Chillin' in Chili

I have been living in my new room since Feburary now in the neighborhood Lombok, which is also the Indonesian word for chili, and it is about time I show what it is like! When I originally arrived back in the Netherlands last November, I had moved into a temporary room right in the Binnenstad (city centre) of Utrecht. While the location was phenomenal and fully furnished, what I really missed were flatmates. This was the second time I temporarily lived in a studio and goodness, I do not understand how people do it. Really hard to value alone time when you are by yourself all the time unless you invite people over.

Come January I found another room (actually...a second new room as the first one had fallen through for unknown reasons). Lombok is an area immediately to the west of Utrecht's main train station and built between 1880s and 1920s as a working class neighborhood.  It is now multicultural mixed with immigrants, students, young families, etc. On the main street, Kanalstraat, there are a number of Turkish/other ethnic greengrocers, shops, bakeries, and butchers, which is a nice inexpensive, local option instead of the main grocery store of Albert Heijn. A mosque is also being built and a number of times I have heard the call to prayer, which I quite enjoy actually. (One can also hear the church bells tolling out the various hours, people practicing instruments like the saxophone and the trains arriving and departing the main station...so lots happening)

My flat is on one of the side streets of Kanalstraat on the 1st and 2nd floors (2nd and 3rd in America). I live with 4 other Dutch people who are either studying or working. Have still yet to really practice my minimal Dutch other than using simple phrases, but we get the Dutch newspaper so I will read that from time to time. It is about a 10 min walk/3 min bike ride from the main train station, super convenient, and a 30 min bike ride (5.5 km/3.4 mi) from De Uithof, the science campus of Utrecht University.

I have two rooms - a 8 m2 bedroom and a 4 m2 study room. On the 1st floor is my study room, the living room converted into 2 bedrooms, kitchen, toilet, and piano (so cool!). My bedroom and two others are upstairs on the 2nd floor along with the shower after going up some mighty steep steps As I had to furnish the rooms, in mid-February I went to IKEA to pick out everything and then have them deliver it. And it turned out quite nice if I do say so myself.

The cosy bedroom, where surprisingly managed to fit all my clothes and have a small couch with the seat cushion pulling out into a mattress for visiting friends. Nice thing is that the sun shines in this room in the morning while waking up, which is my preferred method of an alarm clock. Still trying to figure out how to decorate the wall space...maybe print out some nice landscape photos or purchase some artwork of Utrecht.

Was so happy that the couch fit perfectly in that niche!

Miffy postcards on the wall; Utrecht is the home of Miffy, aka Nijntje, the predecessor to Hello Kitty

Wardrobe barely fit with the low ceiling, couldn't put the legs on, still need to make wooden block legs.

Bed wouldn't be complete without stuffed animals like Totoro and a dreamcatcher.

Sink awkwardly in the corner, but this is the only thing I don't like of the whole place.

View outside the bedroom window, those "skyscrapers" are next to the main train station.

The studyroom where I am spending many hours working on my thesis (or taking a break to write this blogpost because I am tired of my ongoing date with Excel). As this faces the opposite side compared to my bedroom, the sun shines here in the afternoon. Perfect!

Desk with trestles, which I can move in order to fit 6 people and play board games :P

Paintings/drawings of various cities/countries I visited.

Collage of flyers, maps, postcards, tickets, etc. And of course books and games on the shelves.

Scratch-off world map, not many additions in the past year but did get to add Turkey and Jamaica!

Music Festivals

Yesterday I attended the Nordic Delight Festival with a good friend of mine. It was the second of a three-part series of Scandinavian musical events. Featured were many bands and soloists from Denmark, Sweden, Norward and Finland throughout the day. Some were good...some not our cup of tea, but overall we had a good time walking to all the various rooms, chilling in "The Living Room" (room filled with dozens of couches and tables) and drinking hot chocolate from The Village Coffee & Music to keep warm (no heat in the building). The following links are of the artists I enjoyed.

Town of Saints, Finland/Netherlands

Daniel Norgren, Sweden

Steinar Raknes, Norway

Also purchased tickets to the Pinkpop Festival, which is the longest running annual music festival in the world. If you didn't already know, the Netherlands is known for its music festivals. This is one is about 2.5 hours away via train in the south by Maastricht. Some artists that will be playing are: The Killers, Green Day Kings of Leon, Ben Howard, The Script and many many more. Planning to go for the full 3 days with a group of friends here from Utrecht University.

I never mentioned that last year I had the chance to see James Taylor in Amsterdam. It was nice as he is one of the many artists I grew up listening to while staying at my dad's house. Funny how one ends up listening to the music of their parents as they grow older. 

Next post will be about my new room situation in Utrecht! I am almost done decorating and pretty much done reorganising everything, very happy with how things have been turning out! Pictures of course included. :)