Shake It Like You Mean It

Alas! A breakthrough! A real weekend! So where did we leave off in my life...oh yeah - swine flu. Ok so like uh..a couple other things here and there, I exaggerated a little, it wasn't swine09. I think I can safely say I'm happy about that. It's not like back in April when you could get school closed for a week with this slugger so it's not worth my time anymore. Either way, I stayed at home until Thursday, making it a one day week because we had contactdag on Friday (more on that in a sec). I really just relaxed, not like I needed it or anything, but I figured it was time to go back to school when everything was fine except for a little throat tickle, strangely enough I still have it kinda. I think I watched some quality 90s movies, read my book (I'm currently dual-booking it. Choosing depending on my mood), and uh...spent like 18 hours a day in bed? 18 might be a little low.

OK enough rambling about being sick, it's not different or anything just because I'm in a different country (although my host parents were really great about it all. You hear that it's some of the hardest times when you get sick, but I didn't feel that bad. I know my friends are all having amazing times at college and well, my family is just living, they can't spend every waking minute thinking of me. This kinda forces me into a mode where I am very driven to have a successful year.).

So after I had my ONE day of class this week we had this so called day of contact. We all met up at this bowling alley and these girls from my class offered to bike with me since well, I semi know stuff but let's not push it and pretend I can find a random bowling alley in Veldhoven. Anyways, I thought that was pretty nice of them. Once we were there we bowled and let's face it, I reach a wall so to speak in further description here becasue bowling is exactly the same. Same to the point that I sucked just as bad or worse here. I suppose that is not the point of the day of contact though so no stress. Apres that we went and got some pizza. I must admit, it was good, and rather large to boot. But the real boot so to speak is that we didn't have to pay! The school paid for it. Now that is the correct way to make contacts, if you will. Post-pizza the events were over for a period and I made my way back home. I was sleepy so I slept (profound, huh?).

After typical evening eating rituals I got a call from a kid in my class, Dustin, who invited me to hang out with him and some of his friends before the dance. We went to hang out in the park near the school and chilled. Then we transplanted ourselves a little and met up with some other kids in our class, namely David, Caspar, and Kelvin. It was really nice seeing people outside of class due to the fact I don't think I can give off the right vibe when we're just sitting in school, in Dutch. Then off to the school party! It was uh, kinda like a Shaker dance? No haha it was not. It was all techno-y music and a lot of the kids were dancing but uh, a lot weren't - including myself. We just walked around a little and chilled in the courtyard (side note - they can drink beer at their school party! but only four per person...wouldn't wanna get too rowdy...). When it was over around 12:30 we went into town which was some fun. To reiterate, JESUS bless the fact that know people know me outside of school. Because, let's face it, school is not a good reflection all the time of a person, especially me. So this was a jovial time. Came back home around 3:30...my alarm went off at 7 to get ready to go to Amsterdam with AFS. Needless to say, Saturday was rough.

Like I said, woke up at 7 on Saturday and got myself together enough to grab a bus into Eindhoven (yeah don't even kid, I was NOT going to bike). There I met Ivy and we hopped on a train to Amsterdam (simple, no?), except part of the train didn't work so we had to switch cars and it was jam packed! Then we had to get off at Utrecht (it was supposed to be a direct) and change trains. We got to sit a little and then showed up 45 mins late to the AFS group, but luckily we weren't last so play it off. Then we went on our walking tour of Amsterdam! slightly chaotic. We went to the red light district and the coffeeshops and stuff...it was a little much to be honest, I didn't expect to be all like that.

I'll paint the scene: narrow, i mean NARROW, alley way. You got prostitutes pressed up again their doors on either side of you. Next thing you know there's a hooker yelling out her door because someone took a picture (big no no) and she's gettin all buckwild like "Children get out of here. Go back to your play gardens. F- you!" Ok then some genius from our group proceeds to cuss back at the hooker. Well let me tell you, that did not make Ms. Fish-Net-Body-Suit pleased. She started spraying a water bottle everywhere like the Pope of the Red Light District! Another thing, hookers roll deep. The second Senorita Fish Net got out that bottle her neighbor ran inside and grabbed like a giant stick that had something metal on it and started waving it in everyone's faces and yelling! As you can tell, Amsterdam 101 was a little overwhelming.

Aside from that I found the city a little cramped and dirty. I understand it is very old and it does have it's beautiful parts but it was not as I had expected. The drugs and sex are very rampant, something I suppose I thought was more contained. Nonetheless there were very nice parts of the city that I liked a lot. After the tour ended at 4 we mosied around for a couple hours then Ivy and I caught a train back to Eindhoven at 9.

We thought we were going to go to bed. Sleep. Rest. Watch a movie. Except we missed our bus...so I suggested we might as well go into town and see what's going on. Well we ended up meeting some of the people I was with Friday night and it turned into quite a fun(ny) evening.

All in all I would say this was an extremely successful weekend for me and I am beyond pleased with things right now. Let's see how they all roll out in the next couple weeks (I don't have much planned in the next couple weeks until Berlin. Might go to Francesco's (Italy) house in Alkmaar next Friday and I had plans to revisit Amsterdam with kids from AFS-Belgium but I don't know how I feel about it after seeing it yesterday).