Friday, April 22, 2011

Fast Forward

In case you had not guessed, March and April have been exceptionally busy months, hence the complete (pitiful) dearth of blog posts over the past month or so. Hopefully, we can start to change that, but no promises, since we will likely begin travelling more, even if only in small doses. In order to encourage more posting, we will try and do smaller posts more often, as opposed to larger, less frequent updates. Regardless, let me briefly catch everyone up on what has happened since our last post way back in February.

March was a difficult month as we had a great deal of work, with exams beginning at the end of the month, including a massive research paper I had for my Europe: A Political Profile class (a comparative analysis of recent political developments in Switzerland and Czechia -- no, they do not have much in common). Also this month we had a some-what surprise visit from some friends from the US who stayed with us for about a week (photos here). It was a lot of fun visitng and site-seeing some with them. Especially since it was during Carnival, which is more or less a family-friendly Dutch version of Mardi Gras. Take a look at the picture set to see for yourself!

After our friends left, we went into work mode, which lasted into the first week in April. Then we had a little bit of a break, but not really. Two of our classes were on break, and some had ended (though half of mine continue), but Farrell had several new classes start up (so he did not get a real break). Plus, we both are in American Foreign Policy and have rough draft versions of our reserch papers for that class due next Wednesday. On top of all this, we have had to say goodbye (though not permanently, of course) to several of our friends here -- all masters students that had to go off to the Phillipines or Brussels or Germany (though soon to be in Kenya) for their graduate research -- so, understandably we had been trying to fit in extra time with our friends since they will not be back until July (hopefully before we leave). Oh, and I almost forgot! Farrell's birthday was April 14th, so we also took a few days to celebrate that with our time divided between a trip to Amsterdam (visiting parks, two more museums, and other sites we had not visited) and time simply relaxing, watching movies, and trying new Dutch foods like kebab and Turkish pizza (Lahmacun), which is actually a wrap, not pizza.

So, that's the past two months in brief. Now to finish this American Foreign Policy paper and, hopefully, enjoy this beautiful Dutch spring day!

Until Next Time,
Jessica
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