windmills, royalty, and more dutch doings.

I'm thinking it's time for a serious update! I have tons to share so I figure I'll sort this nice post into sections to make it easier to read. So here it goes! (Luckily I have a few free hours at school right now)

Some fun adventures I've been on with Rotarians.....

The program I've talked about in previous posts is now starting to pick up and a few kind Rotarians have taken time to bring me to some very special places. First was a nice boat ride to Leiden (a larger city nearby) for dinner. We went in the evening and luckily had very nice weather. My only regret is that I didn't bring my nice camera! So I only took one picture but it was amazing just riding through the canals seeing the city, and of course after dinner it was even more beautiful at night time. Can't wait to go back!

The next week, Jan, the president of the Voorhout Club, had me over for dinner at his place to meet his family which was nice. After that we watched a small parade in the village and then went to a fair going on a few crazy rides. On the weekend he also took me to a town called Kinderdijk which has 21 windmills in the area! It was soo Dutch and very very cool to see. We also toured inside a windmill and saw how people used to live. I learnt a lot about how they work which was actually pretty interesting! After that we went for dinner and ice cream in Noordwijk which is a town right on the beach. Sooo nice! and I LOVE the ice cream here. It's way better than back home. Jan and his family are great and very welcoming just like everyone else here.

On Tuesday I had an amazing opportunity and had a VIP ticket to Prinjesdag! A Dutch tradition in The Hague.

A lady named Carol (prior president of the Sassenheim club and also happens to be a sister of one of my future host dads) works for the Royal Family and decided

to bring me along with her son, Jarno. From what I understand she is the flower arranger,

which may sound simple but in Holland it is a very big deal! She plans and arranges all the flowers for the Queen and the Royal family. Prinsjesdag, the third Tuesday of every September, is when the Queen reads the "million dollar speech" which is the financial plan for the country for the upcoming year. To start off the day Jarno and I took the train to Den Haag (the Hague) and we walked through the town to Noordeinde Palace (where the Queen lives!). Our tickets allowed us to go in the back entrance, through the palace and then sit inside th

e gates to watch the Royal family come out of the palace. They came out in pairs, Queen Beatrix and Princess Maxima (the Princess who will eventually be Queen) came out last of course. They all rode in cute carriages that reminded me of a movie, and the beautiful Golden carriage came for the Queen and Princess. The whole event reminded me of some kind of fairytale (probably Cinderella)-- it was AMAZING. and I was so close! They all leave the palace and head over to the Binnenhof where the speech is made in front of members of the government and other very important people. Along the streets there are about 100,000 spectators that come from all over the country hoping to catch a glimpse of the members of the royal family in their carriages. During this time we were invited into the palace to have lunch and watch the speech on TV. After lunch we came back outside to see the carriages return to the palace, and then see the royal family come out and wave on the balcony -- again, just like a movie! SO COOL. Around the balcony of course are flowers that Carol arranged! I got so many neat pictures with my new camera and nice new zoom lens too. I'm starting to love that camera more and more everyday...

After this incredible experience we again walked through town and took the train back to Leiden. AAHHH an amazing day I can't even fully describe! You'll have to look up Prinsjesdag on Google because I'm sure I didn't do that great of a job describing it. But it's certainly a huge tradition here that I wish we had something to compare to in Canada!

So to sum things up, my host rotary clubs are amazing. I've only been here a month and I have seen so many memorable things. I'm scheduled to go see the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam as well as the Marriage of Figaro opera in Amsterdam later on. With some more lovely Rotarians of course....

One Rotarian, Rinus, is giving me Dutch lessons once a week. He's a very nice man and fun to talk to. I had my first one last week and it went well.. we went to the meeting after and I was able to tell a bit about my week in front of the club. My Dutch is slowly, slowly getting better :)

School!.....

My school is going smoothly so far. I have French (easy, but taught in Dutch), English (my favorite because my teacher is a hilarious clone of Bridget Jones), Art (another favorite), Science for Public Understanding (SO BORING! but taught in English, so can't complain) and Math (waaayy more advanced than Canada and taught in Dutch..). I'm also taking part in the first year english classes helping the teacher and laughing at them talk.

I'm very lucky that most of my classes are taught in English except French and Math. The school system here is very different in the fact that they have different types, Mavo Havo VWO, like I mentioned before. Also, you have to choose a profile to follow which determines what kind of classes you take. You are also divided into classes which means you are primarily with the same people in all classes, which isn't that great for an exchange student but I'm still enjoying it. They have 9 classes a day here and it seems much more like university to me. Students have a different schedule each day and start and end times always differ.. but can sometimes be 8:30-5ish. But for me I have a very slack schedule and spend a lot of time in the study hall with nothing else better to do -- like right now ;)

The only big difference I've found is that kids here actually seem to do work in class. It's so strange. The teacher will assign something.. and then all of a sudden the kids plug in their Ipod and start to work... then they put up their hand to get a question answered... and then resume. Every single one of them. Quietly and obediently. I was almost terrified the first time it happened and even felt a little awkward. Now I'll be honest not every class is like this, but still. It's just so very strange. I think the obedience is starting to rub off on me. But don't worry, I'm sure I'll still be the world's best procrastinator when I get back home.

My English class is best described as a riot I think, the teacher is so funny and the kids in it just seem to make me laugh all the time. A lot of the boys speak in English accents because the teacher (aka Bridget Jones) does, but I didn't realize it was a joke until my second week. The students seem to have more freedom here. I've also realized swearing in English isn't as frowned upon in schools as it is back home. For example, the first day of my English class we were asked to pick a picture out of a pile and relate it to how you feel about coming back to school and then share it with the class. One girl chose a picture with a swamp and a pretty background in the distance. She said "I chose this because the swamp is like school, you have to get through all of the shit and then when you're done you're free." Sorry for the language Mom, but seriously. My teacher replied "Well said Laura, interesting word usage." This is just one reason why I love this teacher.

Anyways that's enough blabbing about school.

Some more random adventures....

A few weeks ago I went to the Kaasmaarkt (cheese market) in Aalkmaar with Dieteke, Geraldine, and Dieteke's mother. It was huge and there was SOOOO MUCH CHEEEEESE! Literally an entire street covered in it... so Dutch and so great :). and then of course we did some shopping where I realized I am going to spend way too much money this year. Everything seems to be double the price here than back in Canada -- very depressing!

Today we went to the fair in Sassenheim which is almost exactly the same to the fairs back in Kamloops. The rides are very similiar, the only difference I noticed was that they have fried miniature pancakes called Poffertjes instead of fried donuts. Again, so Dutch.

Okay this doesn't really share everything I've done, but I'm getting blogged out and my wrists are sore from typing. Tot ziens!

Ps. I'm starting to get more comfortable on my bike and can even ride with one hand while texting on my phone. That doesn't really say much considering half the teenagers here ride with no hands.. but still. I love biking to school on the little brick roads!

more, more pictures!!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=297367&id=563270103&l=b993dbf7e5

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!