I’m looking out my window right now, and I see swans, geese and ducks all swimming down a canal. My friends back home would be scrambling for their shotguns, but around here it’s a common thing. That’s just the beginning of the world of differences between Baton Rouge and Amsterdam.
For example, I know that it has been a little while since the days of my orientation at LSU, but I think they have it right over here. The day I walked into the main office to register for classes and all that jazz, my adviser immediately recommended signing up for the International Student Network. ISN is the program used by my school, Universiteit Van Amsterdam, to help their exchange students learn about and feel at home in Amsterdam.
We all registered at the Atrium, UVA’s Union, where we split up into groups and met our group leaders. Our group leaders immediately gave us our welcome package, a small drawstring backpack with various maps and guides to Amsterdam as well as an energy drink, a beer and a condom.
The Dutch are an interesting people, to say the least.
Orientation proceeded as we were led on tours of the city, the historical museum and, on the last day, the Heineken brewery. Our schedule had a simple formula: tours by day, then parties by night. In three days of orientation, I went to four parties, or “borrels” as the Dutch call them, all organized by ISN. The funniest of them all was called “Beercantus” and consisted mostly of drunken karaoke. I’m not sure which was funnier, the drunken Dutch guys dressed as the Blues Brothers stumbling over the lyrics to “Scar Tissue” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, or all of the free Heineken which seemed to flow from some never-ending pitcher.
Right about the time I saw my new Canadian friend Malcolm chugging beer straight from the pitcher, I realized that I still had to find my way home. A task far easier said than done in Amsterdam. An intricate series of canals run all over the city. They cause all of the roads to curve and make it nearly impossible to walk in a straight line anywhere. I get lost literally every time I leave my dorm.
My dorm is another thing extremely different from LSU. I share a room with a quiet graduate student from India named Siam. He seems like a nice guy, but he never talks so I wouldn’t know. My bed is up on a loft, so I even have some privacy, almost like a second room. And another difference is that the floors are coed. Rather than separate the male and female students by floor, like at LSU, they just throw everyone into the dorm and let the chips fall where they may.
I suspect that a large majority of my readers were expecting my column from Amsterdam to read like an excerpt from “High Times” magazine. Sorry to disappoint, but I’ll be here for five months – be patient.
 
Will eats his french fries with mayonnaise.
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