I Am Pretty Sure I Walked All the Way to Germany Today

Today started off with some serious win and ended with some serious fail.

And the fail took up a lot of my time.

So I woke up early for the first day of class (Labor Day...not so celebrated in the Netherlands, you see) and left insanely early to bike to class. It's only about a twenty minute ride, but I was nervous about finding it. I biked past it without realizing. I turned around, biking slowly back, thinking "Oh God, is this building like the Room of Requirement? Please, please please show up." I thought I'd gone too far back. I pulled over in frustration and went digging through my backpack for my map. I glanced to my right. And right there was the sign for my building.

It's official, Amsterdam is secretly the magical wizarding world of Harry Potter.

I was actually forty minutes early. I know I'm crazy.

My class, Public International Law, seems great. The professor is really charismatic but tough. We're also set to go on a field trip to the Hague, which I planned on visiting myself anyway. I'm thrilled. The only thing is the class is THREE HOURS. I think I'm going to be nice to myself and just buy a damn coffee pot, because I'm not getting through those three hours on enthusiasm alone.

Then I wandered around, getting a feel for my surroundings. It's just the type of thing I have to do by myself. After that, I biked back with no problems. I was so ridiculously pleased with myself. After wolfing down a peanut butter sandwich, I planned out my adventure to the Skoll rowing club to sign up.

Prepare for the fail.

I'd gotten some directions from an IES advisor and combined them with directions I google translated off the website. I decided to walk because it didn't seem too far and I wasn't exactly sure what the traffic would be like. How wrong I was. I got lost about fifty times. I asked for directions that many times. I found a boathouse. I rang the bell. An old guy showed up, carrying oars. He didn't speak english. It wasn't Skoll. All he said was "Niet studenten"which I knew meant, no students. After three hours of wandering, I gave up. I took the Metro and a bus back to my apartment, defeated.

But I'm going to the positives. I walked about a million miles, ended up in the semi-sketchy southeast part of Amsterdam and never panicked. I got lost, and figured it out. I was fine. Frustrated, but okay. I'm going to go back to google maps and figure out what the heck went wrong and try it again on Wednesday.

Tomorrow I just have class from three to nine. It's only two classes.

I have to buy that coffee pot.