Part 1

Temperature is 3 degrees celcius, some rain, and winds at 27mph.

This was new.

I walked through the terminal to the train ticket counter, just outside arrivals, and past some shops. The counter couldn’t take my Chase card, understandably. Luckily the ATM let me withdraw some Euros. I  said bye to my brother, and went down to the train platform.

I boarded train at precisely 1:09pm. There was a different train coming every 2 minutes. Luckily mine had its name printed in 6 foot tall letters along the engine: FRYA. We zoomed along. Saw my first windmill at 1:16. That’s right, I took notes. It’s not the last one I see. There’s plenty of modern windmills in addition to the traditional ones around. Lots of greenhouses.

We very quickly arrive at Rotterdam, the only stop other than Breda, my final destination. I see if I could find the building Jackie Chan slid down in Who Am I. I can’t find it, but this train station looked kind of neat. That’ll do for now. Several times on the ride, I felt my ears pop going in and out tunnels.

Finally, Breda. My apartment wasn't ready yet, so I was set up in this hotel for the time being. Although next door to the station, fatigue took its toll. I checked in 100% exhausted and could barely sign my own name or pronounce my school. Hilarious. Also Seal was playing over the sound system. It called back to the kind of silly music video, and fatigue made this funnier. Dropped bags upstairs, looked over map, copied it the best I could, and set out to explore.

And got lost. I entered park, filled with walkways, moss covered trees and wild roosters askin for bread crumbs. I soon approached a cathedral and had flashbacks to playing Assassins Creed.  I walked past lots of little shops I’d never heard of. Only ones I recognize are H&M and Games Workshop. About half of the stores were closed, it being Sunday. I keep going east, end up hitting the edge of the city center, and nearly went the wrong way back. I turned back thanks to just enough map studying earlier. Followed a canal back.

After I recoup’d, I called Stefano and was brought to the Pakhuis. Recognized intersection from google maps. I was able to tour on Sunday because they were finishing up a game jam – and the effect felt like an opening montage. Met lots of interesting characters but I don’t know them yet. People with all kinds of accents. Ate sandwich of cucumber, tomato and cheese. Quick game of Smash Brothers– link vs roy, barely lost, I swear, then I returned back to hotel.

Call home, its Sunday morning back home and return upstairs to meet roommate. Can’t even hold a conversation Im so out of it. Fall asleep with a disorienting nap. Wake up thinking the ceiling was the wall.

Went downstairs for tea, had another call to pam. Much better.  It’s Sunday lunch there. Say my good afternoon/night and go to bed. Sleep wonderfully.

DAY 2

Get up pre-dawn, without my alarm. But this is winter in Holland, so that’s like only 730am. This is like 1030pm or so back home. From my window, I can see all the commuters leaving Breda by train. The sun still hasn’t risen and the trains are full.

I’m set up for a few meetings today. I walk straight down [street name] to the main campus, and hang out in the library for a few minutes. My power plug adapter thankfully works and my laptop starts charging normally. However, internet still does not work, as I haven’t received my student login information.

First meeting is at 1100am in H 0.002, a lecture hall with tray-table style desk spaces folding out of the chair in front of you. Are you paying attention, American universities? No more of this skinny slab nonsense. The naming conventions for the room follow the same logic as any building, except the ground floor is floor 0, not 1. I learned this at the hotel last night. I’m on floor 3, so there’s the lobby (0), then 1, 2, and finally, 3.

The international office gives a quick overview of the team, the  demographics, and the activities. They say something regarding our school emails. They receive a room full of blank stares. They ask “how many people have their login info, it should have been sent on December 17 to the email you provided to nhtv.” Two, maybe three hands go up. “OK, we’ll send that out again.” Then they hand it over to the student run international group, Compass. They host parties and organize trips to Paris and London. At this presentation   I also got to meet my hotel roommate properly. He’s come to NHTV from his school in Sweden to study sports journalism. Cool, I say.

We go to lunch together. “Dutch lunch is different than some countries,” I remember the intro packet explaining. “We eat cold sandwiches and don’t often eat hot food until supper.” This was new to my roommate, who told me hot foods like rice and meatballs are more common in Sweden. Then it hits me. IKEA is Swedish too, right? I offer the connection but make no jokes. Anyways I go for a sandwich. What I’m not used to is seeing is someone carefully slicing loaves of bread and making these sandwiches live. No square slices to be found. I grab a cheese sandwich, a coffee (which cost two coffees worth because I spilled it while filling and had to refill), and some Natural Lays. Gotta stay real.

After my brief lunch, I head upstairs after getting lost. I forget the deal about first floors and such. Have a meeting with two of the teachers here. They determine, after looking over my work, that I could take classes designated for 2^nd year students. Unusual, they say. I’ve got the chops in some places and don’t in others. There’s also concerns about my workload outside of class. I’m still a part of Scrapyard back home. I don’t tell them about my job at All Saints.

I get to meet another teacher, this one an American. I don’t catch from where. He’s finishing a lecture in a class about NURBS modeling. I’m familiar with nurbs, but don’t use them much. They’re like the pen tool in Illustrator and photoshop but brought into the 3^rd dimension. I don’t use them because they feel like they're more for static, photorealistic computer graphics, whereas I’m interested in animated, real time stuff. I'm sure it has its uses, inspiring polyflow in organic shapes, not having to worry about polys at all...

I’m brand new here, and all they know about me is what I briefly showed them of my port – just classwork from last semester, and a couple models prior to that. I wonder if showing more models would’ve been beneficial or hurtful. They seem to think I'm good enough to enter the program as a second year. First year is fundamentals, second year is building on that and group projects, third and fourth years are all projects and internships, so I think I'm in a good place.

After this last meet up, I head back to the hotel.