Obsession with coffee

Obsession with coffee

I don’t know what happened but I got seriously addicted to coffee. Before coming here, I was used to drink coffee three times per week and I always enjoyed coffee time a lot but since I came here I am obsessed with it! I had always a rule to drink only one coffee per day and I never bought the second one – only in case of emergency. Last few days, I had a coffee twice per day and it became normal! One possible reason is that we bought a new Moca pot and I am so excited about it. It is totally different coffee than the one I was used to drink. I mean, of course I prefer normal espresso from the café but if I compare our coffee to the instant one –it is a big difference.

The Moca pot has three parts and it works in a following way: You just put cold water in the bottom part of the kettle with water, then you fill a funnel with ground coffee. Then you turn the cook on and put the pot on the fire. When the water is heated up, the stream starts to be generated. The steam from the water increases the pressure in the bottom part of the pot and the pressure causes the water to go through the filter with coffee. When water touches the ground coffee, the water is soaked into the coffee and it flows with the coffee on the upper part of the pot. When the last bit of water is up, the Moka pot makes a special sound and the brewed coffee is prepared to be drunk. It is amazing!

We bought a great size of the pot which is for two portions of coffee. Therefore, when one of us wants to have a coffee she just prepare the coffee for the other one as well. Maybe that´s another reason why I have a coffee so often because even if I forget to drink it, Romca takes care of it haha. Anyways, the taste is amazing. Although we had to make some adjustments because I prefer drinking coffee with milk. We wanted to buy a milk maker machine but we did not find the simple one and a whole milk pot is really expensive (the price starts at 60 euros). In the meantime, we just started to buy a normal milk and we heat it in the microwave and then we mix it with brewed coffee. It is so good. If we did not have it, I would not drink coffee so often because the price of the coffee in the café is around 3 euros. Moreover, we have a student café at the university and you can buy a cappuccino there for 1. 12 or 1. 46 euros.

Hard day at school

On Monday evening I finally skyped with Nicolas and it was great! It is always a nice feeling to talk with someone who I know for a longer time (I know him only for two months but still it feels as longer time). Even though the connection was shitty, we were talking a lot more than one hour! We managed to start our conversation almost about everything but of course it was not enough. He cheered me up because it seems he could come to Amsterdam to visit me with Haitham! It would be amazing! I am also planning to go to Milan but I still haven’t set the date because I was little bit worried about expenses. It seems that even a trip for three days would cost around 160 euros which is quite a lot. Moreover, Nicolas is planning to visit his sister in Paris and I am planning to go to France soon so maybe we can meet there. I realized that I am quite happy I cancelled my trip to the Czech Republic because I can visit new cities instead.

My tiredness started on Tuesday at school. We had an Econometrics class at 11 am and when we finished, everybody looked exhausted. It was not anything special. I guess that it will always be like this after Econometrics class – too much information. We all went for a coffee to the café. My body still hurt from Sunday´ s exercising even though I had a break on Monday. I like when my body hurts after exercises because at least I know that I really did something. Then, we had a Valuation class. My head is always full of information on Tuesday because having 6 hours of classes is quite demanding. Last lecture seemed to me clear but when the teacher started to mix everything together I felt again behind and I felt like I should study much more. Also he reminded us the importance of our Valuation case and I decided not to go to Rotterdam on Friday. I feel sorry that I can´t go but since we have this important project and I have two working days ahead, it would not be a good idea.

We finished little bit earlier, so we used the time and we went to the student café to have a beer there – just the small one because we were about to go to the gym during the evening. We chose some fitness exercise this time. I was looking forward to it but unfortunately I did not like the class. This time, I had to make a decision about my membership because I did not have any trials left. I decided to buy it. It is not so expensive and since I don’t like that we live quite far from the park and I cannot go running there, it is the best option. Moreover, I am curious if it will have an effect if I start doing fitness.

We went to the gym for the group class. When we entered the room, it was terrible! There was a Zumba class before this one and there was unbreathable air. I was also disappointed when I saw our teacher. It was the one who had BBB with us last time and I did not like her much. Nevertheless, I was already there so I wanted to give it a try. We tried high intensity exercise but it was impossible in that temperature. Therefore, the teacher decided to go out with us. It was even worse possibility for me because I have a tendency to be sick really easy if I am sweaty in the cold weather. I was so worried.

We were divided into two groups. One group had to do fast running around the building and the second group was exercising in the meantime. Then we changed. And again. And again. I did not like it much. Firstly, it was quite cold and we were running around the restaurant where people were having beers and they were starting at us terribly. Moreover, even though the teacher knew for sure that we spoke only English she did not want to bother with English. She was all the time speaking Dutch and then she just said one sentence in English and then again in Dutch. I hate this! It is ridiculous. When I was in France and I wanted to practise my French, everybody spoke English. Even when I was going to the dance class with French people, the teacher spoke English. Here, I don’t care about Dutch at all and all the teachers speak Dutch in the gym. What the hell? I mean, it is obvious that they can speak English and also they know we speak English because we always told them but they are not willing to speak English. I was happy when the exercise finished and I did not even feel like exercising. It seemed to me useless.

When I got home, we went for two beers and we were talking a lot about serious stuff like studying, traveling, working and I enjoyed our time there. Nevertheless, everybody was exhausted. After two beers, we just wanted to go home. And we went. I fell asleep really fast.

Shopping

When I woke up, I felt like I was hit by a truck. I wanted to get up early but it was impossible. I just had a quick breakfast and we were about to go shopping because I needed to buy new jeans. When I was sitting on my chair I could not even take a glass because everything hurt. It was crazy. I know I said that I like when my body hurts, but it was too much. I felt exhausted. Obviously, the exercise was not useless. Nevertheless, I just changed and we went to the very city centre. We started in H&M because I always buy the jeans there. It was convenient that everybody was probably at work or at school because the shop was quite empty.

It was madness with the jeans. We found a big place with jeans and I just took a lot of them because they are not always same even though they are at the same place. I tried many of them and I chose one! I could not believe it. Choosing trousers is the worst thing. I hate when I have to take my trousers off and it is not easy to choose one. When I had them, I felt relieved and I could be more focused on another clothes. I found a really nice top with diamonds and I also found a nice sweatshirt. It was quite expensive but it seems to me that I did not do shopping for ages and since I was working a lot whole summer I wanted to buy something nice. Actually I don’t know how I did it with clothes in France but I had there less clothes and I was okay with it but here I feel like I am wearing same clothes all over again and I have more clothes for sure! Weird. My goal was also finding shorts for exercising because I have only long trousers and leggings and sometimes I feel too hot while exercising. H&M has special sport collections so I just took the basic ones. I like them a lot! I was satisfied with our shopping but still, by the way, I could have much more clothes in Primark for that price! So I should plan a trip there soon!

Inconvenience everywhere

Then, I wanted to solve my problem with money – finally. It has been crazy. When we arrived I knew I still had some money on my French account and since it is Maestro it should work everywhere here. I don’t know why but they don’t accept all the time VISA and Mastercard cards. Seriously! I was surprised but unfortunately, it is like this. Although I was okay and I was paying with my French account because I did not have our Dutch account. In the very beginning, we went to the bank but they told us that we have to make an appointment if we want to create our account. Where are we? In the Czech Republic you can just stop by whenever you want to and nobody cares. Here, you have to wait one week to have an appointment. Never mind, we created our account and I was waiting for my real card with my name. When I got it, I just wanted to transfer money from my Czech account to the Dutch account but I found out it is not that easy. Until now, I thought that GE Money Bank is the best bank in the world but it is not true. GE Money Bank is exceptional with their fees. At almost every bank, you can just withdraw the money for fixed fee or you can resend the money for fixed fee. At GE, you can do it also for fixed fee but you also have to pay extra certain percentage of the amount! It is crazy! Since I wanted to send money for whole year of living here, I would pay a lot in fees. At least I finally understand how banks make money. Therefore, I asked Romca if I can send my money to her Czech account because she does not have to pay any percentage and even her fixed fee is lower.

It was a clever idea. We just went to ING bank, we withdrew money from her Czech account and we went to deposit them into my account. The idea of having a cheap coffee in the student café, possibility of printing and many advantages was attractive. (By the way, it is impossible to pay there by another card than ING). Unfortunately, these advantages probably was not meant for me. When I tried to deposit my money, the ATM just announced: “It is impossible to deposit money on your account. ” I was so pissed off. Why? I asked the guy who was working there and he said I should try it again. I did not understand why, maybe he just thought I was stupid but I did not say anything and I went to try it again. Of course, it did not work again. In the meantime, there was a big line of people. All right, never mind, I had to wait. When it was finally my turn, the guy told me he would check it with me but I had to wait. Again, we were waiting until he was not busy. Then, he just came with me to the ATM and he said he did not know what the problem was and that we could wait there to solve the problem for 40 minutes. 40 minutes? I thought he was crazy. By the way, I don’t know why people in Holland go to the banks so often. When I was in the Czech Republic, I went to the bank once per year but here it is always busy. I was thinking what to do and I was just like: “No way. I am not going to wait for 40 minutes again. ” Then, Romca decided to try it with her card. We have the totally same account, we created it same week so I did not expect her card to work. But it worked! I hate this system. It is just ridiculous. Anyways, I appreciated that it worked for Romca and we deposited money into her account and he sent me the money after to my account. I had no words. It could not be more complicated. Seriously.

It seems to me that since we arrived we had only problems with Dutch bureaucracy. Firstly, they accepted us for a different program. When I asked them why I was not accepted for the program I applied as a first choice, they just answered: “Sorry, it was our mistake. Of course, you are accepted for your fist choice”. They have totally different answers for everybody. When we asked about our student card, this guy sitting there said we had to upload a photo and wait for three weeks. When our friend went there, he received the card in 15 minutes. Another example – we need our student confirmation for the Czech Republic. Tyna went there and they gave it to her only in Dutch and they said that if she wants to have in in English she needs to fill some information on the internet. When we went there, they immediately gave us our student confirmation in English. And last, when another friend applied to this university, they told her she was not accepted because of some statistical problem and then they were sorry and she was accepted. It is a big mess. I guess I could name another thousand things but it does not matter. We finally have our student card and hopefully I will even have money on my Dutch account.

Cheese shop

In the beginning, I was planning to explore many shops because there are a lot of shops that we don’t have in the Czech Republic but it was impossible. Around 2 pm, people started to come and the shops became were crowded. I just saw Forever 21 and I decided to postpone my shopping there because I always prefer shopping during weekdays in the morning than waiting huge lines. Romca told me we could check some cheese shop. When I heard the world “cheese” I was so excited. I am always in when it is related to cheese. In fact, I did not expect anything. Why would a cheeseshop be interesting? The place was called Henri Willig. When we entered the place, it just looked as a normal shop – with many types of cheese. Although I immediately found out that the place is amazing!

They had many plates with small pieces of cheese everywhere! You could try different types and decide which one is the best one. Besides gouda and smoked cheese, they also had stroopwafels and sauces. Therefore, you could just take a piece of cheese and taste it with special sauce. It was a paradise! I loved almost all the types of cheese except for the one with vanilla. I was amazed by the taste. That´s why I convinced Romca to buy one small cheese. Actually the prices were not so high and we bought a small smoked cheese for 5 euros. In the afternoon we already ate a piece of it and it was delicious!

I felt so happy because the weather was nice and we were enjoying Amsterdam. Then, we wanted to buy some salad as a lunch but we decided to go to our favourite Italian place. It is located on the opposite side of Albert Heijn. It is quite special place. It looks like a shop with coffee and moca pots but it offers much more. There is also garden with tables. When we go there, the guy is always sitting outside. Inside, there are signs everywhere: ”No phone, No pictures. ” The man who works there also behaves in a weird way but he has many great things for a cheap price. We decided to have pasta for 3. 4 euros. I chose some basic ones with tomato cheese sauce. I have to admit that they were delicious! Moreover, we naturally took a coffee latte take away which is only for 1. 2 euros. We went to sit on the bench and I liked it a lot. Also, I did not expect to be full but I was. When we came home we were working on our Valuation case whole afternoon. It always takes more time than we expected. Tomorrow, it is my first normal day at work and I am again so nervous. I hope that everything will go well because the girl who hired me she is moving to Mexico and I don’t have the contract yet. Have a nice night!

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