Here in Nijmegen I'm living in a large student housing complex that was built in the mid 1970s. I share a kitchen and a couple toilets with 8 other students. The nice part is that I have my own shower and the downside is the location, which is about a 30 minute bike ride to the city center. But this has not prevented me from going out and partying (luckily its slightly downhill on the way home).

As for courses, I am taking three in American Studies and a Dutch language course for absolute beginners. Here is a list of some of the books I will be reading this semester in case your interested.

20th C American Lit:
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
Going after Cacciato, Tim O'Brien
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
plus f selections from the Norton Anthologyof American Lit.

Euro-American Modernism and the Metropolis:
City of Glass, Paul Auster
City of Quartz, Mike Davis
Manhattan Transfer, John Dos Passos
Amerika, Franz Kafka
The Devil and the White City, Erik Larson
Collage City, Colin Rowe
The Flaneur, Edmund White
selections from The Blackwell City Reader
and the films Metropolis, Chinatown, and Playtime

Representations of Otherness in Contemporary American Culture
We're reading mostly articles and the textbook Feminist Film Theory: A Reader
and viewing the films Jungle Fever, Philadelphia, The Celluloid Closet, The Color Purple, The Silence of the Lambs, Mahogany, and Working Girl

See I will be busy doing more than just enjoying the Dutch life this year.