Whoohoo!!!

Tomorrow at 3:00 my summer officially begins!!!!

Whoohoo!!!

Aside from the one class I have to go to tomorrow, however, I finished my coursework this morning at 10:30 with my history final. Boy, have I had the most magnificent day.

After my final, it all started with a nap... (you know that had to be in there somewhere), after that a trip to get some money and do a little packing and laundry in preparation for my summer vacation. At 13:00, I indulged in my new favorite addiction. I am no officially a "Who's the Boss" a-holic. I've spent the majority of my rest time watching old episodes on you tube (though I tell myself this is me basically watching tv because there's never anything on over here). I am currently lamenting the fact that Sony only released the 1st season on DVD, but nonetheless I am enjoying my new infatuation with the relationship of Angela and Tony. After "Who's the Boss" went off I took a walk, that lasted for 3 hours.

The most amazing history nerd moment of the day? I found the place of the city walls where D'Artagnon was killed in the 1600. You know D'Artagnon, right? He's of the "Three Musketeers" fame, but he was a real historical figure before Alexander Dumas wrote a story about him and he died fighting the Spanish in Maastricht. There's a statue of him on the sight. (It's beautiful, too) and the bottom is inscribed with the ever popular motto, "Tous pour un, un pour tous," All for one, one for all.

In all, I had a marvelous day, my last full day in Maastricht. When I get back here there are going to be too many formalities and meetings to indulge in any exploring or even revisiting of favorite sights. Which brings me to my next point.

I'm going to Italy!!!!

Whoohoo!!!
(there are alot of things to Whoohoo about today)

I've been waiting form my Italy trip pretty much sense I started Baylor in the fall of 2007. I'm so excited to actually get there, you have absolutely no idea. We leave tomorrow directly from class and start 2 1/2 weeks of individual travel. In this time I'm going to see Venice, Lake Como, Milan, Rome, London (again), Dublin, and Edinburgh. The good news is that I've protected all the documents on my computer so I can take my laptop with me.

Whoohoo!!!
(told ya)

Mom actually made this suggestion, though I think it was just a scheme to make it so we can have the occasional skype chat. But it's going to be beneficial for you too! A laptop means internet and internet means blog posts.

Whoohoo!!!

Not every day, mind you, but when I get the opportunity. So that's all for now. Wish me safe travels and I'll see you when I can!

Hulu, how could you!

I am appalled. Absolutely, completely, undeniably horrified. Really I am. Last night as I was lying in bed I realized that I hadn't written a post for that day. It's the first day that I have been in Maastricht that I haven't written to you. There's no excuse. But if there were an excuse... perhaps it'd go a little like this:

Here's the place where I write about having midterms this week and how I sat down at my desk at 1:30 yesterday and worked until dinner at 5:30 and then for another 30 minutes after dinner. All of this is true, but really mid terms consist of only one test which is tomorrow. It shouldn't be that difficult. The real excuse for me not writing yesterday- I was watching tv. Lame excuse, huh? I know, but after four hours reading and studying I needed to give my brain a chill, so I decided to stream some old episodes of one of my favorite tv shows from the web. Bad, bad, idea. Oh, it gets worse from there, for I haven't told you yet which show I was watching. Dare I even tell you now (you have no idea how many shade of red I'm turning just thinking of sharing my guilty pleasure.) All right, all right, I'm addicted to The Real Housewives of New York City!
For those of you who have never heard of it, you really don't need to. It's not educational, it's not romantic or funny, it's not a thriller or a crime show, and it certainly doesn't have a McDreamy anywhere in the cast list. In fact in the strata of television shows to watch it's pretty much at the bottom of the pile. But it's so much fun! It's the show that you work all day long so you have nothing to do when it comes on, and you then spend the next hour laughing at women yelling at each other for no good reason and saying to yourself, "at least I don't act like that." So anyway, I hadn't seen the last episode of the season so I watched it, then I wanted to watch the Reunion when they all get together and talk about what we on. Yea, there were three episodes of that, so essentially I watch four episodes of RHNYC. Sigh.

I haven't watched much tv since I've been over here, between studying, writing a blog, reading for fun, and working on GRE material I haven't had the time, but let me share with you what little I know about Dutch tv so far.

1. Be thankful it's in Dutch: Dutch isn't a very common language like German or French and for that reason most shows that aren't from the Netherlands aren't dubbed, they simply have subtitles. I can always find something in English over here, not so with other countries. One night I happened to turn on the tv in Austria (German Speaking) I found the Golden Girls on 3 channels and all three channels had it dubbed into German.

2. Rule #1 does not apply to Nickelodian and other children's shows: I got excited one morning to find some cartoon on television. I think it was The Little World of Richard Scary, a show I used to watch on NickJr. when I was a kid. I've also seen Hannah Montana around (which I have to admit I'm not completely opposed to, if I'm desperate). Ah but fair warning, even though these are American shows they're made for children, and children can't read therefore they're all dubbed into Dutch. Sad day.

3.The Dutch like to replay American shows that haven't been in Syndication within the last 20 years: Since I've been here, I've watched, Who's the Boss, Archie Bunker's Place, and Little House on the Prairie, but alas Grey's Anatomy and Glee are no where to be found.

4. There's always Animal Planet or Discovery Channel: but you can only watch Bear Grylls drink his own urine so many times.

5. Soccer is only slightly more interesting that watching water boil: added in reference to this I wish to state that I now consider professional soccer players to be the biggest babies I have ever seen. So the guy with the ball tripped you, WHAT ARE YOU ROLLING ON THE GRASS FOR?

Ok, so there it is five things you should know about Dutch television. Perhaps I've quenched my television thirst for a while.