Monday, October 26, 2009

And In More Recent News...

Ok so I didn't think it was possible but I have reached a stage where I am semi busy / don't really have a lot to blog about so it results in more spread out posts - such as our current situation. I have two weeks of happenings to cover so I'll try my best to recount them as accurately as I can. Since my last entry I have just been going to school and keepin it real in the hood (this is why I haven't updated - sorry). I don't think much interesting happened the week before last except one day during school we went into town and I got the air taken out of my tire! Luckily, the Dutch, as you may have heard, are fond of biking, so it wasn't to hard to get it fixed back at school.

Last weekend I hung out with friends on Friday and it just felt surprisingly normal which I guess is a good thing right? I would assume so. Saturday night Ivy just came over and we got our bake on with some peanut butter cookies which were quite good. Watched Star Wars (the video collection in this household is limited - I don't hold it against them) then Zodiac (on the computer) and went to sleep. It was probably closer to what I'd say a normal weekend would be at home, if you transferred it to my life here.

Stuff got a little rough last weekend with my host family and a lot of stuff culminated into one day and yeah, wasn't easy. I can write about it with a pretty level head now and like I have written earlier, I want to keep this portrayal of my stay as accurate as I can, which means mentioning stuff like this. I won't dig into the details of the situation but it started when my host mother approached me telling me she didn't think I had enough culinary skills to tackle a Thanksgiving dinner, an effort which, in her opinion, I should forgo. Obviously that didn't sit too well with me. We got our chat on later that night and I think things will get better around here. I can honestly say it is a really hectic household and sometimes I'm not sure if it's for me but I believe that I can do it. I really think Birgit and Eric care about me, I feel comfortable in the house, and I would really not prefer to leave my school or Eindhoven.

Last week in school was, well, not a full week! I left for BERLIN on Thursday evening with AFS!! Around 9 o'clock Ivy and I met about 14 other kids from the south of the Netherlands at Eindhoven train station to get the bus (easy for me, huh?). We pulled out and headed north to get the students from the central and western areas and then went up more to get the people in the north. Then we actually started driving towards Berlin - at midnight. Ok so here's the deal, obviously sleep was hard to come by...in the end I slept about the last two hours of the ride on the floor. We got off the bus at about 8 at got some breakfast. Bus left and then we started our walking day (it last until 9 pm! I was not a happy camper when that bus pulled away that morning).

I could recite which sites of Berlin we saw but honestly I don't know their names except the parliament building (I think) and some other stuff. Of course we got to see the wall and Checkpoint Charlie and important stuff like that and of course it was amazing bonding with other exchangers who I must admit, are quite fun. Saturday we went to a concentration camp, Sachsenhausen. I thought this was a super nice thing to see and I know in the future it'll be something very nice and special to be able to say I've seen. After learning about that kind of stuff in school forever it's kinda surreal to be there and I'm not completely sure it clicked when I was there, luckily I took plenty of pictures. Sunday we continued to walk, went to see Charlottenberg palace, which I really liked. Took a boat ride, blahblahblah. I know it sounds crazy to say blahblahblah but honestly I was so tired by that time that I was trying my hardest to be social and appreciate Berlin that a lot of events are sort of melded together in my memory now - either way a veritably excellent trip. I hope to see a lot of the other students in the future - I think I am going to Groningen with Ivy in a couple weeks to see some people and the following week I hope to go to Alkmaar for Francesco's birthday. After that I have a weekend orientation camp and the following week would be Thanksgiving weekend, when I hope to have some stuff arranged so my life isn't completely void of a holiday I didn't realize I held in such high esteem.

As you can tell I have a lot of stuff lined up for the next couple weeks so I hope everything works out. They say that the third month is crisis month so I'm going to try really hard to get myself going and together. I want to search out some stuff to keep myself busy with soon. I know I have just explained the busy weekends which lie ahead of me but I still feel bored time and time again. At home I really never faced this problem - especially once I started working at Panera, and after I got that down my life really reached a great point. I hope I can find something here to stay interested in. Please tell me this post wasn't a disappointment because I feel slightly dissatisfied with this one but I just don't know what to say right now. But at least it can give you a good idea of what's going on in my life right now. k houdoe.

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