Winter Wonderland

Snow, hail, snow, rain, snow, sun, snow, sun, snow, hail.......

It has been like this the entire week! Really pretty, but really frustrating. Its just so so so cold. I usually really love snow, and i think that it makes everything look magical. But its just not the same when there is no mountains or natural landscape. All i have here is brick roads and buildings, a few trees and alot of canals. Also pretty boring when theres no one to have a snow fight with. I managed to venture out to take a few photos of the snow around town though at places where it looked its prettiest. I also had a lot of fun with the self timer oprtion on my camera...so took selftakes when the snow was falling. So much fun, ive developed a little obsession with self takes actually. Ive stayed at home alot this week, just hanging out doing a bit of drawing and other schoolwork, surfing the net etc and starting to write this blog. Ill let you out on a little secret now. Ive actually written this entire blog in the space of about three days. I also have another one that i created for School purposes..kind of like an online workbook. I am finding writing very theraputic, and that blogging is a really great idea for me to get my thoughts out and document this trip. (photos - footprints outside, the park around the corner, self take of me outside in the snow)

I ventured into school on tuesday and actually had a really productive day. I found myself a studio space which is great. It means that i no longer need to go out to the Tractieweg except for theory lectures. I managed to introduce myself to a couple of other students too. One in fourth year sculpture and another in painting. I created my first printing plate on tuesday, a photopolymer etching. I had to get alot of help from the technician though, because they do things very differently here to Otago. Everything is alot more technologically advanced here, alot based around computers. I felt like i achieved alot though, because i also got taken through the screenprinting processes which will be helpful if i want to do screenprinting. Screenprinting is actually a seperate department to the other printmaking processes and usually you have to be enrolled in the screenprinting course to use the stuff. But i sweet talked the screenprinting technician and he seems pretty keen to let me use the facilties and im gonna get him to teach me how to print onto fabric and stuff. The only dumb thing is that i can only go in on a tuesday...and thats also one of the only days i can use the other printmaking room. Thats what im going to find really frustrating i think...the lack of time available to use resources because the Printmaking room is only open on Monday - Wednesday and the technician and lecturer are only there on a tuesday. So it will be hard for me to produce as much as i would if i was at Otago..because in third year there you have 24/7 access to the Print studio. You even get your own key

Tuesday night Rosy and I went to our first small group night. This was pretty exciting because we have been trying to suss out a smallgroup since we got here...but people were pretty slack in responding. Finally someone rang us and gave us some details of a group in Utrecht, not run through Crossroads, though the couple leading it go to crossroads. I struggled through the hail to get there. The couple are this cute little dutch/indonesian couple who live in this cute little house. I just had such a good night, This small group is a huge answered prayer, just what i ordered! There were a few others there too, a chinese guy Hao, an american girl Nicole and an african girl Emelienne( hope i spelt that right). We all had dinner together and then studied a psalm. This smallgroup is going to be every second week so thats cool. And also what else is cool is that they are going to be able to give us a ride to church each sunday. so no more train missions!

Thursday night Rosy and i skipped a theory lecture to go to this international dinner for exchange students. We had huge expectations of it, but it turned out to actually really suck. I was really looking forward to it, so i was really dissapointed afterwards.Especially because we had to bike over to the complete opposite side of town in the freezing cold. We originally had signed up to make a pavlova...but we pulled out at the last minute because neither of us had enough faith in our biking skills to transport a pavlova across town. I had imagined it to be this nice kind of dining hall thing...with like buffet tables and stuff and perhaps a nice band playing on the stage. But it turned out to be more of a crowded party and an excuse for people to get drunk. It was in this tiny gross room and there were no tables or chairs or anything. There were so many people there too. We kind of just had to fight our way through crowds of people hanging around tasting all this different food. I must admit the food was amazing though. My favourite was the sushi, and this yummy bulgarian kind of bread with ricotta in it, and this yummy bread with blue cheese dip.

Tonight (sat night) Rosy and i had originally planned to go to the movies. But it didnt end up happening because our choices clashed, and the movies are really expensive here so neither of us really wanted to pay to see a movie we only half wanted to watch. We ended up watching a dvd here instead that my flatmate had. ICE AGE. its fantastic. i was laughing the whole way through it. I was in need of a good hearty laugh too. haha, and what i found more amusing is that it had snowed during the movie so Rosy got a big surprise when she was biking home...

Ah snow..stupid white stuff, why wont you go away?