November Weekend!

So Right before I came to my new host family, I had a November/Sinterklaas Weekend with AFS. This was a very nice time to see all of the other exchange students living in the South, in Limburg and Brabant and I believe South Holland were the kids that were at this meeting. There were about 15 of us, but that shows how few kids there are in the South of Holland, because there is about 60 or so of us all over the Netherlands.

So we stayed at an AFS Volunteer's house this weekend. She and her husband had a farm that they bought and turned one of the animal stall buildings into a house. This was the first house they finished on this land, and they then finished the other building which is where they live now. So we had a little house with a living room, kitchen and a sleeping room for all of us. We had volunteers some who stayed, some who would only come during the day. There were also lots of people who came to visit us, and see what it would be like to be a foreign exchange student because they are thinking about going abroad too.

So some of the things we did were of course, talk about how we have been doing so far with our host families, and how everything has been. It's really interesting to hear how the other foreign exchange students are doing, and see how their dutch is going as well. You would be suprised at how many of the kids have changed host families already, or are about to. It's very common in the first few months, but it's good for everyone to have other exchange students to support them and be reassured about things they are feeling.

The other highlights included going to this very beautiful park, where they built a strange looking tower in the middle of this area where you can bike, walk or ride your horse. We later went to the pub of that nature area, that is a very old historic pub, with many buildings and places to sit outside. We all sat and drank hot chocolate outside, and looked inside one of the oldest buildings there.

We also had a language test that weekend, to see how our dutch is coming along. The test was hard in parts, but very easy in some. I'd say my Dutch is coming along really well so far. Although it will never be as good as the people who studied it before they left, mine is getting good. Objectively, as compared to some of the other kids my dutch is really good. But I think that is partly because my english is very good, but also because I have started speaking dutch with people.

So the last night, which was Saturday (it was from Friday night to Sunday afternoon) Sinterklaas came! It was really fun, the man was dressed up as Sinterklaas and his wife was a Zwarte Piet. Sinterklaas brought us all chocolate letters and pens that had wooden shoes and a windmill on it. After Sinterklaas left we had a little talent show, which is typical AFS.

I always have so much fun with the exchange students, and I love making future plans with them. On Sunday the host parents came to pick up people, and I went with one of my liaisons to my new family's house. Since then, things have been really nice and I like it a lot there. I can't believe it's almost December already!