End of September

Hello again! Things here are still going great. I find myself thinking so often that I am so lucky to be here! There is so much I could write but I have to limit it (sorry!). Though I did have to include this picture of an old Dutchman getting some ice cream while on his scooter:

I can just picture him riding his tiny scooter and licking his ice cream cone haha. I thought that was funny.

I have been very very busy lately (something nearly everyday after school!). So here is a bit of an overview of some of the things I have been up to:

Lately I have been trying out hockey practices. It is a 40 minute bike ride so I get home around 9:40 on Tuesdays and 10:40 on Thursdays. So I am just trying it out for now. The first time I biked to practice, I thought "this is not so fun" but then once I went along the canal closer to downtown the buildings were just so beautiful that I forgot about being miserable. At practice I feel like everyone is so much better at hockey than I am so it gets a bit discouraging, but the girls are very nice. By the way they do not have to wear goggles here!

They have been very fun trainings, though one time I had to bike in the pouring rain and I have had a sore throat ever since.

I have also tried a lacrosse training in Groningen, which is a big college city north of Assen, and I enjoyed that also. The practices are in English because there is one girl from Germany, a girl from Estonia, and a girl from Norway, so not everyone can speak Dutch. I think that the other players are mostly in University but they were all really friendly.

I made dinner for my host family one Friday (Shepard's pie!) and I think they liked it. I am yet to make s'mores.

Last weekend I took the train to Groningen with friends. The weather was gorgeous. Here we are at the train station (from left- Carmen, Jouke, Rense, Krista, and Melvin):

We went to this college/university expo thing, where I got tons of free pens and bags. I even climbed a rock wall there!

We coincidentally ran into 3 other AFSers downtown: Mariano from Italy, Marina from Brazil, and Giulia also from Italy! Talk about a small country!

It was very busy in Groningen, especially because there was Markt. Here is a bit of what the Markt looks like. You can buy ANYTHING you like, though I just took pictures of the flowers:

So many tulip bulbs!
Then I met up with some other friends to do some winkeling (shopping)!

Krista's host parents gave us a ride home (they were winkeling, too!)

Later that night I went to my frist Dutch birthday party! It was very fun and I met lots of new people.

For a week we had a boy from London come and stay at our house. My host brother's school does this exchange in his grade where kids from London come here for a week and then in the spring the Dutch kids go there. So we spoke pretty much English all week. It was interesting seeing someone else experience the same things that I had experienced for the first time. I felt as if so much time had passed already since I have been here and I have really learned a lot! I made jell-o on his last night here and he really liked it. (You can only get Jell-o in America apparently, and I didn't know that until my host family was telling me about how crazy they are about it!)

Before Callum left, I interviewed him to see what he thought of the whole week. It was pretty fun. Here it is:

Then he interviewed me, and that was really funny to watch. I felt as if I sounded like I had some weird accent that I have never had before, and a lisp, which I hope isn't really true! So I am not sure if I want to post it on the internet or not! haha

A lot of people ride mopeds to school and I only thought about it the other day that no one does that in Providence. So that is different! Here's a picture of the helmets of people who moped to school:

My locker is right near here, which, by the way, I open by holding a plastic card infront of this square that says GEEL and then my locker just magically opens! The lockers are more square than the ones at Classical and quite spacious.

And there is a giant chess board outside, which I think is so cool!

To Sasha W., Jordan V., and Sophie C.: I hear that you read my blog sometimes in research class in school, which I think is so funny. I hope you guys like this one, too! And good luck with research!

More to come soon!

Lots and lots of love,

Lydia