Category Archives: Weekly blogpost

Week 12: Halloween

Weekly blogpost

On Saturday, several Japanese exchange students organized a Japanese festival in the Weaver basement. Origami, Japanese calligraphy as well as Japanese food were offered at this event. Also a chopstick contest was happening where I won a manual hand fan.





  • The first written word is “Daniel”, and the second “I am happy” (a sentence that I always use in Japanese)
  • My good friends Carlos (left) against Christoffer to see who is best at using the chopsticks

The day after, a friend offered to drive me and whoever else wanted, to go to lake Wauberg, where we first used the canoe to roam around the lake. After this, we went to the south of Wauberg to see if we could use the climbing wall that was supposedly offered there. The sky was not looking clear at all but in the end it did not rain, so we could use the climbing wall in peace.

The climbing wall next to lake Wauberg

The next day, I went to the reception hosted by the president of UF, he invited all international students in their first semester at UF for this reception. The food was amazing and it was great too see all the other international people that also go to UF (Weaver only hosts a small amount of this, a lot of other international people live off-campus). Gina was also present on this occasion, but then working through her club for hosting the event.

From left to right: the dean, Kazuki, me, Gina, Dennis and the president

On Tuesday I went to the first basketball game of UF of this semester, unfortunately it is in pre-season which means that it was not that spectacular. The good games start in the spring semester.

Basketball game against Lynn

The week of Halloween! It was amazing to see how so many people were dressed up, even through the day, and in the classes. Of course I had to participate as well, but only for the Halloween party, and as I’m not a veteran in Halloween my costume was not as good as other UF students.

In the Halloween spirit

Week 11: Bathouse

Weekly blogpost

On Saturday, I decided to try something that I should have done a long time ago on campus, see the bats from the bathouses. With Didier and Gina we gathered on time to watch them. As a real veteran, I brought a umbrella against the guano.

In front of the bathouse, on UF campus

The day after, we did the Chua Trail, a 3 mile long trail with a variety of animals to watch. I did not get a clear view of a full grown gator, but I did see a baby alligator posing for us.

  • Baby gator

After that, we attended a pumpkin 🎃 patch festival. This was hosted by a local church in Alachua, and it was very nice. I tried snow cones here for the first time. We also had a delightful photoshoot.

  • On the Big Green Tractor
  • Doing heavy lifting (from left to right: Valerie, Gina, Dani, Didier and me)

Week 10: Devil’s Den

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There are a lot of springs near Gainesville, so it would be a shame not to go to any. Two friends and I made plans to go to Devil’s Den. This place is an underwater cave with scuba-diving options. But we rented snorkeling equipment instead, it was such a beautiful experience! It was also captivating to see glow-sticks in the deep in the middle of darkness underwater.

  • In the Devil’s den (with Kazu in the middle and Didier on the right)

The day after, I tried a very American thing: S’mores. Which looks like simple marshmallow roasting, but then the upgraded version. Two honey coated crackers with marshmallows and Hershey chocolate in between. I already had two dinners at this time. My diet has changed, but maybe not for the better.

A lot of classes/workshops/opportunities(writing program etc..) are offered on UF for free for students. I used this opportunity to see what the Salsa lessons are like at UF, and in particular, the Rueda de Casino Salsa. This is a dance-style I used to dance for more than a year at my home university. I was a bit disappointed that the actual time dancing to music was very limited, and that instead there was more focus on technique, making it more slow-paced than I’m used to. It was a lot of fun nonetheless. Ironically, the social media Instagram page of the club organizing the classes captured the one class I attended to, even though it has been going on for the whole semester.

Me at the Rueda de Casino class (Image pulled from GatorSalsa on Instagram)

On Thursday, another very American food: Mac ‘n Cheese. After a super productive team project meeting, a friend saved me some of it. She made Mac ‘n Cheese for all of us, to prove how good a cook she is.

Since I missed GatorNights previous Friday (when we went to the cornfield maze), I of course had to go to the one this week. However, my mentor Gina invited both me and Dennis (the other Dutchman) to a 21-sign night party. Which was apparently a common thing in sororities. All the friends of this girl who turned 21, made a sign together that lists 21 tasks she had to complete that night. With for example items as: sign twenty-one people with a permanent marker, or, say wingardium leviosa every time someone says happy birthday (she’s a real Harry Potter fan).