First impressions from Groningen

Groningen, beginning of September 2006

First impressions from Groningen, The Netherlands

What am I doing here in Groningen? Well, for those of you who didn’t already know it: After finishing my B.A. in International Relations at Dresden Technical University, I am now doing an LL.M. called “International Law and the Law of International Organizations, Specialization Human Rights” at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RuG). It’s a one year program, which means I’ll be done at the end of August 2007. But DON’T ask me about what I’ll be doing afterwards… unless you have some constructive advice or a job or paid internship to offer or to point out ;-)

Some general information

For all of you who didn’t now this up ‘till today (me included): I am in the Netherlands right now. “Holland” refers to the western part of The Netherlands, including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag and Utrecht - just so you can use the correct term from now on J

Groningen is situated in the very northeast corner of the Netherlands: very close to the border with Germany, but still a pain in the butt to get there because you have to take all those tiny little, very slow trains… Well, I found out there is a direct bus to Bremen, so maybe I’ll take that next time.

Groningen has a population of about 180 000 people, including 40 000 students, which definitely shows in the night life opportunities. I don’t know how typically Dutch the city is, but it has a very nice and compact city center with a couple of nice churches, shopping facilities, cafés, pubs, clubs… oh and of course not to forget the bikes!!! They’re everywhere and as a pedestrian you can get run over very easily because, by their very nature, you just don’t hear them coming! So it’s best to get a bike yourself and be on the safe side J I still don’t get the stop light system, but that’s okay. I just go whenever the others go. And since there’s always another cyclist around, I won’t be standing at a stoplight forever. Groningen was elected the bike-friendliest city in the Netherlands and as the Netherlands are THE biking country – logical since there are no hills (just some strong winds that can get just as nasty) – that makes it the bike-friendliest city in the whole world, which is great.

I really like the style of the houses here: the vast majority of them are brick-covered houses in different shades of red and none of them are very tall. It just feels very northern. Reminds me of the sea that is very close. Just that it’s not the North Sea that’s 25 to 30 kilometers (about 15 to 20 miles) away – as I had been thinking – but the Waddenzee with its Waddeneilanden. (Don’t ask me how that translates into English!) I guess, it doesn’t really make much difference though since it’s water. And a lot of it.

My studies here

Since I majored in the field of Public International Law within my bachelors’ degree, I intend to focus on that some more and specialize in the area of Human Rights. Six of the eight classes I have to take in total are already foreseen in the program: The Law of International Organizations, Human Rights, The Law of International Peace and Security, International Humanitarian Law, Refugee and Asylum Law (all lectures) and a Seminar on Minority Protection. Since I already to International Organizations and Humanitarian Law at home, I’m going to try to get exempted from those. Since the ones I took in Dresden are considered to be at the bachelor’s level, so I have to replace them with other course here. That shouldn’t be a problem though considering the wide range of courses they are offering. For the compulsory courses I will take International Labor Law and War and Peace and probably International Environmental Law to replace the Law of International Organizations. Well, I’m not going to go into any more detail here… Those eight classes will be spread out over the two semesters (1^st: classes from September to Mid-December with 1 week of exams at the end of October, followed by an exam period until beginning of February; 2^nd: classes from February to the end of May – week of exams at the end of March, exams until beginning of July and of course not to forget the Master’s thesis.

My first classes were definitely interesting, the professors seem to be competent, speak pretty decent English…

The introduction week

Well, what shall I say… I guess this introduction week has enabled to sleep in again – which I had not been able to do for a couple months. Any more details? Alright.

There are about 500 international students at the RuG and about 400 of them participated in the introduction week that was organized by one of the students organizations at the university. We were split up into smaller group and I think I got the best group ever J Well, at least there were a couple of people I get along with really well and our group leaders are the funniest guys. Seriously, we’ve had a lot of fun.

The program for the week started with a social drink and city tour, dinner and then a “pub crawl”. The price for the week included the food and vouchers for drinks in different locations which made as get to know a bunch of them. I’m not gonna list this in order, but they also offered a sports afternoon, where we could get to know the sports facilities (they’re amazing!); barbeque and karaoke, a salsa class, workshops on the history of the Netherlands, Dutch drug policy, break-dance, a Dutch lesson, possibility to by a bike, they showed a movie (“L’auberge espagnol”, which I’d already seen, but it’s a cool movie (French production, I believe), so if you haven’t seen it yet…) and party. Got the mystery of my being able to sleep in again cleared up?

People

Not all Dutch people are blond and tall, but most of them are. In fact, they are supposed to be the second tallest people in the world. We’ve had some arguments on who is the tallest though… the Swedish or some African people. Any suggestions?

Dutch people are very direct, which I find great, ‘cuz I like to know what people think and the best is if they just say it without you having to guess what they REALLY mean. They are also very helpful and almost all of them speak English, which makes it very easy to talk to them in the first place.

I don’t know who you thought to be the most punctual people in the world... I thought it was to be us Germans (not that that counts for me, I guess, I spent too much time in Latin America), but… NO!!! The Dutch are definitely more punctual! And they do get upset when you show up late – I don’t think there has been any meeting of international students during our introduction week where there wasn’t anyone who was not late.

Drugs

You think drugs are legal in the Netherlands? Well, I thought so – guess why I came to study here. J Hope my Mom and Dad don’t read this… I’m just kidding!!!

Well, anyways, drugs are not legal here. Hard drugs are definitely not. And soft drugs are only TOLERATED. It’s a concept that the Dutch call regulated tolerance. In praxis, you may buy five grams of Marijuana at a Coffee Shop at one time and preferably also smoke it there. At least there are some areas where you may not smoke it on the streets – like downtown Amsterdam… The Coffee Shops are the only places where you can buy it. The big mystery is: how do the Coffee Shops get the stuff if no one else may sell it? The import and export is also illegal! Well, growing around five plants in your backyard is – again – tolerated, but the police may take the plants, if they find them, since it’s not legal. You just won’t get a fine for it. And how do they find the plants? Well, at least in the winter, it’s easy: Since the plants need a lot of heat and light, the police will just search the houses that don’t have any snow on the roof. J Seriously, that’s what they told us in a workshop on Dutch drug policy!!!

Bikes

I already talked a little bit about that, but here is some more: I’ve never seen that many crappy bikes in one place. In fact, here I haven’t seen a nice bike! That’s ‘cuz if you have a nice bike, you basically don’t have it anymore, because it’ll just get stolen. You might find yourself being asked by a junkie if you want to by a bike and when you look at it, it turns out to be the one that was stolen from you just a couple of days ago.

The Dutch can do anything while they are riding their bike: Have another person sit in the back or on the handlebar, talk on the phone or even text, carry an umbrella – yes, open! You need that with all the rain they get here! – I personally prefer to wear my rain jacket though, transport whatever they need to transport… By the time I leave Groningen, I want to be able to do all of that at the same time. In the snow J At least I thought I wasn’t doing too bad when transporting the clothes rack I bought today…

Language

Dutch IS a very funny language (I guess, I shouldn’t let any Dutch people read this). Anyhow, it’s also fairly easy to understand. At least I can more or less read it and get the main ideas. And as for the words I don’t get, I can always look them up in my dictionary. With the help of my Langenscheidt-CD-course I also sort of know how to pronounce what I read, but that doesn’t really make me understand the people I happen to listen to in the streets. It’s getting better though. Plus I already wrote half an SMS in Dutch and also understood the answer J

It won’t be that easy to learn Dutch though ‘cuz just about everybody here speaks very good English and that way there is no real NEED to learn Dutch. However, I do a language-tandem with a Dutch girl: she wants to practice her Spanish and will teach me some Dutch in exchange for that.

By the way, no, I haven’t forgotten my German yet – although I try to stay away from the big crowd of German exchange students at the university – but I’m just to lazy to write all of this twice, plus I need to practice my writing skills in English since I’ll have to do all the exams, papers and the thesis in English.

However, to complete the language-mix in my head, I’m picking up my French again: I signed up for a prep-course for the DELF (one of those “official” French-exams). See how that goes… I haven’t practiced my French in four years and any attempt at speaking it failed: just came out in Spanish…

As far as other activities are concerned… I will definitely play some volleyball. Probably both indoor and beach. I might play tennis once in a while with a girl from Bulgaria (gee, I haven’t played in so long). In addition I would like to do some singing again, so I’m going to have a look at the offers they have there next week.

I’m sure that, at the moment I send of this Email, I will think of so many more things I should have told you about. Anyways. Feel free to ask me whatever questions you like. Call me, email me, or simply come visit me to find out what it’s really like. I won’t send any pictures with this email because I might plug some people’s accounts.

Same procedure as always… whoever gets back to me personally WILL get a personal answer! And pictures! J So people, write me!!!

Wherever you are in the world – hope you are doing great and I would love to hear from you!