It's been a while...

And then it was June! I'm sorry you haven't really heard much from me lately. I'd love to say it's because I've been incredibly busy with lots of exciting things, but I'd be lying. Truth is, I've started writing a new blog quite a few times over the past few weeks, but never really found the inspiration and/or motivation to finish it. But here is another attempt :)

Well, since my last blog summer is slowly but steadily arriving in Holland. And with summer also comes the possibility of sunburns. Now I've had sunburns before over the years. Some pretty bad ones too. It's one of those things with having fair skin, I'm sure some people can relate :) I have never had the blistering kind though. Never had a sunburn which hurt for days. Until now. It was a beautiful sunny day last Tuesday, and I was meeting up with my Italian friend Fabio as he was in Utrecht for two days. It was great catching up with him after almost a year of not seeing each other :) We spent pretty much all afternoon in the city. And as I realised at the end of the day, we spent a little too much of that afternoon in the sun for my skin to handle. When I got home, my housemates cringed at the bright red sight of me and my sunburn, and I was in pain! A pain that lasted for the next couple of days... Today (Sunday) is actually the first day it doesn't hurt anymore! I thought only Australian sun was that powerful to give me bad sunburns...

Talking of Australia, we now have our very own exchange student living in our house! Erika, a Colombian girl, is temporarily taking the place of my housemate Loes, who's on a round-the-world trip starting in the land Down Under. It's funny seeing the other side of exchange for once and rediscovering that Dutch people actually have some quite funny habits as well :) Like when it's the Queen's birthday and everyone goes nuts dressed in orange. See the photos :)

I actually went to the airport together with my other housemate Li-Shi to see Loes off, despite her leaving at an ungodly hour. We had to catch the very first train in at 4am and so our alarms were set for a time we were still out partying at Loes' goodbye party the night before! I got home from the airport again at a time I usually just wake up, and I'm still a reluctant morning person :) But it was good to go to the airport and see a nervous Loes off. The afternoon nanna nap I had that Saturday was very good too though :)

Since my last blog I am also happy to report that by now I have chosen and been accepted into a master's degree on multiculturalism. Basically it's about the socio-cultural and political aspects of living in a multicultural society (both on a national as well as on an international level) and how it affects people, society and public policy. It's an area of study I've always found interesting, so I think it will be good :) Guess I'll find out soon enough!

Other than that, I won't bore you with every little detail of what I've been up to since my last blog. It can be summarized by friends and uni :) Though I've actually been taking it easy with uni for a bit, do some things I hadn't gotten around to doing before and figure some things out for myself, but now I have to get back into it to finish it all. Only have one more boring statistics subject to do and write one final paper on suicide terrorism, which I'm finding quite interesting to research. Hopefully I'll be done with that early to mid July and then I'll have my bachelor's degree! Quite exciting :)

Anyway, that's it for now! More than enough, I'd say :) I always love hearing from you all too, so please leave a comment! I hope you're all happy and well. And for those who are near the end of semester, good luck with all your exams and deadlines!
With love,
Carine

PS. I found this youtube clip through a dear friend of mine and I thought I'd share it with you too, coz I love it. Maybe it just fits with where I'm at in my life right now, but I hope you enjoy it too :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYbMY13THH0


PPS. I'm at my parents' place right now and I forgot I recently cleared a lot of photos off my memory card, which means most of my photos are only on my computer in Utrecht! So stay tuned and more photos will follow tomorrow :)
xx