The Dutch Experience

Went to the class today, having heaps of things in mind to be done, but the lecturer has finished earlier as he want to get back driving to “UK=his house”

I’ve went back to Zara to get my coat, and I’ve found another guy who looks Egyptian, I started speaking in Arabic, but he replied back in Dutch, anyway, I told him what I want, and when I was paying he asked me where are you from? I told him Egypt, and he start speaking in Dutch again, and I was like, Hello are you Egyptian or what? He told me in broken Arabic, I’m se3eedy from El-Menya, and he’s living here since 4 years ago, but he lost his Arabic as there are only 8 Egyptian living in Arnhem, WOW…….8 people in such small city, and there’s an Egyptian restaurant as well, YEAH…..i was going to pay for the coat, when I’ve discovered that its price went down from 50 € in the last week to 25€, oh my god, that’s what’s meant by luck.

Walking with the Iranian mate to show him a motorbike place, as he want to get one, lead me another used bikes place, where I’ve found that short Italian guy, Giancarlo, who looks like the little Mafia gangster, who told me that he’s got a bike in his place for a cheaper prices than those in the store and he told me to phone him later today, so he can pick me up and give me a ride to his place to see it!! Shall I go? Why not? Who wanna mess up with a “young middle-eastern = terrorist”, must be a mad guy.

I’ve decided to cut out my shopping trip to the DOWNTOWN area, to get back and use the chance that I’m free to go for the prayer in the Turkish mosque. Was an experience in a way, as the sheikh started the speech in Arabic, and I was going to scream YES, I can feel like home now, when he switched the speech into Turkish after 5 mins, anyway, the prayers was formed from a different kind of weird mixture of Turkish people…….a young pony tailed guy, to a short gangster looking guy, to old decent people.

Today, was my first day in school, and it was quite good, as I’ve known my classmates, 4 Ghanians, 1 Vietnamese, 1 Iranian, and a Dutch girl, which they all seemed like good people and very helpful. The lecturer, who’s a British cool person welcomed me in the class and told me that he’ll meet with me during the week, so I can cover up the missed classes….SWEET

The flat is a bit small, but it’s clean and equipped with the basic and post basic stuff, and beside that the top notch free wireless LAN that’s available in it.

I’ve decided to give it another try to go to Honigkamp to search for the used bikes store, but when I’ve went to the place that the uni advisor pointed at the map at, I couldn’t find it, and I’ve found a woman looks like a housewife unpacking the trash outside her house, and I decided to ask her. Well, she replied me back in a broken English giving me directions, and I’m sure that my reply back represented in the stupid face made her sure that I didn’t get it, so she decided to send her 6 years old daughter to show me the place, Hey Hey what a brave lady to leave her baby walking in the street with a young middle-eastern looking guy, even not speaking the inland lang.

Anyway, the girl seemed like well known over the hood, and the salutations kept on flying over from almost each house on our way to the place. Finally, got it!! The place turned out to be a house, and its resident told me in Dutch, from which I’ve recognized some words that I’ve learned like Geen “not”and Meer “more”, and some other words that I’ve understood from that she’s got some pieces but they’re all sold out.

Not a successful day.

It’s quite funny and sarcastic how the Dutch literally translate from Dutch to English. I’ve been to ABN Amro Bank, which was recommended by the uni to have an account in, so I went with my passport, uni’s acceptance letter and have to say was a quite easy process, except for asking the woman working there about services that I can get by the bank, and the answer to all the questions were NO, and at the end, she told me with a big smile over her face “I’m so sorry for not having such services, but we DISCRIMINATE between Dutch students and internationals”!!!!!! I was shocked by the answer for couple of seconds, but recognizing that she’s not native English speaking person, and the big smile was still frozen over her face.

Have been told that there’s a good place for second hand bikes in a certain area called Honigkamp, where the houses are mostly one or max 2 floors, and seems quite like southern states hood, don’t know but it reminded me with Big Momas House. Anyway, had an interesting Anglo-Dutch conversation with an old man, trying to figure out the directions to the place, but he hasn’t known about it. Although, I’ve not managed to reach the place, but it was quite good walk, as I’ve figured out some German stores that I used to buy cheap grocery from, when I was in Germany like Aldi and Schleker.

Today, was my first day in school, and it was quite good, as I’ve known my classmates, 4 Ghanians, 1 Vietnamese, 1 Iranian, and a Dutch girl, which they all seemed like good people and very helpful. The lecturer, who’s a British cool person welcomed me in the class and told me that he’ll meet with me during the week, so I can cover up the missed classes….SWEET

The flat is a bit small, but it’s clean and equipped with the basic and post basic stuff, and beside that the top notch free wireless LAN that’s available in it.

Today, is my second day in the country, and I can never feel well about a place till I get to know the hood, and the places surrounding it, so I’ve went to downtown with my flatmates, who showed me the bus stops and the bus lines that go to City Centre, which turned out to be a 20 mins walk, which according to Cairo’s standards “fardet ka3b”, like less than 2 mins drive. Anyway, we’ve been to the DOWNTOWN, which is a square almost equal to Heliopolis club’s area!! Then they’ve advised me to get a wintercoat from some shops there, where the first one I’ve entered was Zara the famous Spanish brand. Here’s the surprise comes, I’ve found a good one, but not my size, so I went to the guy working there to ask him for a bigger size. He told me that they’ll get that piece after a week, and he asked for my name to reserve one, and here was it, when he replied me in Arabic!! He turned out to be a Somali who was living in Heliopolis for a year, and he told me that there’s another Egyptian working in the same place.

I decided to tour for a while in the city, which means to walk around the city for 40 mins , but anway, this was a successful hunt, as I’ve discovered that there’s a Turkish Camii (mosque) just infront of my house, and then after 2 streets from my house, there’s another Moroccan mosque, and that there’re a quite few number of people walking in the street looks middle-eastern, and even veiled.

Everything started when my friends Tamer, Askoura, Maan, and Chris decided to drive me to the airport, were the 5 of us were sitting along with my trolley truck  and the other few bags compacted in Maan’s Mercedes!! On our way to the airport, we’ve found share3 el matar (airport’s road) jammed, and it was really weird, but we’ve found that there was a multi-cars accident, in which we figured out Kayaly’s Mazda 6’s car in between, but we’ve tried to convince ourselves that it’s not his, may be because we were late.

In the airport, after the warm farewell party and the intimately drive by my best friends, and when I was emotionally dizzy, I got the shock by the Malev’s counter guy, who told me that I’ve to pay too much for the extra weight, and I didn’t had any chance to skip it, even trying to convince him that there’re some passengers who’ve got almost nothing.

Anyway, the part concerning the flight from Cairo to Budapest was better, sitting beside a beautiful Hungarian girl, and catching some interesting chat with her. Then, to the 3 hours transit in Budapest, which was OK, although the airport is a bit small, but fine.

I felt like, I’ve found a life buoy in the deep blue sea, when I’ve heard the boarding call for Amsterdam’s flight, but this dream bubble was suddenly exploded by the officer, who didn’t got interested in any passenger in the flight except me . So, he got me out of the queue and asked for my passport, and at that time, I’ve got a flashback of what’s happened to me in Hannover’s airport years ago, and I was going to scream in the airport NOOOOOO!!!! Anyway, it went fine after he’s seen the visa, but then this made me the SUSPECT OVER THE FLIGHT 

Again, the flight part went fine, and then the legal god damn, ass paining part of the story came back, and I was standing in the customs, when the officer started what I consider more like interrogation…..why are you here, where are you going to, what for, for how long, blablabla…..i’ve felt that he got some satisfaction when he heard the word ARNHEM, as it meant that I’m not one of the random job seekers in Amsterdam or Rotterdam.

The easy part should start now, but unfortunately, my luck had a hard delivery time, so I’ve went to the airport picking up service, which I had a deal with, and discovered that there are other people on my bus, who hasn’t shown up yet, and we’ve to wait for an hour max, which was an hour!!

The driver started to call for the people who has to get in his bus, and when he was hesitated about one name, I was like, yes that’s me  and then, I’ve went to the bus with fuckin amazing people, who were so friendly, nice and kind ones, first, the driver hadn’t any idea about where I’m going to, that’s one of the passengers told me that he lives near the campus, so I can leave my luggage in his house and he can drive me to the campus to know where I’m staying and then he can drive me home!! WoW, what a good start?!

Oh gosh, I can’t believe it, I’m finally standing infront of the dorms!! Well, it looks amazing, although seems a bit small flats. I’ve found the international affairs from the uni waiting for me, and she introduced me to the people, whom I’ll be staying with, this was a heart beating couple of seconds, but I felt much comfort, when I’ve known them. An Austrian guy, and 2 Iranian guys, and at least they’ve got a similar culture and we can understand our mentalities.

Good time for today, knowing the place and getting to know my mates more.