Sunday, March 29, 2009

Hey

So I promise that I'll be updating this thing more in the upcoming months. I have alot of stuff coming up, all for which I extremely excited for.

April 17,18,19 I'm in Maastricht visiting a Rotarian's daughters for the weekend. I'm really excited for that because it the oldest city in The Netherlands, and it is apparently extremely beautiful.

April 26-May 11 My family's coming! Super excited for that. The plan is that we are going to see Twente (the area I'm in.), see madurodam (miniture version of famous things in The Netherlands), scheveningen (Beach) and keukenhof (Tulips) in Den Haag, see the museum in Arnhem, the planetarium and go sailing in Friesland, and see the Anne Frank House, Madam Tusauds (wax museum) and the other things in Amsterdam. Fun eh? I'm super excited for it.

The weekend after my parents leave, May 16-17, I'm going wadlopen in Friesland with Rotary. It's where you walk to the Dutch Islands when the tide goes out.

May 30-June 15 is EuroTour! I am super excited for that. On the tour we are seeing Weimar (DL), Prague (CZ), Vienna (AT), Lido Di Jesolo (IT), Venice (IT), Murano (IT), Verona (IT), Florence (IT), Sienna (IT), Rome (IT), Vatican City (IT), Barcelona (ES), EuroDisney (FR), and Paris (FR). I simply cannot contain my excitement! haha. Also, every person needs to make a presentation on one place (in Dutch) while we are in that place, kind of like a tour guide. I got Florence, I have been researching it a lot, and it's such an interesting place! I'm going to have a terrible time deciding what to say to get the presentation down to 5 mintues. So make sure you watch out for the blog post/s after the tour!

After EuroTour, I have 2 weekends here, then I'm back on a plane, jet back to Canada, which I have to say, I'm not nearly as excited about. So now that everybody know what's coming up for me, I should probably tell you what I've been doing... The weekend after the football game, I had a Rotex weekend, which would have been fun, if it wasn't so freaking cold! We were sleeping in tents, and it was so cold that no one slept and everyone was insanely grumpy, so we went home Saturday night instead of Sunday. It kind of bummed me out, but it was fun none the less. I got to meet the new Southie in-bounds (People from south of the Equator who exchange winter-winter instead of summer-summer like me) and they are pretty cool. We also got to see the Palace in Apeldoorn that had absolutly amazing gardens.

This weekend I just kind of chilled, ate herring (which you'll see later). The weekend was nice and relaxing. I read some of the book I'm reading for Nederlands, De Jongen in de Gestriped Pyjama (The Boy In The Striped Pajama's), it's in Dutch! And I understand it! I am so happy about that. For thoses who have never seen a Dutch person eat a herring...It's quite the experience, and a must try when you come to the Netherlands. It looks something like this...



Thats all!
Lovee,
Doei!

J

p.s. remember! I love comments, so if you have something to say, or just to say hi, let me know your reading and post it!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Voetbal

So, if you didn't catch that, it says football. (As in soccer)

I have finally seen a football game in Europe! I went and saw Almelo vs. People in Orange, it wasn't the big football league in The Netherlands, this was like the WHL, where the big one is the NHL, but it was fun none the less.

When I first got there, my first thought was "Holy crap, lots of refs.", then Gert (new host dad) tells me that the people in the black and white stripes is the team we’re cheering for. Oops.

It surprised me how much I enjoyed the game. Since I have gotten here, I have wanted to see a football game, just because when your in Europe, you need to go to a football game, its like a rule. But I didn't think I would be that into it, I really had a lot of fun, and I learned quite a bit about football. And the players are hottJ. Seriously, the extra players warmed up right in front of where I was sitting, it was very nice.

Did you know that football only has 2 halves, I thought it had 4. And they can tie? It was 1-1 when the game ended, and they went into overtime, played for three minutes, then every one got up and walked away. I was like, "No one scored yet! Where are you going?!" Silly North American.

I have also come to the conclusion that football players are wimps. I mean, I don't watch a lot of hockey (as in ijs hockey not field hockey for the Dutch people), but from what I've seen, the hockey player don’t fall down and call for a doctor every time someone hits them, they get up and keep going. Then again, football players are quite scandalously clad for sports men, if you catch my drift, but still, please, every single time you are hit? Is that really necessary? Although, I have to admit, every time the doctor went out, I started to get excited, I really wanted someone to get carried out. Or someone to get in a fight. Does that make me a bad person?

I gotta say though, it was just like going to a Tigers game back home, pretty much the same size, same cheering when our team scores, same booing when the other team does. It's funny how something’s never change, no matter where you are. I really hope that before I leave, I will get to see FC Twente play (the NHL-like team from our area.)

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Italy was great. New family is great, can't believe I've been here for a week already! (and the flowers are coming up! SPRING IS IN THE AIR)
Ü < German Happy Face
Ö < German Surprised FaceDoei!
Lovee

Jayden

p.s. remember! I love comments, so if you have something to say, or just to say hi, let me know your reading and post it!

p.p.s. I didn't talk about Italy for a reason, You'll hear about it later