Catching up

There are a lot of things I've been catching up on while I bask in the Dutch humidity-sans-sun, among them: sleeping, eating ice cream, and sleeping.

I suppose it's time to catch up on the blog posts, too, but it's always harder when it's been longer since the last time. What to talk about? I went to Eastern Europe the night finals ended and met privately with members of Estonian Parliament, representatives of the Latvian Finance Ministry, and assistant directors of the Vilnius European Capital of Culture Project.

I'd like to say that I suffered a great deal of complicated hoop-jumping to grab those opportunities (and the stuff!) but our fellow student and fearless leader, Hans, did everything. As it turns out, in this case by "everything" I mean he just emailed the aforementioned figures, who apparently were so tickled Western Europeans were interested in visiting that they pulled out all the stops.

The biggest boon of my previous weeks of utter suffering has been finally having the time to enjoy Utrecht. Almost for the entire semester, I have used Utrecht as a means to other ends; for the HEMA to get A4 paper, for the Albert Heijn to buy a snack at the train station, for the Dmitri's to get a delicious 5 euro gyro. For the first time, I get to enjoy the city on its own terms, and that's a relief. It's almost a shame, then, that I am only here for another few days before I am off again.

I pick up a Berkeley friend studying in Lyon later this afternoon at Utrecht Centraal, and who knows what a homework-free weekend will bring.

At this point I am trying to tucker myself out as much as possible, in hopes that I will be thankful to take my summer course the day after I get back to the US.

In the meantime, I'm going to take another nap.