Katrina Lat

This afternoon, I told my roommate I was in the process of updating the format and content of my site. "Oh, you mean your blog? I used to follow that a few years ago." I realized he was referring to the old Blogger.com site that chronicled my adventures on Exchange in The Netherlands back in the day. And so, curious to rediscover these long forgotten thoughts, I logged back into that old account, and embarked on a trip down memory lane. It's fascinating how many details we ca

Friday, January 31. Amsterdam, Netherlands Initial impressions of this place: Although the Rotterdam and Amsterdam are only an hour train ride away, the vibe is very different here in terms of: 1. Architecture. Both cities have beautiful architecture. However, whereas Rotterdam is home to modern, geometrically interesting buildings, Amsterdam's structures are coloured with history - even simple buildings, like apartment buildings or shops are full of character. At the same ti

Friday, January 31, 2014, 7PM Local Time The first of (hopefully many) weekend trips for this exchange student: Amsterdam. One of the reasons why I chose a European destination to call home for the next few months is because of the vast array of unique cultures and historical places located within a fairly concentrated area (at least, compared to Canada!) Getting from Rotterdam Centraal to Amsterdam Centraal ("centraal" = main train station), is a roughly hour long train ri

Wednesday Jan 29, Erasmus University Rotterdam I have officially completed my first week of classes! What's this you say? It's only Wednesday? That is correct, oh uber-observant imaginary reader. And yes, I am done class for the week. Whereas undergraduate Ivey students take five or more classes each term, Masters students at the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) take one or two classes over the span of a six week "Block". My first course, "E-Marketing", occurs every Tuesd

Wednesday January 29, Home Base, 12:39 PM Local Time One of the neat things about being in a foreign country is that even the most mundane of things become curiosities. Today, I thought my building was on fire. Yes, I know, this statement doesn't normally fall under the category of "mundane", but having lived in a University residence for three of the past four years, one comes to expect the shrill buzzer screaming "YOU ARE GOING TO BURN" more often than they'd like. I'm a