Trip to Hoek van Holland

Today I decided to do something else than just sitting inside my apartment or at the university library, so I took my bike, went to Rotterdam Centraal Station and took the train to Hoek van Holland (meaning something like the Tip of the Netherlands).

To give you all a sense of where Hoek van Holland is:

On my way in the train toward Hoek van Holland, it began to snow heavily and it continued until five-ten minutes after I got off the train. Then the weather cleared up, and except for a few showers, including hail showers (so wonderful when you’re biking), the ride home to Rotterdam was fantastic!

The trip from Hoek van Holland to my place is a little more than 30 kilometers (20 miles).

I went along the Rhine River for as long as possible, but eventually I had to go more inland as I came to the suburbs of Rotterdam and the harbor area closer to the city.

Including stops along the way to take pictures, the trip took me three hours from when I left my apartment to when I was back again. Some of the pictures I took:

The mouth of the Rhine River

The bikeway along the mouth and first few kilometers of the Rhine River.

 

When I arrived in Hoek van Holland, it snowed! But I was able to catch a picture of a DFDS Seaways ferry. DFDS Seaways is a Danish corporation

I hope you’ve all had a very nice weekend. Enjoy the coming week, and tot ziens!

It’s All Fun and Games

Yesterday, a good friend of mine from the U.S. emailed me:

"… Both A and B have been asking about you wondering what you are doing for excitement in Rotterdam - I tell them you are a very dedicated worker who has little time for fun and games - of course they do not believe me!"

They really shouldn’t believe him. Besides preparing for and going to classes a few times a week, it’s all been fun and games in Rotterdam.

Frankly, I haven’t been out this much during my time at law school in Copenhagen. Of course that’s not because my friends in Copenhagen are more boring than my fellow exchange students in Rotterdam, but there are many more offers and occasions to go out and have a beer or a drink. And it’s so f**king cheap compared to Copenhagen!

An example: the Erasmus Student Network (ESN), which is the student organization for international and exchange students at the Erasmus University, arranges a so-called Social Drink every Tuesday. They offer beer at more than reasonable prices, you get to spend some time with your international friends and meet many more. So, what the ESN Social Drink really is: an excellent excuse for getting drunk on a Tuesday… And you gotta love that idea! (Especially when you don’t have classes on Wednesdays which I don’t.)

Being an exchange student – albeit the beer budget heading may be exceeded – is all fun and games.

A and B is substitute for the real names of two other American friends. I won’t post their real names for privacy reasons.

The Feeling of Spending Too Much Money

Before I left for my exchange stay in Rotterdam lots of students in Copenhagen, who’d been on exchange, told me that you might be able to make budget for the entire stay before you leave, but remember that you’ll definitely spend more money than you thought you would.

With that in mind I did make a budget for the trip. And what has happened: I’m spending more money than I thought I would.

I’m actually pondering about the fact that almost everything in the Netherlands is cheaper than in Denmark – beer is cheaper, food is cheaper, bacon is cheaper (all the essentials, you know) – and yet I still spend more money!

The feeling of spending too much money is to me not necessary a good thing. However, when I think about one of the reasons why those bills and coins are leaving my wallet so damn fast, it makes the feeling just a little better: I’ve met some awesome people who I actually like to grab a beer with, who I like to go to watch a movie with, who I’ll have lunch every day if I could.

So although the feeling of spending too much is not a good one for me, socializing with awesome fellow exchange students makes it better.

More Snow

An hour after I posted my first blogpost today, it started to snow:

This is my street

Beautiful, but Cold, Rotterdam

The last few days in Rotterdam – especially since it snowed on Monday – have been extremely cold!

When I came to Rotterdam a little more than three weeks ago, temperatures were 5-10°C (40-50°F), so understand my dissatisfaction. However, it’s been sunny and beautiful. Yesterday, I decided to take my camera up to a huge lake called Kralingse Plas five minutes on bicycle from my apartment, so you can see for yourselves:

And a picture of the photographer (that would be me, yes):

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Snow!

Today it began to snow here in Rotterdam.

It’s starting to get really cold here – and apparently that’s bound to continue. I WANT SUMMER!!!

Happy Australia Day!

A bit of public information for the ones who didn’t know: today is Australia Day!

So Happy Australia Day to everyone, especially my two fellow exchange students from (yeah, you guessed it already) Australia, Renee and Tereza.

We’ll be celebrating tonight by going to an Irish (?!) pub…

Teachers and Ties

Having had my first full week of classes and having walked around the Erasmus Universiteit campus a lot, I think there’s definitely a noticeable difference between going to university in Denmark and in the Netherlands (and most likely many other places, like the U.S.): the male teachers wear ties to class!

In Denmark, you never experience a professor wearing a tie to class – never! Only external lecturers, e.g. attorneys, wear ties to class.

In the Netherlands, in two of my four classes the professors wore a tie. One of classes was taught by a woman and in my last class the external lecturer, an international lawyer, surprisingly didn’t wear a tie.

It would be nice if professors wore ties to class more often in Denmark, at least at law school (the humanities students don’t know what a tie is anyway J). I think it’s cool.

A Recap

I realized earlier today that it’s been a little while since my previous blogpost, so perhaps a quick recap of the last few days’ events.

Last Tuesday I signed up for classes. Today I had my lesson in International and European Sports Law which I’ll get back to later.

I didn’t do much else on Tuesday, but on Wednesday I went on a campus tour where I met more law students. Up until Wednesday, I had only met two other law students, so it was definitely nice to meet more of my fellow exchange students. I’ll get back to the campus area in a later blogpost when I’ve taken some pictures.

On Wednesday, I also opened my Dutch bank account so I won’t have to pay enormous bank fees when I need cash-on-hand. In general, the Netherlands is – contrary to Denmark – much more a “pay-with-cash” country than Denmark. I think it’s almost unheard of in Denmark that you can go into a bar and be told by the bartender that they don’t accept credit cards, only cash. In the Netherlands I have to have cash-on-hand all the time; in Denmark I go for weeks without a single cent in my wallet.

Thursday past by with looking for a bicycle and a coffee break with some fellow students at the Erasmus Sports Café on campus. I forgot my camera, but there’s one more come Thursday, so pictures then. And, probably beating someone to it, no – it’s NOT the kind of coffee you might be thinking about; it was actual coffee, real coffee!

Also on Thursday, I met with my two Polish friends, Jan and Piotr. We watched the handball match between Poland and Denmark at the European Handball Championships. Denmark lost. No further comments.

Finally came the day I’ve looking forward to for quite some time. Friday was introduction day for the new exchange students, including me, at the Faculty of Law.

I quickly realized that law is becoming an increasingly female education, apparently. Nothing wrong with that, though. I enjoy it tremendously. But back to the point: five of my fellow law exchange students are men – the rest are female – in a 4:1 ratio, my guess would be.

Everyone I got a chance to talk to was very excited about classes starting and which classes to follow. I met new people from Singapore, Australia, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Scotland, Canada, Austria and more.

Although I believe it’s always exciting to meet new people and make new friends, you do hear an awful lot of names. I couldn’t remember half of the names. But Facebook many times turns out to be a friend of a sort. Many, if not all of us, are now connected on Facebook which makes it so much easier (at least for me) to remember people’s names.

The weekend was spent partly in Leiden, a town about 30 minutes north of Rotterdam by train. One of my best friends from Denmark, Morten, lives there. He’s also on exchange at the law school there. It was nice to see and talk to him again, and it’s even more nice to have someone like one of your best friends close to you going through and experiencing the same things, at least partially, as yourself.

Morten also visited me in Rotterdam. It was his first visit to the city but we didn’t do much of a tour – the weather was terrible compared to the days leading up to Sunday. Instead we planned our trip to Normandy in end March; a plan that almost certainly will mean a (hopefully) enjoyable reunion with the Belgian town of Mons close to the French border – a town I last visited with my parents in 2002.

And today, Monday, I had my first lesson in International and European Sports Law. As I had hoped, it’s an interesting class which I know I’m going to like to attend. The professor, dr. Siekmann, is one of the leading scholars within Sports Law today, which somewhat makes up for his almost incomprehensible English. (When even a native English-speaking student tells you he couldn’t understand, I’ve got the right to make that statement!)

Lastly, I did eventually find myself a bicycle. I would’ve settled for a second-hand model, but since the cheapest second-hand bike I could find was set at a price of €100, which wasn’t in a good condition, and the price level generally was around €150, I decided to buy a brand new model:

It’s really nice to drive on and once I get to know it even better, I think the likelihood of me bringing it back home to Denmark in June is growing. Otherwise, it’ll be sold.

Till next blogpost, tot ziens!

Classes (quarter 1 of 2)

Today, I’ve signed up for my classes in the first of two quarters at the Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam School of Law.

I’ve chosen four classes this quarter: International and European Sports Law, International Economic Law, Maritime Casualties, and Commercial Litigation.

About International and European Sports Law

This class provides an overview of the major themes in the field of international and European sports law (capita selecta).

In particular, within the context of this legal field, the focus is on providing insight into the problems, such as the increased tension and friction with general international (and national) legal standards, and the possible solutions for these.

About International Economic Law

The goal of this class is to provide students with knowledge of and insight into international economic law.

The process of globalization, which has recently attracted much public debate, is evolving around various international economic institutions such as the WTO, the IMF and the European Union.

About Maritime Casualties

This class examines the complex legal relations and liabilities which arise when a ship at sea is in distress and/or suffers a maritime casualty.

An overview of the many international legal instruments which (may) apply to various aspects of a maritime casualty will be covered. It addresses the various mechanisms designed to prevent maritime casualties and marine pollution from occurring by raising the technical and safety standards of and on board of ships.

About Commercial Litigation

Subjects which will be covered in this class are principles of civil procedure, evidence and remedies. The aim is to provide students with the comparative perspective of a legal practitioner involved in commercial litigation internationally and to provide in-depth knowledge of how selected topics of civil procedure law are dealt with in a selected group of level systems.

The Intro Weekend

In the preceding weekend I went to the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) Introduction Weekend. The group of about 100 exchange and master’s students were taken around Rotterdam.

On Friday night, we met at Café BED which is where the ESN have had their famous Tuesday parties until now. The place is moving to another location. After that we went to a restaurant on the main shopping street, Lijnbaan (pronounced: lainbaan, I think), before taking a pub crawl.

Saturday, I spent the day with my parents before they left for the airport to go back to Denmark. Later, however, I met up with the ESN group at a very nice place called Locus Publicus which is quite close to where I live. We went on to have dinner at an Italian restaurant called Happy Italy.

At Happy Italy, my table had to wait a very looonnnggg time for our pizzas. In fact, one of us had to wait two hours for his pizza. When he got his pizza they served the rest of us dessert. Completely unacceptable – and they didn’t understand why we didn’t tip them!

After dinner, a smaller group of us went to two bars and had drinks and beers before the party continued at a café close to the harbor.

Sunday was a very relaxing day. We all met for lunch at noon before going on taking a boat ride in the port of Rotterdam. The weather was, like the rest of the weekend, absolutely beautiful which made the impressions even better.

The boat ride ended and we walked to the cinema to watch the 2011 British espionage movie “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (read more). Very interesting movie – but some parts of the movie was in Hungarian and since I didn’t understand the Dutch subtitles it was a little difficult to keep up.

The day ended with a dinner buffet and finally a visit to a brand new place called BIRD. Certainly a place I can recommend. Nice music, mostly jazz. Polite staff. Good beer!

Looking back at the intro weekend it was a fantastic time, including meeting a lot of new great and interesting people from countries such as Poland, the United States, Canada, Norway and Finland.

The intro weekend was definitely a success.

A Journey Begins

On Wednesday, January 11, I left Copenhagen and Denmark – the safe environment I call home – and flew to Rotterdam in the Netherlands to embark on a 6-month journey of studying at the Erasmus Universiteit.

Frankly, I’m very nervous about it all. Although my parents are with me these first, few days, I know that I’m on my own as of Saturday afternoon. My parents won’t be one hour away. I won’t have most of my closest friends nearby. I won’t have a safe environment anymore.

For the first time I have to REALLY live by myself!

That might be a lifelong dream for some people – and it is for me, too – but actually being in the middle of it all, being in Rotterdam on my own, is almost frightening.

I arrived with my parents in Rotterdam two days ago. Adding to me being nervous, the manager of the building where my apartment is located didn’t show up to bring me my keys at 7:00 pm as agreed. When we were going back to my parents’ hotel, the building manager called me and told me he’s in the hospital. He had had a heart failure and won’t be out of hospital until one or two more weeks. Just my luck!

After having stayed at a hotel for the night, my dad and I went to the housing agency. We got the keys, I got compensation for my hotel expenses, and we thought everything would work out and the troubles were over. We all went to the building: the front door key worked, the mailbox key worked, my apartment door key worked – and then the door wouldn’t open. It turned out the housing agency had forgotten to give me the last key for the second lock in my apartment door. Just my luck!

They sent a very helpful man, Hugo, with the key for the second lock, and the door to my apartment opened. I was finally able to get into my apartment. Except for a few things not working, e.g. the internet router (essential, amigos, essential!), everything’s fine. The apartment is on the ground floor – let’s see that works out…

The fact of the matter is that I’m so happy to have had my parents with me the first days in Rotterdam. It’s difficult to describe in words how much I appreciate their help. I actually don’t know what I should’ve done without them!

I’ve spent my first night in the apartment. There are a lot of new noises and sounds, as well as the cars and scooters driving right outside the window, to get use to. But I’m thinking it’ll normal to me within days or weeks, right?

Today, the intro weekend for all exchange students of all faculties at the university begins. I’ll get back to you on that – and try to stay sober.

Have a nice weekend! Tot ziens!