{"id":211,"date":"2013-09-11T03:50:21","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T10:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/?p=211"},"modified":"2013-09-11T17:17:21","modified_gmt":"2013-09-12T00:17:21","slug":"one-month-in-utrecht","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/one-month-in-utrecht\/","title":{"rendered":"one month in Utrecht"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2013-09-04<\/a> \"2013-08-14<\/a><\/p>\n

Left: The Dom Tower in the city center. It’s the tallest landmark in the city, and makes for a good meeting place if you ever get lost.
\nRight: The Neude is a square full of open-air bars and cafes. Especially popular in the afternoon and night.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been living in Utrecht for over a month now, but it\u2019s only been a week since actual school has started. It\u2019s fascinating living in a city that\u2019s three times as old as your entire home country, with all the old architecture, canals, and culture. Definitely a good change of pace from the concrete buildings of UCSD.<\/p>\n

Out of the 300,000+ people who live here, more than 60,000 of them are students. Word has it that the male-female ratio is 3:7, which doesn\u2019t hurt. Most of the international students I\u2019m studying with are in their early twenties and well into their Masters program. A large majority of the international students I\u2019ve met are studying international law. As an 18 year old bachelor\u2019s student, there does feel like a bit of an age gap, although the older students don\u2019t seem to mind.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t say you\u2019ve experienced the Netherlands until you\u2019ve actually rode a bike. The city of Utrecht has been master planned around the bike, with bikes having their own dedicated lanes \u2014 not just a couple white lines on the main road like in California. Sometimes it seems as if there are more bikes than people, and it\u2019s adorable watching parents put their children in wooden carts attached to the front, or in high-chairs strapped to the back. When it comes to crime, all that really happens here is bike theft. The local junkies usually hang around the train station and sell stolen bikes for 10-15 euros versus 70+ euros at the secondhand store, and it\u2019s well-known that students go to the junkies for cheap bikes. It\u2019s not unheard of to spend as much money on the lock as on the bike, and getting your bike stolen is almost like a rite of passage here.<\/p>\n

Still, traveling back home at night feels safe. A lot of the female students noted that they get a sense of security here that they don\u2019t get at home, and it\u2019s one of those things that I may be \u201caware\u201d of as a straight male, but will never truly understand. And since we\u2019re on gender, the city has placed public urinals in select areas around the parks, so drunk men can pee in plastic containers rather than on the street. It\u2019s a nice set-up, but there\u2019s no female equivalent.<\/p>\n

The weather is constantly changing. The key here would be to layer your clothes. We\u2019ve enjoyed sunshine and warmth for the past couple weeks, but now autumn is coming and the chill is starting to settle in. Umbrellas are useful, although I haven\u2019t learned how to balance an umbrella and the bike at the same time during stormy winds.<\/p>\n

This seems like a European thing, but I adore the open-air cafes they have here. You can just relax, enjoy a cup of coffee outside, and just watch people pass by for an entire afternoon. If you\u2019re going to take a coffee break at a cafe, set aside at least an hour. Dutch service is famous for being slow and indifferent, but at the same time they let you mind your own business.<\/p>\n

Businesses close a lot earlier here, many as early as around 6 o\u2019clock. The important exceptions are the grocery store (the local Albert Heijn, which is the Dutch equivalent of Safeway, Ralphs, or Albertsons) which closes at 10 o\u2019clock, and the bars, clubs, and Turkish restaurants which are open until the wee hours of the night. The Turkish restaurants get especially interesting after midnight, when all the drunk people stumble in after a night\u2019s worth of partying for some kebabs or fries.<\/p>\n

And it is true \u2014 the Dutch are very friendly. Ask a stranger a question and more likely than not, they\u2019ll go out of their way to help you. This doesn\u2019t mean that every Dutch person is peaches and cream, and I\u2019ve already experienced my fair share of wagging fingers from random strangers, but it\u2019s good to know that people won\u2019t be trying to screw you over at every possible turn. People trust each other, and it allows for smoother social interactions.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m making huge generalizations right now, but I\u2019ll be able to go into more detail as the year passes. For now, I\u2019m having an amazing time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Left: The Dom Tower in the city center. It’s the tallest landmark in the city, and makes for a good meeting place if you ever get lost. Right: The Neude is a square full of open-air bars and cafes. Especially popular in the afternoon and night. I\u2019ve been living in Utrecht for over a month … Continue reading “one month in Utrecht”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netherlands"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3MSpn-3p","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions\/221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}