First Act. September: The Darkness

Despair. Depression. Sadness. Revolt. Injustice. Incomprehension.

Welcome to Utrecht!

In the bus, I cried. In the train, I shouted. On the streets, I complained.

Welcome to Utrecht!

Welcome to Strowis, Utrecht's Youth Hostel, well-known by international students. Each year, in September, Strowis becomes the place to live for those international students who thought they could wait until September to look for a room.

Welcome to Strowis, the headquarters of these unorganized students, who perhaps were a little bit too optimistic. Yes, obviously, on the website of the university they had read that “finding a place to stay in Utrecht can be a real challenge.” But they thought they were courageous enough. And they believed that they liked challenges. They had never imagined that this search for accommodation would be so depressing. And so difficult. That the prices would be so high. And the number of rooms so low. That in Utrecht a cellar could be called a ‘student room’. That the word ‘clean’ does not have the same meaning as it has in their own country.

Welcome to Strowis, and let us start the long and depressing search for accommodation, for student housing, for a studentenkamer, as they call it here. The long, long, long search for a room. And the deceived hope.

All day long, students only do one thing: search. They start their day by checking their computer while eating breakfast: has someone answered their desperate calls? Do they have any appointment arranged? Then they get up and go out, crossing Utrecht from north to south, from west to east. Taking the bus, asking people: these ‘unorganized’ students discover the city by themselves. They visit Overvecht in the north, and realize how the north of Utrecht differs from the lovely center. They go to Lombok, buy some pieces of fruit in the colorful Kanaalstraat and encounter another face of Utrecht: the multicul tural Utrecht. And every evening, they share their experiences, their feelings, their despair, their astonishment. And they celebrate when one of them finds a place.