First School Week

Hey y'all,

I figured that keeping this blog up to date is not going to work out if I keep writing one for every single day. So in this post I'll try to summarize what happened in the first week of being here. Where was I?

On tuesday morning I had my first Positive Psychology class, in the course catalog described as "the psychology of happiness, mindfulness, love, humor, etc.. As you can probably imagine I wasn't completely sure what to expect of this, but it was soon clear that the teacher knew exactly what she was doing. She was knees-deep into scientific research, asked us to be critical of what she showed us and made some really funny jokes. I think this is going to be my favourite class here (such a bummer that it starts at 9.30 though, as of now I've been late 2/3 times).

That day I had two more classes (Developmental Psychology and Health Psychology), both seemingly fairly easy. The first one started off with explaining the nature-nurture debate, and the second one explained the entire history of medicine in half an hour. In betwen classes I explored campus, which is definitely one of the more beautiful places on earth. Especially the lagoon and of course the cliffs and the beach are very pretty, with sunlight even more so. :)

Look how beautiful sunset can be here

Tuesday night I met up with my assigned "buddies": ucsb students who have been on exchange themselves and thus know the perks of it and can help you settle in. To be honest it was basically the five of us eating pizza and talking about differences between our countries, but I know where to go if I ever need help with something. Later that night I met up with Corine Bos, UCU alumna (sorry Corine but you really don't go here anymore) who was still in Isla Vista after her exchange here last semester. As the tiny bouncing ball that she is she gave me a tour through Isla Vista (the student town right next to campus), pointing out all the places where I should go, and especially eat. After the tour we had catched up enough, and she bought me two big bottles of "headache vodka", since people under 21 can't buy booze here.

On wednesday I decided to take a dive into the pool that belongs to my residence hall. After the initial joy of the cold water in the warm sun with a view of the mountains in the distance, I realized that I'm not actually a good swimmer and got bored after two minutes. After an awesome lunch with sushi, waffles and pasta, I realized I was sick of walking around all the time, so I started looking for a reasonably priced bike. I found a second-hand purple mountain bike for 35 dollars, which is obviously too good to be true, so I spent the next two hours fixing everything that can possibly be wrong with a bike.

My new best friend

That night my roommates, two girls who were incidentally in the room, and me, spontaneously decided to take shots of my newly bought headache syrup. It ended up being a night of salsa (remember, they're all Mexican), truth or dare, and deep philosophical conversations. Also, I'm making a list of quotes made by Jorge (or just George), one of my roommates. I'll probably write an entire post about his hilarious personality at one point.

On Thursday I naturally got late for class, so I had to sit on the ground. Afterwards I thought it would be nice to explore campus, and walked to the lagoon. Here I got lost, which caused me to be late for my second class, for which I also had to sit on the ground. Classy. The walk was beautiful though. At night there was a study session (read: party) in the lounge again, during which I was able to get to know the rest of the floor a bit better.

A lonely spot I found during my getting lost in the lagoon

While signing up for courses online when I was still in the Netherlands, I unknowingly made one of the best decisions in my life, which resulted in me not having any classes on Fridays. So Friday I took it easy, since the party life here is supposed to be really good during the weekends. Thus, in the evening the group of international exchange students I've been hanging out with gathered to eat pizza and prepare for the party. The group consists of one German guy, three Spanish girls, two New Zealanders, and three Dutchies and a Greek/French girl from UCU. Around ten we decide to go out, since we heard that everything here closes at 12. Let me repeat that: everything closes at midnight! We Europeans and New Zealanders were slightly confused, as we usually leave for a bar around 1 in the morning. But here things are different.

There is basically one big party street here, called Del Playa (it's the street that runs along the beach). If you have seen the movie Project X, you've seen exactly what we experienced when we walked into that street. There were people EVERYWHERE. Girls in mini skirts, guys in sport clothes, police cars standing in the middle of the street, beerpong tables on people's lawns... And just so many people. Once we recovered from the shock, we went looking for the party that Gilles got invited to. The ambience inside the house was just surreal. Red cups, a keg full of Bud Light (which tastes like water by the way), guys being loud, girls being sluts, and we're the only ones dancing. When we leave for another party, we kind of get stuck on someone's porch with way too many people: the party is more outside than inside the house. When I walked past a garage I saw a guy in a corner standing in a peeing position, but then a girl's head pops up from behind the car. The atmosphere becomes darker as people get drunker and parties start closing. The police is more visible, and we decide to go back and take it easy for the night. The main thing we did during this night was being amazed by how people behave and how wild and different things are. Somewhere in the coming 6 months I'm sure we'll be able to blend in.

Also, the food here is so good!!! I'll probably write a seperate post about it one day because a few lines are just not enough to describe the deliciousness of it.

A pizza oven and wok pans in one of the dining halls. The food here is freshly made!! :O