Volwassen

Today is my brother's, Brian, Birthday. He turned 18 today and is now finally an adult. He got a brand new car for his birthday, A BMW none the less, and he is very happy about it. BUT, here's the kicker, HE CAN'T DRIVE IT YET. hahahaha. My Dutch mom and I have been making jokes all week about how when he gets his car, he will only sit and play in it, because he can't drive it. His driving exam is this week Thursday, and I'm not sure how much time after that he may drive it, but soon I imagine. It is a very nice car I must say. Nice looking car. So today all the family and friends came over and we had a very typical dutch birthday party.

Now, I know I have written a bunch of posts about Dutch birthday parties, but I think I really like the traditional Dutch birthday party. I read a book called the UnDutchables, and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before... But one of the things they talked about, is how long the parties go on for. And I must say, they really really do. The author made a joke that you are lucky if you get to leave before 12 pm. Luckily, this party started early afternoon, so most were gone after dinner. The last left about 9 o clock this evening. But dutch birthdays can be described with one word, Gezellig. And unfortunately for us english speakers, there is no such word to describe things. Although this word has translations, cozy, sociable, it's a word that we can't use the way the dutch do. Gezellig means... well it's like having a nice evening with friends. Its social, and enjoyable and everyone has a very nice time. That is gezellig. You say this word when you had a nice time with someone and you're leaving, you say it was 'Gezellig'. And dutch birthdays are just that, combined with being far too long.

Basically, everyone comes over for coffee and cake, which is always a sort of cream cake... I'm not really sure what we'd call it because what they call it literally translates into cream cake. haha. But it's a very nice tasting type of cakes. You usually buy a few, and get leftover cake always. So today, people came early, and just came at various times throughout the day. We had to keep moving furniture around to fit more chairs, but that's just what it comes down to. Everybody sitting together in a huge well, circle short formation just talking and drinking coffee or whatever. And it's kind of a nice tradition I think. You see all of your family and family friends in one time. It's kind of what we did for my birthday but on a much smaller scale and with much less food left over haha.

In other random news I lost my voice yesterday at dinner, and I'm not really sure why haha. And I signed up to give tutoring sessions, so now I have a girl in Havo 4, that I tutor in english once a week during one of my free periods which works out just perfectly. So yeah. I believe that is all of my news for now!!

Observing Americans....

Okay so I must write about this before I forget it all. Last saturday( I wrote this as it was yesterday) we were out to dinner in Bergen Op Zoom, and near us was this table of Americans. So basically. well... you hear they are Americans. And they most certainly protected our lovely stereotype of being EXTREMELY LOUD. But so I spent almost the entire dinner trying to get up the courage to go talk to them.. which I eventually did. But in between this time, we were just kind of watching them... And now that I've learned how to eat in the proper dutch way with my fork in my left and knife in my right, I got to watch other Americans, and see if they eat the stereotypical way with fork in right, and that is all. AND GUESS WHAT! THEY DID!!! I was like, HENK, EVERYONE LOOK THEY'RE EATING WITH ONE HAND. So everyone looked and of course noticed that they were eating just with the fork, and not holding the knife! I find this entire encounter extremely hilarious, because you don't see that many Americans where we live, because it's not a huge city. But there's a GE in Bergen Op Zoom, and I want to say it's the largest General Electric in... Europe? I believe that is what Henk told me.

But so after I finally decided to go talk to them, well, this is how our conversation went. I asked where they were from, because you don't see a lot of Americans in this part of the Netherlands, and one of the ladies goes... you're also american! I think she was a bit drunk, because she was the loudest of all of them. But so turns out they were from Michigan, and the other couple at one point lived in Arlington! But we didn't get to the topic of work, or what they were doing here. But the couple from Michigan had just moved to the Netherlands, about the same time as I did, so roughly 6 months ago. The other couple has been living here for five years now! And that lady asked me how my dutch was going and I started talking to her, and she was very very impressed with my dutch and so was the other couple who have been here for the same amount of time as me. But the lady who has been here longer, I could really hear her accent when she spoke dutch. So I must brag and say that I think I have a better accent haha. But yeah they started asking oh, like where do you go to school, whats a typical school day for you like, what you're doing when you go home, and it was just really cool to talk to them and see what they think about the Netherlands compared to the US. The new couple was telling me how difficult it is to do anything! They were trying to buy shaving cream the other day and ended up buying deodorant. Which is really funny because over here, they have spray deodorant, in cans that look just like the shaving cream cans. So they must have figured oh yeah okay, this is shaving cream, and then went home... used it... got deodorant all over his face hahaha. It happens, but still funny.

I really enjoyed talking to the lady who has been here for five years. She agrees that the language is really beautiful and nicer sounding than german haha. But she loves it here just as much as I do I think. There's something different about the dutch people, more direct, but also much more relaxed. But it was just nice to hear like, that they moved from the States, and still love the Netherlands after five years. I don't know, I just really enjoyed talking to them and comparing view points with other Americans. haha

Oooo-oosterijk!

Okay. English again, let's go. haha. I must say I find it increasingly more difficult to start out writing a blog post in english. But I must do it, even though I keep putting this off for longer and longer... So AUSTRIA! In Dutch it is Oosterijk, so that explains the title of this post. Well, not last week, but two weeks ago we were in Austria. We were in Nauders, which is what you see in this picture. It's a pretty small town very close to the ski...

oh my god what is this word in english... SLOPES. right. duhh. And we were a short bus ride away from this other set of slopes that was in Italy. So these are the mountains... I always heard how beautiful and amazing the mountains where over here, but honestly photos do not do justice to it at all. They're gorgeous. absolutely and completely gorgeous. I spent so much time just starring at them. And in the sun, oh goodness even more beautiful. Luckily the weather was very nice while we were there.

It was warm and sunny most days, and I mean, with all the ski clothes on it's almost hot! But my family was with another family, really good friends that we spent new years with, and other occasions. Brian's girlfriend also came with us. So it was really strange having to listen to German while I was there. But I am oh so glad that I did not end up in Germany. It's really an ugly language! It's really really disgusting how it sounds haha. I think Dutch is much more nicer to listen to than German. German sounds really harsh, and like they're angry all the time haha. But their food is still delicious! The food you eat up on the slopes is almost the same as what you can get below in the city. Cordon-Bleu, Kaiserschmarrn, Wiener schnitzel, spaghetti bolognese are very typical dishes that we ate lots of. So for those of you who (like me) had only heard of

Wiener schnitzel, it is very good. It's a sort of very thin meat with bread crumbs, but oh it's so good. And Kaiserschmarrn is even better! This is a sort of pancakes, cut up into pieces with powder sugar, and you can also eat it with applesauce. But I ate this almost every day it's sooo good. It's a funny name for something to eat though. Because Kaiser means Emperor in German, and Schmarrn means well, something along the lines of "Mismash".

So yeah, Emperor's mismash is what I ate in Austria. haha. But the above picture is all the ladies, minus the other family's younger child, when we went on a walk one day. If you have forgotten what I look like I'm the one in the purple, Brian's girlfriend is the one in the blue, Joke is my host mom in the Green, and she's next to Ingeborg, and then in the middle is her older daughter. And this is a picture of us skiing in Italy one day.

The bus ride is really only 15 minutes or so away. This is me and the younger daughter of Ingeborg, on the way to go ski in Italy. But so now I can also say I've been to Switzerland, because on the way home to the Netherlands we had to drive through Switzerland! Let's see... Well I must say that I find the mountains much, much steeper here than in America, but I hope to bring my parents back here one day to ski! This was also during Carnival, which is only celebrated in the south, but I'm planning to come back next year to celebrate that! Well, only if our February break is at the same time as it... but now I'm starting to lose focus in this blog which means I have nothing else left to say! So, until the next blog! Which will be soon I think...

quickie!

Hi here is a short little quickie blog, I'M GOING SKIING TOMORROW/ slash tonight... We are going skiing in Austria. In Nauders which is a three country point... Don't know if that's how we say that in english anymore... But its near Italy but also Switzerland! We are going by car with another family and we are leaving at 2am tonight... So I am going to bed now! Other than that, its finally gotten a bit warmer out of the freezing cold below zero (Celsius) we had for a while there, so that's nice! But its gonna be colddd in Austria. So yes I will take lots of pictures and make a blog about this when I get home!

News news news!

I PASSED MY DUTCH TEST EVERYBODY! With a "very good" I got 67 out of 81 questions. 30/40 for the reading, and 37/41 for the listening. okay this is impossible to write right now. As I'm writing this I'm thinking in dutch and typing dutch words.. I have NO IDEA why that is happening but I guess that's immersion for you right? Right so, passed the dutch test. Awesome. Here's a picture of the exchange students and where we took the test. Okay what else. Well that's the big news. In two weeks we go skiing in Austria and I'm so excited!! today we went skiing inside as practice, and it was really fun! the snow was really strange because its fake snow and kind of powdery but it's really cool. Ah I'm so frustrated with my english right now, sorry! haha I know I can write better than this! Oh well...

I don't think I have more news than that I passed my dutch test! This is officially the worst blog post in the entire world! haha But everything's awesome here! I'm really happy. I've done some work for senior exhibit and now I have to do more!

Geen Zin

That doesn't translate well on google translate for all of you, but it means "I don't want to" basically... More like, no motivation... The reason that is the title of my post is because right now I'm freezing cold because I just had to bike home in the rain. So just a tiny little update. MY DUTCH TEST IS SATURDAYYYY!!! It's a listening and reading test and I think it's gonna be okay... At least I hope so. So far I've been studying like every day and speaking all dutch so I guess that's okay... Too bad it's not a speaking test, that might be easier. Rightt? But other than that it's just normal things going on right now. Going to school, biking, going out on the weekends, in three weeks or so we have vacation againnn! And this time we're going skiinggg! On the 5th we are going "practice skiing" with the family we are going with, so that should be really fun. And nice to see how long its been since I've skied... (PARENTS: I CANT REMEMBER HOW LONG ITS BEEN).
What else... well now I'm learning to dance! Kind of.. haha. Every Saturday they have this thing called soiree in the city, which.. oh wait that's an english word too isn't it? Well it's a dancing thing. Because lots of kids in Steenbergen take dancing lessons, and soiree is like a time to practice them, but without the instruction and with music. So they play all kinds of songs and if you know how to do the dance that goes to whatever beat it is then you can dance! They also have like modern music playing, not just like.. old waltz music or what you normally think of. They have both, so that's kind of nice. So I've been going there, and I'm kind of being taught a little bit... but obviously it's not really a quick thing to learn, but it's still always fun to go to.
Tomorrow we have a really short day at school because there is a teacher protest sort of thing so a lot of teachers aren't coming to school tomorrow and a lot of kids don't have school tomorrow.. so yeah! haha
I don't know what else I've been doing lately.. just going to school and stuff like I said. So yeah. Wish me luck with my dutch test!

Christmas in the Netherlands!

So. This was my very first Christmas not with my parents. As much as I hate to say it, for their sake (sorry guys) I was not unbearably depressed over the holidays. Although being in another family brings other traditions for Christmas, not being with your family for Christmas isn't a bad thing. In fact, it just makes you appreciate all those other Christmases you spent with your family and the traditions you have. Or the really weird traditions you miss like "Asalto". So no, I was not really sad over Christmas because I'm a part of this family now. My mom here said to me a few weeks ago, that I've become really important to both her and Henk, and especially for her she said, in this such short time. So even though I wasn't with my family in America, I was with my new family. And that was special in its own way.

So I guess it's kind of like when you go to your first Christmas with the In-laws. The traditions may be different, but that family has welcomed you into their family too. So now, on a less serious note and more just story telling time. This is us on Christmas morning. Brian is the one making the crazy face, the girl with him is his girlfriend Annabelle, and that's Jeffrey in the middle and me. Christmas morning we had breakfast and opened presents in the early afternoon.

Henk's (my dad) mother also came over, and we watched a christmas movie with her, while Brian went to Annabelle's family for Christmas again. Their tradition, which is apparently a common tradition in the Netherlands, is to go out for Christmas dinner. So this is all of us at Napoli, which is an Italian restaurant that they like to go out to for special occasions. They are very close to the owner of the restaurant also,

and know everybody who works there by name, and they know our names too. This is Joke and me. My dutch mom. J's in dutch are pronounced differently than in English, so her name is not "joke" like haha that's a funny joke. Think of how you pronounce yolk. Like an egg yolk. So Joke is Yolk-a. E's are also pronounced differently. In the Netherlands you also have a second Christmas, "Tweede Kerstdag". So for that day, Joke's sister and her husband came over for dinner and coffee and everything. So that was very nice too.

And so this is Henk and Joke, I thought you might like to see a picture of them so you all can put a face to the names. So the next Holiday was New Years Eve. I'll get to what I did over the break later. But for New Years Eve we went to Ingeborg's house, which is a good friend of Joke. She has two daughters, one of which is Jeffrey's real good friend. We were also at Ingeborg's for Christmas Eve too. There is another family that came also, also good friends of Joke and Ingeborg.

This is our home!But New Year's Eve was different than Christmas Eve of course! On New Years we eat Oliebollen, which is a fried sort of bread with or without raisins. It's something that appears in the Netherlands only around this time of the year, and then you have to wait until next year to eat them again. They're very good, and you eat them with powdered sugar. But New Years was very fun, we played a game in Dutch that was really fun, and also set off fireworks. New years Eve is the biggest time to set off fireworks in the Netherlands, and so there are still little firework shells on the ground here. As it got closer to midnight we started watching the TV and singing along together. After midnight, a little while later Brian, Annabelle and I all went out to the city to meet our friends.

So those were the holidays! As for the rest of the break I was pretty busy. We're back in school now, but last week was the first week back. This is a picture in Efteling, which I had been to once before. But during the Winter they have, can you guess? Winter Efteling! So that's just the park decorated a little bit, and there is an ice skating rink and things like that. So one day we all went to Winter Efteling, and that was really nice to go back to again, because I hadn't been on so many roller coasters the last time I was there. I also went ice skating over the break, and to Den Haag (The Hague). I also had the chance to see some of the other exchange students, two of the girls at a AFS volunteer's house in Best. It's always so nice to see the other exchange students and talk about everything.

This is me in Den Haag. The last day of break we also went to a High tea with all of Joke's family. That was really nice to meet everyone, and the tea and goodies were very delicious. So that was a nice end to our two week break. For some reason, we had the 24th to the 8th off, so we had a week off after Christmas, rather than before. Well... I think that's all done about Christmas.

I have my Dutch Language test at the end of the month, on the 28th so wish me luck! I think it will be okay though. It's a listening test, and I'm doing really good at that. Not bragging at all, but my dutch is getting good. I mean, you know you're doing something right when people stop answering you in English when you speak. Dutch people are always really impressed when you speak Dutch, because they always try to learn other's languages, like German or French or English, but when you take the time to learn their language they really appreciate it. So now when I speak dutch people are happy for me that it's coming along so well. In Steenbergen a lot of people take dance classes, like Samba or the foxtrot or waltz, and then there are, well I'm not sure what to call it in English, so "Dance nights" that they play music and you can practice dancing and what have you. And it's a really fun atmosphere, and I was there the other day, and talking to some new people and they always ask how long you have been here, and then are so impressed to see how much dutch you've learned in such a short time. It makes me feel really proud of myself too. It's such a good feeling to have someone say that to you, wow! Your dutch is so good! So. I think that's everything for now!