. . . the Spanish Inquisition!

To paraphrase the M. Pythons, no one expected SNOW here today, least of all I! It has come down (for an hour, anyway) in great big, fat, ploppy flakes and coated the streets good and proper -- cold slush. I got good and wet. I hadn't ridden a bike through a snow storm in a city since living in Cambridge, Mass., in the early 1970s! I remember riding my slim-tired, 10-speed Peugeot across the MIT bridge to Boston to a rehearsal, in a driving, frigid storm, and I was not alone (as a biker)! Today, I rode my sturdy Dutch one-speed with foot brakes slowly and watched the cars spinning. In my neighborhood but before heading to my "shed" to park, I took a couple of pictures from the bridge over my canal, for the record. Snow is not common here, and it hasn't been cold enough, either (in high 40s and low 50s).

Today was the first class of my "History after 1800" class, taught by my "Speaking & Listening" professor of last semester. The 19th century and its literature is his field. This class, too, was crowded (about 25 people, vs. last term's norm of 8 or so), including two men who were about my age. We eyed each other knowingly! Today's class focused on Dutch and linked European histories leading up to the 19th century. While I knew that the French revolution took place in 1789, I had never linked the U.S. revolution (1776) with the French and the Dutch (against the French, in 1796). I remarked to my professor afterwards that it had been a fraught 20 years or so in the world then. It was also the beginning of modern democracies. Like my six other classes this term, this one is taught in Dutch. It was very interesting to listen to my professor speaking at a normal speed, compared to last term. Most of the class is second- and third-year students. I found myself taking notes in Dutch, too. Maybe due to having had a very restful six-week break between semesters, my brain seems ready to live in Dutch, rather than constantly translating. No dreams in Dutch yet, though (the final cross-over, in my view).

Yesterday's three new classes were great. One is more grammar and writing, but very accelerated. One is methods and techniques of preparing a thesis at the U. of Leiden -- mostly about citation, bibliography and proper form -- nothing I didn't learn a long time ago, but having not written anything remotely like a small thesis or formal paper in decades, the practice will be good. At the end, we write something, and use all the techniques. The third class, historical linguistics, was fascinating, and started with language family trees and basic terminology.

The big difference in this term's classes is that our tiny "B Group" (now shrunken to two Poles, one Russian, one Chinese, one Estonian and me) has been mixed into much larger groups of second- and third-year students. Oddly, this makes for easier comprehension so far, but classes are no longer intimate -- each one is about 25 students, which for Leiden is very large for the seminar-style courses and classrooms. The difference reminds me of my very short-lived tennis-playing as a teenager. On the rare occasions when I could persuade a decent player to play with me, I played much better than with anyone of my own level.

January and February here are BIG sales in the stores, called "cleaning up", and I've added to my long-sleeved t-shirt collection and a few other things -- prices are cut at least 50%, if not more. Since I had very few weekend clothes (read: student clothes), the sales have helped a lot. In the process, I found several boutique-type shops that have nicer things than the two department stores (C&A and V&D).

The inchworm slippers ("pantoffels" in Dutch, which always makes me think of some obscenely caloric Viennese torte stuffed with whipped cream and raspberries) are on, the coffee is freshly brewed, and I'm off to start yesterday's assignments. Life is good.