het leven in stadshagen

Terschelling and Goodbyes

2008-10-20T04:30:00.001+02:00

I figure I need to conclude this blog with my final days in the Netherlands. The last two weeks were quite busy, and after coming home I was quite busy as well, so I've never gotten around to it. So, here goes...

During the May vacation I had the privilege of going on vacation to Terschelling with my host family. Terschelling is one of the Netherland's islands in the north. It was really quite beautiful, and I had quite a good time getting to know my host family even better during that week. It was absolutely gorgeous weather, and we spent a lot of time sitting outside in the sun, reading, hiking, and biking. We got to see how the rescue boats worked, and how the cranberry industry got started on Terschelling. It was all very interesting and fun.

Antje on the beach

The Rescue Boat

Our home for the week

Terschelling

After getting back I still had a few days of classes before heading home. It was a bit stressful, but still pretty fun. We had a goodbye party which we had to host. The girls all did an interpretive dance to Phil Colins' "You'll Be in My Heart", which was really quite ridiculous, but loads of fun. We got dubbed the SPICE-girls. The meal for the evening was pancakes, which were made right in front of us by a chef - also quite the experience. It was all pretty delicious.

We weren't sick of pancakes after that evening, and went to the Panekoekenschip for supper on the Wednesday before I left. Following that, we had a suprise party for one of the guys in our group. It was a great time of final bonding before we all went our separate ways.

Thursday was my last day in Zwolle. It was pretty crazy. I still had class - including a presentation worth a fairly significant chunk of my grade, I had to pack, drop off my bike (taking the bus back home), and my grandparents were coming to pick me up as soon as I got home from school. It really wasn't all that fun, and I was fairly stressed out about it all. By the time I got to my grandparents I felt pretty wonderful and relieved. I got to say goodbye to most of my relatives who either came over that night or for coffee in the morning before I left (or both!). It was good to see them all once more.

In the Park on the last day - having fun with pictures

The boys thought we took way too many :)

Friday afternoon I headed to the airport with Opa & Oma Herbert and I headed back home to Canada. There I was greeted by my Dad, Mom, Marc, and a huge sign with my name and picture on it (made by Marc). It was really good to see them again.

I'm sure I will always remember all the experiences I had in Zwolle, as well as all the people there, for a long time to come. It was a wonderful experience that I really enjoyed sharing with you.

New Life

2008-04-25T13:21:00.000+02:00

Along the bike path on the way home today

Baby Swans

Hi All.
It's still spring, only now the weather is absolutely beautiful. It's been sunny all week, and everyone has just seemed to brighten up over the past few days. It's quite wonderful. Spring is truly in the air. Along my bike route there are swans sitting on their eggs, and today was the first day I actually saw baby swans. Quite cute. That's what's so wonderful about spring - new life!

Tonight my host family and I are heading to Terschelling - on of Holland's islands. We'll be there for a week of vacation. Should be wonderful! I'm really looking forward to it. I hope the weather will be just as nice as this past week. On Friday I'll be heading to my family - for the last time probably. I have a few presentations thereafter, and then I head home already. I can't believe it's already coming to a close.

This past Wednesday evening we had our Goodbye party with all the host families. We had good Dutch pancakes (which the caterer dude made right in front of us, yum!), sang a few songs, had some stories told, and the SPICE girls put on a little interpretive dance to the song "You'll Be in my Heart" by Phil Collins. We had a lot of fun preparing that song, and I think it was a pretty good success. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but it was fun, so that was most important I think.

Last night I went to Het Vliegende Paard (a local pub/club) for our last time :( and it was a lot of fun. It's too bad it was the last time, but I'm really glad we could go one last time together. I can't believe it's almost all over. But, I'm definitely ready to go home. I will miss it all though.
Anyway, I have to get some last-minute homework done, so I'll close for now. Hope all of you have a nice week, and I'm going to enjoy my May vacation. 'Tot de volgende keer.

Back from Berlin - and Marburg

2008-04-21T12:47:00.000+02:00

This was an absolutely amazing weekend! So good! Renee and I began our journey in Utrecht where we had been able to get a ride with someone to Berlin. It was quite a ride - particularly when we got to the autobahn, which doesn't really have a speed limit. We drove 170km/h at times - and people were still passing us! Craziness.

We got to Berlin at 12:00am Thursday morning, arriving at our hostel around 1:00. I wasn't expecting the hostel to be so big, but it housed 300 people, which I thought was quite a few! It was quite nice, and for €15 we had a bed with breakfast included. Very nice.

On Thursday we were able to go on a free tour of Berlin, which was also nice and cheap :), and we enjoyed that quite a bit too. We saw a whole lot of Berlin on foot (like the Brandenburg gate, checkpoint Charlie, the parliament buildings, and a whole lot of other historic places), and also got the explanations and stories with it. Before our tour we'd met a lady from Hawaii who was also staying at our hostel, and we hung out with her for the day. In the afternoon we went to the Jewish museum, which was quite interesting - as well as HUGE! It was different than I'd expected - I would've thought it would have more of a Holocaust theme, but it was more about the history of the Jews - but it was still quite neat to see.

At night we went to the parliament buildings, where you can walk around a huge dome at the top (for free!) and get a beautiful view of Berlin. That was nice to do as well.

Friday was more relaxed in berlin - we visited the broken church, rode the metro, rode the metro some more, visited a larger portion of the Berlin wall, and once again rode the metro.

Part of the Berlin Wall

Friday afternoon we headed to Marburg, where Peter, a former exchange student that Renee knew, lived. Marburg was definitely one of the highlights of my entire stay in Europe! It's beautiful there, and we had such good deep conversations with Peter and his roomate Volker, as well as some friends that were staying there that weekend. Volker, as well as a few of the other people there had been to Israel for a year, and picked up on some of their customs, and were celebrating the Messianic Passover that weekend. The house smelled so good the whole time we were there. It was really special to celebrate the passover with them, and it was made even more special by the fact that there had been Jews who celebrated Passover in this house before, and during, the holocaust. Our time there was just amazing, and it's really hard to describe. It was just really good.

Volker preparing the Mazzah ball soup

After the meal

View of Marburg

Our trip home was also quite amazing. We had a ride home with an atheist guy from Marburg, and had a huge discussion about God, and why we believe for the majority of the trip - about 3 hours of our trip. It was so amazing. I don't think I've ever had an experience quite like that before in my life. It was awesome!

Journeying Home

So, yeah... that was my trip in it's briefest form. It was quite good, and I'm really glad we went. We were definitely supposed to be there. God is so good!

A few more words...

2008-04-16T09:57:00.000+02:00

Well, time just keeps flying by here. Only 3 more weeks (+2 days), and I will once again be sitting in my own living room, and sleeping in my own bed. Kind of weird, if I really think about it. It would be really nice if I could take everyone with me, but that just isn't possible.

I haven't really been doing a whole lot of things recently... Last week I saw Geert Wilders at the parliament on our excursion. I don't know if any of you have heard of him, but he's caused quite a comotion here. He doesn't want the Muslims in the Netherlands, and is extremely anti-muslim. He made a video (Fitna) and there was this huge thing building up to it. But, the video is really quite ridiculous, and there probably shouldn't have been so much drama leading up to it. It's a big mess, that could have had a huge negative impact for the Dutch world-wide, but we haven't seen all too much damage done yet, thankfully.

Tonight I'm heading to Berlin for a trip with Renee. I was supposed to have class tomorrow, but we were able to move it, and since my other 3 classes this week were cancelled, I've had no class this week. But, I've had a whole lot of HOMEWORK, and I'm so behind, it's not much fun whatsoever. There's just so much of the stuff. It's not really hard, just time consuming. But, I'll get through it all eventually.

Today's my host sister's birthday. We got up at 5:30 this morning to have breakfast with the whole family. That's quite early. But, we could all go to bed afterwards (except Jan who had to work - the reason we had breakfast early). It was fun though.

I don't really have anything else to write at the moment... I hope all's well at home, and yeah... I'll write some more after I'm back from Berlin :)

Kom in de Kas

2008-04-08T17:16:00.000+02:00

Well, I figured I'd break my posts into two, so here's the second one.

This weekend I visited my family again, and it was a special weekend. They had "Kom in de Kas". Basically it's like a barn tour, except you visit greenhouses instead of farms, and it's not freezing cold (it was pretty warm at times actually). I thought it was pretty neat. They had three greenhouses which grew roses, which was quite a few, but otherwise there was quite a bit of variety - like cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, asperagus' (the white kind), and several varieties of flowers. We visited 12 different greenhouses in total, as well as a place that showed paintings (all having to do with flowers, fruits, and vegetables). It was kind of neat.

On Monday my Opa, Oma, and I visited my Oom Arjo's work. That was way more exciting than Kom in de Kas. I enjoyed Kom in de Kas, but seeing the greenhouse he works at was pretty awesome. A lot of the greenhouse is operated by robots, and it was HUGE! Everyone was at work, which makes it a lot more exciting, and it was just really neat.

One more thing I wanted to add has nothing to do with greenhouses, but more with the past. I visited my Opa and Oma Noordam Monday morning, and listened to the funniest tape (cassette) ever. It was of my Mom, Dad and me 17 and a half years ago pretty much. My language skills were a beautiful blend of two languages, and I did not know the order of the words to "Twinkle, twinkle little star" whatsoever. It was in tune, but the word order was a little off. It was really fun to listen to. I had to laugh pretty hard at times. Basically it just had Mom and I singing songs, and explaining about life in Canada a bit to our family in Holland. Dad talked a bit too. Very fun :)

Anyway, I think that's all I'll write for now. Hope all's well in Canada, and hope to see you all sometime after May 9.

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KARISSA (if you happen to read this)

By Oom Arjo's work:

Planting Flowers

Heading over to be put in rows

This robot fills these trays with rows of flowers

A full tray

After planting the flowers get 1 min. under water

The "train" takes the newly planted flowers to their new temporary home

The train bringing the flowers away

When the flowers are old enough they get moved again by another train

And they go up...

...and up...

...to the top of the greenhouse

When they're needed for shipping they get brought down and are packaged...

...in a bag...

...and are put on carts

And finally they're shipped away

On Excursion to Greytown

2008-04-08T17:05:00.000+02:00

Okee. So, I'm getting pretty behind on this. I haven't written a single thing in 2 weeks. Tsk, tsk. I have been pretty busy though. I feel like I say that a lot, but it's true. Over the past two weeks there has been a thing called "Greytown" at the Greijdanus College, a local Christian "highschool" (pretty close to the equivalent). During Greytown the students at the school get to visit Greytown. In Greytown they get to go through customs, visit the travel agency, go to the doctor, get a job, and visit the saloon. The catch is, they have to speak a foreign language. I helped with the English part, and marked students on their ability to speak English well. It was pretty fun, but we saw 60 students in a day - which is quite a bit. The other languages they had to do (not all in one day) were French and German. It's a very good learning experience for the kids, but I'm sure glad I never had to do it (although they had a lot of fun).

This weekend was the first time I really felt like I was looking forward to going home. I haven't felt homesick whatsoever since being here, and I'm not saying I'm homesick now either, but it's more I wouldn't mind going home now. I think the main reason this hit me now is that I've been planning a whole lot of things for May, and the summer, and I kind of want to get to work on those things. I also just realised that I will only be able to visit my family one more time :( That goes by fast too. I don't feel like I've seen very much of them yet - the Noordams in particular - but what I did see of them was fun :)
It'll be kind of weird to go back home again, but I'm looking forward to it.

Confused Weather?

2008-03-25T17:11:00.000+01:00

This weekend was Easter, so I headed to De Lier once again to visit family. While there I got to experience the coldest Easter since 1964. We had snow, hail, some more hail, and a bit more snow. This is nothing like winter in Canada, but for Holland it was quite the thing. Throughout the Netherlands there was a total of 880km worth of traffic jams, and several expressways were closed, making roads a bit of a nightmare. It took us 30min to drive to Delft today, which is generally only takes 10 minutes. All the trains from Rotterdam were either running behind schedule or were cancelled. Fortunately I could still make it back to Zwolle only having to wait 15-20 or so minutes for a train to show up in Delft (the first never came). It was some interesting, but fun, times.

On Saturday night the "nichtjes" (cousins of female gender) from the Herbert side - all four of us - went out to the Greek restaurant in Naaldwijk to eat. We had a really good time together - at least I did (and the other girls said they did too). We ended up being there for 4 hours. I'm pretty sure I've never had a meal that lasted that long before in my life. It was really good though - a lot of meat. After our delightful time at dinner we headed out to a party, which was also quite fun. I got to meet some new people, some of which I will probably never see again, but we had some nice conversations. It was a good night.

On Sunday the whole Herbert family spent some time together at Opa & Oma's. We enjoyed soup, buns, meatballs, little suasages, egg-hunting, and conversation. They were some good times. That night Opa, Oma, and I went to Anita & Huib's for some gourmetten. Quite a lot of fun. I really enjoy gourmetten, and the company was quite splendid as well.

Other than that I didn't really do a whole lot. I learned to play Klaverjassen! And also had some fun times playing Mexican Train. Overall, it was quite a good weekend. I only wish I could have spent some more time with the Noordams, but they didn't really do anything together for Easter - at least not that I was told of previously.

Visiting Anniek's work - Opa went right to work

It's Snowing!

And Snowing some more...

Searching for the last 4 eggs (of 22)

Cousins! (Nick, Jason, and me)

And some more snow - Opa & Oma's street

And finally a last little bit of snow

(from my bedroom window in Zwolle)

A Glimpse at Southern France

2008-03-20T11:53:00.001+01:00

A Tribute to a Dear Friend now Returned

2008-03-19T22:18:00.000+01:00

Today was a wonderful day, simply because a wonderful card was given back to me. When I left my camera and wallet behind in France I thought I would never see this card ever again. It saddened me greatly. It was the one thing I hoped I would never loose. It was the first thing I thought of when it was gone. BUT NOW IT HAS RETURNED!!! YAY!!!

Visitors from Abroad

2008-03-19T11:16:00.000+01:00

Wow. I'm getting kind of behind on this. I appologise. I haven't dissapeared from the face of the earth. So... in my last post I said I'd write about my Dad and Marc coming to visit, and what had happened since France. Well, now they're safely back in Canada, so I should probably get on that.
I got back from France on the 8th of March at 9:00 in the morning. I was just in time to catch a train to Delft where my Dad, Marc, Tante Nel, and Marije picked my up. Beginning at 3:00 we had my Oma Noordam's 80th birthday party. Just before I'd gone out for a frikandel speciaal with my Dad and Marc. Yum. At the party I finally got to see the rest of the family I hadn't seen yet (like Gaby, Esmee, Jorien, Sonja, en Rianne). It was quite fun. Afterwards we went to the Binnendijk's to watch a movie.
I went back to Zwolle on Monday and took my Dad and Marc with me. They met my host family, and I think they liked them. Dad and Marc never really told me. I had a really good time though, so I assume others did too. I showed them a bit of Zwolle on the Tuesday, but since it was rainy and we didn't have a bike small enough for Marc we didn't see as much as I would've liked to show. It was still good though.
My Aunt and Uncle's 25th wedding anniversary was this past Friday. My cousins (Marije, Wim, en Anniek) did a fun little song about their parents. It was quite enjoyable. I talked mostly with my cousin Tim the whole night because I didn't really know a whole lot of people, but it was still kind of fun.
Opa and I brought Marc and Dad to the airport on Saturday morning. In the afternoon Oma and I decided to visit Tante Aghad (who is technically my great great great aunt - or my great grandma's aunt) who lives just outside Vlaardingen. I was expecting to meet a really old looking lady, but she was surprisingly younger looking for a lady of 90 years. She didn't look a whole lot older than my Oma. It was a nice little visit. The really neat part though, was that Tante Aghad lives in a boat - on land. That was pretty neat to see. We had to leave pretty soon after we got there because Opa and Oma had a party to go to. I ended up spending the evening with Tante Anita, which was pretty enjoyable.
Anyway, I should go eat lunch, because I have to be at school in less than an hour (and have to bike ~25min.). If I don't get back to this before tomorrow, I'll wish you all in advance a very Happy Easter! All the best.

Excusez-Moi de vous Deranger, Mais Parlez-vous Anglais?

2008-03-11T16:05:00.001+01:00

I am back from visiting Southern France. It was quite the week! We began our trip from the South Zwolle station in Zwolle; and it was raining. wow - typical Dutch weather. We took the "route du soleil" - the road of the sun, but when we reached Belgium we had "typical Belgium weather", and in luxemburg we had "typical Luxemburg weather", which is of course - RAIN! But, by the time we reached Marseilles it was beautiful weather with temperatures in the 20s.

Driving through Marseilles was another adventure. We had an appointment for a walking tour at 1:00, and at 1:00 we were stuck in traffic. We could have been on time, but the road our TomTom took us on led us to a tunnel that was 40cm shorter than the height of our bus, so we ended up taking backroads which meant driving mere centimeters away from vehicles on either side of the bus - quite literally without any exageration whatsoever. I don't know how we didn't end up hitting anything. Our busdriver Peter did an excellent job, although I bet he didn't sleep very well the night after that.

By the end of our first day my feet hurt so badly I could hardly stand up anymore. And having only slept for a max of 30 min. on our 17 hour drive to Marseilles I was pretty tired. Everyone was. There wasn't a whole lot of lively conversation at supper time, and everyone was sound asleep not too long after supper.

On Sunday we went to a church service in Marseilles. I got to see Aunt Emma, Jonathan and Daniel de Hoog, which was quite exciting. We ate lunch at the church, and they stayed as well, so we got to catch up for a while. It was really nice.

We had quite a lot of fun that night as well. We ended up walking down to the Mediteranean Sea a few minutes walking from our Hostel, and walked in the water - a bit cold, but a lot of fun. We also had a blast in our room that night - Jeanna, Amanda, Annie and I. It was quite the evening, and definitely one of the highlights of the whole trip.

After our two nights in Marseilles we headed to Aix-en-Provence. This is where Cezanne came from and lived his life. For those who don't know who he is, he's a painter - a post-impressionist. yeah....

Cezanne's work "Mont-Sainte Victoire"

The same mountain in Aix-en-Provence

We toured around there a bit. I was told it was a smaller town - I think my idea of small towns is different, because it sure looked like a city to me. It was fun though - except we were all still exhausted by the end of the day.

My favourite day of the trip was Wednesday. That was the day we learned a bit about the Huguenots. The exciting part was climbing this hill/mountain to a cave in which about 900 Huguenots would hold services a few times a day since they weren't allowed to hold normal services. They climbed up to the cave in the dark, which was quite dangerous, as it wasn't the easiest trek at all in the day time. When we finally reached the cave (a 25-30 min. hike) I was really surprised at how big it was. But, then again I should have expected it to be big since 900 people could fit in it. We sang songs, and it was beautiful. Quite amazing.

Heading towards the cave - halfway up the hill

The Cave

We also went to see the Pont du Gard. That was definitely quite amazing. It's a Roman aquaduct, but it was quite different when compared to the one we saw in Ceasarea - the Pont du Gard is HUGE! It was also super windy when we were there (thanks to the Mistral). It was really neat to see.

Aquaduct Ceasarea

Pont du Gard

So yeah... those were probably my main highlights of the trip. On our way home I accidentally left my camera and wallet at the restaurant, but I got a call that it was found, which is quite exciting - hopefully everything's still there. I'm just thankful it was found.

Anyway, I'll write more later (on my Oma's birthday party, and my Dad's visit with Marc)

School and a trip to the South

2008-02-28T15:28:00.000+01:00

Well, I've finally finished my week of midterms. I have also had the unfortunate "blessing?" of experiencing the Dutch way of receiving grades and feedback. In Canada you get your grade handed to you on a piece of paper, possibly with ways you could improve for the next time, and that's all - simple. Here it's a bit different. Here they critique your work in front of the rest of the class, specifically what you did wrong, and then go on to tell the entire class the grade you got. For me, who is not comfortable with that AT ALL, it was quite a horrible experience. I guess I'll have to get used to it over the next two months though.

On a positive note, we're headed to Aix-en-Provence, as well as Marseilles tomorrow. I can't really say I'm looking forward to it all that much, but I might get the opportunity to meet up with Aunt Emma and Uncle Lee while I'm there. The thing I'm not looking forward to is the 17 hour bus ride to and from the Southern part of France, as well as the fact I'll be arriving back in Zwolle 18.5 hours too late for my cousin's wedding. I'm kind of bitter about that. Oh well. I'll get over it. I'm sure we'll have a marvellous time there anyway.

All things "Dutch"

2008-02-26T14:35:00.000+01:00

This weekend I finally got to go to the beach. It was quite wonderful. As we were heading there I thought I should try to make a few more pictures that really look "Dutch", so I took some. It wasn't the nicest weather, but I hope you'll get the idea.

Greenhouses all along the dike - the "Glass City"

Pussywillows

It was really windy the day before - now there were lots of waves

Waves

Oma & Me

Walking through the dunes

Walking through the dunes

I tried (several times) to take a picture of this bird - but he kept flying away

On a bike ride with Oma Herbert - notice the water levels

Schipluiden

First tulips of the year

Group Behaviour in Elevator

2008-02-21T23:14:00.000+01:00

So, we watched this movie in my Intercultural Communication class. It made me laugh. I thought I'd share. We went to Leeuwarden yesterday and my class (all 4 of us) made sure we were all in the same elevator when we went up this huge tower/building - every other single person also faced the back of the elevator - it may have helped that the elevator had a glass side and you could look outside... but I like to believe our experiment was a success.

Weekend Events

2008-02-19T16:12:00.000+01:00

This weekend was quite fun-filled, and I didn't even have to travel anywhere (at least not very far). My Saturday began with my host brother Jelle's soccer game. He won 5-1, and it was a lot of fun to watch. However, it was extremely COLD! I was cold for the rest of the day. It was freezing (literally), and the wind was the worst part. There isn't a whole lot of shelter on a soccer field. But, I'm still really glad I went to watch.

After the soccer game and lunch, I headed to Zwolle's centrum to visit the EcoDrome with the Romanian students. That was pretty fun too - even though it was very young-child focused, it was fun to go with friends. That always makes it fun!

Jan made us pancakes for supper, which was quite awesome! After the delicious meal we played some hard-core Dutch Blitz with 5 people. Renee ended up spending the night since it got too late for her to go home.

Sunday was another beautiful day, so Jan took us (Renee & I) to the Hunebedden for a walk (Not exactly sure what the Hunebedden are - only that they used to be graves and they were made by the Celts). Good weekend - for sure! Anyway, I should head down and make supper... 'till next time.

Renee & I on one of the Hunebeds

my host dad Jan
Reeds tied up in bundles

(these are used for roofs on some of the houses)

Life keeps ticking

2008-02-15T19:19:00.001+01:00

So... I got some complaints today saying I needed to write more on my blog (cough, cough, mom). I honestly don't really have that much to say though...

This week we didn't really do anything all that exciting. We did go to the town council building to get an official welcome to zwolle from the mayor. We watched a ridiculous movie about zwolle, that it was really difficult not to laugh through. After that we went to see Elizabeth: the Golden Age with the international students from Windesheim. So, that was pretty fun. It was neat to hang out with the other international students in Zwolle.

Today Renee and I walked through Zwolle and bought a quite a wonderful thing that I was quite excited about finding. I can't write it here though, unfortunately, until after March 22. After our little shopping adventure we headed to Hattem. We visited a chocolate shop - which was quite delightful. Amanda calls it "Chocolate Heaven". It smelled amazing.

Now, I'm back here. I just ate supper - spek lappen, potatoes, and witlof (belgian andive). At 8:00 I'll be headed to Marlene's to watch a movie - woot, woot. There will be much fun to have.

Tomorrow I'm going to Jelle's soccer game. He's really wanted me to go for a while, but he doesn't have many home games. Now he finally does, and I can go! Renee's coming too, and then we're going to spend the rest of the day together and go to the EcoDroom (sp?) which I'm not exactly sure on what it is.... and maybe some other stuff. Should be enjoyable. Anyway... I'll talk to you all again later. That's pretty much life at the moment.

Signs of Spring

2008-02-10T23:11:00.000+01:00

The weather this weekend was absolutely AMAZING! We had so much sun, which was quite wonderful, since I haven't seen it all that often. It was really nice and warm too! 10+ degrees outside, with little wind. Wat en weer!

Flowers are beginning to bloom
Ducks, enjoying the sunshine, swimming on the canal
On my way home from Naaldwijk (the first time)
Buds opening up
Daffodils beginning to bloom
Buds on the vine

Opa & I enjoying some reading material OUTSIDE!

Seriously, this weekend was amazing! I had a great time. I finally saw all the relatives on the Herbert side! One more Noordam (technically not quite yet - but he will be related in March). I went to Naaldwijk twice, first with Marije to go shopping (for her Kluiter Klas), and then with Bart & Rinze Saturday night! Lots of fun.

Another wonderful part of my weekend was church! I went to the Uitslaapdienst where Rinze was playing bass guitar. Martine (Denise's friend) was singing - quite fun. The best part was that I could actually follow the service a lot better. It helps when you actually know the songs (even if you know them in English), and there were (kind of) 3 mini sermons, which made it easier to follow too. I find that if you have to listen to one long sermon I start to tune it out because they use a lot of words you're not familiar with and it's all in Dutch. It's quite different then just carrying on a conversation with someone. I enjoyed this service quite a lot.

So... that was my weekend... sort of. Hope all you Canadians are enjoying your snow-filled winter. I'm enjoying my long spring.

Through the Streets of Delft

2008-02-04T18:05:00.000+01:00

This past Saturday I, with 6 other SPICE students, went to Delft for the day. It was a lot of fun. I've been to Delft a few times (since it's not far from where my family lives), but now we went to museums and such in the city, which was neat since I'd never seen them before.

I don't really have a whole lot to write about it really, but I figured I'd share a few pictures.

View of the Oude Kerk in Delft

In a GIANT wooden shoe with Amanda and Jeanna

Chasing the pigeons - oh such fun!

Driving home - we were in the very back of the train - neat view

Biking in the Wind

2008-01-31T18:33:00.000+01:00

So, it's extremely windy today. I hear the weather's not much better in Canada. Here it's not extremely cold, although we were originally supposed to have a winter storm with snow and hail. But, we only got the wind - and a lot of it. Biking to school this morning was crazy. As I was going over the fiets brug (bike bridge) I had a whole lot of difficulty staying on the side of the road. I kept blowing to the centre of the road - which is slightly problematic if there're buses crossing at the same time. Fortunately, there were only other bikers. It took me 10 minutes longer than usual to get to school though, and I was late for class. But, my class has four people in it so no one noticed (cough, cough). On the way home I, again, blew into the middle of the road - this time on a busy road. That was not much fun. It's pretty scary because you don't really have a whole lot of control. I think it's my new fear.

So, that's the wind+biking for you. Not a whole lot of fun - especially if you're biking against the wind or you have a lot of wind on the side. Biking with the wind, on the othe hand, is amazing.

P.S. It's also the Queen's birthday today. So gefeliciteerd with the birthday of Koningin Beatrix to all. She's 70. They don't make a big deal of it here, which kind of surprises me. 'till next time.

Trains and Other Experiences

2008-01-28T13:40:00.000+01:00

I guess I haven't written in a while. Time is starting to fly by. I have a feeling my classes are going to be pretty busy, with a whole lot of out-of-class stuff to do. But, we also have a whole lot of class excursions, so it probably won't be too bad.

This weekend I visited family. It was the first time I took the train on my own - it was a bit intimidating at first, but you need to do everything once in order for it to feel "normal" or for you to get used to it anyway. In the past 3 days I've been on five different trains, and there's definitely a difference between the trains here. The first train I went on (from Zwolle to Rotterdam) was an older train, but still fairly comfortable overall. The next was a stoptrein (or GoTrain - from Rotterdam to Maasluis) which was a bit more crowded (mostly b/c of the time of day I think), and not really as comfortable as the first - totally different interior. Next I went from Delf to Leiden. It was a two-level train, old, and extremely crowded. I had to stand for some of the ride because there were no seats left :(
From Leiden to Utrecht I just caught my train, since the one
.....(some bikes by the station)...... before that was late. It was also a two-level train, but not quite as full, and a lot newer. My train from Utrecht back to Zwolle was probably the nicest. It was quite new, comfortable and roomy. Anyway, I won't bore you any longer over talk about trains...

On to other things... I didn't only ride the trains this weekend. I also visited my family. I have a feeling I'm going to be doing things non-stop every time I go to visit. I went shopping with two of my cousins (Marije & Anniek) in Rotterdam on Friday, and afterwards we headed to their house for supper. Then I went to my Opa and Oma's. On Saturday I visited my other Opa and Oma, watched my cousin Tim's soccer game (he won 5-4), did a bit of school shopping, went to the bank, and to the Timmerwerf to look at paintings. In the evening I visited the Tante's with my Opa, and after coming back we played Mexican Train with Tante Nel, Oom Henk, Marije, and Opa en Oma. That was a whole lot of fun. I laughed so hard at times. On Sunday we went to church, and afterwards I went to my Tante Nel & Oom Wim's and taught Bart, Anne, Rinze, and Simon how to play Wizard and SkipBo. Lots of fun, but quite busy.

And now, I'm back in Zwolle again. I just came back from Dutch class, and am going to write some words about the future (in Dutch!). 'Till next time.

Paleis Het Loo

2008-01-22T10:55:00.000+01:00

Well, the introduction week is over and classes are beginning. Now is when everything really starts - or so I've been told. I'm kind of looking foward to really starting. Should be fun.

Anyway... I thought I'd add a few pictures from this weekend. We visited the Paleis Het Loo in Appeldoorn. It was pretty neat to see. It's a palace that's now a museum because the upkeep was too expensive. And the best part was that I got in for free! Yay for museum cards.

Above is Marloes, posing as a princess in the gardens of the palace.

Lights at the entrance of the palace

The back of the palace with the gardens

The Dutch flag

Zwolle & Surroundings

2008-01-18T16:35:00.000+01:00

I feel like I haven't really told a lot about what I've been doing or even really where I'm living. So, for that I apologise.
Anyway, I'm living in Zwolle, in a wijk (or district) called Stadshagen. It's about a 30 min. bike ride to the school in downtown Zwolle. Biking is quite wonderful. I love biking. Even if it's raining, which is good because it rains a lot.
A bit about my family:
My family here in Zwolle (a.k.a. my host family) has been living here for 7 years. They've been participating in the SPICE program as hosts for 6 or those 7 years. The parents are Jan & Antje, and the kids are Marloes (18), Jeroen (16), and Jelle (13). I like them a lot, and if you're ever in the area in the next four months you'd be most welcome to spend the night.
I just finished my introductory week at school. It wasn't all that exciting - specifically the 'Survival Dutch' which consisted of learning how to count, the days of the week, and that sort of stuff. The best part was probably the scavenger hunt we did yesterday to get us better acquainted with the city. We had to do stuff like get our picture taken at the supermarket closest to the shool, buy a specific train ticket at the train station, and collect 15 bags from 15 different stores. We could also trade items to get other items - we ended up getting cat food out of that. Unfortunately no one in the class had a cat at home.
So, yeah... I don't really know what else to write about. I'm really enjoying it. I bike to school with other girls from my neighbourhood (Kiley, Annie, and Marlene) which is nice. That'll change a bit next week when classes start, but I hope I'll still see them a lot.
But, I think that's about all for now. I'll write some more another time.

Panoramics of Zwolle

2008-01-15T22:37:00.000+01:00

So, I figured I should add some pictures from Zwolle. So here they are. I honestly haven't taken a whole lot unfortunately. I figured I'd have 4 months anyway.

This is Zwolle from the top of the Peperbus. The Peperbus is a tower (kind of like the clock tower on the Dom in DeLier). It took ages to climb and it was very clutrophobic going up (and down). But, it was definitely worth the sore legs for the view we got.

Zwolle is surrounded by canals and such. These are some of the boats in the canal. They still work today (meaning these boats are used for carrying produce and such).

See the building with the purple and yellow flags on the roof - that's my school - the Gereformeerde Hogeschool. They say it's small (and it isn't really all that big), but I'm pretty sure it's bigger than Redeemer.

That's all for now. Maybe I'll add a few more later. But at the moment I'm going to bed.

Feeling Stupid

2008-01-13T23:41:00.000+01:00

So... I experienced my first bike accident tonight. My host sister Marloes and I were going to a Bible study, and she mistakenly thought I knew the way. We were nicely driving sided by side - she on the left and I on the right. Forgetting to say we had to turn right, she turned and I drove straight, causing a collision. The front wheel of my bike is now an odd shape and doesn't turn very easily... so we'll see what happens with that.
On the plus side, the Bible study was great! It was a lot easier to follow than the church service this morning. I understood most of the service, but they use a lot of non-everyday language (as I'm sure we do too). But, the Bible study was definitely a lot of fun and really easy to follow.

Yay for Arriving!

2008-01-12T12:18:00.000+01:00

So... I'm in Zwolle now. And it's rainy and windy. Apparently this is typical Dutch weather in the winter. Wonderful. I'm sure it won't be too bad, and I'll get used to it.
My first day I visited with a whole lot of family - which was really quite wonderful. Yesterday, I went shopping in DeLier (for a bike lock and gloves!), and then headed back to Schiphol to meet with people to go to Zwolle by train. Quite the adventure already.
Later today I get to go for a tour of Zwolle. From what I've seen of it, it looks pretty big. And my host family keeps saying it's not very big... so we'll see.
Speaking of my host family, they're pretty nice. The kids are fairly typical teenagers, but I think we'll get along just fine. Anyway, I think we're having lunch now... so I'm signing off for now.

Beginnings

2008-01-07T20:45:00.000+01:00

So... in two days time I'm heading off to the Netherlands for the semester. I'm quite looking forward to it and hope it'll be a wonderful experience. My roomate from this past semester convinced me it would be a great idea to post the goings on in my life over the next few months on a blog. So here I begin, hoping that I'll be able to keep this up. I can't say I'm great at keeping in contact with people (I'm actually quite horrible at it), so we'll see how this goes.
'till next time.