Finally arrived!

After months of waiting, I have finally arrived in Sassenheim, South Holland! It has been such a long preparation process for this trip. From orientation weekends with other District 5060 students to a ridiculous amount of paper work.... I am finally on my exchange. Sassenheim is a small town part of the municipality Teylingen which is made up of two other villages, Voorhout and Warmond. I am hosted by the Rotary Club of Sassenheim in District 1600. Before I came I was lucky to be in contact with all three of my host families. I am now settled in my first house, and the family is amazing. The parents are Dieteke and Jaco Goedkoop. Dieteke is a model, and Jaco is now not working after he sold his lumber company last year. They have a 2 year old name Elsa, and two twin 4 years olds named Isa and Emma. I have officially fallen in love with them already! The girls only speak Dutch so it is hard to communicate, but it is nice because it helps me learn the small words. The parents are both fluent in English. Jaco was an exchange student to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for two years so his English is perfect.. with a bit of an awkward southern accent which is funny. They are so welcoming I can't believe it. I already feel like I have bonded so much with the family. They have planned me a Welcome BBQ this Thursday where I will meet all of the neighbours, some Rotarians and hopefully the rest of my host families.

It's only been a day and a half and I already feel like I have seen and done so much! Yesterday when I arrived we just visited with some snacks (cheese of course..) and then they showed me around their beautiful house and property. They have three large fields, one for the horses, one rented out by a neighbour for tulip planting, and another rented by someone else for year round planting. They also live right by De Kaag Lake which is a big recreation area. The family goes wakeboarding and boating all the time and we will be going tomorrow. Today Dieteke, Geraldine (Dieteke's friend who also lives in the house) and the girls and I went into Sassenheim to do some shopping (by bike of course :) ). The town is larger than I imagined and has many cute stores and a few hotels and restaurants. We had lunch and I managed to try some raw herring... it surprisingly tastes much better than I thought. After shopping I biked to Warmond and went to the beach with one of the neighbours and her friends. They are all fun to be with and I'm sure I will get to know them better in the next few months.

Next week I will be in Texel, which I hear is a very nice island. The Dutch Orientation Course will be held there where I will hopefully learn some more of the language. The language hasn't been much of a struggle because my host parents have been nice enough to speak English the first couple days. They said they will stop after my orientation.... ;)

I already feel so at home here... I helped give the girls a bath before bed tonight and am slowly turning into a nanny (which is fine because they're soooooo cute!) I'm not too shy to ask for things and I'm starting to feel really comfortable around everyone in the household. But I guess this is enough blabbing for my first post... hopefully I'll do a good job of updating this from time to time!

Tot ziens!