First School Day

Hey Everyone! For the first time in months here the weather is kind of Dutch (with which they're very happy here because of the drought), so here I'm sitting at my desk looking at palm trees, the Pacific Ocean and a light grey sky. I thought it was time to update you on everything that's going on at the other side of the world. :)

Since my jetlag still hadn't disappeared I woke up around 8 in the morning on Monday. The weather was absolutely beautiful and I needed a lot of stuff, so I decided to walk to Kmart (about 20 minutes). I got only slightly lost on the way and when I got there I felt my cheeks burning from the sun. Thus, the first thing on my list was sunscreen. The shop was vast so after I'd finally found a pillow, a blanket, notebooks, aftershave, flip-flops, and a bunch of other stuff, I was hungry and ordered a piece of pizza inside the shop. The guy behind the counter was a bit bored and guessed my nationality by my name and lack of Scandinavian/German accent.

I walked back to my place and then to campus (also about 20 minutes) to go to my first class: History of California. The professor was in his mid-fifties and from Louisiana. His first question to the class was: "Who of you are from California?". I'd expected maybe two hands to go up, since I thought the course would be especially interesting for foreigners and Americans from other states. I was wrong. Out of the 150 people in the room, about 140 put up their hands. I was scared to death, since my knowledge about the history of the USA doesn't go much further than Martin Luther King and the Mexican War over Texas. Luckily I quickly found out that the history knowledge of the average Californian is about the same, so the introduction of the course was pretty simple and easy to follow.

After I walked back I met up with Gilles, and we decided to try out the dining hall in our building. People told us not to get our hopes up because the other three (!) dining halls on campus were better. Holy mother of God. There was so much delicious food. Ten different types of meat, vegetarian and vegan options, fastfood, cookies, numerous desserts, soda, a HUGE salad bar, sandwiches and burgers on demand... And all of it was unlimited. I told the spoiled little brats that if they thought this food was gross they should come to the dining hall of UCU. I'm already looking forward to the other three dining halls here.

After dinner Gilles and I met up with a bunch of exchange people on campus, to have the most American experience in our life. The varsity basketball team was playing against some team from Florida. As soon as we entered the building it just felt like we were in an American high school film. A tiny basketball court surrounded by enormous stands with hundreds of people in yellow shirts screaming yells. We all got a free yellow tank top and sat down to watch the match. All we could do was sit in amazement. Every time the team scored people went wild, the cheerleaders (!!) started clapping and waving, the marching band started playing and the mascotte ran around giving high fives. He looks like a Mexican cowboy by the way: a goucho (which is also the nickname for UCSB students). During every time-out or break, there was entertainment by dance groups, the cheerleaders, a dance off between people from the audience, and even toddlers bouncing a ball into a tiny basketball net. To be honest I didn't really take in much of the game because there was just so much going on in the background all the time. One thing I know is that the Gouchos won: yay!

Once the game had ended we ate a burger somewhere, and then I walked back to my place. I entered the dorm and walked into half of the dorm sitting in the lounge socializing. I talked with a bunch of people about Europe, where The Netherlands was located (nope it's not the same as Russia), what language we speak there, whether I knew what Ebola was and what language they speak in Brazil. People generally weren't ignorant so much as they just had never been forced or motivated to learn anything about the rest of the world, and they asked me questions about Europe without being ashamed and because they were actually curious. They went wild when I showed them a bill of ten euro.