitchen cupboad. Pretty cool, ey?  :)

This probably is the most efficient way to teach yourself some geography.

After 10 years of active craving I have finally made it to a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert. Last Sunday, October 16th, Rotterdam, Ahoy arena. It was AWESOME.

After getting in with the crowd and putting coats down, we finally got out to the seating area, where I have to admit, I felt dizzy. It frightened me. This is how it looked like later, when it was full, shot from behind the stage:

So the crowd was MASSIVE. But my utmost respect to the organisers of Ahoy, everything went smooth and well.

I was only stressed because are actual seats were somewhere at the very back, and we were thinking about ways to get closer to the stage. In the end we were pretty lucky, we just took a few seats by chance, having an awesome view, and after being sent away 3 times we finally settled in a still very good place.There was a forband playing, Femi Kuti from Nigeria. It was lovely, but everybody was waiting for the Chili Peppers to come, so actually nobody really listened. I did dance in my chair, but those standing downstairs were mostly talking.

When the Peppers came on the scene, my last concern was: am I really supposed to sit throughout all of the concert? No way. Two guys in front of us jumped over the fences immediately when the lights were turned off. I just stood up and started screaming, and fortunately everybody in my surroundings stood up within a few minutes, so we didnt have to worry about people not seeing because of us. The whole area turned into a huge party sector. 

About the performance: I was pleased and disappointed by the repertoire at the same time. They played almost all of the big hits: Give it away, Californication, Otherside, Scar Tissue, Rain dance Maggie and of course Under the Bridge:

(Sorry, that highpitched enthusiastic voice is mine, I was close to the recorder :) )

This might sound highbrow but I found these a bit boring. I have heard their popular songs too many times, I wanted more of the less known gems. But, to my satisfaction, I did get a load of very old and "less mainstream" songs as well: Hard to Concentrate, Me and My Friends, Higher Ground, Soul to Squeeze, and to my biggest surprise Sir Psycho Sexy was on the list, followed by They're Red Hot, just for fun. :D Sir Psycho Sexy is one of the songs I have been seriously in love with, and hearing it live made me go crazy. Even crazier than I am on this pic:

You could see in the crowd that nobody really knew what this was, and I just kept shouting the lyrics in ecstasy. If you like the old Blood Sugar Sex Magik type RHCP then I seriously recommend listening to it:

They totally missed out the One Hot Minute album though, which is also sad.

All in all, guys, I have finally been at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert. It took 10 damn years to accomplish it. Hopefully the next one wont take so long ;)

 ... Nórikának a Múzeum körúti parti lehetőségét! Jó volt mindenkivel találkozni, főleg a Tomkával, akivel amúgy nem lakom ám egy országban. Remélem mindenki remekül van, az is akivel nem tudtam részletesen beszélni. ÉÉÉÉS, akit érdekel hogy mivan velem, az kövesse a blogot :P

Millió puszi mindenkinek

u.i.: meddig tartott a parti? :)

Disclaimer:
This is a blog post dedicated to my Hungarian friends. To give you, my little non-Hungarian visitor, also something interesting, voila, a minimal language lesson: the title of the blogpost means thank you. Click to hear how it sounds:  

.... in the Dutch grading system are pretty fine, ladies and gents. 10 is the unreachable maximum, 7-8 is the basically very good category. But me and my supercrew got stunning 8.6 points on our presentation. We got a detailed feedback sheet - I havent gotten that many feedback ALTOGETHER in my 3 years spent in the Hungarian higher-education system - with several criteria, we got 9 to most of them. WOW! I mean like, WOOOW! The damn hard work did pay off.

I finished my huge paper - 2000 freakin words - yesterday, in which I had to refernce at least 8 articles. I had barely 15 references in my bachelor thesis. Right now I am working on the 3 assignments which are due tomorrow. 

After surviving this horribly challenging day of tomorrow, I will hopefully see my little Hungarian friends again somewhere. Or just fall asleep exhausted to death, dont know yet.