255!

hey world! well, today was officially a GREAT day! since my dutch schedule keeps changing from lessons mon-tues-wed-fri to mon-tues-wed-thurs blah blah blah, my host mom and i just went and had some fun instead. its not my fault they switch the schedule every time the teacher gets sick and we have to move to another class! anywho, today we went to Leuven, which was a little over an hour drive. Its a big university city in belgium, and it was really fun! the weather at first was a little questionable, the sun really wanted to come out of the clouds and finally it did! not like last week when i was laying out in my bikini, but when you didn't feel the wind it was really nice! hey south dakota is your snow melted yet? :) hehe! sooooo besides finding lots of cute shops (i may or may not have bought two scarves and a skirt..who knows..yes, more for the suitcase to go home, oh crap!), we also meet up with my host brother (who also rode home with us, because university students go home EVERY WEEKEND!), and ate lunch. could you follow that sentence, because it was a little choppy, sorry! we went to this lunchy type place and sat outside and i had an ammmmaaaazing salad! i think i could eat salad everyday for the rest of my life. especially ones like this with bacon, apples, feta, grapes, and some other random things.

deeeelish! but, there was a downside to my lunch. although the salad was fantastic and it was nice and quaint to sit outside...a gosh darn bird POOPED ON ME! and on my host brother. like literally ORANGE gooey stuff on my back and hands, absolutely disgusting! but whatever. i did my best to get over it, and it was actually quite funny..in an annoying sort of "a bird just went potty on me" sort of way. then we walked around a little more and eventually got tired from such hard work (shopping, walking, whatever) "just like two grandmas" said my host mom..and so we sat outside to drink something.

there is me! and there is the city hall. faaaaancy!

so thats about all for today! tomorrow another busy day, going to something with the rotary in the morning and then to the opera tomorrow night. lucky lucky me. goodnight! thanks for reading.

254!

hello world. nothing special thursday going on here...hate to say it, but yet another blog for today i think! i went to dutch class this morning, where we learned (AGAIN) alllll about weddings, then had to write a story about a wedding that you've been to in your life. boring. i dont know if the point of the lesson was to use past tense verbs, or just to learn about weddings? i guess its quite relevant if i was going to get married in belgium (like many from my class) or if i needed more vocabulary words such as courthouse, bride, ceremony, certificate, blah blah. anyways, it was sort of lame. i'm getting more and more disappointed in my lessons, but i'll do my best to stay positive for my last couple weeks eh!! after that i came home and had lunch (which included a hard boiled egg leftover from dying easter eggs on sunday, hahah i think my family is afraid to eat them because they're...colored), then went to my other school for a few afternoon lessons. today i had jazz band then a class where we normally learn about art and history and blah blah blah but today we learned about jazz, so they were actually two nice lessons! in jazz band we got to play new songs for the first time in what seems like forever. i feel in my arms that i'm not as good as i used to be, but hopefully this summer i can get that back to normal. but still i had fun and did my best. i guess on the 15th we play for this open house thing which will be nice to still participate in a school activity right before i leave. hmmm..lets see, what else. then in the next lesson we learned about big bands and listened to "take the a train" and then started talking about charlie "bird" parker and the teacher asked me what was supposed to go between charlie and parker and i said bird and then he told me that i could stay for the rest of the lesson, haha odd teacher. tonight we had quiche for dinner, with leeks and bacon. nobody uses leeks in america, or from what i know they arent that popular. here they are in everything. especially soup. that and fennel. weird white and green vegetables that we always ignore. hmm...well thats all for today, sorry i'm so boring. goodnight!

253!

hey world! happy wednesday..and in my case, waffle wednesday!! every wednesday school is done around noon, so we always have pancakes or waffles for lunch or dinner and "real food" for the other. other than going to dutch class this morning and hearing ALLLLL about weddings in belgium, morocco, iraq and whatnot..the most exciting part of my day was eating a waffle and taking a nap. yeah thats right, i took a nap! and i'm still really tired. i think its something with the weather, or i'm getting sick..because unless i'm super tired i never take naps. and i wasn't that super tired today. actually, i just never have enough time for naps. so here's a series of photos that you'll hopefully like. the life of a waffle before it enters my stomach..

awww cute little heart shaped waffles! eaten warm with nutella and/or peanut butter of course. i can't wait to make them at home with my waffle maker from my first family!! it was such a good christmas present. maybe i should have a waffle party when i get home? hopefully i still have friends that will be able to hang out with me, weird to think about. ah there i go again, talking about home. stop that jamie! haha. but time to go to sleep early tonight. thanks for reading, and sorry if you're craving a waffle now....

252!

hello! well, gotta warn ya folks..my blog writing inspiration for today is really low, so i might ramble or it might be really short. we'll see. anywho. today! happy tuesday, first day after a looooong easter break. today was MY first day of the next level of dutch class...level 4! i'm so proud of myself. but the bad news is that my teacher will be sick for another month, so we're all stuck in the class of another lady for this week and hopefully they will find someone else to teach us next week..we'll see. so for now our class is big, loud, and still easy for me. interesting! today after dutch class i went to the rotary meeting. no meeting next week, then the tuesday after that is when i give my presentation...and then i'm gone. soooo weird! i could swear it was just yesterday when i got here. but, i can't keep talking about my feelings about leaving because that makes for one boring blog right? well..i don't have much else to say, so i'll go back and talk about something that i didn't mention about yesterday. yesterday as we were sitting outside drinking cola and whatnot, these funny looking people approached us and it turns out they were tictac people! yes..tictac people. or..people dressed in white with a tictac box backpack.

so anyways, we all got free tictacs. then i shared them in dutch class this morning because i'm so kindhearted. and that is my funny ending story for today. sorry i'm so boring! thanks for reading. goodnight!

251!

good day, blog reader! i think today was my favorite day of my exchange so far. i would say my favorite day in belgium, but it wasn't in belgium! this morning we woke up early, ate breakfast, then hopped in the car to go to KEUKENHOF! assuming you don't know what that is, it is the WORLDS LARGEST FLOWER GARDEN..full of millions of pretty flowers, and mainly..TULIPS! first we drove to my first family's house and then we all drove a couple hours to get there. it was absolutely amazing weather, beautiful flowers, and great company. we walked around, ate lunch, and took lots of pretty pictures! enjoy..

all of us!! lovely isnt it? there are so many more pictures but that's all i'll put on here. after looking at the flowers at keukenhof we drove about halfway back home to a city in the netherlands named Breda. it was nice, and just really nice to be with everyone all together.

after walking around a bit we (and the rest of the town, it was so nice outside) sat on a terrace for an hour or so then went to an awesome turkish/moroccan restaurant for dinner. look at the yummyness we all ate..

dutch/turkish version of applebees appetizer sampler platter? ;) but i'm really tired, and unfortunately i have school tomorrow again...but i must say that this has been an amazing "spring break" with Italy, cookies baking, speech writing, beautiful weather, and a lovely day in holland. i am so lucky, and sooo thankful! love you readers!