Week 1-scams, rotary hospitality and cheese

Dear Friends,

Bike? check
Apartment? check
Food in refrigerator? check (two types of Dutch cheese and Dutch peach yogurt drink...)
Euros in my purse? check.
Passport? Check.
Friends made? check
Hospitable people encountered? check
Have I gotten lost at least twice each day? check
Have I, at the same time, made every appointment I needed to make? check

A week has passed and everything here still feels new. After losing enough money in a housing scam to buy a new macbook pro in the first week, I was homeless. Fortunately, benevolent Rotarians looked out for me and I was able to stay in their homes. Yay Rotary network. The Dutch rotary folks are as kind as the WV ones. They have been keeping an eye on me. They took me to the police so I could report the housing scam, and, then helped me find housing in Utrecht, one of the most difficult cities in the world for housing. Speaking of housing, I would like to share a few tips on my experience:

WHEN RENTING IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY

1. Always have someone go knock on the door of the place you are renting and check it out for you. Otherwise, the place might not exist.
2. Never send money over the internet.
3. I told you to never send money over the internet when renting housing in a foreign country, but particularly never give more than a one month down payment and deposit. Never pay lawyer fees (this is probably a scam, and, if the person says they are on holiday in another country, watch out for this.) Also, never send money via western union (money cannot be tracked this way.) Use a bank account.
4. Stay with friends or in a hostel until you yourself can personally go to the place you want to rent so you can check it out.

So, now I am in a stellar apartment (which I am renting from the Rotary club in Utrecht.) I have my own bedroom and sitting area (in the same large room) and share a kitchen and bathroom with another Dutch student who is my age and from the northern part of the country.

I would post pictures at this time, however, I cannot. I left my camera charger in one of the three family's homes I stayed in last week. I still need to find it...

Food is an essential part of any traveler's experience. In the following posts I will include one section on food.

DAIRY

It is easy to see why (according to a Dutch person) average Dutch males are 6 1' and women usually equally tall. Dutch refrigerators burst with cheese. Markets sell hundreds of varieties. The cheese is sharp, much stronger that I am accustomed to. Yogurt is eaten with everything--poured over cereal in the mornings; drizzled over frozen fruit for dessert, drunk in a liquid form for snacks. And then there is the milk and ice cream...milk is far cheaper here that in the U.S. fifty-two cents for a half gallon. (Even if you make the conversion from euros to dollars it is cheaper.) And ice cream is everywhere, dozens of varieties eaten in little waffle cones by old and young alike as they peddle past on their bicycles, baby in the back, cellphone in one hand, flowers in a shopping bag over the bicycle handle bars, ice cream in the other. Yay for cows...Speaking of which, black and white spotted dairy cows are everywhere in Holland--beside the schoolyard lounging in pastures, in fields by canals, along the highways. They are beautiful.

Stay tuned, my next three posts will talk about the real Dutch families I stayed with, their quirks, what their homes were like, their food and hospitality.

Doei! as we say in Dutch (Pronounced, 'do-we') or, goodbye!

P.S
I am still in school orientation. I begin classes next week.