Spanish Test and Dutch Flowers

Gabby and I were going to go see the famous tulips of the Netherlands, however, the owner of those picturesque fields has decided to capitalize on the tulipomania of tourists.

                                                   Pictured: Capitalism

Keukenhof (the place with the tulips) charges 21 Euro (including the bus ride) just to see them, which I suppose was reasonable enough. But then the train ride to get there cost 46 Euro. Almost 100 Euro just to see flowers en masse that you can see in the city for free? It's preposterous, so I did not go.
I'm a principled man.

Also. A note on the Spanish exam about which I promised to update you: One of my classmates added me on Facebook and I asked her about our written exam. She just told me that she thought it was a resit and wasn't necessary for me, but to be safe, I decided to ask my professor at the oral exam. When I arrived at my oral exam, I asked her whether we had had a written exam. She said no, and that we do oral one block and written the next.
So all those shenanigans didn't really have a point.

Word of the day: Schadenfreude- delight in another's misfortune.
You guys are probably feeling schadenfreude at my scurrying around trying to fix my non-existent Spanish exam.

Spanish Test

Let me start this off saying that I knew a problem might arise when I enrolled in Spanish, I was given the warning that if I were to enroll in any classes outside their prescribed list, their accommodations might be more lacking than their listed counterparts.
However, this was a step higher than I had assumed.
I went to take my Spanish exam, the only grade determiner for this block. I sat down and a test was handed to me.
I opened it up, and it was all in Netherlandish (see this).
I went to ask the moderators (who have nothing to do with the Spanish program) where I could find an English version or even a Spanish version, and they just kind of sent me to the help desk, which sent me to the IT desk, which sent me to the help desk, which sent me to my Spanish teacher who wasn't there (which I already knew).
Luckily, my guardian angel, my teacher of Business Organization and Law was on my path on the way back. Her English is perfect due to her parents being from the States, or something like that. I stopped to ask her if she had any idea what to do, since I was still wandering the school trying to find out how to take my Spanish exam which was 40 minutes in already. What luck I had, she is applying for a position on the exam board soon, so she was happy to help and took me to a woman who gave me an email for the exam board.
As soon as I got home, I emailed them and an automated message came back saying that they would be back in the office on March 16th, or something.  I didn't really want to wait a year to take this test, so I emailed the teacher who helped me. She told me it was probably just a message they forgot to change and that they would get back to me.
When they got back to me, they said I wasn't specific enough, so I was even more specific- however, I told them the room and the time and date on which the test was. Obviously, two different tests weren't going on in the same room, so I feel like that was plenty specific. I conclude that they're lazy.

My test is still pending, but all exams (so far as I know) have a re-sit option. So if this isn't figured out, I can just do the exam next block which would be equally easy because it's a semester long class and I speak Spanish.

I will post any new developments in this fiasco as they happen.

Contract Woes

I had to make a contract for my Commercial Law class. It was this block's (half a semester) project.

My group didn't seem to be very motivated, because they don't even like law, for them it is a required class, so, because I actually enjoy law, I wrote the contract- in its entirety- on my own. One of my team mates did do an incoterms decision, but it involved boating and we were shipping electronics between central China and Michigan, so naturally, I had to change it to one that involves an airplane.

After doing all this, I asked them if they could please just do the justification of the contract, the appendix. All they had to do was make what I had already finished 90% of look pretty and add in the parts that I had not yet explained.
When I checked my email on Sunday (due the next day), I had an email with an appendix attached.
It was my appendix! They had added two lines which did not justify the contract, but merely elaborated upon what it does.
This really set me back on my relaxation factor. I cracked down and finished some of the appendix Sunday night and went to the school early in the morning to print it out and turn it in before the others in my group did the same with their version

The drop box was locked!
You could put papers in, but you couldn't take any out, so I'm sure they will have two versions of our contract when they decide to finally open it. I do hope they decide to grade mine.

Mexican Food

So, Gabby made Dutchican (Netherlandsian style Mexican) food tonight. Delicious.
We used Goudse, (strangely pronounced Gouda, its like they refuse to believe in the existence of the "s") some taco sauce from the store, chopped up tomatoes, and lettuce from a prepackaged salad. It's pretty awesome. You should try it.

Recently, I've been pretty bogged down with school stuff (read: procrastination). Yesterday was a breakthrough in the homework department. I just started writing the international sales agreement and didn't stop until I couldn't think of anything else to add or stipulate.

So, there's six weeks homework done in a day.
Don't ever listen to the teachers who tell you not to cram. Just because they have to overachieve to function doesn't mean you have to, but no. Seriously, kids, stay off drugs and do your homework and obey (even the arbitrary) authority.
/irrelevant thinly veiled criticism of high school


In order to do my other homework (again: procrastination) I've been researching conlangs (constructed languages) to help me make my own constructed language. It's mostly for fun. I'm not going to go all out and say it's going to change the world like an Esperanto fanboy.


Yesterday, Gabby and I tried to find somewhere to eat, but it was difficult to gauge whether or not a restaurant sold real food or just tapas. Serving tapas is a Spanish custom- they give you laughably small amounts of food to go with your alcohol. So, we went to like five restaurants. At one point we decided to try a little bar that had a 6-item food menu. We went in, sat down, talked about how no one had food. During that, a waiter came and asked what we would like to drink without a menu, so we said water- assuming that we were going to get food also. Then he brought out bottled water (you have to say tap water if you want normal water. I keep forgetting) which was 2 Euros per.

Finally, we went to McDonald's and Gabby wussed out of the no sugar pact. So, because she can't eat normal amounts of sugar and I don't waste food, I'm off the no sugar until I arrive back in the States, apparently.
To her credit, she made a good argument. She said that there's a lot of stuff we haven't tried but would like to try.

Big Move

So we had a letter shoved under the door two days ago that informed us of our mandatory move up two floors for renovations. I suspect that there's a dangerous mold living underneath the carpet of the third floor. Waiting for the opportune moment to strike.
Now we are on the fifth floor. I like it better, but we don't have a toaster and Gabby doesn't like it because we no longer have our own bathroom.
I was thinking the internet is better here because it's faster, but then it gave out much more often.
I can live with it. I'm a rugged mountain man.
Anyway, because of the move, it's been difficult to update the blog.

We have decided to stop eating added sugars. So I'm still eating fruits and stuff, but I'm not going to be able to eat the vla *sadness*.
We are looking to give it away before it goes off.

Anyway, we've just been kind of cooped up all day for three days.

Carnival

Look at my cool carnival costume!

 You can also check out Gabby (I know you want to)

I want to tell you about the carnival, but I find it really difficult to put into words. There was a lot of drumming, a lot of dancing, a lot of lights, and as if to make those all seem terribly small, way more drinking.
As a consequence of the drinking, glasses were everywhere. Gabby and I had basically made a point of finding weirdly placed glasses to laugh at.
You can find pictures of the glasses in the carnival pictures album to the right, under Links.

I found out something that is surprising. I had no idea that carnaval is not a natively Dutch festival. It's pretty interesting. All the signs were in Dutch AND another language (Limburg perhaps? Dutch people, please correct me). Where the Dutch say "Maastricht" the Limburg people say "Meestrech."
I was a little afraid to sound dumb when I asked "Is that a different language?" because it didn't seem like the same language... but I don't speak Dutch.
I finally asked after having seen several fliers that said "Meestrech" and my curiosity made me ask.

At one bar these guys tried saying something to me in their native tongue. I said I don't speak Dutch. They said "Oh you're English?" I said yes, because I figured they meant "Oh, you speak English?" but I didn't really want to correct them because that would seem pompous. Then they asked me what city in England I was from- so, being too far in the hole already, I told them London.

I'm glad to know a bit of English culture because they went on to quiz me on a number of things about England and I had to keep up the facade. They were asking me which football club I follow (I told them Manchester), what part of London I live in, and what I think about England not using the Euro despite being part of the European Union.
Fortunately, I managed to not look like a fool... I think.

If you want to read about carnival from another more general check out Gabby's blog:
http://thedutchlanddiaries.blogspot.com/2011/03/carnaval-or-carnival.html
I feel like she covered the essence of carnaval very well. 

Changing the English Language

Sorry that it's been so long, the carnaval was too active to allow me to post. I will update everything later today. 
For now I would like to give you something to ponder on the history of the English language.

"Deutsch" in original English is Dutch (notice the similarity).

That's why the Dutch don't call Dutch Dutch. The Dutch call Dutch Nederlands.
English only started calling "Dutch" "German" because in the 15th century they were referring to a specific tribe or a Celtic term for "neighbor" or "noisy" which is pretty funny (I can laugh because I'm German).
That's also why "Pennsylvania Dutch" is a dialect of German.
Even the Germans call the Dutch language "Niederlaendisch" (Netherlandsish).


The word "Netherlands" means "Lowlands" which actually is original English, but every other language still calls them "Lowlands" or "Holland" (which is a misnomer because Holland is only a section of the Netherlands. In French it translates as "Les Pays-Bas" which means "the low countries."

In conclusion, I think English should call German "Dutch" and call Dutch "Netherlandsian" or "lowlandsish" or something and we should maybe change the name of Netherlands to "Lowlands." Just to show how progressive we are.