Let's title this entry What the Hell have I gotten myself into.

Today was the first day of classes here in Maastricht. Put it this way, if I was at A&M I would be going through Bonfire trying to find something else. My culture class which I thought was suppose to be easy recommends 20 hours a week to study for. The syllabuses here are about 20-30 pages. While I'm sure it'll get better as time goes on, it does seem frightening. The class consists of two tutorial and one lecture. I just found out the lecture is across the river so that is about a 40 minute walk from my dorm. Safe to say I'll be bike shopping soon. In the tutorials the groups are small and in fact a couple times I will be asked to lead the group in discussion for the two hours. Should be interesting.

Next class is project management. We are actually given a project with real companies that are interested in seeing how their problem can be solved. Seeing if younger people see an alternate route. We will be using software and the list of journal readings assigned is 3 pages. We will be keeping a project journal and a presentation of 25 minutes. Now I hate getting up and talking, and so far in college it hasn't gone much over 5 minutes. I guess I need to improve real quick. Oh I forgot to mention the average age of students in my classes are mid twenties. Somewhere along the line I didn't get the memo that I am going to what is equilavent to grad school courses. Sitting in the classroom made this a quick and honestly somewhat painful reality. Let me add these are considered intermeidate classes as where as next block I have signed up for advanced.

It also surprises me that going through the halls I don't hear English. Since the business school is all taught in English I thought people would use it to become more familiar. I guess not.

Now in all honesty I do believe I will be able to succeed at these courses. I think the knowledge and experiences gained will helpful. But there is part of me that was wanting Maastricht to be just a fun time. An opportunity to travel and see the world. This will likely happen only on breaks.

Yesterday I went withsome people to a casino in a town about 10 minutes away or so. It was fun, and all I lost was 2 bucks. I knew if I put in more I would just come out empty handed. One guy lost 90. Stupid American. I've also realized now what I miss most about the US. Water. Free water. Since I don't drink cokes it's been hard for me to find this drink that seems so rare here. In no building do they have water fountains. In no restaraunts do they use their tap to give you a glass. Instead make you purchase bottled water. I had heard of this before I coming over, but I guess to the extent it does surprise me. A couple times at vending machines I thought I purchased juice only to find it be carbonated juice. I hope to get the hang of it soon enough for carbonated ice tea was pretty horrible.

That is all that has happened. This town is beautiful and very lively in the town squares. I can only imagine how it'll be when the sun is out and I know my way around(hopefully this part will come soon)