Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Belgiƫ

So It's been over a month since I last wrote... There's no denying it, I'm a terrible blogger. A lot has happened the past few weeks, instead of giving an overall summery I think I will do a series of posts focusing on individual events.

I think I'll start with Ardennenkamp, which I mentioned in my last post. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camer on this little endeavor for fear that it would get broken/stolen/etc. but thanks to my classmates and the internet I was able to gather a few pictures for your viewing pleasure!
A while ago my class and I went on a four day trip to The region of Ardennes, Belgium. We stayed in a beautiful little old village located on a river in the mountains. Every building was very old and traditonal. There were big baskets of brightly colored flowers everywhere - on the bridges, lamp posts, everywhere! The first thing we did when we arrived was go on a walk/hike using a GPS system through the village and through the surrounding forest. This was very nice because we got to see every little bit of the town. It seemed like I was in a story book. I saw little old women hanging thier laundry on the clothes line whilst thier hustbands sat on the porch reading the morning paper, lazy cats basking in the sun (we had amazing weather), picturesque black and white cows and fluffy Dutch sheep grazing on the hillside, everything was in it's place.

The second day we played dumb bonding games (come on, what's a group trip with out team building?) which I really didn't enjoy, mostly because It was early, freezing, and I had a lingering cold from earlier in the week. The original plan for the day was to go kayaking in the river which would have been relly awesome, but due to the low water level in the river we took the safe rout and went to a swimming pool instead. Haha.

The third day was definately the best of the entire trip. We did many things icluding:

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archery...

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really scary ropes course things...

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building rafts from huge wooden poles, plastic barrels, and rope...

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...which we paddled around on through the freezing water...

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...and eventually fell apart due to lack of raft making skills...

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sliding down a "water slide" (my butt hurt a lot after this)...

We also went on a zipline thing through the trees and over the river. Very scary, but very fun.
And the highlight of the day: de modderbad (mud bath)!

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entering the mud bath.. I'm thinking 'hey, it's not so bad..'

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But then I reached the middle and got completely stuck. I was in sticky eewy gooey mud up to my neck. I can still remember how I smelled that entire day...ughh

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This is what every single person looked like after we finally managed to pull ourselves out of the mud pit.

When we finally got back to the hostel (let me just add that instead of getting on the bus we were forced to walk the 2 hours back into town due to our smelly state...) it was a mad rush for the showers. Correction: it was a mad rush for the shower. Thats right, 20 dirty crazy teenagers and only one shower. Oh lordy.

The fourth and final day we went mountain biking. Very scary because I have never gone mountain biking actually in the mountains. We rode on a dirt path with tons of jumbo stones poking out of it, and like I said, we were in the mountains so the trail went very up and down and up and down. Reeeeally steep and reeeeally scary. This was when I started missing flat as a pannenkoek Holland with paved roads and bikes that don't cause you back pain. I am most definately not a fan of this sport (if you can even call it that) and I probably never will be.

More photos! Hooray!

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This was the hostel we stayed in. I was in a room with two of my friends Eline and Nienke.

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My good friend Nienke and I about to fall asleep..

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Every night we had a little bonfire like this outside.

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Anne, Nienke and I

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Yes! They do have ramen in the Netherlands!

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Anne, Nienke, Lizzy and I


So that was Ardennenkamp, overall a very fun week. I got to know my classmates much better and we all had a great time.

On thursday I go to Berlin with the AFS crew! It should prove to be an amazing trip, I'm so excited! More on that later.
Tot straks!! xoxx