HERFST HAS HERFST'D

oh, hi blog. hi. how've you been? see, i meant to get right back to this after going to berlin, but of course my computer decided that was not going to happen. it was so adamant, in fact, that the only thing that works about it anymore it the power button and the fan. so, y'know. at least it will stay cool whilst struggling helplessly to do anything at all.

MRRRR BUT I AM TRYING SO VERY HARD LISTEN TO MY RIDICULOUSLY LOUD COOLING UNIT

 anyway,
berlin was... interesting. we left on the bus at midnight and arrived at 8 in the morning. and we were supposed to get a hearty night's sleep on the ride there. i was more than happy to oblige, i was all cozily contorted in my bus seat, sooo ready to catch some z's. i think maybe i didn't understand the fact that the south americans, the new zealanders, and the belgians DO NOT NEED TO SLEEP. EVER. i'm not sure what superhuman ability posseses them to break out into song at 4 in the morning, but it made me sad.
eventually, we had to sit up like zombies and pretend to be awake. at 8 in the morning, the volunteers started blaring german songs throughout the bus. about 6 of them, in a loop, for the entire weekend. which, okay. the first time i heard "waspassiert"and "und warum" i was like okay this *might* be the worst thing i've ever heard. and the second time i heard them i was like SWEET JESUS KILL IT WITH FIRE. but the third and following times, they secured a place in my heart.

here, have a listen. by the third time, you'll actually find yourself wanting to hear it ever again.

waspassiert, i have come to know, was originally a dutch song called watskeburt, which is a really slang way of saying "wtf happened". my life was incomplete until this song was added to it. really, i don't know what i would do without this song.

doesn't it just make everything alright? because that it the effect it had on us.
anyway, after being awake all night on a bus, we started the tour of berlin! JOEPIEE. obviously, none of us really cared AT ALL. we slaved along past all the huge sites and buildings, we meh'd at the berlin wall and trudged non-committally around the checkpoint charlie museum. which, i might add, was expertly cobbled together and sort of looked like one of those crazy people homage museums people run out of their basements. had i not been so tired, it probably would have been totally awesome. since i was so tired, i really just wanted to sit and never stand up ever again. nevertheless, i dutifully took pictures.
to be honest, i thought i would like berlin a lot more. it was just so gray and cold and depressing. i think if i lived there i would probably kill myself, no lie. but it was interesting. they had a lot of stands on the street selling seedy vintage communist hats. i'm a sucker for hats, so i picked up a blue beret, THOUGH I WAS TEMPTED to purchase the giant black fluffy communist hat.
by the end of the day, we were ever so ready to go back to the hostel. which was actually a really awesome place. it was huge and sort of looked like a united skates of america. think "laser tag-themed teen hotel".
the next morning we ate breakfast at the hostel [FREE MUESLI HOLLAAAA] and then got on the bus to go to a concentration camp. it was my favorite part of the entire trip. i took a lot of pictures. our tour guide was this indy looking complacent german guy with a paperboy hat and a button that said "them". he was painfully sincere and, since his first language was german, soulfully blunt. he was the most amazing tourguide i have ever had. the things he said about it just made me hurt inside, the down to earth way that he described everything that happened there. i wish i had gotten a chance to thank him.
that night, we all went to the hostel bar to chill out. it was lots of fun, we danced and drank and actually socialized with the other exchange students.
the next day we did a bunch of stuff that was unimportant, and we went on an epic quest for a supermarket. i didn't realize how much my life actually depends on albert heijn until i was in a place with no supermarkets ANYWHERE. it was painful, i think germans just dont eat fresh fruit. just bread and curryworst, apparently. which is basically like a hot dog covered in red spicy bbq sauce but you have to eat it with a little teeny fork?

we were less than enticed.

 anyway. along that line of thought, i really took for granted how much dutch i actually comprehend. because in germany, i literally understood NOTHING. and in the netherlands, i understand a good chunk of everything. also, german sounds really funny after having dutch funneled into my ears for 2 months.
okay, so enough about berlin. i would like to go back someday, but i still maintain that it depressed the hell out of me.
after the trip to berlin, jacque, the new mexican exchange student who lives near me, came to stay with me for the herfst vacantie. at first, we were like "PARTY ELKE DAG LETS DO THIS", but to be honest we spent most of our week dorpin' and watching life of ryan marathon on mtv. and we dont even like that show.

this kid has his own last name as a backpiece. i don't even.

but we did get some things done. on tuesday afternoon we baked a pumpkin pie. it took us a while to figure out how the crust worked, and admittedly we had to hand press it into the pie tin, but it came out fairly delicious. after our pie was finished, i dragged her to the costume shop to pick out a costume for the halloween party we went to that night. she bought a bowler hat and a mustache and went as charlie chaplin, and i bought my hot pink nurse costume for 3-5 year olds. needless to say, i made some alterations. namely, i sliced the dress in half and turned it into a skirt.
anyway, on the way to the party we stopped at the albert heijn to see if we could find any fun sized american candy to bring to the party, to bring on some halloween spirit. we managed to actually procure snickers, peanut m&m's, and twix bars. though, you have NO idea how depressing halloween is without twizzlers, reese's, and tootsie roll pops. really, none. pie and candy in arms, we headed to susan's house. debby, ahnemeek [spelled phonetically because at this point i dont care anymoreee, i accept the fact that i cannot spell it XD], and bente were also there, dutifully costumed. i was happy, because i love halloween, so SO much, and i got to share my passionate joy with other people.
anyway, susan baked beautiful cakes that tasted like donuts and bought popcorn and ice cream, so obviously we didnt go hungry. since jacque and i accepted that this was our halloween, we decided that it was completely acceptable to shove 3000 calories worth of feeling-stifling sugar product into our faces. we watched nightmare on elm street, which is the dumbest movie EVER, and then sisterhood of the travelling pants, which made me rethink calling nightmare on elm street the dumbest movie ever :/
all in all, it was a lovely and delicious night.
the next day, we had nothing to do. until i remembered that ikea is just a hop, skip, and a jump from my house. i decided i needed to go. ikea was the only thing that was going to pull me out of my candy binge related depression, and i had to have it. unamused, jacque agreed to go. upon arrival, we decided that ikea was the best idea ever. we toddled through, trying out all the couches and wishing our houses would ever be so funky and practical. we smelled all the candles and browsed the korting warehouse. right before we were about to leave, we saw a bin of stuffed animals for really cheap. at first, we were like "euhhmmm. they're ugly, whatever". but then we took a closer look. they were actually really intriguing. half panda, half pug, half log, doofy looking oddly placed legs, complacent grin. it wasnt ugly, it was PERFECT and we needed TWO. we named them both klootzak and each biked home with one in our arms. might be the best purchase i've ever made, maybe. might need to buy two more. might need to buy five more. might even need to commission a giant ten foot long klootzak to use as a sofa. just sayin'.
after klootzak renewed our faith in humanity, jacque and i decided we were ready to go out for the night. since jacque's bike died, she borrowed one of mine since i have like 5, and we went to hengelo at around 8:30. first, we sat down on a bench and had a serious heart to heart. it was good. then we found the late night store. then we decided we really needed to find some people we knew. i texted one of my late night acquaintences from last time, and he was in the building we were right outside of, conviniently. we hung out with him and his friends for a bit, i'm sure they found us amusingly drunk and american. also good.
then we decided we HAD to go into the club called twinstwins with ridiculously loud pounding bass. we needed to dance. badly. so we danced for an hour or so, generally being embarrassing and not caring at all. then we tried to order food from the yamyam eetcafe, because i remember it being freakishly delicious. unfortunately, we were preeetty much out of money, so we had to eat out of an automatic wall food dispenser. which was disgusting, and gross. but i was not above stuffing my face with a kip burger, oh no. that was riiight about on my level at the time.

classy eatin' bij the snackautomaat.at this point, you stop being worried about "tasty" and start being worried about "safe to actually consume"

after that, we decided it was really time to go home. cutting to the chase, i lost my bike key. i was unable to deal with this information at the time. somehow, jacque and i managed to get home on the same bike. i am constantly amazed by our faultless ability to not die. because i'm fairly sure we narrowly missed falling into more than one ditch. we decided we'd go back to hengelo the next day and get my bike. somehow. without the key. this plan was perfect and did not need to be further thought out.
the next day rolled around, and jacque and i rummaged through my purse completely and FINALLY found the key to the bike. cos, you know those moments when your stomach sinks and you think "THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING TO ME."? well, so far in my life, that feeling has usually been resolved by the fact that whatever it is has not actually happened to me. i got lucky like that once again. amy, another exchange student, was in hengelo and told me my bike was still there, and i decided that meant it was alright to leave it there another day. at around 5, amy came over. we were going to go out with her for the night,we were even invited to a party. but jacque and i could not even deal with that thought at all, so instead we decided to go eat at het pannenkoekhuis and have a movie night.
het pannenkoekhuis, as always, was all kinds of delicious delicious. i got a bacon and cheese pancake, covered it with stroop, and was ever so pleased with myself. you dont understand what a wonderful combination cheese, bacon, pancake, and syrup are until you stuff it into your recently un-hungover face in huge, contented bites.

LOOK ITS HAPPY.

 we also discovered putting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the tosti maker. AN IDEA FOR THE GODS. all the pb and jelly swirl together and the bread is all warm n toasty, and its just good. inherintly good. ooh! and i made my very first omelette ever! and it turned out pretty edible i think! i'm just pumped because i'm finally learning to make real people food.
after our food excursion, we watched army of the twelve monkeys because brad pitt is incredibly at being batshit crazy. then we watched monty python and the holy grail, for nostalgia's sake. c:
anyway, jacque and amy both left today. i need to spend the rest of my herfst vacantie doing homework and going to ikea and buying more klootzaks. i have decided i'm going to gauge my ears, so im going to locate a shop to buy those at. also, i need to decide which classes i'm going to drop. i decided itd be a good idea to switch into math a instead of b and to drop the classes that im never going to follow or get american credit for. because lets face it, 3 hours a week in economy is a little excessive if all i am capable of doing in that class is sleeping and being completely confused. and i'd really like to pass the year.
tomorrow is halloween, and i am going to dress up in my costume and watch horror movies by myself.

forever alone.

 monday i have school again and im going to fix my schedule to be less intense, and then tuesday i have off and i'm going to nijmegen with jelle! :D on saturday, ice skating with afs. I AM REALLY VERY EXCITED C: like a lot.
i'll update again soon, maybe, depending on how interesting my life is. honestly its cooling down over here, usually i dont have too much to talk about these days.
tot ziensss c:

oh hey blog, i didn't see you there!

golly its been a while. real sorry. sometimes i get caught up in the fact that i have a life and don't just stay home all day wallowing in my own sorrow anymore, and thus am kinda tired when i do get online.
instead of blogging during my long hours spent on the webbernet, i have been spending my time much, much more effectively.

by looking up recipes for baked goods, obviously.
when i got home today, i had the insatiable urge to bake. understandable, since this week i have probably spent a compiled 20 hours recipe hunting. seriously, it's gotten to the point where i daydream about cookies. i have a problem.
i told you about my cupcakes, i did not tell you about my cinnabonrock cookies, but i think i will skip those and go right to the cookies i whipped up today, which i have effectionately named "dusty peanut butter koffiekoekjes".
since we have sort of an odd assortment of ingridients on hand, i had to start out with a normal cookie recipe including just self-rising flour [because we have every kind of flour except just flour. who would need that?], golden syrup [is this something that most people keep handy in a stock-piled fashion like my family does? i didn't even know it existed], and sugar. then i added peanut butter and chocolate chips, because hey! the more the merrier.
the first batch i baked for several minutes too long cos i was like THEY DONT LOOK DONE. but they so were. so that batch was slightly, err, shall we say charred? my parents think the burned batch came out "lekker" though, they only taste a little bit smoky in my opinion. pleasently barbequed, even.
but i learned from my mistake and the second batch came out wonderfully. or, as wonderfully as "gee i guess ill just put this stuff together and bake it im sure it will work out" cookies can.
anyway, my thriving life as a master baker aside, i've had a pretty rockin interim between this blog post and the last one.
last saturday was my metal treffen met jelle! it had to be good, it was called a "treffen".
anyway, we took the bus to the club where the show was, and it was BUTT-ASS FREEZING out. we waited outside a little bit whilst my fingers and toes verged on shattering, but then we finally went in.
the atmosphere started out a bit slow, but once everybody got a few drinks in them [and it got past 7 pm], all was aglow with long haired middle-aged men in baggy pants and black t-shirts from other metal shows. whiiich, is apparently the dress code for metal shows that i just didn't hear about in time. either way, it was glorious.
we spent the night dancing, drinking, and generally chillin out. we saw a pagan metal band. also, a man with a 2 foot long braided beard. this, my friends, was a night for the record books.

because we're real winners.

by the end, i felt quite lovely. also INCREDIBLY hungry, so i had to run out to the snack bar and buy a delicious hamburger covered with weird customary dutch topping to snarf down before i fainted. another one of those "delicious because i am about to die" moments. also a "delicious because heated up" moment. and no, i didn't look pathetic at all bundled up, shivering, rosy-cheekenly drunk and slightly googly-eyed, stuffing a giant hamburger into my face. i swear.
we took the bus back to winterswijk with one of the bands who played, who decided that they wanted to be our BFF, probably because they were very shmammered and i am a beacon of light to those under the influence. do you want to know about his son yip? because i can tell you alllll about him. :D
once we got to winterswijk we went to this super gezellig bar and met up with artur and luke till 4 c:

~*BAR BROZ 4 LYFE*~

then we went back to jelle's house and i got to creep and sleep in his sisters room. anyone who has experienced it knows how odd it is to sleep in someone's bed when they are not there. it just feels so wrong.
so that was my brilliant weekend.

otherwise my week has been fairly average. got my "pony" trimmed [entirely in terribly dutch, i might add], devoured some books, and looked frantically for halloween costumes.
as a sidenote, i miss halloween. i would like to sincerely fuck everyone who is going to go out on halloween and bring back a giant pillowcase with enough twix bars, tootsie rolls, skittles, and reese's cups to last until december.

fun fact! 99% of this candy does not exist in nederland.

 i'll just be here chillin' with my drop and disgusting pastel colored marshmallow bits. sobbing. oh, what i would give, even for the shitty candy that nobody likes~ seriously, send me all your malted milk balls and good 'n plenty.
though, to fill the void in my heart where good ol' butt-o-ween will be, me and my dutch friends and jacque are throwing a halloween party. so that will be fun. for that purpose, and since being without a costume on halloween would be super balls, i've been browsing around for a costume recently.
let me tell you about halloween costumes here. there are costume shops everywhere. i'm assuming for carnival in the spring, but really i don't even know how that would explain the exorbitant amount of them.
and they aren't just like iparty or something. we're talking basically warehouses full of every costume you could ever want. in every color you could ever want. you want to be a hot pink native american? a-okay! a bright orange flight attendant? GOT YOUR BACK.
i was tempted to be an eskimo for the two reasons that A. if i'm going to dress up as something blatantly racist, it might as well be here. and B. holland will probably freeze over by october 31st.
or possibly i could be a zombie! or a sailor! or a nurse! or a bunny!
my world was full of hopeful possibility.
but, of course, there is a catch. the smallest size adult costume they make is a 34. which is too big for me. even worse, usually the smallest size they actually carry is a 36 or a 38. which REALLY is too big for me.
so i spend my time browsing through the children's section like a giant creep, because that is where the costumes that fit me reside. and not like the "junior's" section, i mean the "i am 5 and my mother is dressing me up as a princess" costumes. also, not even the biggest ones. the second biggest.
obviously, i didn't find anything because all the children's costumes make me look like a womanbaby, which is not exactly the look i'm going for. i found a really great hot pink nurse costume for 3-5 year olds though, which i am considering purchasing and demolishing so that it fits me appropriately. because hey, its fairly cheap and comes with a stethoscope. score!
though less than great for costume shopping, i have found one uplifting plus about being abnormally small here, as i'm sure some other non-netherlanders have. i was shopping with my school friends yesterday in h&m and we saw this awesome boy's children's sweater with a skull face on it. they were all like "mehh i want it! but it probably won't fit". i, being an optimist, was more like "DAMN SKIPPY IT'S GONNA FIT," and preceded to take the biggest size to the fitting room. since i'm a 7 year old boy, it fit like a dream and i bought it. :D and it was way cheaper than it woulda been for an adult-sized garment.
so you know, all is not depression in my own personal world of midgetry. and honestly, i'm not even that small. there's plenty of justin bieberlings who are shorter than me.

that's everything i can think of now. maybe i'll whip out a part 2 tomorrow, i dunno. i'm kinda sleepy.
oh! vacation is happening noww C: tomorrow i head off to berlijn for a few days, then jacque comes to stay with me and we party and hang out. then on next tuesday i think hangin with jelle. it will be good!
tot ziensss

ik ben erg blij

hallooo c: í've had a lovely weekend, a weekend to restore my faith in being batshit insane enough to come here. unfortunately for you, that means less snark, which, i know, makes the horror and tragedy that is my life incredibly incredibly entertaining. so i'm sorry you're missing out on that. but don't fret, even when my week is good i always have something ridiculous to report. because, come on. i live in a dorp.

every cloud has a WHAT THE FUCK IS MY LIFE lining.

so, last week left me in a rather dejected state. i was feeling a bit lonely and social pariah-y, and all i really wanted to do was curl up into a ball forever. on friday, i had to bake cupcakes for the potluck that was today. i figured, "oh hey, ill just make something non-committal like cupcakes. that will be super easy, and baking will lift me out of this rut!". however, i was blithely unaware that netherlanders dont believe in things like "canola oil" and "buttermilk" and "large bags of powdered sugar".

the biggest contained of powdered sugar they make.

so my options were quite limited. i thought maybe if i just closed my eyes and put a bunch of delicious things in a bowl together and baked them it would all come out okay.
i returned fromseveral hours of perusing the store with white cupcake mix, bananas, chocolate pieces, cream cheese, butter, and 4 shaker tubes of powdered sugar. it was time to get down to business.
after the initial shopping hell portion of my cakemaking journey [it took me like an hour to find the sugar aisle because i was thinking "baking supplies" when i should have been thinking "koffie"] the rest went fairly steadily. i realised that i pretty much had full freedom with the recipe, because hey, how wrong could it possibly go? i put some bananas n chocochips up in the batter, whipped up my cream cheese frosting, and i was so in business. i accidentally made way more than intended though, and wound up with like 30 cupcakes. delicious delicious cupcakes. a story of success! though, i spent the interim between making them and bringing them to the potluck hoping to dear god that they would stay yummy.
anyway, so friday ended on a good note. on saturday, i trekked to winterswijk to visit jelle. i managed to take the train thee without fault, and had a lovely warm day chillin out in jelle's dorp. i had to leave at like 5.30 to be back for floris' birthday party, though. which i did, but then missed my changeover train and had to wait an extra half an hour at the platform anyway. and im not talkin' like "oh shoot, the train i wanted to take just pulled away!", im talkin' "NAW i dont think thats my train, i'm just gonna wait here like a doof and OHWAITSHIT THAT ACTUALLY WAS MY TRAIN. AWESOME".
turns out, the next train to hengelo DIDNT stop in borne like the first one did, so i also had to catch another train back to borne from hengelo. i watched my little town speed by the train window with sinking desolation. it made me tired and confused, and by the time i was back in borne i really just wanted to go to sleep. BUT! instead i went home, made sure i didnt look completely like a zombie, popped some cupcakes in a tupperware for a present for floris and fietsed to the party.

oh cupcakes, you go above and beyond your duty.

the party was super fun, and i met a looot of people c: at midnight we all biked to hengelo to hang out there. hengelo was fun, having pink hair means i can make new friends on a dime :D
i went out for delicious 3 am food with some new single serving friends after most of my original party had gone home. it was wonderful, i forget what it was called but it was just a giant plastic cup filled with potatoes, shaved meat and sauce. which is exactly what i want to stuff in my face at 3 in the morning. after that, i biked home, ate a bowl of cereal and slept like the dead.
today, another exciting winterswijk adventure! all the exchange students from our region met up essentially
to freak out and complain about our lives. it was quite nice, to be able to talk about everything, but i didnt really have much to complain about. i was more embarrassed, while other people were complaining i was like "yeah so my family is really too good to me, because im pretty sure another family would have kicked me out by now..."
after that, jelle the fancy AFS volunteer took us out on a tour of winterswijk while our families freaked out and complained about us. it was a really nice day, so we just kinda putzed around for a few hours and then went back for the potluck. whiiiich, i am happy to report nobody was poisioned by my experimental cupcakes, and actually they were quite popular :D score one for angela's baking skillz! its okay though, i owe all my success to frosting, because they dont eat frosting here. making my cupcakes automatically ten times better than all of the other cupcakes they've ever eaten, by default. also to the makro, from which i bought possibly the only measuring cup in the netherlands. seriously, how does anybody bake with a scale. ohmygod. they dont even use teaspoons and tablespoons D:
after we got back, i decided i HAD TO EXPLORE and nothing was going to stop me. i got home, changed into my SUPERVET jogging pants and set off on my bike towards adventure.
i decided i needed to know where the road past the train tracks went, so i just followed it in a straight line forever. turns out, it curves, goes past the pannenkoekhuis, and goes in a giant circle back into borne. i kept following roads as straight as i could throughout borne, and so now i sort of have an idea where stuff is. it was really fun, actually.
PLUS, GAIZ GAIZ i taught myself to bike without my hands. so uh, yknow, just chillinnnn. i will never use that skill, though, because it can only end in misery and broken teeth. BUT ITS A GOOD SKILL TO HAVE, yknow, just sitting dormant in case you are biking really really really need the use of both hands. like what i have to fend off a bear but also cannot stop because i'm in a really big hurry? exactly.
the only truly bad thing that happened this weekend is that my pinky ring with the moon stone was really loose lately and slipped down the shower drain this morning. i cried, real bad. i don't know why i love my pinky rings like children, but they always stayed on and i felt like they were part of me. SERIOUSLY, I HAVE RING TAN ON MY PINKIES. so that was pretty depressing, cos i really liked that ring. it looked like the sky. on the plus side, now i get to find a new pinky ring, because shopping for pinky rings is a favorite passtime of mine that i have been deprived of for the last year.
anyway, basically this weekend i just started feeling like i actually understand my life a little bit and have some friends. it will get better, and it already is. and honestly, i really do like it here. it's quirky and ridiculous and full of bread and bikes and "leuk" and its my home now :3
just one week left to live through and then metal festival! SO SOUPEDDD. and gym tomorrow :D lets see what borderline deadly game they want us to play this week. honestly, i feel like they probably just have meetings where they review the various gym equipment they have and figure out how to induce the most potential injury with it.
TOT ZIENS C:

dat klopt wel.

this week, it feels as if the earth has been smiling at me. :) okay, probably laughing at me. but who am i to be picky about the details.
a few days ago, i put my bike down on its side and it threw a tantrum because i guess it doesnt like it when i dont use the kickstand. so it was a little bit broken again. the morning after, though it was fixed, i didnt want to take any chances and decided to walk to school. plus, i was ready for school an hour and a half early and i thought "what fun! the exercise! the fresh air!" i was prepaired to gracefully trapse 5 km to school in hengelo, and in my mind, it would be lovely.
i neglected to realize that after biking something, walking it feels like running down an endless hallway. by the time i was on the snelweg out of borne, i was a sad little puppy.
i was selfconsciously making my way along the road when peter, one of the boys i'd met with floris, cycled up next to me and offered me a ride. i told myself i should regret not finishing what i'd started, but let's be honest i was BESIDE MYSELF with glee. guiltily, i got on the bikerack and was carried to school.
fast forward to after school at 12:45, my ghusto and unwavering determination restored, i set off home. i figured this way would be nice cos i could go at my own pace. then, peter cycled up and asked me if i wanted a ride home. AND WHO WAS I TO DECLINE SUCH A KIND OFFER?
it was pretty much the nicest favor ever lol.
then i went home and walked to the kruidvat and bought nail polish-y things and granola bars C:

in other news, i have discovered something monumental. it is called ONTBIJTKOEK, and it is delicious. its a typically dutch food, and its sorta like thick, sticky bread infused with a flavor that i can't quite put my finger on. debby let me try a bite of hers. on the way home, i swung by the c1000 and picked up a pack, because i decided that ontbijtkoek is really the only thing i need to eat. ever. besides granola.

that grotsky looking crust is the best part, don't judge.

and now, time for another riveting installment of: why i still haven't had a full week of school yet.
today, i was all prepared to have a normal tuesday. usually, i have 5 classes on tuesday. except, my dutch teacher in hospital so i dont have her class. what i usually do is talk to my geography teacher and he lets me do that class when i should have dutch, which means i get to go home an hour early.
anyway, i got to school and walked up alllll the stairs to the 3rd floor classroom where i have my first class, CKV. it was empty. this happens to me sometimes when they forget that i'm a martian and dont tell me whats going on, so i went up to my councilor to ask someone if the teacher was absent that day. i found out she was, and i was like "oh, no big deal. now i can go ask to do geography now and only have to sit through one vapid free period."
so i walked down all the stairs and checked the roster to see where my geography teacher was. room 203, kay, got it. back up again. and the room was empty with the lights off. secretly, i was elated.
i marched back up to the 3rd floor to ask if he was absent, too. which, of course, he was. since i had two free periods and the class i usually fill them with was also a free period, i went downstairs to check the rostor and see what else i could move around. "maybe i can even go home at 11:45!" i thought with delight.
of course not. the only other class i could move was music, and the first class my music teacher had was my class, which starts at 1:10.
my day went a little like this:
free hour, free hour, english, free hour, music, free hour.
thankfully, i only had to sit through the first and middle hour of nothingness. i read more of catch-22, which i only have like 50 pages left of, and thought dreamily about sandwiches.
TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW IM SLEEPY NOW. im serious i will continue it so you had better check back!

lekkerlekker

i just went to check my webcomics, but i accidentally typed "quinoa" into the address bar. obviously i have something else on the brain right now haha. seriously, if i thought they had quinoa here i would be eating it by the bucket full, since i have like ten quinoa recipes stocked up in my favorites for when some magically appears.

of course when i had pounds of this stuff at my disposal i didn't want it at all. BUT NOW

today was pretty good for a monday, and based on my life here, pretty good for a day at all.
first period i had gym, which promised a whole new world of wonderment and pain, as it does every week. last week was alternative volleyball, the week before was super gymnastic rings, what else could this week contain?
flips with the spring board and dodgeball, obviously. double the excitement!
not like it was immidiately apparent. what usually happens in gym class is i show up and the room is full of large scary gym equipment with indeterminable function. i.e. spring boards, vaulting horses, and i'm pretty sure i've seen a harness hanging from the ceiling. then the gym lady talks a lot in dutch and makes lots of athletic hand gestures, using words like "important" and "two times". then i assume the worst and go to the back of the line of kids and watch intently to see what the other students do. we usually wind up doing something that amounts to a mishmash of elementary school gym class scooter/beanbag games and actual, dangerous sports.
it doesn't help that i barely feel like participating before i even know what we are doing, because my sweats fit me like harem pants and i have little to no athletic ability, but i put on a brave face. anyway, for the first half of class we took turns running up to the spring board, vaulting into the air, and doing a large mid-air somersault. it was actually kinda fun, besides being terrifying. the other half of class we played super dodgeball, which wasn't so bad either.
so far, gym class here is not only 1000x more interesting than in america, it's also generally just more bearable. probably because i only have it once a week, you be the judge.
also today, i had my presentation about providence for dutch class. it made me nervous and i basically just was like "um providence is full of losers who you would probably make fun of. but its okay, they would make fun of your faggy shoes too."
except not really. i actually tried to give legitimate facts and things, it went well.
after that, i had geography, which has the two boys in it that í've been trying to determine are either twins or the same person. in case you couldn't tell, i have deduced that they are twins. so that was definitely a highlight of my day. another highlight of my day, listening to AMERICA, FUCK YEAH on my ipod on class? it came on shuffle and it made me feel instantly guilty and shameful, in only the most wonderful of ways.

because we invented wax lips and the alamo.

when i left this morning it was a bitter sort of freezing, but when i got out of school today it was really lovely and warm. i biked home without my jacket on, brimming with glee.
then i stopped and bought snap peas and blueberries, because i decided i needed a gluten free vegan pick me up for the afternoon. they were really good blueberries, too. which i'm glad they were, since they set me back three euro. i probably should think it's a crime to be charged that much for blueberries and i probably would, had i not wanted them more than life itself at the time.
and now i'm here, on my computer, typing to you.
FUN FACT ABOUT MY HOUSE: the ratio of artistic cat sculptures in my living room to artistic rooster sculptures in my living room is 17 : 11. and i'm counting the three pictures of roosters on the wall. i don't feel like i have to say anything else except MY LIVING ROOM HAS SEVENTEEN CAT SCULPTURES IN IT. fairly large cat sculptures, too. i think there might even be a few that have seeped into my room. slowly the cat sculptures are multiplying and conquering.


we are waiting for you.

 but seriously, most of them either aren't creepy or don't have eyes that appear to be clearly looking at anything in particular, so i don't really mind them. i've become a little bit fond of the abundence of cats :3
anyway, i think that's pretty much all i have to say at the moment. i'm gonna go enjoy the freak accident that is today's nice weather <3

welke weg naar het station?

well, it's a sunday which means that skyradio is playing all day in my household. it's a beautiful time, when all the horrifying love ballads of the eighties and nineties that i thought i'd escaped having to participate in come back to fill my ears with sweet sweet crooning!
HAVE A NICE DAYYYY~, SKYRADIO HONDERD EEN FM~~
i personally have entered an era of gypsy punk goodness, so i've been binging on gogol bordello. also, i'm ashamed to say i listened to some devendra banhart. because. well. i don't even know, he's a very silly manchild.

no really, you're just the most ridiculous ever. it's okay, devendra.

anyway, yesterday i went to amsterdam with AFS, which was truly amazing. i took pictures, which i will implant into this just as soon as i figure out how. jacque and i took the train there together, and i we almost got completely lost. we weren't sure quite where to switch trains, and we got on and off twice before we finally decided that the train we were on probably wasn't the right one and we should wait. luckily almost immidiately after that jelle appeared out of nowhere and ushered us over to a big group of other AFS kids. crisis averted.
once we got to amsterdam, we split up into little tour groups to walk through the city. we walked through the red light district, which was quite a bit more distressing than we had anticipated. it was quite early in the day so most of the windows were empty, but there were two or three with girls [and transvestites] in them. it wasn't sad, exactly, it just made me feel like choking a little bit.
we continued on through the city, which is actually mostly populated with netherlands gift shops, coffeeshops, and chinese food restaurants. i think amsterdam is like 90% tourists, 10% everyone else. the people in shops speak english as a first instinct.
after wandering through some more busy campy streets, we stopped for lunch. jacque and i went to this pastry/sandwich shoppe and bought matching chicken sandwiches with cheese, mustard, been sprouts?, and probably some other stuff. they were ridiculously delicious. probably because we were freakishly hungry. the thing we've found is that you can hate pretty much everything that is on a sandwich and when you eat it warmed up, it will be all kinds of godly delicious.

what's in this one? pickles, mushrooms and death? SOUNDS DELISH pop that baby in the microwave.

after lunch we took some group pictures and then went on a boat ride through the canals. it was so pretty to see all the cute little buildings. they are all surprisingly structurally unsound, like... a good portion of them looked like the were going to fall over at any moment. it takes a while to notice, but then you're like "waaait... i'm pretty sure windows aren't supposed to do a downward slant. just a hunch."
also, HOUSEBOATS. i love them. they are everywhere. they all have these big windows and sometimes they have little docks attatched to them with a picket fence and lawn chairs. ITS SO CUTE >w<
there was one made out of concrete bricks, too, which was cool. it looked like they'd just taken a house and plopped it on top of a boat.
we decided that we were super jealous of all the people just chilling near the edges of the canals or on their house boats, because those people obviously had it so made.
anyway, after the boat ride we dicked around some more, looked at some more buildings and stuff, you know. we saw a group of street breakdancers, which was legitimately hilarious. then at four, the tour was over and we could go explore and be merry by ourselves. WHICH we did. :D
first, we [all the americans and a german girl named laura] went out for pancakes. i got an applesauce almond and whipped cream pannenkoek, and also i split a tosti with ariel. it was heavenly delicious.
when we were all finished, we left in search of shopping and places to hang out. we were just crossing the street when jenny and i spotted a bagel store right next to where we had been. obviously, we made a mad dash for it, completely ignoring the rules of socially acceptable-ness and also traffic. because um BAGELS. they dont eat bagels here. it *might* have been the most wonderful bagel i've ever eaten.

first bagel in approx half a year, i almost exploded with glee.

after we felt sufficiently bagel'd, we went back to this big square with a bunch of cozy little bars and picked one of them to hang out in. unfortunately, they were kinda lame so we left pretty quickly. i was on a quest for a bar that served grolsch, so we walked around a bit looking for a place. we found one, but it was called "PIRATES". the sign was red with neon sign balloons on it. which has nothing to do with pirates. also, the blinds were drawn. we decided that this was probably not a wise venue choice. after passing a few more sketchy looking bars [apparently only sketchy bars sell grolsch in amsterdam?], we gave up and went to a large loud building called the sports club because they had really good drink deals.
the sports club was actually a really fun place, it was very loud and they were playing really good dance music, so we were all sorta bustin' a move in our chairs lol. i'm sure we looked completely normal. since jenny is 18, she ordered a strawberry margerita which she let us try. it kind of made me never want to drink beer again. upon returning to my heineken i was like URR WHY DOESNT THIS TASTE LIKE A FRUIT SLUSHY I AM DISSAPOINTED :C

this, or bread flavored soda water? it's your choice, don't let me influence you.

but cocktails are are ridiculously expensive, and also we are not allowed to drink them. and y'know, i've grown affectionately fond of beer. its an acquired taste.
after we finished up at the sports club, we decided we wanted ice cream. because who doesnt want ice cream? :D earlier in the day we had anticipated this happening and mentally landmarked the location of amsterdam's ben &jerry's. this was a very good decision on our part, because i'm fairly sure a cookie dough ice cream cone has never tasted so good.. nom nom. after that we were pretty much done so jacque and i left to go catch our train.
to my surprise, we actually managed to navigate home without getting lost or dying. go us! though, we did enlist the help of two brootal hipster twenty-somethings coming from a concert to help us take the right train when we had to switch. we talked to them for a while about bitterballen and drop and they were nice.
in case i haven't told you what drop is yet, it is something that only dutch people like. it's a black chew-y candy that they sell everywhere and everybody loves it. i tried to love it, i really did. they first time i had one, i entered the situation with an open mind. probably because nobody informed me that they are pretty much salty licorice flavored. floris told me to try not to smell them before you eat them, which should have probably tipped me off. our single-serving train hipsters admitted that it's something that you pretty much had to grow up eating to understand it.

yum, i've always wished they would make a candy that tastes like soy sauce.

then we got off the train at borne and walked back to my house. then we ate some bowls of cereal and tea and went to sleep. good night c:
all in all, it was an awesome wonderful happy trip full of goodness and wonderment :D we're gonna go back another time, most definitely.
anyway, next week is a potuck in winterswijk so i need to figure out a traditionally american recipe to bring. :P peanut butter and jelly, anyone?
until next time!