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the introduction days bracelet
The first day of my Introduction Days (29.01.2001) didn’t start really good. I was supposed to go to Kammerlingh Onnes (the Law Faculty) at nine, but unfortunately, my 11 bus just stopped at the station for about half an hour, and it just stayed there. There was supposed to be a driver change, as the previous driver had got out of the bus but the new driver had not come yet. Anyway, since I got really anxious and it was said in the email that I could go directly to Huygens and meet Gloria Schildwacht there, I decided to take the 57 bus instead.
So I finally arrived there, met Gloria, and not long after, the new students who were taken from the Kammerlingh Onnes arrived. There was then this sort of a greeting by the faculty. I met Adrienne and Andy, two Hungarian exchange students who would be studying Mathematics. I also met Italian students Alessandro and Tomasso, and Sander from the U.S. After a little greeting from we were then taken for a little tour by Floris to Snellius. There were actually only five of us there. Then, lunch at around 11, and after that I made a short trip home to get my camera and then joined the rest of the students for a city tour. Luckily, Marijn waited for me near the Plexus and then we could catch up with the others who were having a little sightseeing at De Burcht.
marijn in front of de burcht
De Burcht is a sort of fort on the hill where we can actually see the two rivers which crosses Leiden part. There were some gigantic trees too there – and I really love them! Haha.
love at first sight: this gigantic tree just outside the citadel
After that, we went to Lakenhal museum.
The Lakenhal museum was amazing. It displays some of Rembrandt’s paintings, and I had my jaw dropped open to see his works. It was as if the paintings were alive! I think I have seen some of Rembrandt’s paintings in one of my dad’s painting books, but still the experience was way much different. And the museum, by the way, reminded me soo much of my office. The wooden floor, the staircase, the interior.. aaaahh.. I miss my office!
Unfortunately, I couldn’t take any pictures 😦 So I can’t really reminisce the memory of walking to the museum and looking at Rembrandt’s magnificent paintings.
A funny thing happened at the museum, btw. So the museum guide gave a brief information about the museum, then at the end he said, “if you have any question on the painting information (which were apparently written in Dutch), you can ask the Dutch guy over there”. And he pointed to.. Sander. xD
Well Sander really did look like a Dutch guy – he’s tall, blonde, and can speak a little bit Dutch.. so I think lots of people would probably think that he’s Dutch.
And that was actually the last activity in the afternoon. We were then allowed to return home to have some dinner. There was actually another activity so-called the Pub Crawl, in which we could go from bar to bar, but I skipped that one.
oxalis's adventures in the netherlands 