Wie ben jij?

Last week I was on Texel Island for the Dutch Orientation Course put on by the Rotary Club of Texel for all of the inbound exchangers. It's soooo nice! While taking the ferry I almost felt like I was on the BC Ferries heading to Victoria.. but that wasn't quite the case.

After arriving I was able to meet the 14 other crazy exchange students:

Emma from Ohio, Sara from Arizona, Kandice from Texas.. ya'll, Ariella from California, Laura from New York, another Canadian Rebecca from Lethbridge, Ruriko from Japan, Benny from Thaiwan, and Jorge, Alfredo, Jenni, Marifer, Elva and Mariella from Mexico! They all have unique personalities and kept things interesting throughout the week. I'll admit the mexicans are definitely my favorite.. they are so loud and funny it sounds like there's about 30 of them.

I tried to keep track of everything we did.. but I told think I succeeded. Our first day was just a free day and we got to sleep in and then spend the day at the beach. After that we had classes from 9-3:30ish everyday learning about the Dutch grammar and a bit a vocab. I found it a little boring and tedious.. but of course the mexicans kept it entertaining, along with our cute little teacher, Tineke Hoogenboezem -- tricky name to say the least.

Each day after classes we usually had a bunch of different activities. We climbed the Lighthouse, went to Ecomare (an aquarium/wildlife park place), walked down the beach, visited the Rotary Club of Texel, had a Dutch cooking lesson, walked around Den Burg (the main village on the island), went to a Rotary BBQ, did some shopping and plenty of other things! At the Rotary meeting each of us introduced ourselves in Dutch. Yup.. Dutch. It was my first time really speaking Dutch because everyone just speaks english to me here. But I was able to introduce myself in front of about 40 Rotarians. "Ik ben Maymie en ik kom uit Canada. Ik woon dit jaar in Sassenheim met mijn gastfamilie. Ik heb drie jongeren gastzussen, Emma, Isa en Elsa. Ik vind Nederland is heel leuk, maar het is vlaak. Dank u Rotary Texel voor deze week." WOO HOO! On the last night we went to an amusement park that had a nice dinner theatre area where we had a yummy good-bye dinner. After that we went "ice" skating.. but it was on plastic. Very strange.

Oh and I also made some pretty exciting discoveries throughout the week:

1. Oreos are way better back home. I think they send the oreos that don't turn out to Europe because the pack I ate (yes, literally an entire pack) was filled with mutant oreos that weren't sandwiched right or didn't have the proper icing to cookie ratio. It was quite depressing.

2. Dutch people think there's such thing as mountain biking on flat land. Maybe it's not entirely flat, but I'm sure it doesn't compare to mountain biking at Rose Hill in Kamloops!

3. Meat does not belong in a squeezable tube.

4. Bread starts to not be quite as appetizing after you have had about 10+ slices a day.

5. Laughing at a joke told in Spanish just makes you look like an idiot because everyone knows you don't really understand.

6. Stroopwafels are delicious and have become my new addiction.

7. Everything is a thousand times more exciting when you're an exchange student. OH MY GOSH.. A WINDMILL! WOAH.. LOOK AT ALL THE BIKES! But I'm slowly getting over the bike fetish.. (as in I don't stop to take a picture after every big group of them I see)

So all in all, that was my first Rotary experience. It was a very busy and tiring week but I can't wait to visit the exchangers again which will be at the end of the month in Zeeland where we will go sailing! On the way home my counsellor Martine and her family picked me up. We ended up spending some extra time on the island having dinner and walking around the area. Martine is amazing! I would consider her like an alternate host family, and her daughter Maud is so so cute.

Aside from DOC, I also started school! yayyy. I'm attending Rijnlands Lyceum Sassenheim which has about 1000 students and seems to be extremely crowded from what I've seen so far. The school system is very very different and much more complicated than back in Canada. They have a 4, 5 or 6 year highschool you can take.. MAVO, HAVO, and VWO. Within each level there are different profiles you can take. VWO is the highest and I'll be put in my 5th year of that (V5) which means I'm mostly with 17 year olds. I'm taking a few V6 courses starting next week which will be 18 year olds. About half of my classes are taught in English which is handy, and the ones that aren't are a bit of a challenge. But everyone is very nice and the teachers are helping me out a lot. I feel like I'm in grade 8 all over again.. not knowing where to go or what to do.. and hardly with anyone to talk to! But after my first class I already made a few new friends who were asking tons of questions about my exchange and what it's like in Canada. Everyone seems so interested and wants to get to know me more which is nice.

Last night I also had my first Rotary meeting. It turns out I actually have two host clubs. Rotary Sassenheim and also Rotary Voorhout. They are sharing me I guess you could say. I will alternate each week by going to Sassenheim on Tuesday one week, and then Voorhout on Thursday the next. Last night was Sassenheim.. the meeting was very similar to the Kamloops West meetings I have been too except for the fact that I couldn't understand the vast majority of it! The club is great though and seems to be quite involved with many things. Every Tuesday afternoon a Rotarian has offered to give me Dutch lessons for an hour which I'm sure will help a lot with learning the language! And I mentioned the program they have made for my exchange in a previous post, and it's now starting. Every week a Rotarian from either Sassenheim or Voorhout will take me somewhere or do something with me. So this weekend I'll be going to Leiden with a man named Henry who will take me boating and then to dinner with his family. After that I'll be going to his daughter's birthday party. :)

At the meeting I was able to introduce myself (in Dutch!) and then talk about my first two weeks (that part was in English;) ).

Oh, and of course on the way to the Rotary meeting I had my first bike wipe out! First of many I'm sure.... it was pretty minor, but very funny nonetheless. Cheers to being an awkward exchange student!