Registration and Long Metro Rides

Good evening!  Today was interesting.

We woke up early (well, early for my roommates) so we could register.  We walked a good long ways to the commune hall, about 30 minutes, and then when we got there, Kristin and Jackie (who came with us because Frederique said they were supposed to) got sent somewhere else.  Then the guy photocopied our passports, had us write our birth cities and told us a cop would be by in the next two weeks to check about our residence.  And then we would get letters in the mail so we could set up an appointment for a personal interview and to bring 20 euros and 4 passport photos when we did.  Needless to say, we are not happy, and Frederique will be getting many emails and having many conversations on Monday with people - some people have to get bank statements and 5 passport photos and all this stuff.

After our group trip, I went to Grand Central Station to look at trains.  Round trip to Dusseldorf was 85 euro for tomorrow, but I've decided to stay home this weekend, or travel on Sunday because of research applications and homework.  But the guy told me how to look up timetables and get information, so that's what I'll be doing.  It's pretty cheap to most places, and the guys in the train station are pretty helpful to let you know where you can go for a day.  Now I know, and now I can plan.  A couple of people are taking an exclusive trip next week to London.  Of course I wasn't invited.  Both Sam and Kristen are going.  Definitely going somewhere that weekend.  Anyways, going to make a list of places to go and work on getting there.  Name suggestions in comments for me?

On the way back, I stopped and got food in the metro station.  A hamburger, to be exact.  Much different than anything I'd consider a typical hamburger, it was two patties cut in half served on a baguette with lettuce, tomato and ketchup.  It was very good.

We then hung out and did stuff in the apartment before meeting a whole bunch of people in the metro station around 2.  There were 13 of us, and we took three different metro lines and at least thirty minutes to go to the Atomium.  Which is a really cool structure that represents an elementary iron crystal enlarged 165 billion (thousand million) times.  They had info about the 1958 world's fair and all this science stuff.  James and I ended up being the only ones interested and stayed to actually read and look at all the exhibits. 

Everyone left us there but told us where they were going to get off the metro to go to dinner; St. Catrine (where we've been multiple times), and wait for us.  We finished looking at everything and caught the metro back, noticing the cool stations and how each one is different.  The one with the Atomium had sciency stuff and giant fingerprints and a mix of academic things.  The next notable one had these statues of people, some with kids, some as couples, some as huge groups.  Followed by one with penguins and global warming information and one that had really pretty close-ups of flowers.  Each station is different.  Each has different seating, different design, different personalities, so to speak.  It's really interesting.

Anyways, they didn't wait for us, but we called and they told us the name of the restaurant.  We got lucky with an American who was working in a restaurant and she knew where it was.  We got there less than 5 minutes after they had been seated, but they hadn't left us any room so we got a table near by.  The soup of the day was "vegetable" but looked, tasted, and had the consistency of split-pea.  It was very good, and went surprisingly well with the strawberry beer we had (which was also good).  Half the group was staying to go to some bar, and the rest were going home, including one of my roomies.  We were going to go with them, but we were once again left because they didn't tell us they were leaving... They pretty much disappeared.  Anyways, James and I found our way back to the metro, and happened to notice a chocolate sale.  Adorable snowmen and Christmas-themed chocolates for a euro each.  We both got some and then grabbed the metro, headed to our respective apartments.  Kristen decided to go back out. Not sure where; wasn't invited. I here for the night. Going to relax, maybe do homework.  Trying to find an English channel on tv out of our 7.

Goodnight world.