Today I had my first experience with Dutch police. My crime was this: biking in the pedestrian zone. Yeah I know, I'm bad. No, actually, I had no CLUE I wasn't allowed to bike there. Everyone bikes there, so I just followed along, and I do it daily. I later learned that everyone knows that they're not supposed to, but they do it anyway and just watch out for the police. So I played dumb and pretended that I didn't speak a word of Dutch. It was actually quite funny because I could understand everything that they were saying to eachother, and they kept asking each other, "man, how do you say that in English?" But I didn't want to let them know that I already knew what it meant. I thought they would be more sympathetic, but they gave me a ticket/fine anyway. So now I have to pay 35 euros for this DUMB thing. I am so aggravated! And the police woman asked me why I biked there, and I just told her it was because I had seen everyone else biking there!
Though my host mom had a really good idea of making a sort of action out of it, so I am going to put a poster up at school and ask people if they would like to help by making contributions. We'll see what happens! In the meantime, I am going to be more conscious of staying on the bike paths.
Here is the TV room in the house where I am living now. The dog, Bayla, blends in well with the couch!
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