Exchangeception- One half of an exchange in an exchange

Hi all, 

Wow I'm writing a post a week and a half after the last one, impressive right? Well this last week went so fast and had so many memories that I don't want to miss any of the important details. 

The Italians were on the bus the whole day of Saturday but when we first met them, they were somehow still full of energy. We decided last minute to go out to the center of Deurne to see if we could find something to do with the other Italian/Dutch pairs. But by the time we had very little time left so we decide to go home to sleep. 

We had the club championship for athletics on Sunday which Andrea sadly had to sit through, there was a little bit of a disappointment in the 800m in my opinion but instead I performed very well in the 100m and Shotput (surprising for a cross country runner). This meant that I was second place overall. That night we went out to a pannekoeken restaurant to show Andrea typical Dutch food. After dinner, we went to watch the Juventus v. AC Milan with other exchangers and luckily Juventus won.

Javelin Throwing

Andrea's first 'Pannekoek' 

Monday was a day in both school and the town of Griendtsveen. We went on a hike through the Peel and then we stopped for lunch in the town. It was very nice to talk to many of the Italians and that day was the start of some cool friendships. That night we just hungout in the center of Deurne and talked.

The big day of the week was Tuesday which was when we went to Amsterdam. The worst part was waking up early in the morning to get on the bus for two hours, but at least I slept most of the way there. Unfortunately we didn't get to take a group picture at the IAMsterdam sign because we were to late and had to go to the Van Gogh museum. Maybe because we were all tired, or maybe because we are teenagers, we became bored very quickly in both the Van Gogh museum and the Anne Frank house. The rest of the day was spent touring Amsterdam and showing the Italians as much as we could including the Dam, the Red Light District and Kalverstraat, while walking into every shoe store we could find. Then the bus ride back and nice sleep rounded out the day of fun.

The Dam in Amsterdam with Sergio

Wednesday was a short day at school of making cards for the families followed by making a funny video with our small group. It took many takes, but the bloopers turned out just as good, if not better than the video itself. We then went home and Andrea made Spaghetti for us which was very good! Then we rested until we went to The Ocean, the local disco. We had lots of fun with all of the Italians and even the Spanish students came too, although they were young and not as fun as the Italians. The music here is so nice, it's easy to dance to (although people don't always dance in discos) and when a good song like 'Year of Summer' or 'Talk Dirty' comes on you can feel the whole disco become energized and everyone is having a good time. We came home at 12:30 because we had to be at school the next morning to go to Maastricht but the three and a half hours were satisfactory.

The Actors: Jay-Jay, Ramzi, Me, Loone, Maud, Ludovico, Giovanni, Andrea, Christian and Domenico

Maastricht is also an hour drive at least, so we again slept on the bus, but once we got there we walked around the Zonneburg caves which were limestone mines that helped build Maastricht and also churches across Northern Europe. The tour was in english, so at least I followed it. Still, the history wasn't quite as interesting as one could've hoped but the rest of the day was better. We spent some of the day at the McDonalds eating Stroopwafel McFlurry's and the rest of the day walking around Maastricht. Then we went to the Albert Heijn to buy Dutch foods to bring back to their families like stroopwafels, drop and hagelslag. Mattia, one of the Italians, even bought Skittles because you can't find them in Italy.

We were bored making cards 

Friday was the day that we toured Deurne with the group and saw all that we hadn't seen, but that wasn't much. We sat in the center of Deurne and drank Chocomel with a few of the Italians for an hour, then each ate a Frikandel which are basically heaven from Deurne. We then toured the Church that rises of the town and took some nice pictures of the town from above. Then we had a going away party at the school where we watched all of the videos (our's was the best) and the Italians gave their cards to the families. The night finished with a party at the Ocean and many memories.

The view from the Church

The Ocean for ASP :)

Sadly, we had to say goodbye to all of the Italians on Saturday morning very early. It was a sad moment, but it's good to know that in six months we'll be there with them and in the mean time we will keep in touch. 

I have more I could say about but I think I'll save them for stories to tell once I come back to the US of A next summer. 

Til next time, 

August

It's been too long!

Hello all of you beautiful people,

Life here in the Netherlands is surreal and I can't believe I have been here for almost two months already. The time here flies by and I just realized that it has been close to a month since I've written to all of you. Many of the details of this month are very fuzzy so I don't know if I'll remember it all but I'll give it a shot. 

The class structure here is way different from the U.S. but I really like it. Overall here, I follow Natuurkunde (physics), Scheikunde (chemistry), Biologie, Wiskunde B (maths), Nederlands, Spaans, Lichamelijke Opvoeding (Gym), CKV (a culture class), Informatica (computer programing), ANW (general science) currently. When I become comfortable with Dutch, I will also follow Engels and Maatschappijleer (sociology). Each day I only follow five or six of the twelve classes with each classes only twice or three times a week. 

Besides school and learning dutch, I've been taking up a lot of my time with running for the local athletics club. We run three times a week on the track, and soon we will begin running on trails in the forest in preparation for the upcoming Cross-Country running season that I have been looking forward to. There will be races all across the provences of Noord-Brabant and Limburg. This past Sunday, my athletics club and I went to the National Relay Championships in Amstelveen. My 4x800 relay team raced well and I myself ran a very fast first 600 but then died at the end of the race. The next race I'll be running in will be the club championship on Sunday which will include the 100m, 150m, 800m, Shotput, Javelin, Long Jump and High Jump.

Also this weekend starts my autumn vacation, which will begin with an Italian coming to live with my family, and will end with a random, unplanned adventure. The Italian, Andrea, will spend the week in a group of Italians and Nederlanders and even me, the American. No other group will have that! We will spend the week visiting Groote Peel (a national park), Amsterdam, Maastricht and the ever wonderful town of Deurne! Then I will go to Italy in March/April to visit all of them in Busto Arsizio where we will visit Milan, Venice and Lago Maggiore.

I've been making friends here from YFU, school and athletics and hopefully I will continue meeting new amazing friends to last forever. So far the people have been so much more than I could have ever protected, they are all helpful and friendly and just overall cool people! We have been to the YFU headquarters for my host brother who I am happy to say will be coming to the U.S. next year on exchange, we don't know yet where he will be placed but I know for sure that he will have a brilliant year there in 2014! 

It's never to late to think about hosting with YFU, there are always students who are in need of a family and want to live as a part of your family. I have been so lucky to have been placed with a great host family and I think that every student deserves a permanent family to make their exchange year the best it can be. If you need more time to think about it, you can host for the 2014-2015 school year. I encourage you all to check it out! https://www.yfu.org/host-families

Hope you all have amazing times, whatever you're doing with your life right now. All of my friends in high school in the U.S. don't stress out too much about school. Everyone else, be glad you don't have to stress out about school!

Tot zo,

August

Cisco, our future guide dog.