CARNIVAL!

This past weekend was Carnival in the Netherlands! I went to a city called Breda, where one of the largest Carnival celebrations is held. Carnival is this huge festival celebrated widley throughout Europe, and basically (or at least in my opinion) its kind of like a combination of Mardi Gras, Halloween, and a circus convention! Everyone dresses up in costume and in most cities there is a huge parade with massive hand-made paper maché floats and constant loud oom-pa-pa dutch music. Streamers, glitter and confetti litter the streets, and there's beer everywhere you look; spilled on the ground, in large cases being pulled around, in the hand of every other person. All in all, it was quite the party.



Here are a few videos from the parade, just to give you a better sense of it all. You may want to turn down the volume a little bit because it is very very loud!



More photos here.
Hope you all had a great Valentines weekend!

I was in the news!

I was in the newspaper! Here's a photo of the article, and if you feel so inclined to attempt to read the actual thing (bear in mind..it's dutch!) then click on the photo and it will take you to a bigger, more readable version. Last week a journalist from my town's local newspaper called up to ask if I would be interested in an interview. I know most of you are wondering what it says, so just for you guys I'm going to try and translate it for you.

"I feel right at home"
Host family loves Caitlin and vise versa.

Oregon and Alphen. A world of differences for exchange student Caitlin Stacy. Already studying at Ashram College she explores the Netherlands.
Caitlin (16) is now 5 months in the Netherlands and is greatly enjoying herself. "We think it's really great!"
The American sits on her bed in her host family's house on Marketenster and feels visibly at home.
"I've only been here a few months, but I feel right at home. José and Pater take very good care of me. I'm so happy to be here. It is the chance of a lifetime", she tells me in excellent Dutch. Of course the language was a big problem in the beginning. "I understood absolutely nothing for the first few days. That was very difficult, but you start picking up words pretty quickly. Now I try to speak as much Dutch as possible."
Whats so striking to her is how small the Netherlands actually is. "You can hop on a train and in just a short amount of time you can be seeing things on the other side of the country. It's great! I've even made a list with places that I still want to see before I go. It is really my intentions to make the most out of my time here", says Caitlin.
Caitlin has been affected very little from homesickness. "I expected to be extremely sad. Especially since I was warned, but its not as bad as they told me it would be." That is mainly because of her host parents, she says as she looks to her door that is covered in photos and souvenirs. "Look! I even got to dress up as a Swarte Piet three times. That was so fun! Sinterklaas was great. I felt right at home for those two weeks."
Caitlin is happy with her adopted family and so are José and Peter with Caitlin. "It is always waiting to see what will happen", says José. "Our friends all say to us that we have again picked the prize!" José and Peter earlier had another American girl, Lauren. They had a wonderful experience with her and they still keep in contact. That is why they decided to try again with Caitlin. "We are were involved by chance", says Peter. "We knew someone from the softball association was still looking for host parents for a girl from America. He couldn't find anyone. When he thought he had a loss, I spoke with José who immediately said: 'Why don't we do it?' We couldn't think of an argument."
Through this experience they have noticed that many other host parents have really high expectations. "Nowadays teenagers will like to have some time to relax in their rooms. You can not expect them to do what you want. Caitlin happens to enjoy doing and seeing almost everything, but others may not be so enthusiastic. And if you put pressure on them, sometimes things can go wrong. As a host parent, you must learn to be flexible", José tells me. She thinks that they have been very lucky to have Caitlin. "She's just lovely", beams José. Saying goodbye to Peter and José is something that Caitlin does not want to think about. "I don't want to go home yet. This is my new home", says Caitlin.
José is almost in tears as the subject is discussed. "That will come with sadness and tears. We'll need some time to adjust when she goes home."

Berlijn

OK, so I just realized something very shocking, and that is the fact that I have not yet made a post over my trip to Berlin!
The trip as a whole was amazing and wonderful and I want to do it again. It was organized by AFS and there were about 70 exhcange students and 7 or 8 volunteers to accompany us. There's something so amazing about each and every one of those people and it's like because we are all sharing this amazing experience we have such a close bond with eachother even though we've only known eachother for a couple months. I had so much fun. It was a five day trip, but with the bus ride there and back (somewhere around 16 hours of driving in total..)we only spent 3 days in the actual city. We stayed in a hostel called The Generator which had free breakfast, a bar, and lots of trippy neon lights. Everyone was put into rooms of 6 people. In my room was Lauren (USA), Patrick (USA), Franceso (Italy), Hayden (Australia), and Walker (Canada). We had the most awesome group and I definately laughed more than I have in a long time.
Berlin in particular did have many very beautiful sights to see and of course it is full of art and history which I absolutely loved, but overall it just seemed kind of... big and grey. At times even depressing because of all the unfortunate history that happened there. I'm sure the fact that it was freezing and cloudy/rainy didn't help lighten the mood.
Highlights of what we saw: Berlin Wall, Holocaust Memorial, Berlin Dom, TV Tower, Parlaiment Building, Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag Dome, Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, and the Schlosspark Charlottenburg Palace.
I think there is much more to be seen in Berlin and I would love to go back again someday by myself or with an extreamly smaller group of people and see the beauty that was hidden -but i know it exhists- during my recent stay.
xxx

Scheveningen

So last weekend I went to the beach in Scheveningen with my host parents. We were very lucky because the weather was beautiful!
We walked along the water and then down the pier. At the end of the pier there is a place for ice skating AND bungee jumping! I've always wanted to try bungee jumping (don't worry mom, I resisted the temptation, ahah) but unfortunately it is against AFS regulations to do anything of the kind due to insurance etc.
All in all Scheveningen is a lovely place with plenty of shops and cafes for all the tourists!



See more photos here!

Gouda

Hello my lovely friends!
I thought I'd share a few pictures from a couple weeks ago when I went to Gouda, a very traditional city famous for it's stroopwafels, candles, and you guessed it, Gouda cheese!
First stop, the cheese factory!


Inside was a lovely and very typical dutch stained glass window.


Peter and Jose! Love them!

This is a type of cuckoo clock thing where every hour these little guys will make their appearance as little chimes go off.

This is the very beautiful Stadhuis (town hall)



't Keldertje is a historic candle shop where you can buy authentic Gouda candles. Look how small and sweet it is!

Inside the library



This little sign indicates a location to be a historic monument. Seeing as Gouda is such a old and historic town, you can find these almost everywhere!


Andy Goldsworthy was here!
Outside the library






More later :P
p.s. somehow in the process of making this post the text got all messed up so it's hard to read.. sorry!

België

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:


archery...


really scary ropes course things...


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


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


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


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)!


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


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


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!


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


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


Every night we had a little bonfire like this outside.


Anne, Nienke and I


Yes! They do have ramen in the Netherlands!


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