Helping society

I've learned a lot since I came on my High School Year. Not all Americans are obese, not every German is arrogant, not everybody from Spain keeps on talking about that stupid World Cup Final and not everybody from Scandinavia is smokinig hot. By bringing different cultures together we can learn from each other and help prejudices out of this world. I truly believe I am contributing by showing the Dutch' biggest prejudice wrong; not everybody born and raised in the Netherlands overthinks every single penny they spend and is really careful with money. Altough I sometimes wish it was true.

Last schoold day of 2010 tomorrow..

This is going way too fast and it scares the crap out of me!

So THAT'S why they say exchange students have attitude...

Cille: 'Hey Maaike, do you want me to pay you back?'
Maaike: 'Of course not, it's freaking 1 buck.. If I was poor I would stay in the Netherlands right?'



Haha love ya, big M

'I'm a little bit lost without you'

Memories

When my friends and family back home tell me that there is snow outside, I laugh at them and tell them that I'm still seeing palm trees. Whenever somebody tells me they're hoping they might have a white christmas, I laugh again and tell them how glad I am to be in a warmer place this winter. I don't like snow, I don't like the cold. Nothing was ever good enough.
But now I'm here I actually miss it. Not the snow, just the whole thing around christmas and stuff.. It's bigger here, but different. This valley already has some christmas decoration up and I enjoy it so much, especially when it's a plastic snowman stanting right next to some palm trees, but as I said, different. Watching pictures of my hometown in winter makes me think about sitting inside, listening to sinterklaas music, drinking hot chocolate and watching everything outide turn white because of the snow.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not homesick and I'm pretty sure this christmas will be the best I've ever had, but I just wanted those other stupid teenager friends back home to realize ; it's really not that bad :) Enjoy and I'll party along next year.

For now; I CAN'T WAIT FOR CHRISTMAS!

And these days
I wish I was 6 again
Oh make me a red cape
I wanna be Superman

John Mayer - 83

Foreigners...

Student to foreign exchange student in Creative Writing;

Hey, what's your overall grade?


Foreigner(anonymous):

An F.. stands for Foreigner, that's why.

Maybe one day when I travel back..

keep on dreaming.. :)

Thanksgiving!

Halloween, christmas, eastern - holidays that are much, much bigger here in America than they are back home. However, there are a few holidays that we don't even HAVE. Americans like to celibrate, I guess. Thanksgiving is one of those holidays. I've heard the word 'thanksgiving' in several American movies, but what the heck is thanksgiving really? I had no idea. So I went around and asked people in the school. The only answer I could get out of my peers was 'you eat until you drop on the floor and can't move anymore'. I realized there was probably more to it than that and asked my Geoscience teacher, Mr. Clifford. Luckily he was able to explain me that it was related to the native Americans way way back in the history of this country, that helped the immigrants through the winter by giving them food and stuff. Short summary. At the end he did add that all indeed kind of revolved around one thing; food.


And oh, I noticed! On wednesday evening, some family came over and we already had dinner with a lot of food. However, thanksgiving was on Thursday, and oh lord there was so much! Turkey and ham - the tradition for Thanksgiving, but also mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, something with vegetables and cheese (which was really good), eggs, jello, jello with fruit, stuffing or something like that to eat with the ham, and more.. it was crazy. For desert there was Pumpkin pie , which is traditional too, and homemade Dutch apple pie, haha. I have never been so glad I am a vegetarian, because I don't even want to know how much I would have eaten if I could have had everything. I did get a whole lot of other stuff to eat, though, so I kind of have to much myself this week.


The Friday and Saturday after thanksgiving were basically the same - a lot of people and even more food. On Friday, Caro and I went to St George (Utah) with Sarah, Jackie and Richard, for Black Friday. Black Friday is every friday after Thanksgiving, when the stores get crazy sales and everybody goes out to a Walmart or whatever store at 12 a.m., to get things for the lowest price possible. We didn't go at 12 a.m. (thank God), but we did spend several hours shopping. It was awesome!
Even on Sunday evening, after church, half the family came over again to eat the famous 'Chicken rolls'.

I had an amazing weekend - it was kind of busy but very nice to have so many people around, and it was a great new experience!

Counting off the days 'till christmas now..!

A penny for my thoughts?
If you really want to know what's going on in my mind
We might have to compromise
And we'll both have to realise
You won't receive if you don't give
Those who never die have never lived
It takes so much to build a town
And just one spark to burn it down

So keep your stupid penny
I want a piece of you
'Cause you will never win my trust
If you don't trust me, too

Hoop is gearriveerd!

If you don't understand Ducth; be glad you don't understand the title. I tend to get a little dramatic sometimes.

Anywayyyy, I got home from school and found a special package! I knew it was going to come and had been waiting for it for a long time, so I'm so excited!
In the package was my wintercoat - something I dindn't really expect I was going to need, but I do because I am freezing my but off -, the BNN calander (trouw lid! haha), a little note AND something that I had been missing so so so much.. Sinterklaas candy!

I got loads and loads of pepernoten, kruidnoten, taitai, speculaas and chocoladekruidnoten. I'm in Dutch heaven. I'm going to be a good kid though and not eat it all today, because first of all I want to save it for December 4th (when Maaike, Caroline and I aka Kamp Holland in the valley are going to have a little party), and for December 5th, so I can show my host family how we do it in der Niederlanden, and second of all because it would be kind of sad to go home 20 pounds larger and having people blame the United States while really it was Dutch food that made me gain.. Haha just kidding.
Anyway, that was it for today fellas. Just wanted to share that with you.

THANKS MOM & DAD!

If I could find you now things would get better
We could leave this town and run forever
I know somewhere, somehow we'll be together
Let your waves crash down on me and take me away, yeah

Oceans away

Figure since I'm so far gone, oceans away, I can lay my sabre down today. I miss the words I love the words, you did not say. I miss the kiss you never, never gave away.
There goes the sun, oceans away
The Fray - Oceans away

Pirate football state champions?

Nearly every high school in the United States has an American football team; something we don't know in Europe. For those who have no idea what it is, it's like rugby.. but totally different. I'm not even going to try to explain it, because I hardly understand it myself, but yeah, it's very popular here.

Our varsity football team happens to be.. pretty good I guess? I wouldn't know, but they have been winning almost every game and will play for state championship tomorrow!
Every day there is a football game, there is an 'extreme blue and gold day' in our school. That means that you're supposed to dress in blue and gold (the school colors) and just go totally crazy. Today was crazier than crazy, it was so much fun!

There was an extreme blue and gold day like always, there were posters and banners hanging around the school and the player's lockers were decorated. The football players were wearing their jerseys, the cheerleaders were wearing their jackets and so were the dancers. The classes were shorter and at the end of the day there was the pep assembly.. which was awesome!
As soon as the bell rang, the percussion people in band started marching down the halls, playing the drums, with the cheerleaders walking behind them. They led the crowd in the gym, where the rest of the band was sitting. As soon as everybody found a seat, the band started playing, the cheerleaders danced and did all kind of stuff. There was a speach, some games, a performance by dance, some more things by cheer and a whole lot of school spirit. I love America!

The game is tomorrow at Aborview High School in Las Vegas. We're playing some school from California. Don't ask me why they are playing for Nevada state championship, I don't understand it either.. But it has a reason. I hope to be able to go up there and watch. It would be so awesome if the team wins!

GO PIRATES!

Discover

Would you take my side
And feel alright
People live to learn things
And I learned to live

Discover why it rains on me
Discover why it has to be
Making some noise
To get a better choice
The only thing is a little thing
Discover why it rains on me

Di-rect - Discover

Hup Holland Hup

Today is November 17th. 'Tell me something new', you might be thinking, but it means something. I left Amsterdam on July 17th, which means that it exactly 4 months ago! 4 times 3 equals 12, and since I'm going for 11 months, it means that I'm already over a third of my American experience, which kind of scares me. Anyway, enough math for today, because that's not really what I was writing this blog for in the first place.

What I was trying to say, is that I've been here for such a long time, but never even cooked something Dutch before. Caro has made thousands of German things (she's good!), but I always complained about how every typical Dutch recipe included meat.. And I happen to be a vegetarian. Or I would say that I didn't have time, because I had homework to do or soccer practice. I don't know why I tried to keep myself away from it all the time because I used to cook a lot back home, but I got back!

I made a Dutch apple pie today! About a month ago, my parents sent me a Dutch cooking book, which kind of forced me to cook something. However, I didn't trust the recipe because it was not what I used to use in the apple pies I always made back home, so I was kind of lazy with it. Today I decided that it was about time and I started. It took me a while, because I had to convert the grams to cups, fahrenheit to celcius, all-purpose flour to self-rising flour and stuff like that, but I did it!
I put it in the oven at around 4, went to mutual (church activity), and when I came back, it was done. It smelled good haha. So we cut it up, and everybody seemed to like it.. so I guess I'll be doing that more often!

Pirates!

Our amazing soccer team. I will miss you girls!

Powderpuff football, homecoming 2010

Hmm.. well.. yeah.

'Because I'm bigger than my body gives me credit for'

Maybe I'll tangle in the power lines
And it might be over in a second's time
But I'll gladly go down in a flame
If the flame's what it takes to remember my name

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Jongens, heb je 't al vernomen..

.. sinterklaas is niet aangekomen!

The whole 'Sinterklaas' thing back home, I never really thought it was that special. I wanted christmas, like everybody else in the world. Instead, we would sing for some saint, looking very much like santa, but different. Getting help from black slaves instead of deer. And instead of getting treats in our socks hanging by the chimney, we would get it in our shoes STANDING by the chimney. It just didn't make any sense to me.

But now I'm here, and Sinterklaas just "arrived" in the Netherlands. The annoying songs we sang each year (if we didn't, we wouldn't get our candy and gifts) are stuck in my head now and there is nothing that I want more than chocoladekruidnoten right now. It's sad. Haha, no, I'm just feeling sorry for myself. I can't wait for christmas, I finally get to celebrate it like you're supposed to, but just saying, Dutch people; enjoy those stupid songs, jumping little children, and all the kruidnoten and pepernoten and tai tai that you can possibly handle.. because Sinterklaas is pretty cool. Just saying.

Long Live America

I have learned a lot of new things about both America and Europe since I got here. I have found some things about Europe I really like better than here - things that I never really enjoyed back home because I never really noticed I had them - but also a lot of things about America that we are definitely missing in Europe.
One of those things is how American people will always find a reason to take one or more days off from work or school. Take this month, November; we only have one full week of school this month. We had a few days off last week, I don't remember why but who really cares anyway, tomorrow and friday is Veterans day, so two more days off, and then at the end of the month, there's thanksgiving. I know both of these holidays are really important and go deep in the history of the country, but is definitely not something you'd find back home. We get off for fall, chirstmas, eastern and summer. That's about how spiritual we are.
Yea, I'm enjoying this. God bless America!

By Pete Doherty

Every morning
I'll be singing
Like a caged bird who might say
John, Paul, George and Ringo
Help me pass the hours away

De ramen van de huizen zijn net ogen..

..Die me volgen als ik slenter door de stad.
T'is net of ze zeggen, geen geintjes de rat, maar ik bluf gewoon terug ;HE, had je wat?!

Amsterdam
Niets mooiers dan de blauwbrug met zijn bogen,
Die in de lente zo opdoemt uit de mist.
Waar ik in de Amstel op snoek heb gevist,
en 's winters me naam in de sneeuw heb gepist.


Amsterdam, hee pak me dan
Amsterdam, ja als je kan.
Van kleins af aan ken ik ieder straatje, elk hoekie en gaatje van mijn Jordaan
Amsterdam! Ik moet nu gaan, m'n Amsterdam

Time flies when you're having fun

It's almost been 4 months since I left the Netherlands - it's crazy! The first quarter in school is already over, and this afternoon might be the last soccer game we're playing at all (unless we win, we will play another game.. and if we win that, we will go to state.. but let's not look too far ahead.). Our last soccer practice was yesterday which means that next week will be when I start trying out for basketball. Basketball means winter.. It's almost christmas! And then after christmas there's new years eve, and then it's 2011. It feels like I'm almost going home. I know I'm not even halfway, but in a month and half I will be, and even though I have seen and done so much stuff so far (Las Vegas, Utah, San Francisco, Disneyland, LA), I know I'm so not ready here!
I miss my family and friends like crazy sometimes, but sorry, I don't want to go home yet. At all. It's not always easy, but I think I can already say this will be the best year of my life. I just hope that things will slow down from now on, because if it will continue going like this, it feels like I'm going to be home tomorrow!

'Teach me wrong from right, I'll show you what I can be'

Nickelback - Savin' me

I miss the treasure I used to have in my own room

Dream of Californication

That was an amazing weekend! I don't think I have ever seen so much in three days!


It started on thursday evening. Caro and I went over to the Evans, where we spent the night, because we would have to leave very early the day after. We woke up at 3.15 in the morning and got in the car at 4.15, as we started our 5 hour long ride to Anaheim, CA. The ride was actually not too bad, it was warm in the car, we had some nice music playing, made a stop to get a starbucks and slept sometimes. Then, at I don't know what time, we arrived in Anaheim!
We went to the MacDonalds to eat some breakfast and went straight to the park. It was my first time in Disneyland, I hadn't even been in Disneyland in Paris, so it was very new to me. All the disney characters were walking around, little kids were all over the place and it just seemed like I was in one big fantasyland!

We rode some rollercoasters and other rides, and also went over to California adventure, which is right next to Disneyland, where we saw a mini-musical (Aladin) and had some more rides. After that, we walked back to the hotel, where we ate pizza, watched a movie and went to sleep.
The day after, we woke up early, because the park opened at 7 in the morning. When we got in the park, there were hardly any lines so we got on the rides very fast. After some rides the Evans went over to California Adventure again, but Caro, Blake and I decided to stay in Disneyland for a bit. We drank coffee and ate breakfast at a very cute place somewhere in Disneyland, and stayed for a little while afterwards. Then, we also went to California adventure, where we hung out for a bit. After that, we decided to leave the park and went to a mall close to the two parks. We walked around a bit, had lunch, went to the hotel to grab some stuff and hung out again. At night, Caro and I went back to disneyland to hang out with Richard, Jackie, Sarah, Robert and Austin. The parade and the fireworks were about to start, so it was crazy busy, but a lot of fun! After seeing some Michael Jackson movie thing in 3D, we headed back to the hotel again.. preparing for the day we had been looking for the most;


LOS ANGELES! We woke up at around 9, which actually felt like we were sleeping in big time (and it felt goooood). We got dressed and ready to go, ate breakfast at MacDonalds again and got in the car. One car went back home, but Kevin took Blake, Tylee, Caro and me to LA! The drive to LA took around an hour. You should have been there when we saw the Hollywood sign, I'm telling you, we went crazy. We got out right next to Hollywood boulevard, walked over the walk of fame, had lunch and got in a van for a tour. We were driven around Hollywood and Beverly Hills, where they showed us big things and celebrity houses. We saw Orlando Bloom's place, some other people's houses and we even drove by the house where Michael Jackson died. Hollywood and Beverly Hills are so pretty, if you're ever looking for a new place.. and you happen to have a lot of money.. you now know where to go!
We got off the tour and went to Madame Tussauds, which was amazing as well. For some reason I had never been in the one in Amsterdam, so it was all new to me and we took a lot of pictures.
When we got out of Madame Tussauds, we got in the car and drove to West Hollywood,
where we saw the famous Tattoo store we know from LA ink! It was so cool to see that place! Unfortunately it barely closed early because of Halloween (we were like 10 minutes late.. our luck, but we could look inside and it was amazing to see. I even got to see some people I recocnized from the show (not Kat von D, but still..) so that was great!
We then got back in the car and drove to Santa Monica pier, which was so beautiful! We ate dinner on the pier, bought funnel cake (which is something American again.. weird stuff but very good) and got in the car to drive back home.

I had such an amazing time! As I said, I have seen so much in such a short amount of time.. I want to say thanks for the Evans for taking us, especially Kevin for driving us all around LA - you guys are amazing!

This year is just getting better and better..

'It's understood that Hollywood sells Californication'

California, here we come

One more day of school and our 5-day-long-weekend for Halloween is coming up. Yeah, American people actually get off for Halloween. However, you will probably not find me trick or treating in Logandale on the 31st of October.'Cause I will be in HOLLYWOOD baby!

The Evans are taking Caro and me to California for three days. We will spend friday and saturday in DISNEYLAND and on sunday, which happens to be October 31st, we will be cruisin' motherfreakin LOS ANGELES! Hollywood, the walk of fame, Beverly Hills, whereever we will end up. Oh I'm ready bebe! So excited!

Another dream come true..

CALIFORNIA HERE WE COME AGAIN!

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
-Maya Angelou

HOMECOMING 2010

And there we are, sunday, October 24th, the very end of an amazing homecoming week!
Friday was the game. When the varsity football team is playing, you can always expect something big out there, I mean hello, it's America, but during homecoming, I was told that everything was even bigger! So I was really excited to see the game.
When I came home after school, Blake called me to tell me we were going to Las Vegas to buy me a dress. Nope, I didn't have one yet, the last day before the dance. So I got in the car with her and her mom and we drove to Vegas. I bought a dress, shoes, and something like a jacket to go with it (don't know the word for it), and a purse. After months of worrying about what to wear to the dance and stuff, I was done in an hour. Thanks for helping out Blake! After that, we went to Starbucks and had coffee and ate dinner. When we drove back to the game, we were kind of late, which made us miss encore choir's performance. Sorry guys.
It was amazing. The place was decorated, the football players were wearing their homecoming jerseys, cheer was cheering, dance was dancing, like always, just like a movie. I had so much fun! After that I went home, I hung out with Caro, Blake and Tina and went to bed.


The day after was the day of the dance. I was so extremely nervous and I still don't know why!
At around noon, my date Nathan picked me up to go shooting. With some other people, we went out in the desert and I shot some amazing guns. It was the second time in my life I ever went shooting but I love it! My right shoulder still hurts, but it was worth it. After that we went to the MacDonalds and to Cameron's place, where we watched part of a movie. After that it was time for me to go back home and get ready for the dance. I waited for Blake to come home from her date and went over to her house, where she did my hair and make-up. I put on my dress and ran back home, where my date was already waiting for me.. Awkward. So I went inside, Linda took some
pictures and I got in the car to the dance.
The dance was amazing. The girls were wearing a dress and the boys were wearing a shirt and church pants and everything that would be considered formal. There was punch like in the movies, there was slow dancing like in the movies and you could get your pictures taken. I had a blast. The dance was from 7 to 10 which was kind of.. new haha, and it went by way too fast, but I had the best time.
After the dance I watched a movie with Nathan and went back home. I had a great day!

Homecoming week was awesome!

I'm still waiting for some pictures, so as soon as I have the good ones I will post them here!

xxxx

For Lisa

Ik mis je.

Imagine

'Nothing ever came of any dreamer who didn't live it out' - Alain Clark

Homecoming - monday to thursday

I seem to start to get the hang of blogging - waiting for months doesn't do you any good. And you know what, I actually enjoy writing a lot.. So here I go. Keep checking my blog out, because from now on I will actually use it!

I'm still in the middle of homecoming week, and it's just amazing. Every school day we have a dress-up day. Monday was Science fiction day, tuesday was ESPN day, wednesday was Disney day, today (thursday) was black&white and tomorrow will be extreme blue and gold. Most of you that know me good enough know that I'm not the kind of person to dress up to school, so as boring as I am, I didn't. However, Homecoming has a whole lot more to offer!
Every day there is an after-school activity. On monday there was signpainting. I
didn't go, because I had powderpuff practice. On tuesday, there was the powderpuff game! Powderpuff football is American football for girls. We all had to ask a football player for his jersey and play.. hard haha. It was amazing. The freshmen and seniors played the sophomores and juniors, which was my team. We lost by 12-8 or something, but I had a lot of fun. And I didn't really care anyway, because that day my soccer team had beat Adelson High by 9-1, a game in which I finally made 2 goals! So I had an amazing day after all. Thanks Nathan for your jersey!
Wednesday there was the movie on the field. At least, it was supposed to be on the field. We never get rain here, except for on moments when we really don't want it (although people here are happy with rain at any time it seems), so yeah, it was raining. No movie on the field! It was in the cafeteria instead. The movie was.. Peter Pan.. so kind of boring, but I had a good evening anyway!

And today something that homecoming is best known for back home; the parade! Every grade had made its own float, the cheerleaders and football players had their own firetruck, and some other groups also had a float. The pep band was playing and the dancers were dancing and it was amazing, just like in the movies. After that there was the assembly in the gym, where they announced the Homecoming king and queen, thanked the senior athletes and had some peps by cheer and dance. Once again, amazing! After that there was the bonfire, where they ''burned the eagles''. The eagles are the mascottes of Moapa Valley High School's main rivals; Boulder city, and since the football team is playing Boulder tomorrow, we burned their mascotte?
Evil...


So as I already said, tomorrow there will be the big homecoming football game and saturday the dance! I am so excited!
I will tell you everything in the weekend :) For now I am going to do my homework and be very proud of myself for finally using my blog.

Lots of love

Cille

'To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries. ' ~Aldous Huxley

Sweet 16 & San Francisco!

Two really important things I have to tell about, and you know what.. I was planning on being lazy again and to wait for another month or so, but then I realized that this week is homecoming week, which definitely deserves its own post at the end of the week.. So let's just get it over with because I need to start doing my homework!

Monday October 4th, 2010.. A great day in history. My 16th birthday!
When I told my friends back home that I was going to go to the USA in this year, the first thing they said that I was totally ruining my most important birthday of my life. In Europe 16 means party, in America it means.. drivers licence? Yeah that's something, but that doesn't even apply for foreign exchange students. So I gotta admit, I wasn't as excited as I should have been, but once it started coming up I got the feeling back again. And I had an AWESOME day! It started of with loads of rain - which was probably the first time I've really seen a lot of rain out here - , making the waters in the valley flood, which looked awesome and was really exciting sitting on the schoolbus to Las Vegas to play a soccer game. I was riding the bus in the front and talking to Maaike, when suddenly my whole soccer team started singing happy birthday! Arrived in Vegas, we totally beat Adelson, by 7-2. It was an amazing game.. When I got back home late in the evening, I celebrated my birthday with my host family and Jackie and Richard's family. I got great gifts and had an amazing evening. And then there was a bunch of letters and packages from back home.. I felt overloaded. I was so happy with everything! This was the best sweet 16 after all! Thanks everybody!

However.. the real party hadn't started yet. That was all up to SAN FRANCISCO!
On October 7th we left from Las Vegas. An amazing view, seeing Las Vegas by night out of a plane, I can tell you that! We arrived in San Francisco and went to our hotel. I shared a room with Tina (Norway), Caro (Germany) and Sarah (Switzerland). It was amazing! We had a lot of fun. In the 3 days we spent there, I saw so much! We did a lot of bus tours which gave us the opportunity to see the whole city without having to walk for hours and hours which I really appreciated with my lazy but.. I saw the golden gate bridge which was as amazing as in the pictures, we even drove over the golden gate bridge! We went to Alcatraz, which used to be a prison on an island, just in the bay of San Francisco. All the psychos went there, because there was no way of getting out, even though you could see the city easily from out there. That was fun too :) I did a lot of shopping.. Maybe a bit too much.. but everything's cheaper here! If you ever want to go shopping and you can't go to Vegas; go to San Francisco! We had dinner in China town (yeah! Chinese! haha) and a lot of Starbucks.. I had the best weekend ever. Thank you weather for being so perfect and not cover the whole city in fog, I truly loved it! We could actually see the bridge. Thanks everybody for making this such a good trip!

Lovely how blogger is helping my out uplouding my pictures right now.. I tried three times and I give up now. Pics are on my facebook! Check that out! Maybe I'll try to post them later :)

Prepare, because NEXT WEEKEND there will be a post about HOMECOMING! I'm right in the middle of it all right now, but I'm not telling anything! Ha!

See ya laterrrrr

I'm still alive!

So it's almost been a month since my last post.. I remembered saying someting about telling you something about my first day of American high school? Will the first few weeks work as well?

I'm really sorry, but I've had so much stuff to do the last weeks I din't even think about blogging. But no worries, I didn't quite understand the lockers at first but I didn't lock myself up, and the Pirates walking around school are all very nice and friendly.. It's been going AWESOME!
When I walked in school I was shaking and so afraid that I would get lost or something, but everything went well. American High school is so much better than school in the Netherlands! We get grades for doing our homework, the stuff they make us learn is not too hard and the teachers are great. After a few days I changed my Art 1 class into Drawing, because it's a more advanced class and people told me that there would be at least a few people in there who actually LIKED it and not just took the class because they wouldn't get homework, which works better for me. I also changed my ALGEBRA class into SPANISH. Yep, I'm serious! No math for me this year! No doubt this will be the best year of my life, hah!
All my other classes are amazing. I'm having a great time in choir and orchestra. Geoscience is amazing, Spanis is amazing, creative writing is awesome (except they're making us read a book now.. but I'll have to get over it to prepare for the IB program I will be following for the next 3 years anyway) and US history is so much fun too.. I honestly can't believe how American teenagers are constantly complaining about their life in High school.

Soccer is going good! Well, practice is. I kind of made the varsity team which is great, but we're not doing too good on our games. However, we are really improving and I'm having a blast. I mean come on, leaving school early to drive up to Las Vegas in a yellow school bus to play a soccer game? I freaking don't even care about the score anymore!

A while ago I went camping in Utah with Richard, Jackie, Robert, Austin, Sarah and Caro. We drove to St George on this amazing road which was blown out of a mountain many many years ago, it was so pretty! We got up to the mountain in Utah and there were trees! Was very nice to see because we don't have many of them here in Nevada!
We slept in tents for two night and it was freeeeezing, but I had a blast. We went hiking, were only a few inches away from Zion's national park so it was beautiful over there.. We had a campfire, ate smores (=American calorie bombs but really good!) and did a lot of other stuff. My favorite retarde chihuahua Taco was with us to so I had a blast!

Then there was the EF orientation meeting just a few days ago! We got to miss 2 days of school and drove up to Mount Charleston, a high mountain just half an hour outside of Vegas. It's crazy how the landscape changes so fast here, because I swear, when you're in Vegas you have the feeling you're right in the middle of the desert, but Mount Charleston was cold and densely vegetated! Is that a word?
We came together with all the exchange students in southern Nevada and had orientation meetings, a campfire, a dance and a lot of free time. I met a lot of people, got to see some people from Language&culture camp again and had a great time. Can't wait for the next EF meeting!

Thennnn I've got some great news for you guys! Well.. actually for me. I WILL BE CELEBRATING MY 16TH BIRTHDAY IN SAN FRANCISCO! CALIFORNIAAAA! Well, I'm not really celebrating it there but I'm going only 3 days after my birthday.. I'm so excited!

And homecoming is coming up.. I'm getting nervous but really excited! A new real American experience!

Life is great.

I know that I haven't had a lot of contact with many family and friends back home.. I still love you though! I promise it will get better.. I'm working on it!
Gotta go back to homework now. Don't think I'm on a vacation here! I'm actually learning a lot :)


I'll keep you updated! My next post is probably about how christmas was.. But we'll see!

Bloggertimeee

Since this might be one of the last days of my life, I found that it was time to blog again. School is starting in 3 days and I am getting so nervous that I don't know if I am going to survive haha. What will happen? Will I lock myself up in my locker or will some creepy Pirate eat me? Choke myself in choir class or get some serious brain damage in algebra? Just kidding, I will be alright. Not saying that I'm not enjoying these last three days without any worries.

The last weeks have been all about soccer. Soccer soccer soccer. It's clear to see that the Americans are more fanatic than anybody else. I'm lucky to be going to a school that accepts all the girls trying out for the soccer team, but it's not like they wil be easy on us because or level is not that high. Soccer lasts until around November and it feels like they want to get us on the National team before that - but how hard it may be sometimes, outside in the desert with temperatures reaching up to 45 degrees celsius every single day - I am loving it!
The team is amazing, the coaches are really nice and it just feels good to be working out again and doing something useful during my day. Today we had our first game, but the exchange students didn't get to play yet, long story, not important. I did go there to watch and the team didn't do too good (we were playing the varsity team of Virging Valley.. one day we will beat them though) but still it was fun to see!
Tonight there's another game in Mesquite but I'm not going. I'm not allowed to play anyway (I probably won't be until the game on tuesday).. and it's this or WATCHING MY FIRST AMERICAN FOOTBALL GAME EVER! I am so excited! Our football team is playing home against some school from somewhere in Utah.. I don't care who they are, I don't even understand the whole American football thing, but I will find out tonight! Can't wait!

Just one more thing that you guys need to know about; a few days ago I spent my first official day in Vegas! Wow! Linda drove Caro, Maren, Max and me up to the Fashion Show Mall, a mall on the strip. It was huge. IT WAS PERFECT! Seriously, if you ever want to go shopping, Vegas is not only good for visiting Casinos and creating hangovers, believe me. I bought some stuff and was out of money pretty fast (surprising). We were planning on walking on the Strip before Linda would pick us up, but the mall was somewhat bigger than we expected it to be, so when I was just about to buy a bikini we had to leave. We asked Linda if we could go and get some dinner somewhere (we hadn't had time for that either) and instead of some road restaurant we were thinking about, she asked if we would like to go to the Hard rock cafe on the strip.. well... YEAH! It was so amazing, the music was so loud and amazing, the staff was so funny and they had the most amazing guitars and costumes in their restaurant.. Believe me, the Hard rock cafe in Amsterdam is nothing!

After that we saw some more of the strip from out of the car.. Oh we saw the big watershow! So amazing.. Had the time of my life!

I gotta go get ready for a party now, there's an EF party tomorrow and they want us to make some traditional food from our home country. I had no idea what to make because Dutch food is disgusting, so I decided to make 'Appelflappen'. I'm not going to try to translate this.. it's something with apple haha. I'm excited for the party, just not for making those things.. I'll probably mess up but I'll try!

I really need to start doing something now.. next post will be about school!

Help
me

help!

Haha, love,
Cille

Vegas baby!

So much went by since my last blog - we're already a week ahead. Sorry for that haha. No more saying that I will update my blog more often because I keep saying that and never do it.

Another week in Nevada.. wow, it's going so fast! I'm still enjoying myself. First of all, I went to soccer practice for the first time. It was indoor soccer, because in the daytime it is simply too hot to play here. I was really nervous to mess up but the team wasn't pro either, so I had much fun and now I'm sure I want to play soccer for my sport here. Tomorrow (saturday) is the next practice. Outside this time. At 7 o'clock in the morning. Wish me luck!

I also spent many time hanging out with other exchange students. I am so happy to be here! It's like the perfect location - the middle of nowhere but very close to Las Vegas, and also really close to Arizona, Utah and California.. and most important; the huge amount of exchange students around here. Some people are with two or three other people in the whole state but there are already over 100 people here in southern Nevada, which is really nice, especially now because school hasn't started yet.

Talking about school, yesterday I went to my school for the very first time, to register. American High school is amazing! There is no way that you walk around the hallways and forget where you are. The whole school is covered with pirates and other school spirit stuff. Everything is painted in the school colors and pictures of sport teams and so on are spread over the walls. I'm so excited to start school! I'm so happy with the classes I picked - no boring stuff for me anymore. I picked US History, Geoscience, Creative writing, Orchestra, Choir, Digital photography and Art of course. Oh, and algebra.. but I'm going to try to take Spanish instead. I don't enjoy math. At all. Anyway, those other 7 classes are all classes I really wanted to take! So excited!

And, last but not least.. Yesterday I saw the strip in Vegas! We drove up to Vegas to pick up my new host sister, Caro from Germany. Before we got to the airport we had dinner, then we went to the airport and after that my host parents took us down the strip.. I have no words to describe how big everything was. All the lights, the high buildings. It was even more amazing than I thought it would be. We stopped at the Vegas sign but all the other pictures were taken from the car, because we couldn't stop, but I saw so much! The statue of liberty, the eiffel tower, Ceasar's palace.. Can't wait to go up there again!

Well that was it for now guys, I'll keep you updat.. oh, wait. I wouldn't say that anymore. Anywayyyyy... see you later!

Cille

Sweet home Nevada!

I could say that Language and Culture camp at Bryant University were 2 of the best weeks of my life - without a doubt. I had never expected for people to get so close to each other in just 2 weeks, but they did. That's why I will not say too much about the last evening when we had to say goodbye, it was hard, very hard! However, when I got on the airplane and we were flying to Las Vegas, I was smiling again. My High School Year was finally starting! And..
HERE I AM NEVADA!

Last saturday, which is already a week ago, I arrived in Las Vegas at 10.15 in the morning. I'm glad I wasn't alone (2 Dutch girls I met at camp were flying with me), otherwise I would have missed my flight for sure. When I arrived in the arrival hall, I immediately saw my arrival family. I don't think I have ever been that nervous before.. but they were so nice!
When we got out of the airport, after waiting for some other students to arrive, we had lunch together and we went home. I'm sure I would have loved the ride back to the valley if I wouldn't have fallen asleep.. I did get to see a bit though, and this place is so beautiful! Very, very hot, but beautiful. Yes, I know what you're thinking, so I am sorry to tell you that they DO have trees here.. Just not outside of the valley, haha.

So much has happened last week, I think that if I would try to describe every day, I wouldn't be finished by tomorrow. I have been to church for the first time in my life, which was a whole new experience, but I liked it! Too bad Sarah (from Switzerland) and I got lost after our 'Sunday school' and missed.. whatever we would have been doing in the last hour of church.. but I actually enjoyed the first 2 hours and think that I will learn much in church, not only about their religion.
Also, I have made a ride with on the motor of Richard, who was my host father in my arrival family. It was so cool! We got to see the sunset, it was beautiful. With my arrival family, I've had much fun. We had dinner over at my host parent's friends, my host mother's mother, watched movies, played guitar hero and had much fun at home. However, on wednesday morning, I got to go to my real host family!
My new host parents are the parents of my first host mother, so I'm still in their family. Their names are Ron and Linda. Linda works for EF and so knows a lot about pretty much everything. They have one dog and two cats. This week, Augusto had lived here, which was one of their exchange students 2 years ago. He will leave on monday, but the thursday after that my host sister from Germany will arrive! I am very excited to meet her.
I've had much fun with my host family here so far! We went to Mesquite where we went bowling and had dinner and where I went to the Wallmart for the first time in my life! Today, my host mother and I went to Las Vegas airport to welcome some new students here, and tomorrow we will go to church and have dinner with the whole family, including my arrival family, who will come back from California tomorrow! Can't wait to hear their stories.

School will start on August 30th, but before that we will have to pick our classes and sports have already started. I am going to try out for the soccer team - I wanted to do either volleyball or soccer, but the volleyball team here appears to be really good and I am.. how do you say that.. extremely bad, and since I want to do a team sport for sure, soccer is the only thing I could do. I might try out for basketball in the winter.. Depends on their level, I don't want to make myself look stupid!

I don't have my pictures on this computer, but if you want to see pictures you can see them on my facebook page! I will post some pictures soon :)

I am having so much fun here, I've met some people already and I simply can't wait to go to school! I will post again soon, let's keep this thing updated!

Love,
Cille

Out where the sun always shines,
Here is the land which I love the best,
Fairer than all I can see.
Deep in the heart of the golden west
Home means Nevada to me.
-Nevada State Song-

Midnight post

I'm so glad I was being pessimistic about our homeroom's volleyball skills, because we were even worse than I had expected us to be. When I arrived at the big gym, where the tournament was being held, I was a bit late so my homeroom teacher Stan had already made the team. I was one of the substitutes, waiting for our team to get the serve and rotate, but we lost even before I got to play. Too bad, no playing volleyball for me. It was a nice evening though. I can't remember which class won eventually, but after that the returnees played against the teachers. They were probably even more fanatic than the Netherlands was at the world cup final. It helped, because they DID win, but it was funny to see. After the tournament I hung out with some people, but we didn't have much time before it was curfew time again. Talking about curfew. In case you don't know what curfew is - here it's basically the time from which you have to be in your rooms. However - we're still teens - we don't go to our rooms automatically, so every evening around a quarter to eleven, the returnees and teachers walk around campus, yelling 'curfew time!' to everybody who is not in their room yet. When the New-Zealand kids arrived, some guys found this really funny and started imitating the returnees. Whenever one passed them, they started yelling 'alright you guys, it's curfew time! Go to your beds now!'. I must say, it was really funny. It was funny, until everybody found out it was funny and started doing the same thing. Now you know the thing about jokes, after repeating them a few times they're not that funny anymore. People however still don't really seem to realize and won't stop yelling CURFEW around any time a day. It drives the returnees crazy. I feel bad for them, I honestly do.

Today, we started off with class again. I decided that I would skip breakfast so I could sleep longer. It wasn't a wise thing to do, because I ended up being over 10 minutes late for homeroom. I was just on time for our test though, so I got to take it. I did better than 2 weeks ago. I guess that's what it was supposed to be, but still, I'm proud. After class I did some stuff, had dinner and then had my first Skype conversation with my host family! Even though I will meet them in less than two days now, it was really nice to talk to them. I was really nervous, but it was a nice conversation. After that I went to the talent show. People were performing their talents (oh wait, isn't that what a talent show is all about?) ; playing a musical instrument, singing, diaboloing (this is no word, I hope you know what I mean), it was a lot of fun. At the very end, the returnees performed. It was so funny, everybody had so much fun! The boys were dressed like girls and the other way around, and they danced to a mixture of different songs.. These people are crazy. I hope I can be a returnee one day. But let's first focus on my year here!

This will probably be the last post I post from camp. Tomorrow will be my last day here. I don't know my exact flight information yet, but I know that I will arrive in Las Vegas at 10.15 in the morning, so I will have to leave campus somewhere around 2 in the morning or something. Everybody will leave around the same time is what I heard, so there will be no curfew. Tomorrow there will be a yearbook presentation (read; 2-weeks-book presentation) and I believe there will be something like a dance. Looking forward to it, but not looking forward to saying goodbye. It might sound strange, but I've made some pretty good friends here and I know that I will never see many of them ever again, because they're not all from the Netherlands or going to the same state.. But, what my Brazilian friend Luiz taught me yesterday; you have to look at things from the right angle. I shouldn't think about how I have to keep saying goodbye to people, but how I have to be glad to know them now, and how I will meet new people. And I can't wait to meet new people!

To everybody here at Bryant camp, thank you so much! I had the best 2 weeks ever and I will never forget about these weeks. I hope we will keep in touch. Have the best year ever!

I'm going to sleep now, I'm tired and it's late. I have to get up early tomorrow because Camilla and I are doing our laundry before breakfast. We actually wanted to do it a few days ago already but we were too lazy all the time. I knew this was going to happen. Wish me luck. I really don't know how those things work.. haha.

Nevada, prepare. Here I come!

United Skates & Newport

When I was about 8 years old, I used to have my own pair of inline-skates and I would go out on the street and just skate. I used to be pretty good at it (which in my case means that I could go for 2 meters without falling), so when we arrived at the 'United Skates of America', a place where people can go and have fun when they really can't come up with anything better. You could rollerskate, do wallclimbing or lasertag. I wanted to go wallclimbing and rollerskating, but when I came in I found out that the wall that you could climb was really not much higher than 3 meters, so I decided to just go rollerskating. When Camilla and I were standing in line to get our skates, we were laughing at people trying to rollerskate.. it looked so easy. However, when we got our skates on and tried to get to the floor, all we could do is have respect for the people who were actually able to stay on their feet without falling. I've never had so much fun, I totally sucked at it.
I ended up spending most of my time in the middle of the floor, where you could buy drinks and just watching people. The skates hurt my feet but it was a really nice experience! At the end of the evening we danced with the whole group, which was a lot of fun. When we came back it was almost curfew time, so I stayed outside for some minutes, took a shower and went straight to bed.

The day after, Tuesday the 27th, we went to Newport. We left in the morning. I fell asleep in the bus, and suddenly woke up to an overdose of light. I opened my eyes and looked left and right, and all I saw was the sea. We were crossing a bridge and the view was amazing. When the bus stopped, I immediately left for the beach with some friends of mine. We actually wanted to go kayaking, but we decided to rest at the beach first, and ended up not leaving the beach until we really had to. I didn't swim because I hadn't brought my bikini, but the beach smelled so bad that I didn't really care. It was beautiful though. The Brazilians hated it, because they compared it to their own beach, but so did I, and compared to the beach in the Netherlands, pretty much everything looks good!
After spending too much time in the sun, we had dinner in some Panini place. It was good. I was having a good time until I went to the restroom and saw my face in the mirror. It was totally red. It's not as red as it was yesterday now so I will be ok. It was an amazing day after all. My first (and hopefully not my last day) at the American coast!

At last, I want to wish Keeley a happy birthday! Sweet seventeen! :)

I'm going to have to get back to my last class now, this evening we will have a volleyball tournament with all classes! Hope we will win. Don't think so haha.

Love, Cille

EF Language & Culture camp 2010 week 1

And here it is. The very first message from the States. It's been a week since I got here, but it feels like I've known the people I've met the last couple of days for months. This place is amazing!

Here at Language & Culture camp, I am together with hundreds of other High school students. All with a different destination, but the same goal; having the most amazing year ever and starting that year here at Bryant University in Smithfield, RI. In order for us to leave for our host family with enough confidence, we get a chance to learn more about our host country. That's why we have classes every day. We start off with homeroom, then we have Life in America, then we have U.S. History, after that we have lunch and after lunch we have Current Issues and homeroom again. In total, there are 4 ''schools'', each of them containing 4 classes. I am in class Kennedy West and our homeroom teacher is Stan. He is from Utah. The people in my homeroom are going to Nevada, Utah, Wyoming or Montana. There are actually three other people who will be going to the same school as me! Most of the classes are really interesting. It's crazy that I even have to go to school on Sunday, but I'm sure it will be really useful when I go to my host family. I've gone through all of the rules for so many times it will be hardly possible to make any mistakes.

When we're not having classes, we can choose to do activities. So far, I've been playing American football, volleyball and basketball, but we can also choose to do arts&crafts (I want to try that somewhere this week, but people say it's really boring), drama, swimming, card making, and so on. Besides the activities we can choose to do, there are also many activities that you have to participate in. So far, we have had a karaoke night on Monday, which was a lot of fun. We went to the mall to go shopping, which was nice, we went to a big baseball game (the Pawsox), which was funny, but it took like five hours and we ended up leaving before the game ended, because we had to get back on time, but we did get to see 2 homeruns! On Friday, we went to Boston. It was a-ma-zing! The high buildings, the big cars, the MacDonalds or Starbucks around pretty much every corner, it was clear to see we were in America. We did the skywalk, which was 50 floors high, and after that we just did some shopping and followed the freedom trail. In the last hours it started raining very hard, everybody was soaked and with the air conditioning in the bus it was like a miracle that I didn't get extremely sick, but I had an amazing day. Today I will only have classes, but tomorrow we will go to the 'United Skates of America'. That's going to be fun! haha.

Besides the classes, activities and trips, everything I do is hanging out with friends and sleeping. Of all girls, I have the biggest room. I share my room with 3 other girls, one from Sweden, one from Germany and one from New-Zealand. They are all very nice, I have a lot of fun with them and I'm glad I'm meeting people from so many different countries!

I'm sorry I had to describe one entire week in just a small story, from now on I will try to update this thing a bit more often. I have to leave now, I have to go to my classes.

See you!
Love,
Cille

P.s. I wanted to post some pictures, but I will have to wait hours for them to upload here so you can watch them on facebook and I'll post some on my blog later!

So long, goodbye

It was just this morning when I started packing and I suddenly realized I was actually leaving for a year. Yes, I knew this moment would be coming when I signed up for a High School Year many, many months ago, but when I looked at my suitcase and I realized that all my stuff would never, ever fit in that thing, it was kind of like a shock to me to realize that I am leaving everything behind now. I don’t want to sound dramatic or something, but it’s the truth. I am writing this in my bedroom – but it’s not like my bedroom anymore. Everything is cleared for my little brother to move in. The only things left are the computer, the drum set, my class picture on the wall and some other stuff I have no idea about of where to leave it.

The last few weeks have been amazing. I can’t remember the last time I was bored – I have done so many things in only a few weeks, I can hardly remember what I did. My school trip to Dublin, the trip to Paris with my family and most importantly the surprise party Tamar, Sabina and Anne gave me and so much more.. If I could I’d write so much about it, but it’s almost 1 a.m. now, which means I have to get up in six hours in order to arrive in Amsterdam on time, and there’s no way I’m going to miss this flight!

That is also the reason that this message is very short. It’s just a goodbye message to all of my amazing friends and family here in this small country – thank you all so much for the amazing time here, and when I come back we’ll have it just like now again! I will miss you more than I ever expected to, I will never forget you and we’ll keep in contact! I’ll be back in not more than eleven months and I promise; it will go by so much faster than you think.

And to all of the people spread out all over the world doing a High school year next year, and of course to ALL of the people in the States – HERE I COME! Prepare.. hahaha.

Tomorrow (actually today, but I still have to sleep so I’ll just say tomorrow), I will be leaving Amsterdam and fly to Munich at 1:20 P.M. After that (I don’t know what time, oh how stupid could you be), I’ll fly from Munich to Boston, from where we will be picked up and brought to Bryant University to have the most amazing Language & Culture camp EF has ever known! And after that I’ll be flying to Nevada, but I’ll post a message about that somewhere in the coming two weeks.
Everybody doing a High School Year, I hope you all will have an amazing time, get the best out of it just like I will, and may all your dreams come true! People staying home.. have an amazing year as well! Enjoy all the friends, family, music festivals and concerts and other events I will miss, and in a year I’ll be back and I can come along again haha. Oh and before I forget to mention; in four years we WILL be world champion. But we’ll see in four years, let’s focus on coming year for now.

I will miss all of you!

Take care,
Cille