It was August in the Netherlands--bright, sunny, and so much green it was almost overwhelming. It was indeed a very beautiful season.

To save money, Jerry chose the cheapest dorm from the school’s offer. He soon realized why it was the cheapest one--it was very far from the city center. As a matter of fact, it was not even in the same town, and the house looked like some kind of makeshift units only victims of tragic earthquakes or floods would put up with. But he was a foreigner here. A perfect stranger who didn't even know where to complain.

The rent for his place is 350 euro per month. The 500,000 NT borrowed from Aunt Elaine, after having paid for the insurance, visa application, housing rent, deposit, and return flight tickets, had reduced to 400,000 NT. He was going to spend 10 months in Europe, which meant he had 40,000 NT per month. He looked up the currency rate and was glad to find out that the euro was going down against New Taiwan Dollars. With one euro against around 50 NTD, he had 800 euro each month. Taking out the housing rent, he still had 450 euro left to spare. He was never good with numbers. He certainly had no idea what kind of life 450 euro per month would translate into in this European country. But it sounded like a lot of money to him. That’s the first time he really thought about, and even tried to manage his expenses and savings.

Back in Taiwan, he always went to the school cafeteria for lunch. It cost him only 50 NT per meal, which was about one euro.

#
He walked out of Leiden Centraal Station, still a bit disoriented. There were a lot of buses, blue and green, going around. He found the bus schedule, but still felt very insecure.

“Excuse me. What bus to Rijnfront?” He asked a young student-looking man who was smoking.
 
“I don’t know. Sorry,” the young man replied. A middle-aged lady standing next to Jerry asked him what was the matter. She didn’t know the answer, either. But she suggested he go to the ticket office to ask.

After half an hour, with the help of the station staff, who located the bus stop Jerry needed with the address from his housing offer, Jerry found the right bus and the bus stop.

“Wassenaarseweg, Wassenaarseweg, Wassenaarseweg,” he repeated the strange name of the stop several times before he got on the bus.


#
It took him three hours to finally get to his apartment. Standing in front of the somewhat odd-looking house where he was going to spend almost one year, he was all of a sudden very relieved.

Come what may, he thought to himself.



The next day, he met his first roommate.



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