A Tour and a Tasting

Greetings!

Last Wednesday we were given the opportunity to tour a dairy farm and their cheese-making facilities and, as two avid cheese lovers, it was an offer we couldn't refuse. Located in Nijmegen, De Diervoort was only a short bike ride away and a pretty one at that. Once there, the cheese-making process was explained to us before touring the factory (though much smaller than the term usually indicates) and the farm. Naturally, the tour ended with a cheese tasting. Of course, the farm produces more than its own milk and cheese also making yogurts, ice creams, vla (pudding of sorts), and chocolate milk. It was a really interesting (and tasty) experience and some place we will definitely be biking to again. Plus, in addition to everything else, the farm has several public trails that we are looking forward to exploring. View the photos from this fun outing here and take a glance at the cheese-making process.

Until next time,

Jessica

Updated Photo Sets

Hello all!

We have recently updated a few photo sets with pictures we have either found or recently taken. The updated sets are listed below along with a description of the added photos.

1. Radboud Walk-Around

To this set Farrell has added pictures from a spring walk we had around campus. It covers a slightly different area of campus, including some pictures from the top floor of the Erasmus building (the tallest in Nijmegen), and shows the crocus in bloom.

2. Happenings of the Flat

In keeping with the spring motif, this set includes some pictures from the spring redecorating I gave the flat, as well as a few portraits of each of us. There are even a few random photos that I took, other than the ones of Farrell. (See if you can guess which!)

3. Nijmegen with Visitors

This nice, little set has been updated with a few more pictures we uncovered from when our friends visited from the U.S.

Feel free to take a peek! Enjoy!

Until next time,

Jessica

Queen's Day

Hello again!

Last Saturday was Queen's Day, which is a big holiday for the Netherlands, though some of its festivities seem a bit odd to outsiders. Everyone dresses in orange (an homage to the William of Orange family dynasty), participates in the open air market (the one day where anyone is allowed to sell anything), and enjoys classic Dutch food (oliebollen), all mixed in with concerts and the occasional samba band -- at least, that's what Nijmegen's celebrations were like. The biggest celebrations occur in the larger cities, which includes Amsterdam, of course. To read more about Queen's Day and its associated celebrations, you can read the Wikipedia page by clicking here. For images from our day in Nijmegen, take a look at the photoset here, or start a slideshow of large images here.

Until next time,

Jessica and Farrell

Spring Walks and Fresh Cuts

Hello all!

Take a look at our new haircuts, which I did myself, and at some scenes from our walk to Goffertpark on a beautiful spring day.

You can find the set of photos here, or start a slideshow of large images (recommended) here.

Warm wishes until next time,

Jessica

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

Football, or Something Like That

It was rainy and cold, nevertheless, yesterday we attended our first European soccer game, which coincidentally was also our first ever. Naturally we were cheering for N.E.C. (the home team) as we sat in a semi-covered (seating is covered, but the field is open) 12,500-seat stadium watching them do battle against the visiting team F.C. Utrecht. Lasting 90 minutes, it was a solid game that ended with a tie.

The whole event was a great deal of fun and is something we will surely repeat. Afterall, tickets are affordable, the park is just a short bike ride away, and, as this was only the first game of the season, there will be plenty of other opportunities. Plus, as a point of comparison, stadium food or sport food at (least at) Goffertstadion (Gofferts stadium), is extremely reasonable, with prices ranging from 1-3 euros on a variety of drinks, sides, and an assortment of sandwiches, some of which looked extremely appetizing. Furthermore, now that we know the stadium has covered seating, Farrell will be sure and take a few pictures at the next game. Let us know if there is anything else you would like to know. If you would like some general information on our local footbal club, browse the wikipedia page here.

Until Next Time,
Jessica

The Ides of...February?

As the title suggests, February has turned out to be a particularly busy (annoying) month, with perhaps too many unexpected complications. Oh, don't worry! It's nothing too serious, but rather all the little annoying things that could go wrong did.

Aside from having to finish up exams while our new classes were starting, Farrell's bike broke. So, we shared my bike, and if we had anywhere to go together then Farrell had to hop on the back and I biked the two of us. However, soon after someone accidentally injured my tire in the bike parking lot (apparently someone dominoed the bikes and my tire was scraped with a kickstand), but it still worked! That is until the next time Farrell hoped on the back, which prompted the tire to blowout (explode). At that point we were down to zero bikes, and it is also around this point that Farrell's laptop died.

It was expected. His laptop was old and had been thoroughly (continuously?) used over the years, especially if you consider that he is a computer science major and likely uses his laptop even more than the average 20-something individual. So, we have been sharing my laptop, which would not be such a problem if we did not have all of our class readings on the computer. Fortunately he'll have a new laptop soon...hopefully. :)

Now, as for more fun things, we visited our Latvian friend Sandra in Ede (the Netherlands) and had dinner with her family. Ede was a small, but interesting little town near the "Heather fields," which as their name suggests are huge open fields filled with heather. It was pretty in the cold grey, but it is supposed to be just beautiful in the spring/summer. Interestingly, the fields are near a Dutch military base and they use the fields for practice. Needless to say we cannot wait to go back when it's warmer.

For more recent fun, yesterday we went to Arnhem and, using our museum cards Frank got us (they allow us free entrance to some 400 museums in the Netherlands), we visited the Water Museum there. It's kind of hard to describe, but it was a lot of fun. Plus, it was situated in this large park/woods, so of course we walked around on the trails for a few hours. It was pretty cold though and is now turning colder, despite the comparatively mild weather we have had over the past few weeks. There is even supposed to be some snow Sunday, though not much. Hopefully it will warm up by next Sunday though -- that's when we are going to our first "football" game. It's Nijmegen vs. FC Utrecht and we are excited! We will try and take pictures of course, assuming it is allowed and not raining.

Anyway, we will continue to keep you posted. And as for the photos, we ask for your patience once more, since that has been permanently put on hold. (Farrell does not have a laptop, remember?) Still, we will do what we can. :)

Until Next Time,
Jessica

January in Nijmegen

As you may have guessed, we are back in Nijmegen now, though technically we arrived late Saturday evening. We enjoyed a nice final day in Nijmegen with Farrell's Dad on Sunday, as we slept in, went on a lazy walk, met up with Frank's train buddy that befriended him on the train ride from Amsterdam to Nijmegen, and then went to an early dinner at De Hemmel, the delicious, but expensive restaurant we have written about before. On Monday, we had a final walk around the town and the market, followed by a final frites speciaal, and then we walked to the train station, where we said our goodbyes, and saw the train off.

Since, then we have been studying for exams and attempting to recuperate from our colds. Of course, we did take a short break to celebrate my birthday. Farrell bought me a pretty bouquet of daisies, which are sitting pretty in the common area for all to enjoy, as well as a special tin of Lady Grey tea (my favorite). The tea is an especially apt gift, as it is a tin of loose-leaf tea, so I can use it in my teapot that Frank gave me for Christmas. Plus, when I have used all the tea, I will have a nice little tin to put little mementos and such things in. Oh, and as a substitute for a cake he bought us each an apple pie/tart/scone or some sort of pastry from the bakery, which was absolutely delicious.

So, with one exam down, and several more to follow, it was not too bad of a week. Hopefully Farrell will get some pictures up soon, though do bear with us, as there are tons of pictures that must be sorted and only a little time in which to do it.

Until Next Time,

Jessica

Fun in the Snow

Jessica, Dad and I walked to a local park in Nijmegen, which was wonderfully transformed by the snow. We saw zebra walking in the snow, found a football (soccer) stadium, watched hundreds of kids and kids-at-heart sled and make snowmen, had snowball fights, helped move stuck cars, and met a cross-country skier.

Fortunately, I brought my DSLR and both my long and walk-around lenses, so all of the above were photographed.

Find the set here or the slideshow here.

Farrell

A Whirlwind Holiday

Happy Holidays!

Well, today is the day after Christmas and although we were not able to celebrate with family at home, it still turned out to be enjoyable and particularly special, as we celebrated in the Netherlands. Not only were we able to celebrate with Farrell's dad, which was nice in and of itself, we also did a great deal of traveling visiting Utrecht, attending one of the famed German Christmas Markets in Dortmund, Germany, and participating in a candle-light Christmas Eve service in the 14th century church located in Nijmegen's city center. Of course, the fun is not over. Tomorrow we leave for the Hague, followed by a day in Amsterdam, then a flight to Manchester where we will stay the night, followed by a train ride to Edinburgh on the 30th (where we will celebrate the New Year and explore for six days), ending with a three day stay in Ireland, arriving back in Nijmegen on January 8. On the 9th we will be relaxing in Nijmegen and preparing for our veritable food journey at the restaurant De Hemel where we have reservations for 5:30. Then, wrapping up this whirlwind holiday, Frank leaves on the morning of the 10th, which is when I will begin studying for my first exam on the 13th -- yes, unfortunately it looks as if I may be studying instead of celebrating on my birthday this year (the 12th), but in light of all our travels, I am okay with that.

Stay tuned for pictures from our day trip to Utrecht, our visit to the Christmas Market, and a few pictures from Christmas morning and snowy Nijmegen.

Until Next Time,

Jessica

Snow Photos

As Jessica mentioned in the 's-Hertogenboscht post, we have been fortunate enough to have quite a bit of beautiful snowfall in the last few weeks. Especially with respect to the typical three to four light snow events eastern North Carolina experiences each winter, Dutch snow is noteworthy for two primary reasons.

First, snow events seem to 'stick around' much more gracefully than NC snow. Eastern NC snows seem to always be struggling against only slightly sub-freezing temperatures, which all two often (from a snow lover's perspective) destroy a beautiful snowfall in a matter of hours. There is also the 'rare-snow paradox' to deal with in NC, or any region that really looks forward to snowfall. If it is unusual to have good snow accumulation in an area, residents are more likely to get out and play in the snow. Playing in the snow, although loads of fun, accelerates the rate of snow destruction. For example, NC State's ~500 person snowball fight in the Court of North Carolina my Sophomore year, although one of my best snow memories, nearly cleared North campus' snow accumulation.

The second strikingly cool thing about Dutch snow is the temporal span over which snow actually falls. For example, it has been snowing here off-and-on for about two days, and our last 'snow event' was actually off-and-on snow over approximatively four days. This comparatively long snow-fall window gives snow lovers like Jessica and myself opportunity after opportunity to get outside and do things, even just routine tasks, in a crystalline water wonderland!

Although I am limited by DSLR camera recommended operating conditions, I have taken a dozen pictures of beautiful things my lenses can frame from the windows of our flat. This set of snow pictures, like some of my other photo sets, will continue expanding as I take additional snow photos. Find the set here, or start viewing a full size slideshow here.

Farrell

♫ ♪ A Lot Like Christmas ♫

Greetings!
After our unintended month-long hiatus, we find we now have a great deal to talk about. We celebrated our first bizarro-Thanksgiving, met the Dutch winter a bit earlier with a week-long snow, and became official residents of the Netherlands -- with the i.d. to prove it! As per usual, we have plenty of pictures of all these events which we will put up in the next week along with any associated stories. This post, however, is dedicated to more recent and upcoming events. 

The semester is beginning to come to an end, though a bit differently than usual. Here, classes continue until December 17, when Christmas break commences, with exams held throughout the month of January, though usually at the end. At the moment we are supposed to be registering for courses next semester, although this is proving more difficult than at the beginning of the year...or, at least stranger. Experience would prove that perhaps not posting dates and times for classes, or not assigning fixed locations for classes/meetings is some sort of annoying, though otherwise benign, byproduct of some mysterious Dutch culural characteristic. Either way, experience has also proven that it will eventually be worked out. As for the next two weeks, we have some early exams and final papers, but nothing to unmanagable, though we will not be going on any day trips during this period.

It is perhaps all the more fittng that on the day I turn in my final paper and Farrell finishes his final exam (before break), Farrell's Dad (Frank) will arrive, as we intend to do a great deal of travelling. Plans before Chrstams are not final, but the goal is to explore the Netherlands more, visit a Christmas Market in Germany, and maybe a short trip to Paris. Of course, after Chrstmas we have concrete plans flying to Edinburgh for New Year's, explore Scotland, and then hop over to Ireland to explore for a few days. It's all very exciting! Yet, as you can see it has taken a great deal of time and planning -- one of the many activities diverting our attention from the blog, and one of the many reasons we are so appreciative. Though, I think we are most looking forward to simply showing off Nijmegen a bit, particularly our favorite places, which include two delicious restauraunts that I look forward to revisiting. 

Fortunately, for those nights that are simply too cold to go out, the flat is warm and inviting, expecially with the Christmas decorations up. As you can see, they aren't much,  but it was fun to do. What has really put us in the Christmas spirit is the Christmas tree lot in fron of the windmill behind the flat. Needless to say it is pretty awesome being able to look out your window and see such a sight, especially with the snow on the ground -- though it it not really as exciting to talk about snow now that it has snowed back in North Carolina as well. However, it is worth mentioning that this snow event was unlike any other in our experience, though it is thought to be typically Dutch -- it snowed constantly (but very lightly) for about a week, with high wind and temperatures in the teens and single digits. It was an interesting experience riding our bikes in the snow for the first time, but it is not too bad as long as you are careful. 

Returning to the topic of Christmas trees, we have been debating buying a small, "Charlie Brown" tree, but I haven't yet visited the lot to even confirm that they sell such trees. It does seem odd that they are only now beginning to sell trees though, especially since the Dutch just celebrated their SinterKlaas this past weekend. As far as Sinterklaas and the Dutch Christmas I could not possibly explain it better than David Sedaris -- American author and comedian -- so, please follow the link and learn a little about this interesting holiday tradition. 

Hopefully this post was both informative and entertaining. In the next week look for uploads of new pictures and updates.

Until Next Time,
Jessica (and Farrell)

Warm and Dry

On this cold, rainy, typically Dutch day, it seems a good time to update everyone on our stay here in Nijmegen. Last week and this week have mostly been filled with studying, as will this next week. Farrell had his midterms and related assignments this week and mine are all next week, so I have been working hard this week in order to try and make next week more managable. Of course, in the midst of all this, I ended up catching some sort of virus. At first I just thought it was a cold, but I ended up with aches and a fever, but after a day solely dedicated to getting better, well, I did just that. Though, every now and then the stuffed nose and sniffles reappear. Regardless, Farrell has been lucky and has managed to escape any illness, thus far.

We did not go to the market today because we still had plenty of groceries (and it's been cold and rainy), so we have stayed in all day in the warmest room in the house working on various things. With the candle lit, the heater on, and the smell of all the teas and coffee we have been drinking it smells like Christmas: nice, cozy, and spiced with cinammon. I think there may be some other tennants in the house now, since our landlady has other rooms that she rents out, but I think he/she/they must work because we never actually see them. Simply renting the room for a place to sleep, it is likely they go home or travel on the weekend, which is fairly common since housing is in short supply.

Returning to our day, I made potato soup for lunch. I chopped up some onions and red pepper to make a vegetable broth and let that cook up for a while. Then, I diced two tiny potatoes we had and added them to the soup and let that cook until the potatoes were tender. For the final step, I added some dehydrated potatoes Mom sent me from home (I have since found them here, by the way) to thicken the soup and give it the right potatoey texture, adding a little greek yogurt to gice it a slight sour cream taste. Needless to say, it was quite tastey and a perfect dish for this dreary, yet cozy day.

I should probably get back to work. Right now I am preparing for my Dutch History and Culture exam on Monday. If you would like to take a look at some aspects of Dutch History yourself, please visit this website http://www.entoen.nu/, which we actually use for our class in addition to books and historical articles. It is interesting, interactive, and gives a nice overview of Dutch History, just make sure you change the language option to English at the top (the blue tab).

Until Next Time,

Jessica

Univeristy Photo's Up

Jessica and I went on a walk, in between light rain showers, to explore some parts of Radboud's campus we had not yet visited properly. I had gotten a quick glimpse of a fragment of a massive concrete tower-like structure through a window in the Huygensgebouw (HG) building during a Prolog programing lab, and, thinking of the centrality of the bell tower on NCSU's campus, I thought it deserved looking in to. It turned out to be noteworthy and cool, but by a different metric. It was a physically prominent marker for a very cool area of campus, including the super-modern HG building, an underground very strong magnet lab, and some really cool green space designs. Here is an excerpt from a Radboud sub-domain webpage on the magnetic lab:

"The High Field Magnet Laboratory (HFML) is a European research facility used for research on materials in very high magnetic fields. This striking building is in fact a large factory that is needed to achieve a continuous field of 33 Tesla or a pulsed field of 60 Tesla in a small research cell. There are only two other comparable laboratories in the entire world.

The main users, research scientists of the Institute for Molecules and Materials, concentrate on the measurement of quantum effects, magnetic manipulation of molecules and on optical and far infra-red spectroscopy. The state of weightlessness that occurs in magnetic fields is comparable to those in space and provides excellent conditions for growing pure (protein) crystals." - Radboud

Anyway, check out the decent sized photo set of Radboud University, including beautiful green spaces and cool building designs among a spattering of other interesting things. Click here for a large image sideshow with descriptions visible, or here for the set main-page.

Farrell

Edit: You may have noticed that the blog currently has a poll question up. Voting in this poll is only open for 2 more days, so please, if you would like to share your input, which helps us improve the blog, do so while you have a chance!

Two Small Photo Sets Up

Some of you may have already stumbled on these pre-published by exploring my Flicker account. They have been online for a while as I added pictures to them, waiting for them to be substantial enough to publish. Unlike all of my other sets, I will continue adding pictures to these in the future, as I take more photos best categorized by one of them.

The first set consists of pictures of general happenings from around our flat. Find a large version of the first picture in the set here (recommended) or the set main-page.

The second set is called 'The Biking Dutch,' and is populated with, you guessed it, pictures of Dutch people biking. I have seen so many cool things on bikes here, but have so far only documented a tiny fraction of them. Again, this will be an ongoing project. Recommended viewing starts here, set main-page here.

Farrell

Photos: The City of Nijmegen

Sorry for the longish gap without a post, our lives have been very academic-centric recently. Look for some details of the more interesting highlights of our academic escapades in the near future.

However, as you know by the title, this is not an apology post. I've just finished tagging and writing descriptions for a nice size set of new photos. Jessica and I took advantage of a rare warm, dry day to explore Nijmegen, documenting as we wandered. We biked from our flat to Nijmegen's central station, where we parked our bikes and, as we transitioned to foot travel, I was able to use my camera, so the set starts there. We walked North to Nijmegen's large train/bike bridge over the river Waal, from which some of the best views of the city can be found. Notice the other large bridge visible in may of my pictures? That is one of the critical bridges in WWII's Operation Market Garden. Perhaps you've seen the movie 'A Bridge too Far?' Well, it was one of the ones that was not too far. Also note that the barges visible in many of my bridge pictures seem to travel as fast as cars. They move from the large car bridge to the bike bridge we were on in what has to be less then 2 minutes. I would estimate no less then 20 of them passed in our 30 minutes on the bridge. After getting some nice photographs of the city from a distance, we walked the streets visible to us earlier, still photographing, to get the micro-perspective.

Start viewing large photos at the beginning of the set here (recommended) or view the set main-page.

Farrell

De Hemel Photos Up

Sorry for the longish gap without a new set of pictures, I had a large test on Friday for my Assembly Language class, and as Jessica just reminded me I need to get back to work on other things. But, because I try to be timely with my uploads, I've just finished the final touches on my latest set, which features the restaurant De Hemel and our exquisite meal there. This restaurant is one of several residing in an old castle that overlooks the river Waal. What makes this restaurant unique, besides its location, home made beers and breads, and delicious menu items in general, is its unlimited course dinner. For 28.50E you receive an appetizer of breads and dips, followed by an assortment of courses brought out every 15-30 minutes as the chef prepares them. Once you have had your fill, you tell them that you are done with dinner, and in 30 minutes (after your food has settled some) they bring out dessert. Take a look at the pictures and share in our experience, though, even I must admit the pictures do not do the food justice.

Find the set here. I recommend viewing the photos in as large a size as possible, that's how I create them to be viewed. This link will take you to the set main-page if you don't like the viewbox.

Farrell & Jessica

'Moving Pictures' - Now Available!

So, I've finally branched out into publishing series of pictures that appear to move, instead of simple single-images and text. I've had a YouTube account for years, but it was a very old username I don't use any more. Perhaps more importantly, I had never actually created any content under that account. With the goal of remedying the first problem, and the first video content I am willing to share pressuring me onward, I created a YouTube account I could take pride in.

Check out my Chanel, essentially a YouTube equivalent of a home-page or main-page, here.

As of this posting I have uploaded 26 videos of International Students from 25 countries, working together by home country, performing a song of their choice for the rest of the International Students and Mentors. It has taken just over two weeks to edit the videos, figure out what codecs YouTube plays nice with, get them into those codecs without losing video quality, upload everything, add tags, titles and descriptions for everything and setup my user-account satisfactorily. It was really an effort of scale - 26 is not a big number, but it is a lot of videos.

If you have a YouTube account, subscribe to my channel for further, possibly not travel related, video content.

Farrell

Orientation: Weekend Pictures

Orientation Weekend
Originally uploaded by Farrell

And finally, the last blog post about the orientation weekend. I've uploaded and described forty-something pictures of the weekend. Check them out here.

Farrell

Orientation: The Middle Third

It has certainly been a while since I last posted. Of course, Farrell has written a few posts, but they have been necessarily short due to time constraints, nevertheless, they have certainly communicated the hectic-ness of life since we left home. Fortunately, everything is finally beginning to settle down a bit. After nearly two weeks here in Nijmegen, we were finally able to do some grocery shopping today. It is sad to say, but prior to today we were mostly living off the few packs of Ramen Farrell brought, the free meals incorporated into our orientation program, and the three loaves of bread that I took (as they were going to be thrown away) from the program this past weekend, which was a lot of fun.

All, or I guess I should say most, of the international students headed out on a weekend trip to Putten, a lovely village in the Dutch countryside. There were a lot of activities planned, but for the most part everyone just relaxed and worked on making new friends. Oh, and we stayed on a working farm, which made it even more interesting – Farrell has several pictures of the goats, I think, and all should be posted fairly soon.

We arrived back in Nijmegen around noon on Sunday, at which point I headed straight back for a nap (as we all did), a four-hour nap to be precise, followed by a solid hour of unpacking, which is happily completed. Today, was a fun day: we met some friends at noon and went downtown to do some shopping. I finally introduced Farrell to my favorite Dutch food “friets speciaal”, which are fries with mayonnaise, curry ketchup, and onions. True, it sounds like it should be gross, but it is really fantastic. The mayonnaise here is remarkably different and is really more of a sauce (in texture and taste) than the globby, fatty mess that we have back home, not to say that it is not good on some things... Anyway, we are now mostly settled in.

Tonight there is another dinner that has been organized (and paid for), and then all that remains in the way of orientation is a packed day tomorrow, and a few meetings for our individual colleges on Thursday. After all that, we have some time off to make final preparations before school starts on Monday or Tuesday. Hopefully, during that time, our classes will be approved, we will be issued student IDs, allowing us to get bank accounts, cell phones, and all those other necessary items. Ultimately though, all is well!

Until Next Time,
Jessica