Kanaalstraat or how to live your life

A place to share the world

By Margot Perrier, Piers d'Orgee and Camille Lepage

Kanaalstraat is university accommodation with a difference. A small and vibrant multi-national environment high on its own community spirit and infectious friendly atmosphere.
This big house is located near the windmill on the north east side of the city. This abode welcomes more than 30 Exchange students coming from Australia to Canada, and from Russia, Finland, France, Scotland, Czech Republic and many more.
As soon as you enter the house, you hear people chatting and listening to music in the kitchen. No matter what time it is, you will always find people hanging around in the corridors, having a laugh together, sharing a cigarette or a bottle of wine.

The Kanaalstraat housing itself is the perfect layout for student living. There is a courtyard in the centre of the premises which has been allocated a communal smoking and meet-up area and there is more often than not a friendly face to converse with. There are around three dozen residents in the building, many sharing rooms with fellow students. The size of rooms varies from large to massive and there are very few complaints about the condition of the accommodation; a rarity in shared living spaces.
A map on the kitchen window fully encapsulates the diversity within the house. Every tenant and visitor is asked to cross off the country they are from on the map. Europe is almost fully crossed out and there is someone there from nearly every continent in the world.

Students usually go food shopping on the very cosmopolitan Kanaal street. Once on the street you cannot tell you are in Utrecht anymore. Kanaal street itself is host to a collection of maghrebian shops that add a special character to the area. The smell of spices and mint tea replaces the stagnant smell of weed and beer of the city centre. Vegetables, fruits and bread are available everywhere and at very low cost, which is fortunate for the student allowance.

The hustle and bustle of the town centre is substituted by a relaxed and welcoming collection of quaint buildings and parks as well as a quaint stereotypical Dutch windmill.
When it is dinner time, people gather in the ground floor kitchen to help out the couple of volunteers who are cooking for everybody. In Kanaalstraat, dinner is sacred, it is the time where students share their grandmother’s recipes and traditional local dishes. All those meals are usually washed down with red and white wine or beer.
Surprisingly, there are no quarrels over dish washing duty, always a group of 2 or 3 people help to wash over 20 plates, oven trays and pans. If some remain unwashed after the party, the dish-washing fairy will take care of it during the night, and everything will be just like nothing happened on the next morning.
The rule is: everybody is welcome as long as there is a smile on their face when they come in (a crate of beer doesn’t go amiss either).

Once their stomachs are full of very tasty food and drinks, the music is turned up, tables and chairs moved, some people start dancing while some other are talking to each other. Of course, wherever there are students a party spirit can always be found. Kanaalstraat is no different. The scene is amazing, people from Russia, Australia, Czech Republic, Italy, Spain and Poland are chatting just like they knew each other from years.

The language barrier has been withdrawn, just like formal borders within those countries. Everybody is equal, and only want to learn more about their new housemates’lives. Discovering new culture, habits and traditions is why people chose this place. The happenings in Kanaalstraat are merely preamble to the whole Utrecht student experience. To anybody not used to travelling around and mixing with other nationalities, this is truly jumping in at the deep end.
Student life is hard, but someone’s got to live it

Holland, let's get it started

I'm now in Holland enjoying the pleasure of the dutch life and discovering the secrets of the dutch culture.

So far so good I shall say. I arrived in Utrecht on the 29th of August, and moved into my flat on the 31st. I live in a house with more than 30 people from all around the world (for one of our assignments i wrote an article describing my hall, I'll upload it later)

Not only was I disoriented by the jetlag (I landed from chicago on the 27th) but Holland is nothing like Chicago, France or England

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First the language: when i arrived in Rotterdam, i felt confused, I wasn't expecting people to talk english nor french, i didn't know where to go to catch my train to Utrecht nor how Dutch people say the word Utrecht. In fact, saying Utrecht with an english/french accent but trying to sound Dutch is a lot harder than I thought.

Once in Utrecht and after a few days i realised that everybody talks English here, and if someone doesn't there is someone around who understands english.

Utrecht is small, houses are small, the canal is tiny (but very pretty), shops are little, but the Dutch are uncommonly tall!!! how can those giant people fit in such a tiny country where everything is pocket-sized.

What strikes me the most about Dutch people is their k

indness. I believed English people were very nice, that Chicagoans were even nicer. But Dutch people are lovely, warmhearted and always happy to help.

The culture, here is completely different, to me it's the country where nothing matters, nobody will pay attention to what you do, they are very chilled out and easy-going (unless you are on their way when they cycle). You can sit on the back of someone's bike, helmet aren't compulsory, you can smoke weed everywhere, drink alcohol in the streets, forget your pack of cigarettes on a table for 2 hours and find it intact when you come back. Basically, everything is normal and even the craziest thing seem unsurprising to them.

One of the first i did when i arrived is getting a bike. Public transport is very expensive (every i get on a bus you have to pay at least 2.20€). There are bikes absolutely everywhere, we always have to be careful when crossing a street: check cycle-path, cars, buses, tram, and then you can cross the road safely (hopefully)

My course is very interesting so far, lecturers are great. We get to do a lot of assignments, rather unusual but I'm not complaining, it's great to feel that you are actually learning something and doing something concrete.

My coursemates are lovely as well, we are not very numerous about 16 people in my class. Everybody seems to have the same state of mind about studies and partying. We get to know each other a little bit more everyday/night.

I'm thinking of going to Munich for the Oktoberfest, we are probably going to rent 2 cars and go there during a week end.