After running around on campus for two days, I've finally got some time to let all of you know how I'm doing. I think the easiest way to do this is just to start at day 1 and tell you everything that's happened until now.
So Wednesday I had to get up really early (4 am to be precise) to go to Schiphol airport. Because of the fact that this was the moment I was dreading the most (saying goodbye to my family), I wasn't feeling too well. But after saying goodbye to my parents (my brother and sister had to go to school that day) and going through customs, I finally felt a bit better. After an interview of 10 minutes, and being checked from top to bottom I was finally on my way to Chicago.
The flight there was quite an experience. I spent my time (approximately 8,5 hours) with listening to music, watching movies, and sleeping. The food we got on the plane was very nice. I had lasagna, with a salad, some bread, and vanilla ice cream.
Then at the airport of Chicago another 'big moment' introduced itself: getting into America. I had to fill out some forms, a picture was taken and my fingerprints were 'scanned'. Luckily the guy at the desk was very nice, because after that I could just go on (no interview or extra baggage check). Finally, I was in the USA!
After going through customs again, I had to wait 3 hours for my connecting flight to Lincoln.
When I arrived at Lincoln airport, professor Davis was there to pick me up. At that point it was 7 pm local time (2 am 'Dutch time'), so I was just exhausted. Professor Davis (head of the honors program at UNK), is a very friendly guy. We had a nice chat whilst driving to Kearney and before we went to my room, he gave me a short tour of the campus (by car of course, because I was way too tired to walk ;p).
My room is in the honors residence hall called Stout Hall. Before I went to sleep that night, I first met Annastashia (Anna) and Christine who are like ‘house-elders’. They showed me my room and helped me move in a little. Half an hour later, Amanda arrived. She will be my roommate for the coming 4 months. After she left (she’ll probably move back in today), I could finally go to sleep.
The next morning I met up with Yael. She showed me the campus and helped me out with arranging quite a few things. We arranged my meal-plan, I got my ID-card, I got all the classes I wanted to take (YEAH!), and much more. Because I was prepared very well (I got a lot of compliments about my preparation) and because everyone here is so amazingly friendly, everything ran very smoothly. Because the dining hall didn’t open until Friday, Anna took me to Wal-Mart to get some diner.
The next day professor Davis introduced me to Trudy de Goede. She works in the library at UNK. When she was 6 years old she and her family moved from the Netherlands to the USA. She gave me a tour around the library, we had a very nice talk, and afterwards she took me out for a cup of tea.
In the afternoon, I arranged the last few things (insurance stuff etc.) and I took another nap (yes, the time-difference is hard to get used to). That evening I dined in the cafeteria for the first time and I met up with a whole new bunch of people. When I got home again, Christine invited me to watch a movie with some friends of her.
So this is in short everything I’ve done the last few days. The only thing that’s still left is buying my books and then Monday the semester starts!
