Italy, the highlight of the year?

Hi all,

After going close to three months without a blog post, I've had one of the best weeks of my life, and just have to write about it. The main reason why the blog posts haven't been coming, is because life here has fallen into a rhythm that I haven't really wanted to break. There will be around twenty pictures at the end due to lack of space in the actual writing.

The biggest highlights of the months leading up to today were Carnaval, the sweetest of birthdays and of course a trip to Italy. 

In Eindhoven for Carnaval

The thing about Carnaval is I got lucky with my placement, because if I was placed in any town farther north, then I wouldn't have had the experience of Carnaval. This years Carnaval was filled with costumes, special music and straight up fun. I went out a few of the nights with friends, and once with Madison and Pierre to Eindhoven with a few of his friends. We saw a little bit of the yearly parade in Eindhoven, and almost all of the parade in Deurne.

Carnaval Parade in Eindhoven

I celebrated my birthday by waking up really early and opening presents, of which, I got from my host parents the opportunity to go play paintball with friends which I still have to plan, as well as tickets to see Manchester City play against Olympiakos with Mikkel and Kamran when I get back, and to see the Twins too with my cousins like we do each year. Then a week later, we had a jacuzzi and sauna party with a few friends from my class.

Now begins the story that I came here to tell. The bus ride on Saturday was long but after twelve hours we arrived in Busto Arsizio. We drove to the house of Andrea, dropped my luggage off and then we get off to a night club for the night. 

The next day we took the train with all of the other students to a small, beautiful, touristic town called Arona which is located on the beautiful Lago Maggiore and across the lake, are the Alps. Arona was not very big, but we took lots of pictures, looked at the overpriced handmade goods that they were selling at the market, and then ate really good gelato. Then we took the train back to an all you can eat pizza buffet which had many delicious pizzas to choose from including one with fries and often seafood, needless to say, I ate my heart out.

Lago Maggiore with Italians

We spent the first half of Monday at the Italian school which was not exciting but then we went on a treasure hunt which would have been fun if we were younger, but with sixteen, seventeen and eighteen-year-olds you would think the Italian teachers could've found something more up to speed. Everyone was tired, so we ate lunch at an amazing piadineria (Italian sandwich shop) and laid in the sun at a park until it was time to leave. In the evening we went with some of the other Italian and Dutch students to eat pasta and we were even convinced to play Just Dance once.

The most drawn-out day of the week was Tuesday in my opinion, because we took the long trip to see Venice without the Italian partners. With a round trip ride time of eight hours, I find it surprising that the experience somehow made up for the number of hours spent in the bus. We spent a lot of the time in Venice around Piazza San Marco, a square in the center of Venice that includes St. Mark's Basilica and also a clock tower that lets you see the whole city. We weren't able to go in the gondolas because of the high price of 80 euros per hour, but they do have a system of boats that act as a subway which we did get to ride. After began the sleepy ride back to Busto.

Random Couple in a Gondola

On Wednesday we took the bus to Turin with half of the group but didn't see too much of the city. We began the day with a tour of Pinacoteca Giovanni E Marella Agnelli, a modern art museum built on top of an old Fiat test track and was filled with beautiful paintings of the French masters- Renoir, Manet and Matisse, as well as Picasso, and less memorable Italian painters. For lunch, we ate at a market/restaurant with free liter bottles of water and bread as well as good company. Honestly speaking, I remember nothing more from Wednesday, other than the ice cream we ate in the town square that might have been the worst I ate during the trip. However it was still better than your average ice cream you would find anywhere else. There also was another museum sprinkled in their, possibly after lunch.

The Bus Ride to Turin

The next day was another spent at the Italian school, which was filled with time that could've been spent elsewhere but nevertheless we sat in the school feigning interest in bland discussion at hand as well as sampling the Italian cafeteria and ping pong table. We spent the evening bowling with a group of nine Italians and six Dutch speakers, I realized that the league bowling from my early youth never really escaped me but the muscle memory gained from my time spent in game rooms is obviously gone.

Duomo, the signature Italian

The last day of the exchange was the most interesting, exciting and the longest. We travelled with the train to Milan to see the Duomo of Milan (a cathedral), the famous shopping streets and La Scala, perhaps the most famous setting for opera in the world. The view from the top of the Duomo was beautiful and the perfect place to make pictures with friends as you will see if you read the rest of the post. After the long climb down the stairs of the Duomo, we went to eat at the typical food you eat while in Italy- McDonalds, and then took in the shopping part of Milan. There was not too much actual money spent on clothes, but many were fitted. Then to end our time in Milan, we saw La Scala, which was very beautiful but there was a ban on cameras so you'll just have to take my word on it. 

With Jay-Jay and Ramzi at the Woods

The final night was spent at a rented out house with all of the Dutch and Italian students plus many of the friends of the Italians from school. Before the party, we came home, I showered and then we went off to the school for a goodbye dinner of pasta (I know, surprising) and a few presentations from select students. We got to the house party at around 9:30 and left no sooner than 2:00 or 2:15. There was some good dancing, even some break dancing by Jay-Jay. Despite the low quality of English spoken at the party, it was still a great time, and many good friends and memories were made.

It was hard to say goodbye to everyone Saturday morning, even more so for me than the other Dutch students, because of how hard it is to come visit, they can just hop on the train and be there in half a day, but for me it'll be expensive to come visit. I'm sure that that Saturday won't be the last time I see some of them/you. The only sleep had on Saturday was on the bus, none of it was at night whatsoever. Before I knew it, we were back in Deurne and life went back to what has become normal.

There's less than a quarter of my exchange left which is scary because that territory comes with not wanting to leave/but wanting to see everyone in the U.S. Until it July rolls around, I won't be thinking about that.

Take care all of you, enjoy your spring. Scroll down further for some pictures that I didn't fit into the post itself.

Cheers,

August

Selected Photos

 

Piazza San Marco 

Venice from atop the Bell Tower

Smaller Islands of Venice

The Overview of the City

More of Venice

Out the bus window in Turin

Giovanni, Simone and Andrea at the market

Jay-Jay 

Turin

The Inside of a Palace in Turin with Mario my gym teacher

A square in Turin (one of many)

Gold

Gold

More Gold!

Jay-Jay and his favorite Italian

Vittorio Emanuele II

Selfies must be made

Milan

Another town square atop Duomo

Milan Skyline

Piumelli Guanti

More Jay-Jay

Jay-Jay and Giulio

Ramzi

Ruben

Looking a little Asian

Failing to make an illusion

Always more Jay-Jay

Angela, Esther, Jay-Jay, me and Reesy

The Holiday Season

Hello everybody,

I hope that all of you had a wonderful holiday season. I'd like to apologize for not post for close to two months, but everything got busy because December is always busy and when it wasn't busy, I was tired or just wanting to relax and enjoy life here in the wonderful town of Deurne. Life here has been amazing and I'm so happy there hasn't been much snow here. Snow in Minnesota is all good and dandy, but a year with not much snow is something I will enjoy. The weather in Minnesota seems pretty insane now, with crazy wind and low temperatures that I am happy to avoid. 

Kokoro (from Japan) and I at the Orientation

The month and a half or so has been pretty packed and probably the best part of my exchange so far. I celebrated Thanksgiving on skype with a lot of the family, but there were camera problems, so I didn't see any of them but at least they could see me. Besides that, the end of November was pretty normal and cozy. 

Since the previous blog post, I've only seen a few of the exchange students one time. The exchange students that are centered around Eindhoven all came to the Mega Bowling in Woensel to celebrate the holiday season, bowl and say some goodbyes to everyone who weren't staying until July. We bowled and had lots of fun and had to say goodbyes. I didn't realize, that it would be the last time I would see all of them together. Marcelo is back in Uruguay after arriving spending a year here. The other student returning home from our region was Marie who is going to study a semester in England. Hopefully everyone returning home doesn't miss this great country too much. 

Oranje Bowling with Pierre, me, Wouter and Katharina

For most of the Netherlands, 5 December was a night where you celebrate Sinterklaas and give presents to each other. But we postponed it because not everyone were home. Instead, we had a small present night with Skype. The stories of the real "pakjesavond" will be later on in the blog, because it happened later in December.

Skype Sinterklaas

The next big event that happened, was Kerstgala which was a dance at The Metro that you could compare to Prom in the States. The difference between Kerstgala and Prom is you don't go with a date here, you go with your friends and try to have one of the best nights of your young life. And it was. I stayed there until 3 but still woke up in the morning for a 9:30 practice. Which is pretty impressive in my mind, but needless to say, I was dead after practice and just relaxed for the rest of the weekend.

Kerstgala, the prom of Peelland College

Klompen

Then it was suddenly Christmas vacation, how time flies. We went out to brunch with all of the people from my host father´s company where we got to eat some really good soup and then walk around in dutch wooden shoes called ´Klompen´ which were really fun. They were generally for farmers to trudge through the mud in, but now they´re just another stereotypical thing from the Netherlands

Cisco talked to a llama 

Brunch

Cisco also got to see a llama and sheep at the brunchery. But all they did was stare at him.

During Christmas Day, I skyped the family but unfortunately because of the weird time difference, I could only skype with my mom´s side of the family. I got two packages from them which were filled with a few gifts for the family and a ton of small things that my mom thought I would miss. One of the things that I've really missed was the Kraft Mac & Cheese that I so often eat in the U.S. during the summer to avoid having to cook. I think I will save it for a day that I miss home. But so far that day hasn't happened, and maybe I'll just have to share it with some friends, if the homesickness never comes.

Oostende

We went to Oostende in Belgium after Christmas. We ended up doing pretty much the same thing as the last time we were there. We walked along the beach with Cisco and went shopping and ate lot's of Belgian food. 

For the 'Pakjesavond', everyone came home. This included Yvette who was at school in Scotland, as well as Lisanne who lives in Sweden with her Swedish boyfriend Emils, who also came. We all made one handmade gift and one small gift for a person that was randomly assigned. It was a nice night with many great gifts, but I forgot to take pictures, which is definitely a bummer.

I think this is enough, if not too much information. So if you have any specific questions about what I've been up to, you can message me on facebook or leave a comment below. Finals week is next week, so I will be busy studying and trying to pass as many of the tests as possible. 

Til the next blog,

August

A Month of Getting into Rhythm

Hello to everyone reading this,

Sorry for the lack of a post in the last month, but I've had what seems like nothing that is way out of the ordinary. But I find that to be a good thing now, because it means life is becoming normal here, as if I were not on vacation, just living life here and making all that I can of it.

Running takes up a lot of my time right now, I have either five or six days a week depending on whether or not I have a race or not. It isn't quite as intense of training as I plan to have when I get back to the U.S. but it's really fun and with great people. Many days here are spent on the Track, which I'm not used to as a cross country runner, but it allows for diverse training schedules, and that for me includes shot put right now, cause why not? That's one of the things that never seems to happen in America, where you're put into categories, and don't ever deviate away from that. It's also nice here to have practice in the forest consistently. The races here are also very different here with small regional competitions and also national competitions that replace our early season invitationals and late season geographically structured meets that range from Conference to Nationals.

Current top 5 after 4 races for Junioren B

So far, all of my classes are going really well! My favorite days tend to be Thursdays and Fridays, not only because they are the shortest school days and they lead to the weekend, but also I have gym class which is one of the best classes no matter if I'm in the U.S. or here in the Netherlands. Today for instance, we had kickboxing which was super cool and allowed for a welcome change to the volleyball we had been playing off and on for a month. Also something that I've done for the first time in gym class was trampoline jumping which was also fun. Some of the classes here are frustrating for me, usually because I understand many of the words but a lot of the times, not the big points that are made and tests are also very hard with many of them containing large reading sections that make up the biggest part of the points given. While these classes are often frustrating, all of the people here make them worth it, and the lessons are helping me learn Dutch faster than I could without them.

Some of the best, most interesting people ever

We had the first language test of the year with all of the exchange students in Amersfoort which went really well I think, the speaking felt really natural and the reading was also good, the only difficulty for me and actually most of the other exchange students was the writing, but that will improve when I begin writing a lot more for school. It was great to see how much everyone improved their Dutch over the past three months, some of us arrived speaking no Dutch, and others with also very little, but most of us now can communicate with each other through Dutch and not English as it began. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay too long after the test because I had a race the next morning, but as always when we all hangout- it was a good time.

The Cold Evening in Amersfoort

Thankfully the homesickness that most exchange students have hasn't kicked yet for me. I mean, yes I miss all of the people back home. But it just seems like a silly thing to worry about when am in a wonderful place that I can only stay for a year. After this year I must return, so why fret away this amazing year with worries of the what's to come. But with that said, I do miss everyone and even some silly things like Taco Bell and Smash Burger and dad's barbecues.

Like I said, there weren't too many specific events that stuck out, but if you have and questions about what's going on while I'm here, you can leave comments, and I'll happily answer them.

Til next time, I miss all of you and enjoy winter!



-August-

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