In Which Krista Gets Her Groove Back

I suppose it's been a few days, and I can honestly say that I've found what I came looking for: the perfect balance between studying and having a life.

And the Dutch? They are fabulous. I am secretly regretting staying for a full year, but I count my blessings because it means I spend less time in the dining hall, which as it turns out is stocked by the same company that stocks the nearby prison. That also means the coffee a) tastes terrible and b) is decaffeinated-- a sad fact I discovered only after taking a rather large gulp in favor of the caffeine that apparently did not exist.

And speaking of coffee: no one has coffee pots or individual filters (or maybe they do but I live in a green-gated bubble?), but rather Philips Senseo coffeemakers, which are individual or two-cup makers very similar to a coffeemaker my sister bought me for college a few years ago. However, you don't buy ground coffee or beans that you grind to put into the coffeemaker-- you buy pre-ground coffee "pads." They are slightly bigger than a Double-Stuf Oreo and each one is perfectly sized for one serving of coffee. Want two cups? Put two pads in. Convenient, it seems, but different.

And my flat/dorm/whatever you might call it is, in fact, a wall. Two soundproof walls, connected by three stories of bedrooms, five toilets and showers, and lots of brick and concrete compose one of the more bizarrely-designed student housing projects I've ever seen. I'm sure my mother knows the story better than I do, but I guess my campus was part of a military base and my housing started as the wall between the highway and the base, until they needed housing and just added a second parallel wall and some hasty design and voila: student housing. I don't think my toilet had been cleaned since the place was built, but a few more bleach washes and it should be good as new.

But speaking of the dining hall, I should go stuff my face.