The living situation

I live in the town of Lent which is in the Dutch municipality of Nijmegen. The flats for students are a collection of buildings from A to H which each houses about 60 students. The buildings are pictured below – two stories with four-person flats along the top and bottom. The word flat is completely synonymous with apartment; four people share a small living room, kitchen and bathroom. The buildings are really old and, according to the rumors, will be torn down within the next few years. We have no oven or microwave in the kitchen, but my flatmates and I split the cost for a 30-euro toaster oven today. We opened it as a flat and all turned it on together -- Even if the four of us collectively conceived a baby it wouldn't receive more love than our new appliance. But, even the lack of a toaster oven and microwave in the past few weeks hasn't made cooking incredibly difficult. We’ve all become more resourceful since moving into flats without basic appliances; yesterday Javi taught me how to bake a frozen pizza in a saucepan (who knew?).

My room

Living room

Kitchen

There is a dorm which is much closer to campus, but about 15 people share a kitchen and it doesn’t have wifi. For both of those reasons, and because I get along with my flatmates swimmingly, I am glad to be in Lent. About the wifi – I am so glad I brought my iPhone! Although it doesn’t work without internet, even sparse internet in the city would make the phone worth having. I can talk to most of my friends back home and tell my mom I haven’t been kidnapped or (worse) become a weed addict. 

The first picture is my building from the front, and the second picture is a sunrise outside the back of our flat.