i did nothing actually productive today, i feel good.

today, paula, wencke, and i were going to go shopping far away in the snow. we all decided we'd much rather go on a tropical island vacation. so, we did the next best thing and went to a zwembad instead. more specifically, we went to AQUADROOM. which, in english, is AquaDream.
it was lovely lovely. we went in the wave pool, and the hot tub, and the water slide. with the giant plastic palm trees, it almost felt real.
though, my favorite part of our trip was definitely the turkish steam bath we got. it was mentholated, so the whole thing was piping hot, and made my entire face and esophagus feel minty fresh. though, it did get in my eyes, which sort of felt like chopping an onion. nevertheless it was toasty warm, finally >w<
santa clause also made an appearance. just like we don't really understand sinterklaas, i am not fully convinced that the dutch understand santa clause. like, at all. anyway, he was wandering around the zwembad, ringing his bell, and passing out buttered pieces of almond-filled raison bread. which, i guess is a dutch christmas thing. i am okay with that, since bread filled with almond paste is DELICIOUS. if not slightly out of place in that situation.

sure, skinny and questionable aquadroom santa, i'd love a piece of kerststol.

anyway, after 3 hours chilling in our faux tropische paradise, we headed back home. what followed was a lovely day full of nothing and computering and television <3
we also hooked up the deep fryer and made some bitterballen. cos thats what you do on your day off, you deep fry shit. i decided that if thats where this day was headed, i was going to make cookies.
my grandma sent me a giant box of krusteaz chocolate crinkles mix for my birthday, which was perfect, since i wanted a cookie really badly, but didnt want to commit to actually putting in the effort to properly concoct cookies. i just mixed in the eggs and oil, stirred it all together, rolled some dough balls in powdered sugar, n baked for 12 minutes. what resulted was the brownie-y, cake-y glory i'd been craving for days.

thank you, grandma, for making my life oh so easy.
i ate 3 and then went the extra mile and made an ice cream sandwich. it was a good choice.

besides relaxing and my baking expeditions, the rest of the day was devoid of anything. i facebooked a little, tumblred a little, ate a burrito, did my nails. yknow. chillin. i also obsessively cleaned my piercing like 5 times, because i love it and never want it to leave me.
tomorrow, christophe, amy, jacque, and i are going out for the night C: which will be funfun. toodles!

so i have a blog about gogol bordello in the making,

but it really needs time to marinate. y'know, it needs to soak in its own juices in the queue for a lil while longer, to soak up some extra... er... coherency. AKA its super long and i dont feel like finishing it just now.
this will be one of those popcorn posts i think, because i've been up to quite a bit but don't really feel like giving this the fuidity it deserves. so sue me.
last week i went to the school musical, called we want it all. it was an adaptation of the queen musical, we will rock you. because that exists, and it is apparently a high tech, magical and surreal experience. obviously the perfect candidate to be turned into a low budget school production.

looks do-able.

 let me explain the plot to you a wee bit, if i may. so, it takes place far in the future on planet mall [earth], when lady gaga has taken over the world and real music is outlawed, and everyone is a brainwashed clone. BUT, this one crazy chick, galileo figaro, has crazy classic rock related halucinations and breaks away with this other rebel chick, who she names scaramouche, to have an intense lesbianic quest for musical instruments and rock and roll. also featuring punk/metal rebels named britney spears and meat loaf, complete in corsets, kilts, and viking hats. they are then chased across the freaky futureworld by the killer queen, and must rely on galileo figaro's insanity and inexplicable knowledge of the "sacred texts" [lyrics to queen songs, etc] to guide them to the mythical musical instruments that are hidden somewhere in the universe. yeah, i know it sounds like a winner.


actually though, it was not bad. granted, it was a little thin on plot, even with all that... well.. plot. it still felt pretty empty between lively musical numbers. probably because half of it was in english, since the play was in english, but then half of it was in dutch, so that it could be understood by dutch people. the result was an odd mish-mash of people speaking in one language and getting a response in another. sort of remeniscent of my real life conversations, actually. idk, i found the text a little too latent with queen references to take seriously. the resistance is called the bohemians, the time of real music is the rhapsody, and the amount of lines that are just directly quoted song lyrics is sort of ridiculous.
but, i did think it was completely radical how SCANDELOUS the play was. the punkers wore lingerie and called each other "bitch" throughout the whole play, and it featured a lesbian romance scene, after which scaramouch called galileo "gali-LAY-o gigolo". i am so not making this up. the dutch are chill as hell.
not to mention, for a school play, the set, music, and costumes were FANTASTIC. they had a fully grafitti-d car, stellar scaffolding and lights, a flawless student rock band, and a 3-pane movie screen for a background, instead of switching sets. it was just fully animated. I KNOW, high tech.
so although the actual dialogue was a little dry, and it was kinda mostly just a fancy themed concert, it was still pretty entertaining :D it was worth my 2.50, anyway. plus, i'm giving it leeway because it is a DUTCH MUSICAL BASED ON QUEEN AND SCIFI. so already it's at a bit of a disadvantage, only because of how completely ridiculous that is.

anyway, it's been snowing a crapton all the time. let me just tell you, my potato-esque outerwear has yet to become more endearing. THOUGH, eline got me this amazing hat for my birthday that is a polarbear, and it is huge and obnoxious and made of white fur. i love it, and i wear it to detract from my roundness in my winter garments.
i thought "oh, maybe this isnt such a good garment to wear outside my house. you know... in public. where there's other people."
but then i remembered,

this is what i look like anyway. the hat wasn't gonna make it so much worse. and it so doesnt, if anything it's an improvement.

anyhow, back to the snow. so, on friday i was sposed to go to see only seven left in hilversum with debby, annemiek [spelling?], and bente. we were in the grocery store buying munchies and drinks when bente's dad called and said there was way too much snow to drive there, so we couldnt go. it was very sad :C
but, we decided to buy some food, rent some movies, and have a depressive evening sleepover instead. and then went well :D we had "stroopwafelfeest" ice cream, which was heavenly. did you know they even made that? because i sure didn't. and i am so very glad they do. its by a brand called hertog, who makes all the good ice cream. they have some specialty dutch flavors, also including bitterkoek and advocaat royaal. personally, i prefer it to actual stroopwafels.

i know i'm excited.

 and some red fizzy alcohol-y stuff, which i'm pretty sure was legitimately "red" flavored. it was either that or "blue", and blue looked a little questionable.
it admittedly made me, personally, feel a lil better about havin' to stay in hengelo for the night. i dunno about the rest of the girls. also, they gave me 6 chocolate letters for my birthday, one for each letter of my name. so basically, i have enough chocolate to last me forever now :D
we also watched some pretty dope movies, including this one dutch film about rich ladies who get plastic surgery and murder their cheating husbands? a comedy, of course. i thought it was funny :P but i was more excited about being able to understand any of it.
but anyway, night well spent. then, the next morning i had to wake up sssssssuper early and get my ass over to the train station to go to DICKENS FESTIJN DEVENTER. cos remember how sometimes i do that weird thing in america where i dress up in period attire and act like a freak? yeah, well i do that here too. i showed up at the train station, changed into my seven layers of dickens era dresses and shawls, slapped a bonnet over my hair, and i was so ready to rumble. and by rumble, i mean spend 5 hours out in the freezing cold singing christmas carols with my choir. it was real good.
in between episodes of singing "here we come a wassailing", we went inside to drink tea, regain feeling in our toes, and eat broodjes. okay, a thing about broodjes. how come, when you're at home, the idea of eating a buttered roll with cheese on it is like "ehhhh" to the max, but then when you're out somewhere and they give you a buttered roll with cheese on it you're like "OHGHGMMMNOMNOMNOM THIS IS GOOD."

"meh" to the nth degree, or godly gift from heaven?

anyway, we got a long break to go explore, which was cool. we saw some kids doing songs from oliver twist, which is much better in dutch. and a bunch of people dressed up as townspeople/ prostitutes/ also this one guy with a herd of sheep. he was pretty cool.
though most of the chorus, myself included, just beelined for the hot wafel stand. because um, HOT WAFELS. in -5 weather, i can barely think of anything i'd like more. i got mine with blanketbakkersroom [the stuff in eclairs], dark chocolate, and powdered sugar.

but actually it was sooo much better than that.

it came on a pretty insufficient and unecessary paper plate, which i just threw out. basically, i decided for simplicity's sake to forgo the use of a utensil, and to just shove the sugar-y chocolate-y mass into my mouth. really, i'm sure i looked like such a lady in my fluffy skirts, face covered in chocolate.
anyway, after that i also got a warm grilled ham sandwhich with some kind of lovely sauce, because i was hungry and oh so cold. and it smelled nice. that also made my stomach happy.
i promised to come back the next day and get chestnuts with sam, because she said they're really good and sort of like sweet potatoes. but the next day, there was no train that went to hengelo on time, and i was on the brink of illness, so i just stayed home and chilled. which is pretty much what i've been doing non-stop since then.
today was pretty ehh, i found out that jacque is going home. which is really the biggest bummer ever... like... i'm not exactly sure what i'm going to do without her. like... i know that its to finish school n all, and that i guess she didnt really like it here.... but still. i'm not sure what to say except that i'm really, really sad.
but yeah, so today i just kinda oscillated between my bed and the couch, drank a lot of tea, and ate my feelings in the form of m&m's and ice cream. dayyyy well spent.

anyway, the rest of the week is just bursting with life! tomorrow jelle is coming over, and then wednesday my family and i are going to aquadroom [a place that i'm assuming has to do with water idk but they have a hot tub so whatever], and  thursday christophe, amy, and jacque and i are going out. and then christmas and stuff!

anyway, yeah. till next time <3

guess who just bought ALL the food at albert heijn?

this guy.
it's a party and all, and i figured that it couldnt hurt to have a stockpiled amount of personal pizzas, bitterballen assortment, cookies, and chips. also that bread with stuff in it, that shit's delish.
also 2 crates of beer and a bazillion bottles of carbonated drinkmatter.
also there is another home-made chocolate cake sitting in my fridge. i kind of want to eat the entire thing by myself. but y'know, i'll refrain.
[i'd also like to add that this time i did not obtain a giant blisterburn! because i wasn't a STUPID JERK who doesn't wear oven mits when she touches stuff in the oven. :D ]
anyway. throwing parties is hard. wish me luck.

...this post was pointless.

the last week of my life has been composed mostly of fryalator oil

this morning i couldnt find the frying pan i wanted to make an omelette in, and i had to settle with bran flakes. which normally would make me pretty souped, cos we know i'm all about unprocessed bran. today though, i wanted to add some spice to my life. anyway, i couldnt, because i am terrible at trying hard to do anything at 6.15 in the morning, even if it is find the pan to make breakfast in. :C
but twisting flapping ear dog made me feel better. i keep him perched on the arm of the couch for convinience.

zingende hond met bewegende oren, if you're feeling particularly up for a challange.

anyhow,
sunday was muh burfday. as is the norm in nederland, we had a little feestje :D
may i just say, the dutch have family birthday parties down to an exact science. they are all exactly the same, simply because it is such a good formula for low-commital celebration. my party had all the things that are required (possibly by law) to be present, such as festive triangular streamers!

yup, this variety right here. a must have item if you might want to celebrate anything ever.

vlaai assortment! 

my particular stuk of vlaai was "ski kersen" flavored

i need to stop this party train in its tracks for a little while to talk about vlaai. google vertalen translates vlaai as "flan", but i feel that that is not giving vlaai enough credit.

this is flan.

those raspberries really do a lot for you, flan.

this is vlaai

just to clarify.

 i personally define vlaai as "cakepie", but it is sorta the dutch celebratory pastry, and its good. really good. ski vlaai, as i have come to understand through first hand experience, is normal vlaai topped with copious amounts of sugar. like straight up, inches of sugar. i know, what an amazing idea. i thought so too.
technically, it's not clumps of sugar, it's "schuimvlokken", which literally translates as "foam flakes" and is something i cannot find the exact ingredient list for but i'm pretty sure its meringue? maybe? we'll never know.
anyway, i was super excited to have a vlaai of my own :)

koffie + tea + snackies! 
we had a cozy afternoon pow-wow full of refreshments and smalltalk. it was lovely c:
and oh, oh, we even broke out the deep fryer. i know, it was a really big deal. we not only had bitterballen, (which, as we know, are the little, ??? filled, deep fried balls of ultimate beer food), we also had sate sauce bitterballen, deep fried balls filled with actual distinguishable meat-matter, and mozerella sticks.
mozeralla sticks are such a bad idea. because you eat one and you're like
"i am totally feelin' this whoever first decided to deep fry cheese was really onto something"
but then you decide you want another.
and only after eating another do you realize that one was more than enough. like, for your entire life.

why... were you created...?

 [i want you to know that in browsing pictures of mozzerella sticks, i found a picture of grilled cheese filled with mozzerella sticks. oh denny's, you always know just what the people want.]
cheese enduced death aside, i fully enjoyed my verjaardag :D

then, on tuesday, jelle and i went to go see harry potter!
since the first show of the day is at 7:30 though, we also had to putz around hengelo for six and a half hours. which was fun, 'cept for the fact that it was butt-ass freezing.
hengelo has begun looking particularly festive these days, probably due to the gratuitously sized kerstboom and ice skating rink they've set up in the centrum. it turns the space from cold and depressing to frosty and christmas-y!
anyhow, i wanted to get my ears pierced that day with some of my birthday money, but fate didn't want to let that happen. both the piercing places told us to come back the next day, so instead we spent our time wandering and looking for somewhere that sells tea cheaper than 2 euros a cup like la place, because that is criminal.

so, that would be 20 cents for the teabag, 90 cents for the hot water, and 90 cents for use of cup and saucer. gotcha.

we found a place, called cherry's, that sold it for 1.75 and reminded me of friendly's. it was a nice place. :D

also! i had my first oliebol. the stands have already been up for a few weeks, but i hadn't gotten one until now. an oliebol is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, if you think about it. it's a fluffy, oily dough ball that is deep fried and then coated in powdered sugar. sort of like a dough boy, but ball shaped. and better. you can get them plain, but they also fill them with things like raisins, apple, and banana. apparently they're a winter/new years food. it was pretty fantastic, not gonna lie. though admittedly something i probably wont be eating too often. :p

nothing warms your soul on a cold night quite like sugar-coated oildough.

 they are sold in big truck-cart things that are popping up all over everywhere. they're kind of wonderful, and they smell like sugardough C:

tis the season

with krokets, bitterballen, oliebollen, patat oorlog, and frikandel broodjes, and hagelslag, i think maybe the netherlands should consider stopping making fun of americans for mcdonalds and fast food. just sayin'. you are just as deep fried as we are, and don't even lie i know you guys sell chocolate covored oreos too. come to terms with it. don't try to pass off a hamburger bun filled with butter and sprinkles as having nutritional value, let's be serious here, holland :P

i'm sorry, but as much as you want it to, this doesn't count as real food.

anyway, harry potter [the original topic of this section of blog, if you recall] was good. i thought i was gonna make it through the whole thing without crying, and i was going really well, but then dobby. dobby fucking got me. dobby is totally my hero.
the only thing i didnt like about it was that since it was only half a movie, it felt [appropriately] like only half a movie. so waiting the year to see the other half is going to be painful.
AREN'T WE JUST LUCKY WE HAVE NEW KIDS TURBO TO HOLD US OVER UNTIL THEN?



i think we all know the answer to that.
guys, i plan to single-handedly spread this film to the US. i mean it, they need to know about it.

today, besides my omelette and other things, was pretty stellar. i had double art study hour last period, which usually causes me physical pain due to the sheer boredom. but today i actually made myself useful and poorly inked a drawing of en edo period lady. i obviously have not mastered the use of india ink yet, as made clear by my creatively uneven and blotchy linework. its artistic!
then after school i went back to hengelo to get my ears pierced. decided on claire's, cos its the cheapest place. after struggling to place the two studs on one ear correctly, we were all ready to pierce my ears with pretty light pink crystal studs. 'cept first, i needed to fill out a form. no big deal. except that all of the forms had evaporated from existance, so i couldn't sign them. since they couldnt continue without, i have to come back again another day to get my piercing.

but then, they told me that they'd give me a 20% discount on said piercing. which is great! cos extra money i was bummed about spending for the pink studs [as opposed to the ugly metal bobbles] makes up exactly 20% of the price, actually. everybody wins!
so i'm thinking i'll go back on saturday n try to do it then. but i'll call first.

a sidenote, i'm beginning to pick up the questionable grammatical and punctuational choices of my peers. like, today i actually justified the use of the commallipse,..
because to be fair, that's how i talk,.. i like to be non-committal about when my sentence is over.
i also seriously considered saying "i'm not sure how much beds we are going to have," as if it was the appropriate choice of wording. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME.

okay this was a lot of words. i'm going to go to sleep now in hopes that the omelette pan i want magically appears in the kitchen tomorrow morning. fingers crossed.

everything is beautiful and nothing hurts

i didn't actually have much reason to post today besides the description of copious amounts of food and the fact that today is my last day of being sixteen ever. i wanted to savor it, and mark it with a blog post.

oh, the good old days. thank amy for the photo

shall i start off with a brief description of today? yes, i shall. today feels like the coziest day that ever was. it is warm, and i got to sleep in 'till 11, i have absolutely no obligations except finishing my sinterklaas surprise, and i am currently surrounded by cats. there's snow outside, warm tea and sweaters inside, and i could not *possibly* be more content. this, dear friends, is what i was born to do. what life was made for. it's like watching a blizzard with a cup of hot cocoa whilst wrapped in a blanket, but the blanket is wrapped in baby kittens.

i think *everyone* needs a kitten-pile.

also, for some reason, the heating unit in my room decided to turn on today, for the first time. ever. what once was a frosty cave of terror and dread is now deliciously tosty. seriously, i avoided going to my room because it was so chilly. but i woke up this morning and i could take off the covers without wanting to curl up and die! huge occassion, volgens mij. i am taking it as a birthday present from the house. it was so cozy and nice in my room that after i woke up i decided to stay in bed and just lie there play jewelquest on my phone for an hour.

don't judge me. jewelquest is physically addictive. when i first got my phone, i was like
"what a crap game. never gonna play this." but, necesity forced me to eventually play it to keep the unbearable boredom at bay. at first i only played it in geography class, and i was like "ehhh this game is lame."
but now, i cannot stop. i am on level 25, get at me. i need to keep playing, just to see how many levels there are. not like they are particularly interesting levels, but the mindless droning actions one must perform to succeed are what make my world spin 'round. you may say my brain is melting, it's plausible. but I say i'm just developing the area of one's brain set aside for being unforgivably good at jewelquest. MY BRAIN IS THRIVING THANKS TO JEWELQUEST.

you don't know my life.

ahem, anyway. yesterday was paula's birthday, and to celebrate we went out for a fancy dinner. it was in this super gezellig stable-turned-restaurant. i was gonna order off the menu, but i couldnt actually read any of it. i barely get by on menu's that aren't full of super exotic, pretentious food descriptions, so this was obviously just too much for me to handle. luckily, paula told me that everyone else was going to get a 5 course chef's choice suprise meal. i was like HELL YEAH now i dont have to put any thought into this, i just get to eat. sign me up.
it was so, so yummy. i love fancy eating @w@
the first thing we got was a shot glass full of pumpkin-orange juice soup and a cream cheese puff. one does not expect pumpkin and orange juice to be a super combination, but let me assure you IT WAS. it was all warm and spiced and creamy and i'm pretty sure i would have been satisfied if that were the only thing i ate that night. the cream cheese puff was also yummy.
then we had a raw fish/cold cut/something else course and i was like :I. but it was good.
n then we had a fish course, and a bird course with one little delicious bitterball. it was all very rich and warm and nice.
then, the main course was beef on top of mashed potatoes with sauce, and then one carrot and one french fry, precariously perches on top of a single potato. cos i guess they thought we'd only be needing one.  which, to be fair, wasn't inaccurate.
basically it was so delicious i just wanted to sleep forever. you know what i mean? @w@
then for dessert we had caramelized pineapple slice [singular] with granola, a tiny piece of apple crumble, two white chocolate mousse stripes, and a scoop of ice cream. WHICH WAS HEAVENLY.
after that we had tea and coffee, and i was like ehh, i dont really want tea and coffee. but then, i saw that tea and coffee come with a plate of gourmet koffiekoekje selection. SO I NEEDED TEA AND COFFEE.
i was very content with my cookie assortment. they were delicious.
so that was a super gezellig night <3

i was going to pretty much stop talking right about now, but that was before i went with wencke and gjalt this afternoon to the plant superstore, intratuin. i assumed it would be your average plant filled warehouse, but i was so, so very wrong. it was the place that dreams, mine in particular, are made of. it's better than ikea. it rivals storyland. i need to go back and photographically document every inch of it.
just to give you an idea, the entrance has a river surrounded with giant red mushrooms and small fluffy animals. in the river, sit three bobbing purple flowers. and in each flower sits a laughing babydoll dressed up like a fairy. interspersed throughout the building are various lifesized stuffed deer, suits of armor, and elements of woodland holiday cheer. I AM NOT SHITTING YOU. it is absolutely magical. also, huge.
they have a bazillion christmas trees, indoor plants, ornaments, componants of miniature holiday town dioramas, pet supplies, house decorations, fireworks, and other generally ethereal things to spritz around your living space. in addition to this, they also offer a wide assortment of food in their cafeteria. ikea, eat your heart out.
i was fantasizing about how i could spent the entire day there when i realized that no, actually, i could spend my entire life there. they sell pillows shaped. like. toadstools. they sell snow white disembodied elk heads. anything you could possibly need to pimp out your santaland, they can sell to you.

the real deal.

some prime snapshots of the holiday wonderment

notice the babydoll flower fairies.

in case you are wondering what the red things behind the babydoll flower fairies are, those seemed to be red toxic waste barrels. yeah, i don't really get it either. but hey, whoever designed the place obviously knew what they were doing. or was insane. take your pick.

so basically, what you should take away from this blogpost is that i am almost seventeen, and i would enjoy nothing more than to be locked in intratuin playing jewelquest and eating gourmet koffiekoekjes for the rest of eternity. i know what you're thinking,

*twitch*
 but you are so wrong. u_u i promise.

PSA

debby is on the right. she knows what's up.

we have good times.
so, today i am here with an important announcement:
you know who's really smart? like, blindingly mind-bogglingly intelligent?
debby is. she might be the smartest person i know. i can't even handle it. she is also an artistic genius, as proved by her beautiful and artistic interpretations of justin bieber, sinterklaas, bram, and beards. you should come to hengelo and meet her! she will gladly deface BEAUTIFY your textbooks with justin biebers smiling face bowl cut.
this announcement has been paid for by the Committee for Debby Intelligence Awareness.

also, quick, non-debby related update. the snow. its slippery. i thought it wouldnt be so slippery, cos i mean COME ON, it's snow. but oh no, snow has taught me a lesson. snow, you may have won this time. but i will defeat you. me n my fiets are ready for the challenge.

...jk i hope i never have to leave the house ever again haha my fiets can fall in a ditch. <3