I got to experience a yearly tradition of the Tolbert area (where Weaver Hall lies): The Mudfest. This is an event with supposedly 10.000 dollar budget and I already got the see the preparation: The destruction of a nice field of grass which has had a short year to grow back. A huge hole was being dug so a play-field could come up in its place. Essentially this is a competition for the different floors from the different Tolbert Area halls to compete to each other, in the cold. A little bit too cold for me, which is why I just took some pictures instead of joining in.

On Tuesday, I got the chance to enter the Century Tower, a 160 meter high building with bells on UF campus. A friend of mine was taking a class where she could play the Carillon  in this tower. The Carillon was a product from the Netherlands, ironically enough.

This semester so far has been great, but I am starting to get a bit sad since it is almost about to end. I paid for my last trips. A cruise going to Jamaica, Cayman Islands, Mexico and the Bahamas. And my flight from Miami to Boston to enjoy NYC after. And one of my courses has already ended. On the other hand this makes me appreciate the good time I’ve had here in the USA.

It is technically Saturday, I got out of Weaver at 2AM to be picked up. With 7 people in total we traveled to New Orleans in a minivan, to stay there until Monday morning. It is an exhausting 8-9 hour drive but luckily I am not one of the drivers, 3 others are, (you need to register each driver if you rent a car). New Orleans was very beautiful and we had a lot of fun. We did not visit many bars (some of us were not 21+), but we managed to get into one of the best jazz bars on Bourbon street and I had an amazing experience nonetheless.

We also visited the abandoned six flags, that was hit by the hurricane in 2005. We were not stopped at the entrance and found out later that we had to leave. But the place had a eerie ambiance and it was really beautiful.

On the next Friday, a free concert was offered to UF students by QUINN XCII, a band that I only knew because of two songs (the most popular ones). Apparently their other songs don’t really resonate with me but it was still really nice and I DJ got me Ice before that so that made it more fun. Of course I’ll have to return him the favor one day. One thing that surprised me, we were not checked for bags. For a place that is so set on security (signing waivers before playing sports, not allowed to bring bags into stadia), it was a weird thing to see. In Delft they would have had checks at the entrance for even smaller crowds.

On Saturday, my friend Dani organized a trip towards Cedar Key city, which is an hour and a half away from Gainesville. Before this, we went to see the sunset at the Ecopassage Observatory Boardwalk, and took some beautiful pictures there. In Cedar Key we walked to the observation deck, which apparently was not empty at all, a lot of fisherman were there, and they thought that we, as a group of random young people that did not participate in phishing, were drunk😂.

On Tuesday, I watched the basketball game against North Florida, which was way more interesting than the game against Lynn of previous week. Also: during the half-time break they had a performance of an middle school dance team, they played Cartier from Dopebwoy (Dutch), which made very happy.
UF wouldn’t be UF if it didn’t offer free T-shirts for X amount of people, so of course I got one as well!

The day after, I made three(!!) delicious Spanish tortilla’s for whoever wanted to try it. I counted on having to save some for the day after but it was entirely gone before we went to our local, Grogs.

On Friday, we got ready for a 8 hour drive, to New Orleans!! We have been planning this for a while now and we rented an Airbnb near the French Quarter and a 7-person minivan for the ride. More about our adventures in New Orleans in next week’s post!