I have been in The Netherlands for 2 weeks now and I have to say I am really enjoying it. I live in Utrecht (which is a 25 min. from Amsterdam) and doing a master in International Development Studies at Utrecht University. My next year will prove to be quite busy since I’m doing an internship abroad starting in February, and then coming back and working hard-core on my thesis in the summer and fall. This coming internship will send me back to the developing world where I will have to do a project for an NGO based on which I will eventually write my thesis. I still don’t know where I am going and what I want to focus on, but will have a bit more clarity in about a month when we get the list of countries and research topics.
So you are probably wondering what made me want to start blogging again? I honestly thought this was done for a while, but a week and a half ago I attended the orientation for international students a German undergrad explained what we were to expect while settling here. All of her cultural descriptions sounded really funny and unbelievable, but alas… That same night a friend and I decided to go have a beer in town. Walking into the bar we immediately noticed that we were two of six girls among a sea of identical Dutch men. They all had long side swept hair (with lots of hair product in it), collared shirts, tight jeans, brown belts, and fancy shoes. They ignored our presence and hugged, touched and talked into each other’s ear. Naturally we realized that we had found our first gay bar in Utrecht. What a joy, I thought! I get to make some gay friends which subsequently end up being great girlfriends. As the night went on, one of the gay guys came to our table and invited us to go to the bar next-door with them, since this one was closing. We joined them happily to dance club next door and all of sudden things started changing. We slowly started to realize that these guys were not gay at all! 
They looked stoic and waited for girls to go up to them and then engaged in totally heterosexual activities with them. The AW! Then one of them came to us, and asked if we matched our purses to our shirts on purpose…I mean what would you think? He was straight. Laura and I quickly escaped this skewed world of metro sexual straight men, and told ourselves to beware for these strange bars. On the walk back, I realized what a culture shock this had been, and hence the blog writing started again.Since that experience I have learned that there are plenty of places with men that are more of what I am used to, but still giggle when I pass a group of pretty boys, who obviously spend more time getting ready than I do.
(A tribute to Donnie Darko perhaps?)
