NWL

Hello everybody,

It has been a while since my last blog, but this should be a good one. I promised a big news item about baseball in my last blog and here it is: I am going to play in the Northwoods League 2015 next Summer! With help from the Collegiate Baseball League Europe where I played last two summers, I have been selected for the team: the Rochester Honkers. The Northwoods League is one of the biggest summer leagues in the United States. Last season, they were the first summer league to draw one million fans in a single season! It could be explained by the huge amount of games that the NWL has. We, the Rochester Honkers, will play more than 70 games in about two and a half months. They are all going to take place in Minnesota and surrounding states. If you'd like to read more about the NWL or CBLE, then click these links.

On the 10th of November I went to the NHL game Boston Bruins vs. New Jersey Devils. It was really awesome to experience this and see the Bruins win 4 - 2. I had a pretty cool spot, all the way in the top of the full packed stadium:

As you can see from the flags, this stadium (called TD Garden) is home to both the Boston Bruins and the Boston Celtics. You may have seen in one of my earlier blogs that I have also witnessed a Celtics game! They were quite different experiences, but definitely both great.

Last Tuesday, November 18th, I had a great time at the Around the World event. It was an event hosted by Wentworth to provide international students a chance to showcase their country. Together with Mark (who is actually from Romania, but he wanted to help me because he studied in Groningen for a long time), I set up a nice Dutch stand.

Mark and me at our stand. We also had the Dutch flag hanging on the left side and a table in front of us.  We presented a couple of Dutch food items such as stroopwafels, pepernoten, chocolate letters and drop. Ask me if you'd like to know what these foods are.

On Sunday November 2nd (just after I posted my last blog) Alex and I went to the Open House of the Boston Athenæum. It is a sort of beautiful library for members only. To become a member you have to pay about $200 a year. But they open to the public once a year. It was really nice to see such a quiet place full of history and knowledge right in the centre of Boston.

The beautiful Boston Athenæum.

They even had a couple (very old) imported books from the Netherlands!

Other things I have done in the past couple weeks are: checking for new contact lenses, taking exams and presenting my paper. 

In the Netherlands, I used to wear contacts in my eyes while I sleep. They formed my eyes the right way so that I could see perfectly during the day. I haven't found that in the US yet (for the same price as in the Netherlands...). So lately I have just not been wearing them and sitting more in the front of the class to still be able to read the board.

The exams I had went pretty good! That's all I have to say I guess.

And my paper about the Fibonacci sequence is finally done. I even received the honor to present what I had written, at the Math Club meeting last Monday. The president of the Math Club told me he was fascinated by my explanation.

Oh by the way, I had a great time celebrating my first Thanksgiving with the Wentworth Baseball team last Sunday. We had some great food and some great stories. ;) But the real Thanksgiving is always celebrated on the last Thursday of November, which is tomorrow! So, tomorrow morning Alex and I will jump on the train to New Jersey to celebrate it at his home. I'm really looking forward to it! Maybe we'll even visit New York.

The semester is coming to an end real fast. It's only two weeks left until the final exams start! Right after the finals I will fly back home and arrive on December 18th. I won't be home for long, since the Spring semester classes start on January 7th.

See you all soon,

Bram