This week has been a little stressful as I was supposed to have a Finnish exchange student come stay with me in return of the trip my school took there. But.. since a certain volcano in Iceland decided to make an ash out of itself (ha...ha..) the trip turned into mission impossible. We were sure they would finally arrive on Thursday evening (instead of Wednesday morning) only to find out that the flight had been cancelled yet again. So unfortunately, I won't be seeing my Finnish friends ever again! :(
During the Voorjaars vacation I had a best friend from Canada come visit me. Crystal is doing a Rotary exchange in Sweden and was allowed to come stay with the Tromp family for a week in Warmond. We had a busy week together checking out the Anne Frank House, a concert in Amsterdam, Haarlem, Volendam (a traditional Dutch city), Utrecht and of course, Leiden. My Rotary president from Sassenheim wanted to take us to Haarlem and we visited the Frans Hals Museum who was a well known painter during the Dutch Golden Age. There was a painting of the Grote Markt (Big Market) from the 1700's that my Rotary president pointed to and casually said: 'Hey, we'll go to that cafe on the left for coffee after this'. Fair enough, about an hour later it felt like we were walking in the painting as we approached the main market in Haarlem.My host mom also took us on a day trip and we went to Volendam and got a looooovely picture taken in the Dutch costumes. For the record, I haven't seen a single person here where clogs yet which is quite upsetting.
I was happy Crystal was here during part of the Olympics because that was the first time I really really really had to miss Canada. My first taste of true homesickness. Watching the snowboarding and hockey events just weren't the same with Dutch announcers. Especially knowing that many friends and family members were right in the center of Vancouver partying along the streets. But on the upside, I know this year is beyond comparable to just a few weeks in Vancouver. And at least this way I got to see how crazy the Dutch people are over speed-skating and more in particular, Sven Kramer. To catch juuuust a little bit of Olympic spirit I went to the Hague for the day when the Olympic athletes arrived back in Holland and got to see the whole team and even snag a few autographs. I went back to the Hague a few weeks later for the National Volunteer Day where I was a volunteer photographer. I've still been doing a few photography things for random organizations that I find online and this one was pretty cool. I basically just took pictures of events and people, and then found out one of my photos might even be published in the company's next edition of their monthly magazine. I've also been in contact with a local professional photographer and he invited me to teach a workshop with him in the Keukenhof, the world's largest flower garden.
As for the buddy system with my Rotary Club, I have still been busy with some nice outings: a day trip to Delft to see the traditional Delft blue pottery, a Holland VS America soccer game in Amsterdam (Holland won of course), pannekoeken dinner, Naturalis Museum in Leiden, the Bloemencorso parade, the Keukenhof, and Madurodam in the Hague. It still amazes me how so many Rotarians take time out of their week to show me something special about Holland. I was even invited for a weekend trip to a small town in Belgium with Rotary Voorhout which was really nice. When we returned, we had visitors from the Phillipines for a Group Study Exchange who I got to spend quite a bit of time with throughout the week. I joined them on a trip to the Aalsmeer Flower Auction which is the largest in the world, and also on a boat tour on a local lake in Warmond surrounded by windmills. As of now, I think it's safe to say I've seen the whole country! I still need to make a trip to Maastricht which in the South, and then I have been to every corner. Last month the Tromp family took me to Groningen which is way up in the North (a 2 hour drive) so of course we spent the night. Anything farther than 45 minutes on the train seems far away now, I have lost my Canadian "let's go to Kelowna to go shopping for the day" attitude. But of course it was a nice couple days with the Tromp family, one of my last weekends with them! :(
I also went MOUNTAIN biking! In Holland. Turns out there are some areas in this country that contain slight inclinations of land. I guess I should consider it hill-biking, but it was still pretty impressive. This was during a Rotex weekend with the other exchange students in Castricum, North Holland. In two weeks we'll already have our going away party on Texel island. It's not really good-bye.. we still have plans to go 'wadlopen' in the North of Holland which I think is just walking through mud from one island to another.. but apparently it's quite Dutch? And then of course we'll be going on Euro-Tour from May 29th to June 14th! I'll post the schedule for that at some point :)
It is still unbelievable how fast this year has gone by. Pretty soon I'll be trying to figure out how to fit the past year into two suitcases to fly home. I'm now by my third and last family, the Verdegaals! I've known them since arriving in Holland so it felt comfortable from the start. My host parents Joan and Joop took me on a nice car ride through the tulip fields, and also to Muiderslot, an old castle from the 13th century near Amsterdam. I have two host sisters, Maaike, who studies and lives in Amsterdam during the weeks, and Ester, who is currently on exchange in Argentina. And lastly there's Leo, my very first little brother :)
Overall, the past few months have been amazing, but I can already feel that the best is yet to come.
1 comment:
I really enjoyed reading this post. It is the best post ever. Very informative and makes me even more anxious to spent time when you get home with all those stories.
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