One week after my last blog again. Had my fieldtrip to Chicago, Voluntary day of AFS and went to a haunted house (prison).

Ana (from Brazil) came last weekend over. It was nice seeing here again! She came Saturday with the train and we picked her up. We talked a lot and as dinner we had Thai food. During dinner I got a text from people from the Netherlands that they arrived in the hotel at O’Hare. We did meet up with them so I could give them some stuff that they could bring to my parents. They were for a week in the States. It is easy I could give them the stuff so I don’t have to pay a high price to send it home. In the evening Ana and I watched frozen in the theater room (I want a theater room in the Netherlands too). The next day we played some pool and table tennis. After that Ana left.. 🙁

In the noon I had skating practice. Because it was the week before Halloween we had Pumpkin curling during our rests. It was fun to do! I got the second place of the girls behind Hannah (who came really close). The top 4 at the boys and the girls won a pumpkin. So I won a pumpkin too! 🙂 I didn’t have time to carve it. So maybe I will still do it even Halloween is already over or if I really have no time I won’t do it I think.

I went to Milwaukee again at Wednesday for a longtrack practice. There was someone who took some pictures. So here a picture of me on longtrack with a part of the team and in a suit of the club here. 🙂

Thursday I had a fieldtrip to Chicago with photography. We started close to the planetarium. From here we walked to Millennium park (where the Bean is). There the bus picked us up and we went to Navy Pier. Here I got $10 for lunch from the teacher because I won it with a homework assignment. On our way we had to make pictures with the black and white / film camera and with the digital camera. I still have to develop the negatives and to see all the digital pictures. I’m sure there will be some really nice ones. I did also make an amazing picture of the skyline with my phone. 🙂

Friday was HALLOWEEN!! We could dress up for school. I didn’t really have clothes for dressing up so I just had something simple. In the evening I went Trick or Treating with Hannah and Nicole. I wore a Blackhawks jersey and a mask. It was really cold outside so we didn’t go far. We still got a lot of candy. Alli came also over at Nicole her house after we came back. We ate dinner and watched a movie.

Now it’s time to explain the apples part of the title. I had an activity of AFS on Saturday. My liaison picked me and Seraina (from Switzerland) up and we went to the food depository in Chicago to do voluntary work. In total there were like 25 people from AFS. We had to sort apples and divide them into bags. Then we had to put the bags in boxes and put the boxes away. In the beginning it didn’t go that fast. But later Pia (from Germany) and I got a great teamwork and we went really fast. In total we (all of the AFS’ers and some other people who did the apples) sorted around 15000 pounds of apples (I think). I’ve seen enough apples here.
When I came home I had to hurry and make some food really quick. Then Hannah and I left to Brandon his house. From there we went with Brandon, Ethan, Colleen, Jan-Eric, Michael and Abby to Statesville haunted prison. This was really fun. In the line there were also people dressed up to scare you. I tried to make pictures with them. After 1,5 hour waiting in line we could finally go inside. I just screamed back to all people who screamed at me to scare me and I just stared at them. I really enjoyed the haunted house.

Tonight we had the time change in the USA. So the difference with the Netherlands is again 7 hours. I skyped again with my parents this morning. They can skype now on the TV and wanted to test it. So they saw me really big on the TV screen. Their camera zoomed sometimes randomly in, and nobody touched it. It was kind of creepy. They though we did it and we though they did it. My parents still have to read the manuals of the camera. Haha
Right now my brother is in Salt Lake City for the World Cup. He flew first to Chicago. So it is pretty cool that he was so close to me. I didn’t see him because he didn’t have time.

Think I said everything again. Byee!! 🙂

Heeyy everyone!!

I found some time again to write my blog! 🙂 After my last blog I already did a lot of things again. I went to the silence parade, to Milwaukee and had conference.

I went the day after my last blog (October 10th) to the Silence parade. I could do this with a few other exchange students. I was with Christy from Nigeria, Diego from Chile and a volunteer from AFS. It was amazing to see so many fire trucks together. And it was even more amazing to sit in a fire truck. During the parade I sat in the front seat and I tried to make some good pictures. This was hard because it was dark and it was hard to focus.. But we still made some nice pictures with the fire trucks when we were done. At the end of the parade was a huge American flag. I don’t know sure if I ever saw a flag this big before. We went into a church and here they had a speech about all the people who lost their lives with fire. I didn’t understand everything because I couldn’t stay concentrated the whole time. I liked the part in the truck more. When we drove back I was in the back of the fire truck. So I sat in both places of the truck. 🙂 The man from the fire department who drove us showed us all the things in the fire trucks and in the building. This was really interesting. I learned things I didn’t know yet. Hereby I want to thank fire department Westmont that we could drive the silence parade with them! I really enjoyed it!

The next day I had to wake up early to drive to Milwaukee for my first shorttrack meet here. There was also another Dutch girl who is on an exchange in Michigan. She normally skates longtrack but here she started shorttrack. It was nice to meet her!
The first distance we had was the 1000 meters. This didn’t go as expected. The way Americans skate the 1000 meters is different. I’m used to start slowly and speed up later in the race. But here they see the 1000 meters as a sprint. So the first race I had the feeling my time wasn’t good because my legs felt so bad at the end. But the time was better than expected. I ended in the last final, I took the 1st position here and skated it as I would normally do. Starting slowly and speed up during the race. I won the race but the time wasn’t that good haha.
The second distance was the 500 meters. At my first race I didn’t have a perfect start but I still skated good. But I wasn’t at the first 2 skaters. I won the second 500 meters race. The final.
After the 500 meters the racing day ended for me. We went to our Hotel in New Berlin (I found out a former AFS Exchange student who lives in my town in The Neterlands lived there), there we ate some stuff and after that we went back to the ice rink. Here we watched at the AM-cup, the people here skated for a place in the World-Cup team. When the AM-cup ended we went as fast as possible to the cinema. Here we watched the movie: The Maze runner. Of course we already came late (6.55) the movie started at 7 (I’m not 100% sure if the times are right but we didn’t have much time) and we were hungry. So we checked what food we could get and ordered pizza. After the movie we went back to the Hotel and there I gave Hannah, Brandon and Ethan a Wilhelmuts. They were happy with it. 🙂

The next day was the second race day. We had to skate the 1500 meters. My heat was pretty hard so I wanted to pass the one in first position on time. My pass wasn’t that good so I lost a lot of speed.. My legs were tired so I couldn’t pass him again and other people passed me. In the final I skated better. I stayed behind the one who passed me, even my legs were really tired. I think I got second in that race. I’m not 100% sure. I could check but right now I’m too lazy for that haha.
There was also a relay. I said they could place me in a team (the teams were random) but I wasn’t on the list. So I decided to coach the team of Hannah. I was a really good coach and the team got second. Overall I finished around the 9th place I think. I still got a medal, so I have a memory of this race.

After we were done with skating we didn’t watch the AM-cup. I went with Becky, Leah, Hannah, Brandon, Brianne and the parents of Brandon and Brianne to the Halloween store next to the rink. This was fun. Halloween isn’t that big in The Neterlands. I think this was the first time for me in a Halloween store. It was really fun trying on all different masks. Ofcourse me made pictures!!

We also went to the Domes in Milwaukee. This are kind of gardens with a different climate. There was one dome with a desert theme, one with a rainforest (I think) and there was a showroom theme with The Wizard of Oz. It was fun to see all of this and I made some nice pictures. In the one with the rainforest was a really nice bird, and I have some awesome pictures of that bird!

In the evening we ate at a café named BeNeLux. I saw this in a folder and thought they would probably have some Dutch food too. They had some Dutch food like pannekoeken (pancakes which are flat and bigger, different than the American ones). I think the food was really good over there! Maybe weird to say but the bathroom was also fun. They had like a really big picture of a Dutch train station.
After dinner we went home. We were all really tired and wanted to go to bed. But we had to wait a little longer before we could go to sleep because an AFS volunteer would come over for a visit and to check if I was still alive. After the volunteer left I could finally go to sleep.

The Monday I didn’t have school because it was Columbus day. I just took some rest in the morning. My new running shoes arrived so I could use them at the cross country practice in the noon. With practice we had 2 teams and we did Scavenger hunt. My team, the orange one, won.
The rest of the week was ‘normal’. It is still different than the Netherlands but I’m getting used to it. I was only really tired and I was getting sick. On school they had one day that the police came with dogs to check if nobody had drugs in school. I never saw this before, so this was something new for me. I didn’t really see the police or the dogs. On Friday was the last Cross Country practice and Saturday was conference.
Conference is the biggest / most important meet in the season. As far as I know. I was sick but I still ran. I started really good. After the first mile I was in 13th position (We ran with around 100 people(?). Not sure how much exactly). Just before the second mile I had the feeling I had to throw up and I started to feel my asthma really bad. But I just stayed running. A lot of people passed me here.. I could still do a really good sprint at the end, I don’t know where the energy came from. I finished 26th. I think it is pretty good. I even broke my personal best with 40 seconds. I didn’t expected that at all.
Sunday Hannah and I made poffertjes. These are like little pancakes. I think that is the best way to explain it. Further I just rested. I was still really tired..

Last Wednesday I did my first longtrack practice here. I got of school at 3pm and right after that we left to Milwaukee. Becky drove and further in the car were Carl, Hannah, Ethan, Jan-Eric and Janelle. I think the last time on longtrack ice was like 3 months ago. Eric, the coach, said my skating looked like a shorttracker. That could be right. I know my longtrack (except the corners) isn’t that good. But I will try to work on it. At the end of the practice it was already better than the beginning of the practice.

Thursday I had a fieldtrip with Photography. We went to the COD (College Of Dupage). Here we learned a little about the history of the photography, the green screen and lightning. We also had to make pictures of models. This was fun. 🙂

This week I also got the news that my brother can go to the first World Cup in Salt Lake City. I’m really proud of him and I hope he will skate really good! Good luck Mark!! 😀

I think I said most things again. Later this day Ana (from Brazil) will come over. I am looking forward to it! And tonight I will meet up with some Dutch people to give them stuff they can bring to my parents. I also have to make some homework this weekend. I’m going to upload this now and clean my room. I found out I could keep my room clean for 2 months. It is getting harder and harder now. I am doing a lot and I’m often tired. Hope the tiredness will go away the following days/weeks/months..

Have a nice day everyone!!
And Hi from Illinois!! 😀

Heey everyone!!

Time is going so fast over here. I can’t believe I’m here already for 2 months next Monday. After my last blog I didn’t have much time to write my blog because I did a lot! Maybe I had one day time to write my blog but I was really tired and didn’t feel for it to write it. I try to make this blog not too long but I can’t promise.. Because I really did a lot of fun stuff!! I hope you will enjoy it!

I went Sunday 14 September with the family to The Morton Arboretum. This is like a really big garden where it is really nice to walk around. Here I got also the change to make really nice pictures of squirrels. I’m really happy with those pictures. I also saw some other animals, including the really cute chipmunk which didn’t want to go on the picture..

That week I joined the Cross Country team of my school. The Monday they had a meet so I just went there and watched. Unfortunately they started at 4.30, the time my bus left. So I only saw the warming up. I got every day after school a Cross Country practice. Most of the time we run like 2 or 3 miles I think. I’m not sure. After that we do sometimes some core, hill sprints and stretching. Most of the time I have to go home on the 4.30 bus on Tuesday and Thursday. Then I leave a little earlier. This is because I also have skating practice. I will be home around 5 on these days and at 5.15 we already have to leave to skating practice. So I’m really busy over here. I already did some meets with Cross Country. At the first one (2miles) I got a ribbon. : ) The first 20 people got a ribbon so I’m proud of myself. Later I did two times the 3 miles at a meet at our home course. I ran pretty good I think. The second time was better than the first one. So it is getting better. At a meet you’re competing against other schools. This is something  new for me and I like it. In the Netherlands I’m not used to sport teams at school, so I’m not used to the meets between schools too. We have a pasta party with the team every Friday before the meet. This is really fun. We are going to someone’s house and eat pasta together. I’ve been to three pasta parties and there is one left. I think the Cross Country season ends after next week. I’m not 100% sure.

I’ve also had the AFS camp/orientation. It was really fun to see everyone! I drove there with Alli (Finland), Elin (Iceland), Ilka (Flemish Belgium) and Natcha (Thailand). I think it is really nice to be together with so many different cultures. I know I could speak Dutch with Ilka but we didn’t speak Dutch at all. Maybe one sentence like ‘We kunnen ook Nederlands gaan praten’ (We could also speak Dutch) when all the Brazilians spoke Portuguese. The free time at camp was the best. Here we played football and volleyball and we just talked. In the evening we watched a movie. Ana (Brazil) and I were so smart to take our pillows down so we were more comfortable with laying on the ground. It was only  a little too comfortable. So when we almost fell asleep we just walked around and watched at other people who weren’t watching the movie too. When we wanted to get our pillows again some other people fell asleep on it. We didn’t wake them up because we had one extra pillow in our room and Ana did bring her own pillow.  My roommates were: Ana (Brazil), Monica (Portugal), Ramsha (Pakistan), Christy (Nigeria) and Kristin (Norway). It was really fun. Everyone was tired so we slept early. I did try one of Ramsha her headscarves on. It was really warm but a nice experience to try. Ramsha also gave me a really cool phone case. The next day I learned Ana to count to ten in Dutch and I learned to count to ten in Portuguese. For me it was hard because there are more people who spoke Portuguese and they all pronounce it different. I didn’t remember a lot of the counting… (Sorry Ana.. Hope you remember the Dutch counting 😉 ) We also divided into the groups again and talked about rules for traveling and fun things we could do. After all the talking Ramsha made a henna tattoo by me and Ana. I really liked it!After that we (Ramsha, Ana, Christy and I) made some pictures. There were some nice ones. The nice thought with it is that we’re all from another continent. That is pretty cool, isn’t it? After that the camp was already over and we had to say goodbye :(.

Micah picked me up and we went home. In the noon I went to skating practice. This wasn’t a good idea. I was really tired and started to feel really dizzy on the ice. So I stopped earlier and waited till Hannah was done.

The next week at school was spirit week. This because homecoming was the Saturday. Here the spiritdays:
Monday: Pajama day
Tuesday: Crazy hat day
Wednesday: Decades day (freshman 80’s, sophomore 70’s, juniors 60’s and seniors 50’s (Think it was like this))
Thursday: Tacky Tourist day
Friday: Class color day (freshman white, sophomores grey, juniors black and seniors blue)
Every day with lunch periods were like little competitions. It was every day different. They had a day with pie eating, sack racing, water balloon fight and more. I don’t know them all anymore..

At Monday I was still really tired and dizzy so I stayed home from school. I did some homework and I did sleep. I really wanted to rest. This was maybe a day I had time to write my blog. But because I didn’t feel well I didn’t do it. Unfortunately I missed pajama day..
Tuesday I did bring a ‘Wilhelmuts’ but I didn’t wear it because there weren’t many people with crazy hats. With the decades day we also had the powder puff game. So we wore our team shirts all day. Our team was really motivated with the game but we lost the game against the Seniors. It was only one touchdown difference and I think we were pretty good. The teams were even. The Thursday was Tacky Tourist day, I took this really serious. I looked awesome!! Haha At lunch Michelle and I made a really nice picture 🙂

Friday I wore a black shirt, because I’m a junior here. After school there was an assembly. I didn’t know what it was exactly but I found out it is amazing!! I really liked it. All the classes are together. So There was a part in the gym which was white of the freshman, then a grey part of sophomores, the black part with the juniors (including me) and the blue part with the seniors. There was a lot to see, like cheerleaders who perform, dancers, flag people (they dance with flags and throw them, it looks pretty cool) and more. Even our principal joined the cheerleaders and  was on the top of a pyramid. Isn’t our principal awesome?!
That evening I went to the Octhombrefest of Hannah her school. Every student wore crazy clothes and they sang. It was really fun to see!
The Saturday was homecoming. In the morning I had a meet from Cross Country (my first meet). At the meet I did buy an awesome hoodie. It is bright yellow with the text: Illinois, cross country. I like the hoodie. 🙂 When I came home from the meet I still had to find a dress for homecoming. I watched all the dresses the family had and I chose one (the fact that I’m wearing a dress doesn’t mean I like dresses!) . Later Becky and Hannah did my hair. The first things they tried didn’t work out but after 2 hours they finally finished my hair. It was fun to go to homecoming, but I don’t know if I would do this again. I promised my dad to put a pictures of me in a dress on my blog. So here it is:

I also did the practice ACT test. This is a test all juniors are allowed to take. I wasn’t that good and couldn’t finish all questions. I think because it is in English and with reading texts in English I’m a little slower than other people. The test had an English, Math, Reading and Science part. I don’t know yet how my results are. But I’m sure I don’t have a really high score.

Last weekend I had a Cross Country meet on Saturday. When I woke up I saw snow outside. I didn’t believe myself because it was October. But it was really snow. It was just a few snowflakes, but it is still snow. At the meet it was really cold so I wore a lot of clothes and a hat. I only had to run 2 miles. The first mile was really good but the second wasn’t that good for my feeling. My legs just didn’t want to go anymore.. Our school was 4^th with the Junior Varsity (the part of the team I’m in). This is pretty good.

Later the day I played Settlers of Catan with Hannah, Leah and Eric. I played really bad. I couldn’t even build my 3^rd house. So when I saw I couldn’t do anything I helped Hannah to win. She won so I still won for a little bit.. haha
Brandon, Ethan, Jan-Eric and Colleen came also over. It was really nice. We played basketball boys vs girls, pool (the thing where you have to hit balls with a stick and try to get it in one of the holes) and we ate pizza. I failed in pool, I couldn’t even hit the ball normally. I also played a table tennis/ping pong game to Micah (hostbrother). I got 1 point and I was really proud of it (I lost with 11-1). Micah is really good in table tennis. We also watched the movie Avatar. When the movie ended Hannah and I waited until Ethan was picked up and after that we went to sleep.

Sunday Hannah and I went mountain biking with Brandon. First Jan-Eric would also come but he had something else. The course was wet so I got a lot of mud on me. After mountain biking we ate lunch at Jan-Eric’s house. They had the best brownies ever!!

In the evening Hannah and I made pannekoeken (Dutch pancakes). We ate them the way I like them the most: with Nutella. Everyone liked it so I was happy with that! I think the next Dutch thing we will make are poffertjes.

We only had 3 days of school this week. So I can finally take some rest in my long weekend and write my blog again. Monday I don’t have school because of Columbus day. So I got a 5 day weekend and I’m really happy with it. It was my dad his birthday Tuesday. So I did send him a nice postcard with Hallmark. Yesterday morning there was a lunar eclipse. I did set my alarm at 5am to see it and to make some pictures. The moon turned red and it was pretty cool to see, I took some nice pictures of it.

Tomorrow I will go to the Silence parade, it is a parade of fire trucks to honor the firefighters and civilians who lost their lives either in fires or the line of duty. And guess what, I will be in a fire truck. 🙂 That is so cool!! 😀
Saturday and Sunday I will have a shorttrack meet. I have no idea how it will go because I’ve been really tired the last weeks. So I will see, but I’m sure it will be fun!

I think I’m up to date again. So I will upload this and then I’m going to sleep. I’m sure I will experience also a lot of new and funn stuff again the following weeks. I don’t know when my next blog will be because I’m doing a lot of stuff here and I don’t know when I have time again. It could be soon but It could also be in a month. But I try to share short updates on facebook. I hope my English was good, I’m pretty tired so I could have some more faults than normal.. If you have any questions about my experiences or about my exchange, feel free to ask! 🙂

One last thing: I ordered the most amazing running shoes today. They have a lot of bright colors and I can’t wait till they’re here. I think they will arrive Monday. So I just have to wait for a few more days!  Watch my facebook to see a picture, I will post it as soon as my shoes arrive!