The new uni schedule for April and May was put online yesterday, and it sparked all sorts of excitement. First of all, the last day of uni is June 5! JUNE FIFTH, everyone! Mark your calendars! June 5 until September 1, eleven weeks without uni. Oh, it surely must be a dream. It’s about time for a long break, though. We had two weeks off on Christmas and one week for Carnival, and that was it for the whole year. In this sense, and in this sense only, I cannot wait for summer.

Second of all:

Uh-huh, that’s right. AMSTERDAM BABY! The April/May course deals with paintings and art and I’m pretty sure that I’m going to die of boredom and ask myself over and over again just why in hell it is necessary to over-analyze every excruciating detail of a million years’ old painting but in order to do so we’re going to Amsterdam for a day to see the real deal.

Amsterdam is not all drugs and hookers, you know. (Which is exactly why I put both annoyingly overused references in the title of this post. Who’s laughing now? … What?)

I’ve been to Amsterdam once before (and have driven right through it on family vacations a few dozen times), and what I remember most clearly is the diversity of the people in that city. No one looks or acts like the next person. It’s both really fascinating and scary at the same time. There were people of any race, ethnicity, age and class, speaking a hundred different languages. In my experience, it just wasn’t like this in London, Paris, and Berlin.

I remember the canals and the narrow houses and the big city hall and the Rijksmuseum and the main shopping mile and the gigantic industrial harbor and the old harbor and, yes, the occasional stoner and the Red Light District. (Apparently it borders on a church which has a nice little statue in front of it that says, Respect sex workers all over the world. I don’t remember this but it certainly is a nice sentiment.)

But seriously, Amsterdam – at least the tourist areas I have been to – is just a very beautiful city. From what I remember. I would imagine that it’s the perfect mix of many of the big cities in the world. Although that is of course just an amateur’s opinion.

I’m not sure if we will have much time to actually wander around the city, seeing as we’re only going there for the day (nicely squished in between a Tuesday and a Thursday full of regular uni) and will spent most of it in art museums. But then, that may be just as well. See, I like art. In a Let me just sit here and take it all in sort of way. And after all, Dutch art is the most famous and most ground-breaking art, next to the Italian obviously. I loved walking through the halls of the Louvre, and just stare. (Which, one of those days, I need to do over by the way – because the first try didn’t go down all that great. We went with the school at the time, scurried to see the Mona Lisa, muttered a few disappointed words, and left.)

I don’t want to analyze and discuss and reduce those masterpieces to their historical essence or their societal or economical context. Apparently, that’s not how you’re supposed to appreciate art, though.

In either case, I AM GOING TO AMSTERDAM ON MAY 13. Coincidentally, that is my dad’s birthday. My dad hasn’t traveled anywhere else than a small Northern European island in over ten years, and I cannot wait to tell him that I WON’T BE ABLE TO MAKE IT TO HIS BIRTHDAY BECAUSE I WILL BE HUFFIN’ IT UP IN AMSTERDAM. Lovely. I may have to keep it a secret.

In other travel-related news, I found this:

I picked up A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson yesterday. I have read it both in English and in German but it’s a fascinating book about… nearly everything. (Meaning the entire history of how our planet and ultimately you and me came to be but mixed with humor and simplified science which is awesome, and you should read it if you haven’t. It really is fascinating and it will make you cry because it makes you realize how ginormous and genius our universe is which is a very eye-opening contrast to your problems with getting yo ass out of bed in the morning. Anyhow. You should read everything Billy Bryson has ever written, to be more concrete, but that’s another issue for another day.)

So my grandma gave this book to me before I went to Kentucky, and I read it on the plane on my way there. Frankfurt International to Chicago O’Hare is probably a good nine-hour flight – I don’t really remember – which gives you ample time to read this type of book. Evidently, I had used the boarding pass as a bookmark.

And yesterday when I picked it up again and this fell out from between the pages, I almost lost it because I’m in a strange state these days, and the last thing I need is Kentucky memories IN MY FACE like this.

So I guess it’s a good thing that I’m going back home for five days! I have to keep working on my essay but the uni schedule allows for me to make this short, spontaneous trip – and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I’m leaving tomorrow morning.

I’m happy for now.