Wednesday, January 26, 2011

January

Hey everybody!

So, now that life has calmed down a little, I'm going to try to keep updating a little more often, see if we can avoid any more 2 month gaps! Sorry about that!

Last week I was sick with the flu, which was pretty lame. I hate being sick in a place where I don't know the names for whatever the equivalents of Advil or Tylenol are. :) oh well, I survived! It was actually kind of nice to just have a few days of sleeping lots and not doing much of anything. My hosts were so sweet, they even managed to find some gingerale waaaaaaaaay at the back of the top shelf in the grocery store to bring to me.

This week has been considerably more fun! Monday I went to school, but it was a good day because I had a dutch lesson, and then got to hang out with Cindy, the other exchange student, after school. We went on a little bike ride to see some more of the town, and wound up meeting her host sister and sister's friend who were out for a run together. Chaos ensued!. (My host mother gives the other exchange student and I private dutch lessons twice a week, how cool is that?!)
Tuesday was fantastic too, because my host's son lives in amsterdam with his girlfriend and they are going on vacation so we will watch their two dogs. Instead of making me go to school, my hosts took both me and cindy to amsterdam for the day! So cool! We went on a canal tour, and walked around a little, checked out some souvenir stores, and then went to the biggest chinese resteraunt I've ever seen for some yummy food! (The resteraunt was like 4 storeys high, crazy!!! It was also full of americans, which Cindy and I thought was pretty funny.)

Today was another day of school, but it was one of those random days where people who usually don't talk to me decided to talk to me, so I made some new friends! One of them was the person who sat in front of me in Dutch class - they'd turn around and smile about three times a lesson, but never actually say anything, and I could never think of something to say fast enough to start a conversation before they turned around again! Haha I'm happy we finally spoke. I feel like talking to people in Dutch is a lot like getting in a pool on a cold day - it's so hard to be gutsy enough to jump in, but once you do, you have so much fun that the initiall discomfort is totally worth it. I'm noticing more and more that people are just as nervous trying to figure out how to talk to me (and in what language!) for the first time as I am when I'm trying to figure out how to talk to them. I always have to laugh when that happens, because sometimes people look so scared to talk to me - I want to tell them I'm not very scary at all, and that even a 30 second conversation with someone new makes me really happy. I guess this is what being an exchange student is all about, learning how to just jump in and go with it! I'm kinda happy that I get to experience two schools on my exchange, because I'm learning so much about people in general, and myself especially.

Tomorrow is going to be another fun day because I'm going to Kerkraaden to get the papers that say I can officially be in the netherlands for the rest of the year! yay! I'm excited to have that all finished with, and I'm also excited because this means another day off of school! I'm really loving this week.

Friday will be pretty cool because, well, first off, it's friday, but also I have both Cindy's class and my class for first hour English! (we both have a group of 11-12 year olds that we have an english conversation group with on fridays) Cindy's mom is visiting , so Cindy's off exploring holland with her, and I get both groups. I think it'll be pretty fun to have all the kids - I have some cool games planned! Candy prizes always help too.
I was just told that the school has a band that meets fridays at lunch too, so maybe I will go check that out and see if I can join!

It was a little bit of a sad week too, because on Monday two exchange students were sent home. I'll miss them! That makes 3 people who have either chosen to go or have been sent home so far this year. :(

well, that's my week, I'll try to update again soon!
Tot zo,
Morgan

1 comment:

  1. It sounds like things are going really well for you! Your hosts sound great!! And yeah, I love talking to people in Danish, even though starting a conversation is about the scariest thing ever!!

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