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!

Heey everybody!

Exactly one month ago I arrived at Chicago O’Hare for my year as an Exchange student with AFS in the US. The time went so fast until now, I can’t believe it was already one month ago. It feels like I’ve been here for a really long time, and it also feels like I just came here. I updated my blog 3 times since I am here because I’ve done a lot. They are all also really long, if I had to write all in one time it would be impossible to put everything in it. I want to try to share a lot with my blog so I try to keep it up to date. 🙂

My other 3 blogs here were still in Dutch. But I will try to make it in English now. Sorry if there are faults in it because my English is not perfect (yet).

At the end of my last blog I said what I was going to do that weekend and I told I would go to a football game again (on orange day) that evening. The weather wasn’t that good so I really hoped they wouldn’t cancel the game again. Luckily they didn’t do this. I went to the game with Micah (hostfather), Becky (hostmother) and Micah (hostbrother). At the game I went to the people of my school. There is a special place for the students were we all yel. It is really fun to be there. I thought we would win our second game. One minute before the end we were in the leading position. But the other team made a touchdown and we lost (I didn’t go to the game yesterday, but if I understood it good we lost again… Hope we will win the next time). I went to sleep around 12.30 am and the alarm was set on 4.15. So I didn’t sleep much.

Last Saturday I went with Becky and Hannah to Holland, Michigan. It was really nice over there. When we drove there I slept much because I was tired of the short sleeping time that night. First Becky and I watched at the meet of Hannah and Nicole (and the rest of their school). After that we (Becky, Hannah and I) went to Panera to eat something. Then we really went to Holland. Becky her brother (David) lives there so we visited him. We went with them to the Holland beach. On our way there I saw the street signs had all tulips next to the name and I saw some Dutch souvenirs shops. It was fun to see this here in America. The Holland beach was really pretty. There were a lot of kites in the air. We went also on the pier. The waves were really big here and splashed on the pier. Ofcourse Hannah and I wanted some fun pictures so we went sitting on the pier and we waited till a big wave came. We have some pretty cool pictures. The only bad thing is we were wet and I didn’t have an extra shirt. I could borrow a shirt of Lynette so I luckily had a dry shirt. 🙂

After we visited David and Lynette we went to the ‘Dutch Village’. It was fun to be here. You saw all Dutch names and you could see how people make wooden shoes or cheese and stuff. We went watching by the wooden shoes. Here was also a map of the Netherlands including Wanneperveen. After the wooden shoes we just walked around. We went to the ‘school’ where Hannah tried to pronounce Dutch words (she is really bad (sorry Hannah 😉 )) and we went to something with the witches. I don’t know how it is called but they measure you weight and with that they can see if you are a witch or not (I was not a which). When the park closed we went to the café and shops. Here we could order some Dutch food. So Becky and Hannah tried a kroket, a sauzijzenbroodje and erwtensoup. We also did buy some food so we have it at home. We did buy Koopmans pannekoekenmix (a mix for the pancakes we normally eat, it is just a thin pancake), beschuit met muisjes (I told when there is a baby people eat that in the Netherlands. We got it so the family could try it), speculaas (a kind of cookie which is really good), stroopwafels (also cookies which are really good. Hannah loves them) and ontbijtkoek (kind of cake).

Later my father found out when he was watching my pictures on facebook the village Holland, Michigan is founded by A.C. Van Raalte. This man was born in Wanneperveen (the village I live in the Netherlands. So it was special. In the Netherlands I live in a really small village and the US is really big. (http://www.sleyster.nl/zwc890527.htm)

Sunday I tried to sleep as long as possible. When I woke up I thought it was 10.30 and when I was dressed I saw it was 8.30. It was really weird. I went in the morning with the whole family to the church. In the afternoon I had a picnic from AFS. It was really nice to meet people I didn’t meet yet and to meet new people. Unfortunately I had to leave earlier for an ice training (which is also fun). But I had a really nice time at the picnic.

After the ice training I asked how to write guards (because I needed that word for my snapchat). Someone from my team asked why I needed to know that. So someone else explained English is my second language and I come from the Netherlands, which is in Europe. The one from my team said like: I know they speak French in Europe. So I told I speak Dutch. His answer: ‘I thought Dutch was a country’. It was really funny haha

I had more funny things people asked me this week. Someone asked me if we have cars in the Netherlands and someone thought Brazil was also in Europe (when I told I lived in Europe).

This week was just a normal school week, no (extra) late starts or early dismissals. The little special things in the lessons/week: The ice training started (Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday), I hold a snake with Zoology (and a ferret, don’t know sure if I already said this), I had another Powder Puf Football practice, I made my first pictures with Photography and we did cut in a sheep heart with Anatomy.

Wednesday after school my parents called me to tell bad news. Granny (the hostmom of my mom) passed away. My parents flew the next day to Houston for saying one more time goodbye to Granny. I promised her I would call here somewhere this year and now I’m not able to call her anymore.. I’ve been to Texas 4 times to visited her and the family and I had really nice times then. Last time was last year and I had an amazing time. I will miss her.
I love you Granny!!

This was my blog for this time again! Byeee!!