Treashure Study Abroad

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Blog 3:

On the Final Free Day I had, the group went to Amsterdam and we did a-lot of fun things. First it was pretty early so of course everyone was tired and drained. The train ride there was pretty fast but the scenery wasn’t so pleasant or what you see on pictures. Usually you see the beautiful canals and the water but when we got out it looked like every ole town we had passed by on the train. After exiting the train station though we started seeing more of the scenery. We had to walk across the bridge and we seen canal and we had seen the nice boats that we would be on as well for our boat cruise. Of course we had to stop and get coffee first and use the bathroom because we were all tired and extremely sleepy. We went to this nice one right by the canal and I got an ice caramel latte, and it was one of the best things I had ever had. It was so sweet and so delicious! After that we finally went on our wine and cheese cruise. Getting on the boat scared me heavily because I had never gotten on a boat before. While on the cruise we tried cheese from what I assumed to be from the netherlands but it taste just like colby jack and white cheddar cheese to me. And I had two glasses of rose and it tasted so good and gretchen was discussing how the tilted houses looked straight and I was thinking she had to much to drink. After we finished fhe wine and cheese cruise the group branched off. Some went ro rhe van gough museum while the rest of us went to the park to eat our packed lunches but realized there defition of parks are different from our definition of parks . But then once we got to one it started downpouring on us and it didn’t help I had to pee because then it made me have to pee more. After we had gotten to a bathroom we decided to go see the red light museum. I found this very interesting just seeing and hearing people’s stories of what they have gone through and how they make being a prostitution a living, and I also appreciated how amsterdam allows them to be open and welcoming about there choice of living. I also was intrigued by some of the confessions people had! It was very emotional and very interesting! We also went to a couple of vintage shops as well as a duck store which had a variety of ducks for 13 euros though. After this we went to get something to eat around this soup place which i thought was so good, even though I had fish and chips. Finally we went to the performance which was my favorite part of the night. Starting off watching the beginning and just walking in the girls looking like boxers. i was excited and they had ballet shoes on and I thought it was so cool. From there when they started two mice came out and scared me and i feel like their purpose was comedic relief. The kind of gave me looney tunes vibes which I love so much it’s so hilarious and funny. Then when the girls started dancing/boxing it was so nice, they mirrored each other’s movements in a sense and they were so nice with their dance you could tell they were confident with each other. The next thing i thought was really good was when the mice finally revealed themselves and started showing us there rendition of boxing ! It started getting a little concerning when they started stripping off their clothes after each round but they redeems themselves at the Half time/ Pause of the show. They provided us with a nice little entertaining commercial but then they kissed and it really threw me iff but everyone truly enjoyed it. From there it was a battle of the sexes when im assuming the winner of the womens round and winner if the mens round went against each other. I will say I wasn’t the biggest fan of the man hitting the women but I had to remember it was just a performance and not real life. After the performance ended we went back home but I truly enjoyed being in amsterdam it was an experience i will never forget!

[treashure-studyabroad]

My time in Belgium was well spent. As soon as we got here on the first day, we were on the run. Starting from the confusing train station line and set up and learning how to get through the ticket holder it was rough, but adrenaline was high. I will say their trains are smaller than London’s, which I don’t like but it’s okay though. But once of the train, the city is BEAUTIFUL! Also, FOOD at every corner was crazy. But everyone was so friendly, other than the stares of walking down loud suitcases it was wonderful. The hostel we were staying at was SO nice like OH SO nice, better than London’s and the BATHROOM was so nice! I will say though the actual city of Brussels is so nice and beautiful and diverse. I’ve seen people from all over just interacting. I think the only downfalls I had on the first day was my feet were in pain, the lady snatching her rose away from me when I told her I had no money, and the constant change in weather, like it was hotter than it was cold than hot again. I also enjoyed going into the St. Micheals Cathedral and listening to the singing from a group of ladies while looking at all the historical monuments. I also enjoyed the Mannequin Piss Statue as well as the view from all the hills in Brussels! The second day was even better. The other girls went to go make authentic Belgium chocolate and came back and let me try it, it was so good. We also went to the Brussels city museum, and it was so nice in there, something that made me laugh was how they had an entire history exhibit for the Mannequin Piss statue, and you could learn how it originated was so intriguing. I also enjoyed how they always have cute little outfits for the mannequin piss statue and currently it is in the soccer outfit. We also went to the Fashion and Lace Museum and oh my goodness, the clothing was so beautiful and so was the fashion. I really appreciate how it allowed us to feel on the fabric and then we also sat down and watched a couple of fashion show videos and critiqued them on our own, it was funny. I also learned how they make Lace underwear for men in Belgium which I was quite intrigued because I’ve never seen lace boxers before. After all this we went to this Ramen place, and it was SO GOOD. I’ve never had authentic ramen before, so it was an experience, I also ate my first Authentic Belgium waffle, and it was so good and plump and soft. The final day we were in Belgium I went to a souvenir store and got a sweatshirt and got some postcards for my family, we went to the Belgium Fine arts museum, and I was really intrigued by the paintings, one of them was so angelic to me I had to take a picture of it. I really enjoyed watching the performance as well, it was quite interesting and watching the dancer's interpretation for the seasons it was something I had never seen before, and I think that’s what kept me interested. I also tried Belgium meatballs and it was so delicious! I will say my experience in Belgium was really fun, but I think I liked London the most because the language barrier in Belgium was really hard to understand. I also will say that the time change really threw me for a loophole because it would get dark so late and my body couldn’t really adjust, and it made me just really drained and tired all the time, so it was a struggle wanting to get up.

[treashure-studyabroad]

One of the plays that we watched was the Scottish Ballets “A Streetcar Named Desire”, in London and while the name of the ballet has nothing to do with the actual ballet the performance was so good. I feel as if out of all the performances in London this one portrayed a story the clearest and the best. As watching the performance, I witnessed a lot of real-world issues including homophobia, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual and physical violence, suicidal thoughts, and depression and for a play I was at awe that it could portray all that. Along with the emotions that they were able to portray in the story was good. My interpretation of the storyline of the play was that A woman and her teenage sweetheart got married and it seemed like everything was peaches and crème and they were a dream couple but then his best friend I’m assuming but was also in love with him and the main character caught them in the act and then the husband ended up killing himself and they wife ended up loosing the rest of her family minus her sister who left for college. The story then leads into the woman moving to a new city and starting a career in prostitution and being a well known one. She then gets flashbacks from her deceased husband after she tries to move on, so she then decides to move in with her sister who also has a situation of her own at home. While the sister was ecstatic to see her sister, her husband on the other hand wasn’t. It seemed from the beginning he knew what type of work and woman the main character was, and he wanted no parts, but he wanted to keep his wife happy, so he allowed her to stay. From here it seemed as if the sister wanted to help so she took the main performer out to a club and she then had another flashback of her deceased husband and had to go back to her sister’s house. Which prompted her to start flirting with one of the husbands’ friends who ended up liking her as well but later in the performance. But the sister turns on some music while the husband doesn’t want to hear it so he continues to turn it off until he reached his limit and basically beat on his wife because the wife allowed the main performer to continue on. Eventually the performance moved on to the next day and the sister ended up kind having relations with her husband and forgiving him forming some type of Stockholm syndrome. The main performer then gets outed by the husband due to a newspaper post exposing her and she then gets put out and in a depressive episode thinking about her ex-husband, her past activities, and suitors, and went back to her alcohol state. Then the sister’s husbands know all this about her and then proceeds to rape her as she is trying to leave which causes her to go into a more depressed state and then leave. From this point it seems as if she leaves and goes to where she first started and went back to the man who didn’t judge her or her activities. One thing that did confuse me was the importance of the light in the performance I couldn’t seem to quite understand what the light meant or was resembling. But I will say that everything within the dancing portion was so good. And the emotions from when each dancer was performing, you could very much understand what emotion they were trying to portray whether that be anger, happiness, sadness, it was very well portrayed. Also keeping the lighting on the main character and then the transitions from each was so good. Overall I truly loved the entire performance, it really kept me captivated and I truly was intrigued the entire time and honestly didn’t want the performance to end.