Long Overdue

Bonjour, Hello, Hola, Goeiedag...

It is long overdue, but I would also like to wish everyone a Happy New Year, Prospero Año Nuevo, en een Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar. Wow, I can not get over how much time has past since I last made an entry. Time is flying!! I have officially been in the Netherlands for just over 5 months now, which makes this the half way mark of my year. Life has been a series of changes since my last blog entry.

Since my last entry I have moved to my second host family, my sister Caitriona came to visit, celebrated Sinterklaas, Christmas and New Year's with my second host family, been to a Nederlands school feestje, visited the Anne Frank House, Bodies Exhibition and Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, been snowboarding in Germany on a school trip, made two presentations for 4 VWO Biology, visited the Kröller-Müller Museum and the Hilversum Museum, visted the cities of Leeuwarden, Utretch and Groningen, disected a pig's heart for biology class, seen the Notenkraker Ballet in Amsterdam and said goodbye to three fellow exchangers who have already returned home. On top of all these new experiences, I have lead my normal life of attending handbal pratice, dance class, school, Rotary meetings, improving my language skills and volunteering two times in the week at a children's perschool.

Celebrating Sinterklaas with my host family was a great experience. The idea is similar to a secret Santa Exchange. No one is suppose to know who has who. For who every you have, you must write a poem about the person, buy a present and make a surprise to wrap the present in. I had Vincent for Sinterklaas and with the help of my host siblings I had a surprise and a poem. Christmas and New Year's were also great with my host family. I'm not going lie, I was homesick at the beginning of the Christmas season. Watching Christmas movies, eatting poffertjes and turkey did make me feel better though. Christmas is celebrated differently in the Netherlands than back home. Both focus on family and being together during the holidays, but the traditions are different. With New Year's came oliebollen, gluewine, peasoup, appleflap and fireworks! The fireworks were the best part by far. After the clock stroke midnight, the entire city went into the streets wishing their neighbours "Happy New Years" and setting off fire works.

On Sunday I return from a 9 day long ski vacation in the French Alps with 28 other exchange students from the Netherlands. I really enjoyed this experience, and it is one that I will never forget. We left from Utretch Centraal Station at 5:00pm Friday evening and arrived at St. Francois Longchamp at 8:00am Saturday morning. The bus ride lasted for 15 hours and we drove through Belguim and Luexmburg. We were all extremely tired Saturday morning, but as soon as we saw the snow on the slopes, we had to go skiing! The snow at the beginning of the week was skiable, but the conditions continue to deteriorate as the week went on. I can say that I skied everyday, even though sometimes it was over ice, mud and rocks! The weather definately reminded me more of Spring skiing than the beginning of January skiing. With or without great snow, I still had an awesome time because of the people I was with. I stayed in an appartment with 5 other girls...and we just had so much fun together (Room #203)!!! It really was a great opportunity to get to know the other exchange students better and also meet the short-term exchange students. For some of the students it was there first time every seeing snow and they all became pro skiiers by the end of the week. It was definately hard to say goodbye to the other exchangers on Sunday morning, because some of them were returning to their home countries within the next few days. It is the time of year that the students from the Southern Hemisphere return home, and a new group of students begin their year abroad. This is also exciting because it means that I am now an "old northy" and I get to meet the "new southies" in two weeks at the Dutch Orientation Course, similar to what I experience when I first arrived.

Hope you all enjoyed this update session. I will try to make this a more regular occurence. Also, I will add pictures of my Wintersport trip and pictures of the Christmas Holidays. Miss you all very much.

Much Love,

Deirdre