First days at campus

The past two weeks I have been settling down in Hamilton to start my Canadian student life. And when your college looks like the castle you want to live in, you´re doing something right. The old-brick buildings give me the feeling I am walking around at Hogwarts, a feeling that is emphasised by the thousands of student walking through snowy lanes in identical sweaters, scarfs, gloves and hats in the golden-purple McMaster colours. The Gobal Health community has taken us in with open arms, starting with a fancy lunch at the University Hall where we got to meet our fellow students and professors. The Netherlands were one of the main topics of conversation and the professors expressed their appreciation of our cheese and coffee-shops (the coffee-kind, not those others... painful misstake). In light of this appreciation of the Netherlands, the Consul-General of the Dutch embassy was visiting the campus last week to present her work on, in her words, "our fruitful cooperation". Enthousiastic to see us Dutchies had come to Canada we were invited to a private passionate meeting about... ofcourse bicycles. I wonder how she is going to get these huge SUV-drivers to settle for tiny bikes but it's worth the try.

Despite the absence of love for bicycling, students here do love their sports. There is a huge American style sports facility on campus complete with indoor-running track, multiple fitness centres cause one wasn't enough and trophies everywhere you look. In case you were wondering; yes I already managed to get lost there. Because my knee still hasn't accepted the cold weather I spent most of my time there as the Global Health team cheerleader. Every week there are games of basketball, waterpolo (they don't actually swim here but float around in tubes) and floorball in which a small group of hilariously dedicated GH students play. They did manage to lose every game they played and get a variety of wounds, but it's fun to watch. To not feel too lazy I decided to take up swimming a few times per week. I can only imagine that would be hilarious to watch as well, seeing me struggling through the water next to the professional McMaster swimmers that are drilled for nationals and Olympics.

After the sportsgames on Thursday evening the Canadians took us to the campus bar for several college pitchers of beer. Phoenix, located in a big hall lighted by big chandeliers (sorry I can't get over this Harry Potter sense). The night was fun enough and soon we were invited over for an American house party on Saturday. Red cups, beerpong, the house crowded with dancing students; it was the whole package. Since bars here close at 11 and clubs at 2, going out is not really a thing but these people learned how to throw there own parties.

My classes are on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings; three hours straight listening without a break, that is yet something to get used to. I was allowed to choose my own classes so it got down to Environmental Policy, Political Economy of Climate Change and Refugee Health (see kind of a theme there right ;p). This freedom in developing your own studies is common for universities here, it makes people more enthusiastic about the courses they end up taking. Furthermore, I have online classes on Wednesday evening (yes evening, poor me). We were supposed to be grouped with students from Colombia but surprise surprise they did not follow up. We ended up being put together with the Maastricht students, so far the international experience.

The weekends were quite relaxing. On Friday night we planned on going to a boardgame pub downtown, but found it was already filled up. We stepped back outside, where it was one of the freezing cold nights and decided to enter the first place we found open. That's how we ended up in a Korean teahouse, where the menu was a four page asian card filled with weird teas (iced tea latté, bubble sweetened tea), the waitress struggled to speak English and literally all the customers were gaming on their phones. They did take the time to stare at us weird white people for a while. After ordering our teas and trying not to laugh too hard about what was going on around us, we saw a pile of boardgames behind the counter; exactly what we had come for. However, there was one problem.. the games were in Asian. Finally we had some luck, found a game that had English instructions and spent a lovely evening making up conspiracy theories, while drinking gross tea. On Sunday mornings, the McMaster outdoor club is organizing hikes through the nature around Hamilton. An easy way to get some beautiful winter pics and meet new people. Last Friday we got another chance at beautiful winter pics and authentic winter activities by joining the snowtubing trip. After our big international group was loaded in one of the yellow schoolbusses (they still use them here) it was an hour ride over horribly bumpy roads through beautiful widespread hills (just like I remembered the roadtrip those years ago) to our destination: the Cherokee slide park. I was kinda nervous sliding down steep snow hills on a tube, given my headwound/concussion history with sleighing, so it seemed a good decision to watch the rest come down a few times without injuries and drink a beer (basically the main reason was the beer). But my time had to come as well so I dragged the tube to the top, grabbed the feet of my friends and spinned down at dazzling speed. A-ma-zing. I keep wishing we had snow in the Netherlands, we are definitely missing out...