Third and Final!

Hey everyone, well I just realized that I haven't update my blog in 15 days. So let me fill you in on what has been happening on the other side of the world. First of all, I just keep realizing how fast time is going by and how little time I have left in the Netherlands. It is so sad to think about, but you all probably understand. I have so much to do when I go back to the USA (I probably already talked about this). So in a way I am excited to get back to everything. My family, my friends, baseball, and the warm weather. Anyway, These past few weeks have been kind of down. I have been sick for literally almost an entire week, but today I almost feel normal again, so I am very happy. I was also sick a few weeks ago. I don't know what's going on with my immune system but most people are saying that I don't have enough Vitamin C or I don't eat enough fruit or vegetables. I can definitely see that it may be the reason, but I try to tell myself that it's not because I like eating junk food. Just because I have been sick doesn't mean that these past few weeks haven't been any fun because they have been. The past few weeks were also the last few weeks I had left with my second host family. I had a great time staying with them and I sure hope that gave them a good experience because it was their first time hosting somebody. I know I had a great experience while I was staying with them. I think I am pretty lucky to have the host families I have. Not much has happened at school the past few weeks. Most of the days were laid back because a lot of teachers were gone so I didn't have too many classes. However, I did find out that we have another test week coming up. And with my luck, of course it has to start the day of my birthday, but oh well. I am sure that it will still be a great day. Come to think of it I am turning 17. Dang, I am getting old. And mom/dad since I know you are reading this, I just thought I would let you guys know that you guys are getting pretty old too :p. So now that I got my stupid joke of the day out of the way I will talk about something else. Yesterday, I moved again to be with my third and final host family. Unfortunately, I was still a little sick so I wasn't as alive as I normally am. So far, I really like it here. The family is a big family and I am the youngest one which I am not use to so it's going to be quite an experience. I think these last 3 and half months are going to be ones to remember. I think these next 3 and a half months are going to be the best of my exchange. I will try my very best to make sure of that. I am really looking forward to getting to know my new host family better and hopefully I can make it a good first experience for them as well. I will try and update again soon!

Delft

Hey everyone, it feels good to be updating more often again. I hope all of you enjoy reading my posts as well. Last Weekend, during vacation, an exchange student and I went to Delft together. He is one of the exchange students that I don't know very well, but I got to know him better last weekend when we went to Delft together. Anyway, Delft is one of the most beautiful cities I have visited in the Netherlands so far. For those of you who know about the famous blue pottery than you should know that it comes from Delft. Surprisingly, we didn't actually go in any places that actually sold the pottery. One of the reasons being that we only saw 2 places that actually sold stuff like that. Okay, so I will try and recap the day as best I can. We arrived at the Delft train station at about 11:30. From there we walked to the center of the city. That is when I actually was able to see how beautiful the city was. The population of Delft is about 95,000 people (I just thought I would throw that random fact in there). It is a decent size with a few cool shopping streets. I particularly like Delft because it is very quiet and peaceful even though it is where a lot of students attend college. It was so easy to get around because of the small crowds. Normally when you go to famous towns like Delft, it is flocked with tourists and things  like that, but maybe my friend and I got lucky. Anyway after walking around for about an hour we decided to get something to eat. We went to McDonalds (why, I don't know but it sure was good). Since I can never stop talking about food I will tell you what I ordered. I ordered a stroopwafel mcflurry. I think I have tried to explain what a stroopwafel is before but it is really hard to say what it is. Let's just say that is a really good tasting cookie kind of thing. So as you may have already guessed, they put that in the mcflurry. My goodness, I am going to miss that mcflurry when I go back to the USA. After McDonalds, we walked around some more trying to decide what to do. In a really nice center square, there is a beautiful Church called the Nieuwe Kerk. When we went in, we had a choice to pay 2 euro to go inside and look at some art work, or 2 euro to climb the tower. We obviously decided to climb the tower. Personally, I have never been in a church tower before so it was quite an adventure and quite a trip climbing up the stairs. We were able to go outside and that was when the excitement/adrenaline really kicked in. First of all, it was extremely windy so it felt like we were about to blow over the railing and we must have been about 100 meters off the ground. Normally, I am not one to be scared of heights, but this time I was. I soon got over that though once I looked at Delft from a higher point of view. Delft looks amazing when you're above it. It literally took my breath away (but I also may have been out of breath because of all the stairs). I have to say that it was one of the most exciting and most memorable moments of my exchange so far. After that, we just continued walking around Delft and taking pictures like tourists do. We left delft about 5 to go to Leiden so I could visit my host family from the DOC. It was so nice seeing them again. They really made that week a lot better for me and much easier. My friend and I were invited to have dinner with them so we stayed til about 8:30 and than it was back to the train station. Fortunately for my friend it was only about a 5 minute train ride for him and for me it took about 3 and half hours to get back. I really don't mind though because the time goes by fast and I am here to enjoy as much as I possibly can. I will try and update again soon.

Carnaval! (And Vacation, Again)

Hey Everyone! I guess I am getting better at this update thing again, because it's only been seven days. I have many things to talk about though so that is why I am updating all of you. I am on vacation right now (again) because of Carnaval. I hope I don't have to explain to all of you what Carnaval is because the only thing I know about it is that it is a religious holiday right before the Catholic time of Lent. But if you were here, you wouldn't think that. Carnaval however, is an absolute blast. It is also really funny to see all the people dressed up. It is kind of like Halloween with all the costumes, except everyone here wears some sort of crazy and funny outfits. Mine however, was not very funny. I wore some pink suspenders and sprayed my hair pink and white. I also wore bunny ears for a little while, but I decided to take those off. People my age normally go out and party with friends to a club or something like that so that is what I did. One thing I want to talk about is the music they play here for Carnaval. It's nothing like I have ever heard before (no it's not because it's in Dutch or German). The music is a mixture of like.......I don't know, I can't even explain. It is really fun music to dance to though (if you can dance, and I can't but it's more fun that way). I think experiencing Carnaval was one of the best experiences of my exchange so far. I got to have a true taste of culture during Carnaval. Like I said, it was an absolute blast, and being with friends makes it even better. Most of the culture that goes along with Carnaval here is drinking, but that is culture so there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I actually find it quite cool (even though I don't do it) and it makes things more interesting sometimes. On Monday there was a huge parade in Brunssum that lasted at least 2 hours. I have never seen such funny outfits and bazaar floats. It was quite an experience. The parade itself wasn't much different than those in the USA but the floats and people definitely were. A lot of the people walking had a beer in their hands which I though was quite funny. I love the people here. I don't think many people in the USA would do that, nor would people be tolerant of that, but I could be wrong. As usual, I have a busy week coming up again. I am going to a friends tomorrow, and on Friday I am going to Delft (famous for the blue pottery). On Saturday my host family and I have a meeting with my third host family which I am looking forward to and on Sunday I have another basketball game. About basketball, we won 2 straight before our last game, because we lost our last game. But like always, we played hard, but my shooting was horrible. Now back to the host family thing. I can't believe I am only 3 and a half weeks away from moving again. The thought of moving to a third and final host family is mind boggling. I have just a little over 4 months here. I still can't believe how fast time is going by. I love it here and I am actually sort of planning on moving back here when I am older (like 50). The culture is amazing, the people are amazing, and the food is amazing. Anyway, I am looking forward to moving again. I love the host family I am with right now, but the idea of change always makes me excited now. In my next posts, I think I may get into my plans for when I get back home since time is going by so fast. I will update again soon. Also, for all the Catholics out there, I want to wish you a very successful Lent. I myself am practicing the season of Lent and I am really looking forward to it. I fasted today and it was an incredible experience. Thanks again everyone for reading.

The New Inbounds

Hey all. I guess I told a little lie because I said that I would update again soon on my last post, but as you can see almost a month has gone buy since my last update. Anyway, I was able to meet the other exchange students that just arrived several weeks ago. They are from Brazil, Argentina, Chile and New Zealand. From what I could tell, they are a good group and I know that we are all going to have a lot of fun together. I think most of the fun, however, will be on the Europe tour in June. My exchange has officially passed the halfway point and I still can't believe it. I don't want to leave this place, but I have to. I am falling in love with this place more and more everyday. The Netherlands is one of the most beautiful places on earth in my eyes. The people are outgoing, it is rich in history, and the country is beautiful. I am sure you have all heard this before, but I feel like I can't say it enough. I really hope I don't forget this experience in the future. All I have been doing is blogging, and as you can see I don't really blog that often. I think I either need to start blogging more or begin writing in my journal again. This experience has changed me in ways that I never even thought would be possible, but I guess I was wrong. I used to be really shy and not very outgoing and now I am still shy but not too much and I think I am a much more outgoing person. I act crazy around our basketball team. If you were there at the practices you would probably notice right away. I am always smiling and messing around, but I am serious at the same time. We all get along really well, just like the rest of my friends and I. Anyway, I will get back to the weekend where I met the other exchange students. I arrived in Twello at about 8 o clock. I thought I would be on time, but than a few of us got lost. I think at the end of it all, we didn't arrive until ten. I can say one thing about exchange students (but not all). We are not very good when it comes to directions. That may be an instinct of ours. Maybe we always get lost so we can explore what is around, or maybe we do it on purpose. The world may never know, and neither will I. The get together was at a Rotarian's house. When I say house, I mean a castle (not literally). This place was absolutely huge. It was by far the biggest house I have ever been in. I would say that the house was probably around 12,000 square feet (don't know how big that is here in Europe). But hopefully that gives you all a picture of the size of the house. Anyway, I went up to every exchange and introduced myself. I kind of spoke to them in Dutch just to see how much they learned during the DOC and they were pretty good. I think they all speak Dutch pretty well for the month that they have been here. The next day was the closing ceremony. It was already time to say goodbye to the exchange students we had just met. And with my luck, the nearest one lives in Eindhoven which is about an hour away by train. But that's okay because Limburg is the best! We received a little bit more information on the Europe tour as well as far as who was going and where. We will know most of the information at the end of March. I can't wait for that trip! I know that I probably left out a lot more, but I will update again next week since I am on vacation.

London!!!!!

Like I said in my last blog post, I waited to get back from London, England to update again. I just got back on Monday. London was absolutely amazing. I am pretty sure it is the biggest city I have ever been in even though I am coming from the USA. Although, I have to admit that the British do an awesome job when it comes to organization. When going up and down an escalator in the metro station, you have to stay to the right or the left, I can't remember. But anyway if you don't want to move and you would rather just stand there to wait to get to the top/bottom then you have to stand to the side so the people that are in a hurry can get past and move up/down quicker. The great thing was that people actually read and payed attention to the signs. I don't know why I am even talking about this, but it kind of shocked me while I was there. Even though London is so big, the underground metro is really easy to use so you can go pretty much anywhere in a matter of minutes. Since my host parents have a little daughter I was walking around and sight seeing by myself most of the time. I was able to see pretty much every major tourist attraction while I was there. I think the one thing I didn't visit while I was there was St. Paul's Cathedral which I'm sure is probably beautiful. The problem occurred though when I got off the metro. I am 16 years old, so therefore my sense of direction is absolutely terrible. Most of the time I would get lost, so I would just follow a group of people and I would wind up in an awesome place. An example of that was on Monday when I followed a huge group of people to Buckingham Palace where I witnessed the changing of the guards which was pretty cool. Even the times that I didn't follow a group of people I wasn't disappointed with the outcome. London is a beautiful city, so no matter where I was, I was fascinated with what was around me. England is known for their fish and chips (I think) but I didn't have any of that. I am going to sound like I am definitely from the States right now, but I ate at McDonalds twice while I was London. I did try to find other places to eat, but I just wound up eating there instead. I guess I missed that place. Anyway, I don't want to get sidetracked when it comes to food because those of you that read this know how much I talk about food. Before leaving the subject of food though, I have to tell you one thing. Pub food in England is probably the best food I have ever had in my life. It is also pretty amazing because even though London is so big and busy, Pubs are so relaxed and quiet. Okay so I will get back to the adventures. As I said before, I visited pretty much everything. That includes Big Ben, the Tower Bridge, the Parliament Buildings, and so many other things. I walked for 4 hours or more everyday because I was so excited that I was in a city like London. My host parents and host sister along with me stayed with a great family while we were there. This world is even smaller than I thought. The people we stayed with were some of Rosanna's good friends from college. I don't know about you, but I think that is pretty cool. I really enjoyed my stay with them for the few days that we had there. I do have to say that I actually spent some money while I was there. Normally I am so cheap and I don't buy anything when I go to places like that, but I did this time and I sure am glad I did. In a few days I hit the half way mark of my exchange. It is sad to think about because I am having so much fun here and I have some awesome friends as well. These 5 months (almost 6) have gone by incredibly fast. Although, I can't wait til I am home so I can share some the European culture with everyone. I do have a lot to look forward to for the rest of my exchange though, so for now, I don't want to think about returning home just yet. I have a Rotary weekend this weekend, so maybe I won't keep all of you waiting another 3 weeks til my next update. I will try to update again soon.

Holiday Season

It took me so long to update because I wanted to wait for the holiday's to be over. I am not happy at all that they are because this time of the year is a blast especially when you are experiencing it in a place like the Netherlands. The past 3 weeks have been loaded with traveling even after that five country in one day tour. My host family took me to a little town called Thorn about 30 minutes up north. Thorn is otherwise known as the White Village. Most of the homes and buildings are white because a while back the people wanted to hide the poverty that was in the town so they decided to paint the buildings white. While we were there we went inside another awesome Church that was also white inside. Then my host family and I went out for a walk, but I am not going to talk about that. After Thorn, I met up with some exchange students in Arnhem which is a really nice city up north. We didn't spend time in the city because we decided to go to the zoo before hand. The zoo was pretty fun mostly because the exchange students and I know how to make things even more fun. My day was made even better because this time I had absolutely no trouble with NS which is the main transportation system here in the Netherlands. When all the exchange students are together it is crazy, but yet so fun. The next day one of the Rotarians in the Host Club took me to Antwerp, Belgium. I love architecture and so does he so it was an awesome day. Antwerp has some of the most beautiful architecture I have seen since I have been here in Europe. The city is filled with old buildings and beautiful Churches. I am glad we were in Antwerp because that is the Flemish speaking part of Belgium so I was actually able to understand what people were saying. I just realized that I skipped Christmas here in the Netherlands. On Christmas eve we went to my host Grandma's house where I was able to meet more of my host family's family. I have to say that it is pretty fun hanging out with all of them. Christmas morning we went over to my host dad's  mom and dad to have breakfast. Unfortunately I was feeling kind of sick on Christmas but I tried my best to not make it ruin Christmas. We didn't actually open gifts until the 26th because here in the Netherlands they kind of have two days of Christmas. The 26th I believe is referred to as boxing day but I could be wrong. In other words, Christmas isn't much different from Christmas in the USA. Surprisingly, I wasn't homesick on Christmas, but that was probably because Christmas this year didn't actually feel like Christmas. It was most likely because time has been passing by so fast that I haven't been able to catch up with it. A few days ago my host family and I went to The Hague (Den Haag). The Hague is a beautiful city just like pretty much every other city I have visited. That day was the first day that I had seen the sun in a while. Since the sun was out, my host family decided to go the beach. I have never been so cold in my life, but it was fun. As all of you know, yesterday was New Year's Eve. I spent New Year's Eve with some of my great friends that I never get tired of hanging out with because they are so great. Yesterday was sort of a rough day for me because I was quite homesick. I wasn't sure why but I think it had to do with the fact that I knew I would wake up in a new year and I wouldn't be with my family. I love my family so much back in the USA and I can always count on them. To be honest though, I have a family here that is great as well. My host family is great and my friends are like family to me. So I guess in a way, I do wake up to family every day that I am here. My friends were there yesterday to help me get over my homesickness so besides that it was a great night. I didn't want the night to end, and no one else did either. At midnight the sky lit up with fireworks so that was a cool experience. I told my friends there last night that one of my resolutions was to act like myself again. I think they may need to be prepared for the real me because I am pretty crazy, and my friends and family back at home are probably thinking the same thing. So for 3 hours last night, I was acting like myself and we were all having a great time. I haven't laughed so hard in quite a while. I didn't wind up getting home til 3:30 in the morning and even then I didn't actually go to bed. So last night was a long and fun night. It is 2012 now and I know that it is going to be another great year. My host family and I are heading off to London in 3 weeks, so I don't know if I will wait til then to update again, but we will see. Happy 2012 everyone!

Great Times

This past weekend was an absolute blast. A Rotarian took 3 of us to Luxembourg, Germany, France, and Belgium in one day! I love Europe sooooo much. It is amazing to see how the countries differ so much even though they sit right next to each other. The drive was about 300 miles, but it didn't seem that long. Our first stop was Belgium. We went to La Roche and that small city was absolutely breathtaking. I have never seen anything like that town. Our next stop was Luxembourg, the capital. I think that was my favorite city that I visited over the weekend. I definitely wasn't expecting what I saw when I went there but that is the great thing about Europe. We had lunch at a Mexican restaraunt there and me being me, I ordered a burger. I guess I am still not missing the Mexican food too much. We visited an American war cemetery while we there in Luxembourg where approximately 5000 American soldiers were buried including George Paton. While I was there, I stood still for a few minutes and looked over the graves. I realized then how truly thankful I am to be part of a country where an American soldier is willing to give his life for my freedom. Then we went to Thionville, France. We walked around there for a little and that city was beautiful as well. We got some freshly made churros while we there. I you may think it is wierd how I always talk about food on my blog, but that is just a sign of how good the food really is here. The architecture in the city of Thionville was more modern it seemed like but it still had a lot of character. Then we went to Trier, Germany. It was dark by the time we got there and everyone was out and about. We spent most of the time at the Christimas Market walking around. I could barely move because of how many people were there. It was insane! The highlight of that city I think was a building that dated back to about 120 AD. It was absolutely incredible. After that it was time to return back to my new great host family. I am pretty much completely settled in with my new host family and I am really enjoying my time here. It feels almost just like home. Yesterday I had another basketball game. We lost but it was still really fun. I really like playing on the team I am a part of because everyone is there to have fun. I like playing basketball with a team that plays for fun. I am really good friends with everyone on the team and they take good care of me. I love it here so much! Only two weeks til Christmas and I know I am going to miss home, but I am really excited to celebrate Christmas here in the Netherlands. I know this post isn't as long as it should be, but I have to get back to studying for my test tomorrow. I will update in a few weeks and reflect on the things I missed in this post.