228!

have i really wrote something every day for 228 days already? i surprise myself sometimes..in a good way. it's amazing what you can do if you put your mind to it, i say that now but i forget that a lot as well. enough about that, more about my day. saturday! hooray. but it started out not so hooray-ish, because the neighbors are building something so the sound of hammers and saws woke me up around 8am, and i went to bed pretty late and i don't know. i always feel like i get my best sleep between 6am and noon, and thus i felt sort of blah this morning. it quickly went away, as my host mom was like "come on jamie its beautiful outside lets do something" which i just thought she was saying because she likes to say that, and normally she's right..in a belgian way. beautiful outside to a belgian = no rain. but today, there was not only no rain but a briiiiight shining sun and it was over 70 degrees f! RIDICULOUSLY WARM! girls were walking around town in short skirts and heels and it was sort of fun to giggle at them. i mean, its still not summer. you could still feel the cool spring breeze and whatnot, it's nothing like the 90 degree humid heat we can get in south dakota, oh my! but still. nice day outside. we biked to the market, then to the grocery store, then later walked around the shopping street because apparently its "fashion weekend" in turnhout, which basically means some stores give you 10% off and are open on sunday. i ended up exchanging one of my two red sweaters and getting a green/khaki-ish one in the place of one of the red ones, because who needs two red sweaters?! something i feel like i should write down otherwise i will forget it and its kind of cool to me..for lunch we had like, sandwiches..lettuce, ham, mayo and whatnot..only on turkish bread from the little turkish grocery store by the train station. such a multicultural experience eh! i should definitely mention that we ate lunch OUTSIDE of course. and i hate to tell you south dakotans but we ate dinner OUTSIDE as well, can you believe it!? dinner...and we sat there till like 9pm! but sadly we came inside for dessert, got a little too chilly and windy. yes, of course there was dessert, and yes, of course i baked today. COOKIES! classic american chocolate chip cookies.

two different kinds, in fact! one was supposedly "chewy" and the other was "original" but everyone thought the chewy was less chewy than the original so don't bother with different cookie recipes, cookies are cookies. its funny, here in the grocery store you can find chocolate chip cookies by the chips and other junk food sort of like "chips a hoy" only they're always labeled "american cookies" and one brand is called "new yorkers"..so my family always calls them new yorkers, and eventually i started to call them new yorkers as well but i had to stop saying that otherwise i drove myself crazy calling things different english names while speaking dutch. i dont know why, but its like..something should either be in dutch or in english, and when people are speaking dutch and use american words and phrases it just feels weird to me? who cares actually, the point is i made COOKIES! yay! sooo hard not to eat a ton of them, i can't imagine what life will be like when i'm home. eating all the things i've missed. me and food..just a dangerous combination. curiosity killed the cat eh! here they call me a "snoeper" (yeah?) which sadly there is no english word for...candy eater, snacker, nibbler, sort of like that. you only live once eh! and to close, a quote to live by; especially as an exchange student.

"If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you might better stay home." James Michener

thanks for reading!