Tag: going on holiday

  • Sandals vs flip-flops

    Sandals vs Flip-flops header

    So, I’m about to embark on my holiday to Bulgaria. Pushed forward from Saturday, to Wednesday, to Thursday, to Friday, I’ve been preparing for the trip for a while now. Seeing as it will be very warm in Bulgarian and Macedonia, I don’t want to wear my shoes all the time. So I told my girlfriend that when I’m in Sofia, where she lives, she’s going to help me pick out a pair of flip flops. She reacted as if I had asked her to help me find some sandals.

    Well… that’s for Holland. In Holland, sandals are perceived as a rather nerdy thing to wear. Flip-flops are cool! In Bulgaria, flip-flops are apparently not cool. Well, not if you want to be perceived as masculine anyway. Apparently there, it IS okay to wear sandals. Which is a big don’t in Holland.

    So obviously you understand my big fashion dilemma right now. How to look cool everywhere!? I will go not eat something now and starve myself to death so I look more like the people I admire. I’ll leave you with a question though. Or two. Two questions! No, three.

    What’s it like in your country? Are men who wear flip-flops really less masculine? Is wearing sandals in the city for nerds and old people?

    Let the debate commence!

    Sandals vs Flip-flops header

  • Rush!

    Letter of Acceptance

    I’ve been officially accepted to Yeditepe! Time to sit back and relax, right? Not.

    Last week: 2 final exams. This week: 1 final exam, 1 deadline for a website, some work assignments. So at this point I was already busy. Anyway, I decided to figure out how I would get my ERASMUS grant. I went to the international office and they informed me I should have my forms in before the 15th of July (I would be in Bulgaria/Macedonia from the 25th of June to the 17th of July), including a certificate of enrollment for the NEXT study year. I handed my enrollment in last Friday and was going on holiday this Saturday, so that got me quite stressed.

    “No worries, mate” I told myself. I figured I’d just take care of something that I could take care of immediately. I googled a bit to find out more about the Turkish embassy in Holland and visa. The embassy site was nearly completely in Turkish, but I found a number and called them. After passing through 2 rude receptionists and being connected to a person, I was informed that I should not call her but someone asked and she asked me why I called her. I blamed television and she gave me the number of the Turkish consulate. I called the consulate, had to go through the same annoying type of receptionists and finally got someone who knew anything about what I was asking. Turns out the studentvisum for Turkey is… 446 euros! Awesome. Perfectly reasonable to ask from a student, right?

    More stress.

    Then I did something I should do more often before asking stuff to people who don’t really know the answer either. I used my eyes and applied them to some text. I did some reading. I saw I could get an advance on the Erasmus grant, which meant I could probably use that money to pay for the visum. Also, I got in contact with the central international office of my degree factory (commercial university) and found out my enrollment for this year would be enough.

    Last time I had stress relief like this I decided it would be best not to blog about it. So I won’t.

    Nervewrecking stuff if you’re going on a holiday for a month in just a few days. Anyway, it all seems to be okay now. Still nervous about the visum, since I’d rather not borrow money for it, but we’ll see. Let’s hope the woman was confused and told me the normal or work visum instead of a studentvisum. Not counting on it though. The very worst is that I will have to go visit the consulate which is built in Holland’s pit of doom, Rotterdam. Lord, help me :sad:

    Oh! So I’m going on a holiday this Wednesday. Expect to see many stories and pictures! :cool:

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