o hallo

soo, been back for a month. decided to add a nice little follow up post! huzzah! because its 1:30 AM and i am sort of having a panic attack, what better to do than talk to the blog-o-sphere?
um well. life is derp. i suddenly know a lot of people and do a lot of things and its really really warm.
keep in mind it was so cold in NL that i'd apparently started growing a light layer of fur. anyway.
also on that note, ive gained like 20 pounds since i got back, which i find raaaather impressive. only because i cannot stop eating all of our delicious american food so hah. which, admittedly is mostly ice cream. but also vegitarian cuisine, so yknow, i gain health points for that.

mmm tempeh, my favorite food in the whole world. 

i also just realized this week that i can make pancakes whenever i want, and have taken advantage of this fact to the fullest extent.
but um, i started seeing a nutritionist and i go to therapy for the first time next week :> it is really really difficult, and i sort of feel like dying a little bit, BUT JUST A LITTLE NBD. i also started working out to keep my muscles intact, because after biking ten miles a day for a year, one tends to become a little bit made of steel, like ya do.
but enough about my now fully-touching thighs. [my pants still fit though, ka-ching.]

i miss speaking dutch, a lot a lot. i'm so afraid to forget it, it being basically my only major life accomplishment. it'd be a shame to lose it. i try to practice a lot, i talk to myself in dutch like a loser a lot. also in there on the loser spectrum, i've considered hiring a dutch college student to y'know... talk to me. which, when you think about it, is really really lame. but, when you think about it just a tiny bit longer, is actually fairly practical, or so i tell myself.

jacque came to visit me last week! it was amazing, i hadn't seen her since january in winterswijk with a terrible hangover. after she left, the rest of the year got immidiately ten times harder. without jacque, who was there to   comedically complain about everything with me? nobody understood just how much i loved cruesli or despised having to wear three layers of pants upon exiting my house *quite* like jacque understood. but yeah, we did lots of super premium things. mostly eating ice cream and korean food, but we went to newport one day in the pouring rain and danced in the ocean :> we also trekked over to boston and met up with jenny, another american exchange meisje, and spent the day buttsing around there C:  i miss them already~ its kind of a bummer when all your best friends live nowhere even close.

what else, lets see. i've been skyping with jelle a lot, so thats going okay. i miss him very much. and at first, i didn't feel that far away, but now i feel too far away for words. like maybe at first skype felt like the same room even, but now it sort of feels like parallel sliced universes; we aren't on the same plane of existence anymore, and it's really difficult. i don't know. he'll come to visit with christmas though, which should be a real winner. i'm sure he and my grandma will get along like ~*bff*~

on a sidnote, i'm extremely nervous right now, so everything i type is probably sounding like one jittery run-on sentence, but i can't really be bothered sorry <3 watching trainspotting [and other events] have put me in an especially odd place this morning.
also, i realize that the only picture in this particular blog is a piece of tempeh, but hey. sometimes that's just how life is.

also, i've planned my tattoo! hopefully i'll be able to book an appt. for the winter, and then i can take pictures and show you all c: wish me luck with finding an artist!

i dunno, basically life is uncomfortably different now. i can't really talk about it now. it's fun though :> i have other stuff to talk about, like i saw gogol bordello again, but really. don't have the attention span to really talk about anything right now, i just wanted to type some things.

jadusss dat wordt het. dooooooooooooooooooei.
also also, if you happen to be going on exchange and weirdly reading this blog for some reason, [i forget did i submit it to AFS?] anyway, if so, feel free to chat me up about it c:

a dedication to mijn fiets

so i didn't actually really want to write a post right now, but i told myself i would and maybe once i get into it i'll be a little bit more excited. so here goes.
this is the last week i have with my beloved bike. the new exchange student next year is roughly the same size as me, so we decided to get rid of the old bike now and replace it with a new one. i went to the bike store last week to sort things out, sort of expecting to trade the bike in then. turns out, the new one comes into the shop on saturday, so i have until then to take my last rickety rides on ol' faithful. i know this whole year i have been complaining and joking about my laughably jacked up bicycle, it's 75% duct tape, no gears, no lights, and i'm pretty sure several key componants have simply fallen off throughout the course of our relationship. lets not even talk about the noises it makes when i have to ride over cobblestones.
but, to be honest, i am going to miss my bike. a lot.  last week in the shop when i thought it'd be the last time i'd see it, i was literally on the verge of tears. because like, it feels the same as having to put down a really old pet. i have been through everything with it, every freaking impossible ride to school in the wind and rain and snow, every late night back from the city. i've spent an entire year, every almost day, riding that dumb bike around! it's seen what i've seen. every time i literally had an emotional breakdown mid-commute, my bike was right there with me, taking my shit [sometimes i talk to myself on the way home/ to school if things are particularly hard. i feel like i might have actually been talking to the bike. in any case, it's heard quite a few "echt waar??"s and "fucking HELL"s and long winded complaints. sometimes i cried.]
and every good day, my bike's ridden just as happily as i did, through the sunlight and warm breezes.
i have so many stories with my bike! like the time i lost my key when i went to hengelo with jacque, and we had to leave it there for 2 days. or every time i've had to fish it out of a mangled pile of bikes at school, or the time i taught myself to bike with no handlebars. how for at least half the year, the lock stuck and it took me literally 5 minutes to lock up, my fingers too numb to apply the necessary pressure. how pieces fell off on my way to school and i had to walk it the rest of the way because it didn't work anymore, and i cursed at it and got mad. but i always forgave it, cos i needed to ride it again the next day. i can't stay angry at it for long, i think, it has its own form of puppydog-eyes.
i feel like my bike just gets me, y'know? i'm serious here. it isn't just my mode of transportation, it's like my loyal steed.
so as crappy and broken and shamefully difficult to ride as my bike is, i love it. 
when i have to say goodbye to one of my best friends [i am not kidding, call me a loser i dare you], i'm still gonna keep the key. just as a memento. and i am not ashamed to say that i have spent several minutes cooing sweet goodbyes and comfortingly petting the seat, as one would calm a euthanized housepet.
just a sidenote, does anybody else feel as attached to their bike as i do? i'm interested to know. i feel like maybe i'm the only one who feels so strongly about their bike. i think it's probably because nobody else's bike is as fucked up and insane as mine haha. it has personality. quirks.
and the new bike won't be the same. it will feel stiff and new and serious, strict and expressionless. just a mode of transport. maybe that would be why other kids don't love their bikes like i do mine. 
anyway, this i figured it a special post about my bike. more about this week is coming up in the next entry :)

mijn leven is te druk

hello, dames en heren.
basically, for about the last week i have been up to my little ears in an ocean of stress. all those days in the winter i spent doing absolutely nothing have added up, and now i need to start doing things and seeing people with RECORD SPEED AND DENSITY.
my activity density is ridiculously high. i can't handle it. it is very fun, but i am slowly going insane. which would be cool, except i am filling the insanity void with cake. and my tummy doesnt like that very much.
besides the hideous amount of comfort food i've consumed in the last week, [i'm not the only one, emily and i decided that coming home and eating nine boterhammen was sometimes a perfectly acceptable cure. tears optional.]
anyway besides that,
this week has been really fun C:
let's start out with last friday. last friday i had two birthday parties to attend, and since i do not give up in the face of a party related challange, i decided i was going to go to them both. the first was a high tea for my friend susan's 18th birthday party. we all biked to her house in hengelo, where she had prepared a fabulous array of "hapjes" for us. she had little sandwiches, quiche, brownies, chocolates, muffins, oatmeal cookies, lots of yummy yumminess. and also tea, naturally. lots of it :) this was absolutely my type of party. we hung around and talked and stuff, it was very gezellig.
ALSO, i was introduced to another traditionally dutch thing. lisette brought with her a homemade arretjescake. for those of you who don't know, aka all of you,
arretjescake is a sort of icebox cake made from biscuits. and uh.. not a lot besides that.

looks questionable, but it's one of those foods has a sort of rough, farmery charm. promise.

basically, it's a crumbley delicious mess because the the only ingridients are SUGAR, BUTTER, CHOCOLATE, and COOKIES. combined. oh yeah, and an egg, so the whole thing sticks together a lil' bit.
its heavy as hell and fabulous. so that was a lovely experience :D y'know, gotta experience the traditional dutch things!
anyway, after susan's delicious party, i made a quick pitstop at home and then headed back out to the pirate-themed 17th birthday party from teun, a boy from my class. pretty recently i've become friends with just about all the kids in my class that i'd wanted to talk to all year, and i was pretty souped that i got to hang out with them all outside of school :> better late than never, as they say.
on to the more important fact, uh, PIRATE THEMED PARTY. :D
i wanted to dress up as a pirate, but my disgusting and shamefully large amount of pirate accessories are all in america, so i just kind of put on a pirate inspired outfit. and i'll be the first to admit that pirates probably didn't have mini-dresses, but who are you even to judge. 

yes, striking historical accuracy. good job.

we played a little bit of pirate metal, chilled out on the couch, talked, drank some beer/wine/pasoa, had a generally lovely time. some of the boys also made some home-made beer, which i tried and it was admittedly gross, but not as gross as it could have been, so props. another girl was struck by divine inspiration and used her new ice cream machine to make cherry-beer flavored ice cream. also gross, but again, if i had to choose between eating it and death, it wouldn't even be a difficult decision to eat it! and also, best idea. i was suddenly reminded of the chocolate jenever, which would probably make delicious ice cream and if i ever got an ice cream maker i'd say probably it'd be a beneficial idea to try.

I KNOW I AM A GENIUS

i mean, what? *coughcough* that would be a terrible idea, gross, why would you ever do that. i know, right? awful. haha
anyway. i made my way home in the wee hours of the morning, found some super special surprise leftover pizza in the microwave, nommed happily, and then crashed.
the next day i was a wee bit hung over, but not too much. whilst peeling myself out of the party clothes from the day before, i found ten euros i had stored in my bra! which i remembered thomas gave me. subsequently i remembered it was because i promised to wear my pink bear pajamas to school on the monday.
you know, these ones:

awesome idea on my part, good one.

but we'll get to that story later, my dears.
i couldn't nurse myself back to health that particular morning because we were going to the openlucht museum in arnhem with AFS. so i put on my game face, downed a good liter of water, ate an egg for protein, and we set off.
my expectations of the openluchtmuseum were far surpassed, to say the least. when they said "open air museum", i had been expecting some shitty outdoor garden full of modern art sculptures or something. why i thought AFS would put us through that sort of pain is beyond me, but i wasn't especially excited.
in reality, the openluchtmuseum is a humungous collection of old buildings and attractions taken from all around holland. basically, they hoard houses. they pick them up and put them in their pocket and plop them down awkwardly on this large expanse of grassland. and it is fabulous. we saw farmhouses, windmills, bakeries, hospitals, everything. it was exactly my sort of thing, getting to walk around cute little set up houses and make up stories in my mind. like the children's museum, or ikea. my favorite part was definitely this one miniature carnival themepark thing that was rockabilly themed. they had a few cute rides, such as swanboat swings, and the entire place was blasting bouncin' rockabilly hits the entire time. obviously, amy and i jumped at the chance to ride in the swan and jam out to some ace tunes.

JAMMING.

if i were ever again in the netherlands with people who hadn't seen it yet, i'd definitely reccomend the openluchtmuseum as a neat-o destination.
anyway, great and adorable and informative.
we walked around there for a bit, then stopped at one of the restaurants there for pannenkoeken. i got a delicious thick bacon-egg-syrup pancake. it was super lovely @w@ also the beginning of my 3-day sugar rush.
after the openluchtmuseum, amy and i had to catch the train to jenny's dorpje to go to her going away party. she had to go home early because she's starting college in the fall and needed to go sign up for classes at orrientation. admittedly very important. so she had a party/bbq/sleepover at her house :> all the other american girls were there, which was awesome to see them all again. we hung out in the rain and talked more about how ridiculous and stressful and awful and wonderful this year was. we also ate a laughable amount of cake [i ate a piece of strawberry vlaai, arretjescake, kwarktaart, and a white cake topped with marzipan and filled with custard and jam. and an ice cream cone. aaand then we decided that it would be beneficial to midnight snack it up, and i had 2 more pieces of cake. good choices yeah!]
we stayed up late and shared stories of our questionable and hilarious experiences, wrote theoretical movies ["yeah, he was in this movie called uh, something whatever-" "oh yeah, something whatever, that was a really good one :I" <3] and said our goodbyes to jenny. who i am definitely going to miss a very lot :C i'm sad i didnt get to see her more this year, but she's going to zoomass, so i'll probably get to visit her sometime in the US. :)
we talked a lot about the differences between holland and america, and how hard it actually is to be an exchange student. like, you sort of don't realize it while it's happening, you think "this is just life, whatever", but   in retrospect, we were all slightly severely depressed through the winter. in a good way, though. its hard to explain in a way for non-exchange students to understand, i think. looking back on it, you kind of have to say "it was stressful and full of low-points and i fucking LOVED it and wouldn't trade it for the world <3". and yes, it is and was full of LOTS of high points too :)
anyhow. the next day was sunday, and i had to navigate the trains alone back to borne. i was kinda depressed from all of the goodbyes and talk of emotions, and also extremely stressed. my trip back to borne wound up being 4 hours of switching trains and catching busses and being extremely dirty and tired, and when i arrived in utrecht in the middle of my trip, i was pretty much at breaking point. luckily, as we all know, eating to crush your emotions is how most if not all exchange students deal with their problems, so i stopped in at starbucks and bought myself a large piece of carrot cake. i'd been craving carrot cake for like 3 months and they don't have it anywhere, and YES, it was absolutely delicious and i enjoyed every sadness-ridden bite. thanks for asking.

carrot cake, i am at my wit's end. 

came home, discovered that wencke had made cake, had some more cake, lazed on the couch, snacked, lazed. you know. sunday was not exactly a "high point" day.
after such a large density of refined carbs and sugars in just 3 days, my whole-wheat non-dairy low-fat vegetable rich body was beginning to get a little bit confused and overwhelmed, and it decided to let me off with a warning. an extremely painful, gut-wrenching warning in the form of late night stomach cramps. message recieved, tummy.
monday i woke up and remembered something about having to wear my bear suit to school. so, in 80 degree weather, ON IT WENT. everybody already thinks i'm a little strange, so i figured what the hell, i like my kigu, why not? everyone who was at the party was very interested and excited to see that i had kept up my end of the bargain, cos y'know, i'm such an honest person :D
a lot of the people i am acquainted with thought it was adorable and ridiculous and *thumbs up*.
of course, many of the people i do not know laughed and informed me that carnival already happened this year and asked me what on earth was i doing. which i found hilarious. cos why not? why shouldnt you dare to wear a bear suit out in public? its just a stupid piece of clothing :9
anyway, teun took some foto's of me with some people, so if i can find those i will show you :)
the next day, i had planned for jelle to come over as usual, and then to go to my metropool meeting. but, while going through my winter coat pocket the day before, i found my 2 bargain day train tickets. which i had paid 15 euros each for. which happened to be expiring on thursday. with two days left to use my two tickets, i decided the day could be better spend galavanting around amsterdam with jelle than sitting in school doing nothing. plus, i still had to buy presents for people!
paula agreed with me, so jelle and i made some quick n dirty plans to go to a-dam. we left the next morning around 9. first, before amsterdam, we made a pitstop in bilthoven [aka "where the fuck is" bilthoven], home of the only lolita store in the netherlands, mirai fashion. need i explain why? i think not. i got to touch angelic pretty dresses, i almost died they were so beautiful and lovely and expensive. i wanted to try them on, but they didnt look like they'd fit, and i was sort of afraid of letting my germy gross human skin touch something so pristine and delicate.

I HAVE TOUCHED THIS DRESS *droolgiggle*

what? no, i do not have a lolita problem.
after our excursion of beauty, we continued on towards amsterdam. we wanted to go to waterlooplein to do some secondhandmarket shopping and find dutch gifts for friends. we werent especially sure how to get there, but we decided that probably directly through the red light district was a good bet, so off we went. we wound up finding it fine in the end [go, us!]. it was super cool, i had missed giant stores full of gross used clothing <3 so savers. i also found some nice, not pricey gifts for my family. and a gift for shannon, because i like her.
after that we wandered around a bit, i decided i wanted a chocolate covered waffle, so jelle n i split one. then i sort of had some mental breakdowning, and jelle, being the wonderful tolerant man that he is, helped me dry my tears and gave me hugs till i felt better <3
then we found ourselves suddenly in little asia and looked at some stores with the biggest freaking woks i have ever seen.
then went to FOAM, a photography museum. the exhibit was photos from the war in the middle-east, they were all pretty cool. one artist had cut out the pople from her fotos, people with blindfolds, and pasted them onto separate panes of glass. which i thought was a really cool idea. there were other aesthetically pleasing and cool photo collections, it was a good museum pick :)
jelle and i have weirdly good luck with restaurants in amsterdam. we have eaten at restaurants in the red light district twice, and both times they were good and not poisonous. that day we were feeling in an asian-food/curry sort of mood, and after some walking and being picky, we decided on a little malaysian restaurant called nyonya. it was packed, and very small. but the food was superyummy, i thought :> i got squid with veggies in coconut spicy sauce. such a big yummy meal was very necessary after a day of shopping endlessly :P
after that we trained back to borne and he slept over :3
the next day, we had planned to take another trip, possibly to the beach, but we slept in nice and late first, so we decided that the 3 hour trip to and from the beach would be slightly ridiculous. i was really kinda tired from the day before, so we decided to just go bum around enschede instead. to make that a little more exciting for myself, i decided to wear my gloomy bear suit. because again, why not? jelle was not especially convinced that this was a great plan [i do not know why it sounds like a fabulous plan just by principle]
but he said he was okay with it and he took his camera with him to make some pictures :>
we just kinda looked around, no one really commented on the bear suit, i bought a cheap dutch book of hello kitty love quotes. it was a nice chill day.

majestic bear-girl

me and my best friend, creepy winking bag of french fries that is weirdly omnipresent in the netherlands.

on the train ride back i made friends with another guy from america, because people talk to you when you wear a pink bear suit and have hot pink hair. he's only been in the netherlands for 8 months or so too, he's a student. we agreed to hang out some time or something, i hope if i have time :D haha
then jelle and i set up camp in the living room and drew sketches of our future houseboat/pirate ship. its going to have a pirate bar on it, and be amazing, and you are all extremely jealous that i get to go live on a pirate ship. yes.
so that was wednesday, also good :) and i was less stressed from spending so much nice time with jelle.
this post is already unbelievably long. on-ge-loof-e-lijk.
so um i think i'm gonna end it here and talk about yesterday and the weekend in another post.
one more thing before i go!
JACQUE IS COMING TO VISIT ME THIS SUMMER I CAN'T BREATHE OMG C: also my parents said i can get a tattoo, and we're planning fun concerts to go to during the summer. so good good things! to hopefully drag me out of my pit of sadness from leaving the netherlands behind :P
this post got a little heavy in the middle there! hoo-woo goodness me i don't do that too often. probably before/ right after i leave we'll be getting a very serious and thoughtful blog installment. i know you are all writhing with excitement.
bye <3

ALSO UM

i just remembered something very exciting-

remember those triple chocolate american cookies that they only have at the albert heijn to go?

yes this one.

they now sell them at the normal albert heijn. that i have, within walking distance. so i could get one whenever i want, technically.
this is not good, not good at all. i should not be trusted with this kind of temptation, albert heijn.

*beams*

lots of things and subsequently lots of videos.

hello :) this week has been full of little nice things, which is fun.
today i wound up only having one class, 4th hour bio, because my other class got cancelled. so i got to leisurely get myself to school by 11:45 instead of 9:30. i wasn't going to go at all, and i was actually considering just picking up my bike in hengelo and shopping of a little while instead, but i decided to just show up and endure the hour of nothingness until i could go home again. which, i'm glad i did. today instead of sitting in a void of vapidness, we watched al gore's an inconvenient truth. which ive never seen before. in short, it made me want to cry and go inside and possibly kill myself because of all the seeming hopelessness. but uh, in a good way?
yeah, it was a very good film.
anyway, so that was fun.
yesterday was also a wonderful day!
because of many things. which i think i'll convey to you in list format
1. i discovered the joys of savory oatmeal! i ate cooked rolled oats with salt, pepper, and some shredded cheese with a baked egg on top. OHMYGOD. not only delicious, but filling for hours and hours. you should try it. go on, i'm serious.

i know, the idea is very new and frightening. but trust me.

2. i finished the book i was reading and found a new one! it was the last battle from the chronicles of narnia series, and it was freaking insane. i enjoyed the intensely deep religious views presented, buuut ill admit i had some trouble throwing myself into some of his freaky unicorn-waterfall-sparkle-dazzle drug-enduced imagery. but besides that, it was neat-o. the new book i found it called taal is echt zeg maar mijn ding by paulien cornelisse. the title translates to "language is really my thing, y'know?" it's a dutch book filled with short comedic blurbs about different things people say in dutch. which, i found perfect because its funny and also helpful to get me more acquainted with "straat taal". plus it has cute cartoons every so often.

like this one. its silly because jellyfish don't even have brains i  think, they are not capable of  this level of sass.

3. i went to subway for dinner and didn't die! i decided that i was going to show up at choir yesterday, and i then had to start work at metropool right after, so i just stayed in hengelo the afternoon and shopped. i also decided that i was feeling sort of brave and in the mood for a sandwich, so i picked up a turkey/lettuce sub with honey mustard for my 4:30 dinner :P i've kind of secretly missed subway, even though it's fairly gross. old habits die hard, guys. the turkey six inch was the edible soundtrack to my summer, it's pure nostalgia. buut i've phased out mayo in favor of honey mustard because it taste more like.... an actual flavor of something. and less like grease.

in my opinion, it is not exactly fair to put people under the illusion that a subway sub looks anything like this. but still tasty in it's own sad, flat little way.

4. i got paid! soo i worked in the coatroom yesterday with this other guy that just moved here from turkey four months ago. it was actually pretty fun because there weren't a lot of people and it was kinda low key, so we just got to spend a lot of time talking about the language and the netherlands and going abroad.
also, i wore bunnybuns with my zombie hand bows that day. which got mixed responses-
the group of jeluzz bitchez young ladies outside the albert heijn decided that volgens ze, was mijn haar "een beetje misgegaan." [my hair went a little wrong.] aand that i needed to be harrassed about it. to which i snarled and continued on with my day :9
buuut two middle aged dudes at the metropool show though i looked festive and gave me a euro each in tips! which, i tried to refuse because i don't think we do that there, but they were already gone by the time i noticed they had even left it for me. i also somehow wound up with two drink tokens that i did not have at the start of the evening? which will probably come in handy sometime. so thanks for that, kind patrons of metropool! also, before i left, the boss handed me 10 euro? and i'm not really sure why? but i was largely pleased C: just y'know, keep it on the dl. paid volunteer work is a thing, right?
5. i met some random dude! meeting people for short, unexpected conversations is always interesting. on my way home i ran into this skater kid with an upside-down cross dutcttaped onto his cap. he said he werked at metropool too and knew alex, so we walked together for a little while. we talked about my exchange, and a girl he knew from boston, and how generally everything is fucked up. lekker je eigen ding doen, y'know?
it was nice, i enjoy that kinda surprise.

so that was my wednesday. when i finally did get home after work, i was bursting with good vibes because of the buildup of all the little things :)
oh! also one other thing. we have another exchange student, emi, staying with us for the next few weeks. she's from argentina. her host family was batshit fucking insane she was having some problems with her host family, so she moved out and is now looking for a new one in enschede. so in the tussentijd, she's staying with us :D she's pretty cool, and she makes tea all the time, which is a definite plus <:
anyhow. tonight after dinner paula, emi and i are going to visit a hostfamily in enschede, so that'll be a little bit interesting.
then tomorrow, [!!!] we're celebrating wencke's 21st birthday and going out for japanese food! it's a restaurant in enschede called TAO, and i've looked at their sushi menu and it looks extremely nom-able. there are no words for how pumped i am. i've missed sushi @u@ after that, i have to work the graveyard shift at metropool for this grindcore party. i volunteered because it sounded AWESOME, but then i got worried cos it's the same night as my sushi appt, and i was not about to miss that to tap some beers. fortunately, they told me i have to work from 10pm-4am [and bike home], which i didn't know. so actually everything works out fine :D except for the sleeping part. but uh, i wasn't planning on doing that anyway. i can just sleep all of saturday, until i have to go to a birthday party from my other friend melissa. that's like a full day of sleep, i'll be fine.
so yeah. this weekend is gonna be tons of laughs. :)
now, some videos!
dutch sesame street with a favorite number, "zoek de zeep"

bundles of fun for everyone!


dikkie dik the kat:


and the better version:



lastly, i'll leave you with a comedy snippet from my favorite dutch comedian, so far. if you understand dutch, this is hilarious. if you don't, honestly it is probably not very funny at all but you can still watch it to see and be vaguely baffled by what you're missing.





i would also like you to see this, the result of my search for the second comedy sketch:

uh, yeah youtube, that's exactly that i meant. thanks for that, always lookin' out for me.

i was going to end this somehow, but now i'm just baffling over how anyone could possibly type
"ronald goedemondt sanex" and have meant
"stratchy na lachy pila tango."

just out of curiousity;

hot new lente style trend 2011

hi! i have a lot to write about. yesterday paula and i went to volendam and went to look at all the tulips, ive been to some nice birthday parties, and i've worked my first day after the bar in metropool.
BUT. i'm at school now and i only have an hour, and these blog entries take precious time and effort to carefully craft and perfect.
thusly, i'm actually here right now to give you an installment of "reasons why i find that the general public of dutch teenage girls has questionable taste"
this entry is going to sound kinda mean. i'm only dedicating a whole entry to this because these things are literally EVERYWHERE, they have invaded the netherlands with unprecedented speed.

this particular variety includes religious themed dangly-bits.

this baby. this baby right there. in case you can't tell what that is, it's a hoop earing. which, on its own i find questionable. but shall we continue. its a hoop earring with a fabric flower in the middle. [this particular picture includes one of the more paletable varieties.] and, as the cherry on top of the gaudy cake, it has little charms dangling off of it, an extra touch of *sparkle* for your look.
anyway. the first time i saw these in a store, i was like
"huh. thats unfortunate".
i kept seeing them around and thinking "oh, its those earrings again. i wonder if anyone buys those."
but then i started to see them in every accessory store. not only that, but i started seeing people wearing them. every day. everywhere. tens of girls.
because apparently these kitsch-tastic babies are WHERE IT IS AT as far as funky spring trends go.
lets look at some more photos, shall we?



striking.



this one's a beaut, with the cat and everything.




"De trend van 2011!"



beautiful!
anyway. what i noticed today was that every girl i was seeing with these earrings was only wearing one. apparently that's what you do, only wear one. because according to my friends,"two is too much".
how could i have been so naïve?
i found out that this triend started from holland's most famous soap, goede tijden slechte tijden. one of the main characters wore it, and now it is a MUST HAVE addition to any festive spring outfit.

dutch girls, i still love you and some of your trends are very nice and cool, but WHAT WERE YOU THINKING. look at your lives, look at your choices.

a quick explanation in dutch;
http://waat.nl/bloemen-oorbel-orchidee-set-van-2/
a review of them;
http://divaofgeneva.blogspot.com/2011/03/review-oorbellen-lorena-nina-uit-gtst.html

tot straks, blog :D

een onverwacht leuke dag.

this week has been fairly busy! i've decided its probably well time i got off my ass and started doing things and going places, and now that i can go places without practically passing out from cold, that is happening :)
so yeah, this entry will probably be rather long. cos hey, i haven't blogged in a while. and i guesssss i have a little bit of desire to let you guys into my life. or something.
just for a second.

more specifically this second.

this weekend i went to go see only seven left again at metropool with debby and some of her friends. obviously, only seven left and i are now close personal friends, and i could probably make a fairly well fleshed-out photoalbum of "pictures of me and only seven left band members". anyway, this was the third time. the opening band was want want, a dutch band that actually sings in dutch. here you go, have a taste. this song translates roughly to "stupid bitch", in case you were wondering.

the lyrics make it especially charming.
"yesterday was a shitty day,
everything sucks,
everything sucks,
because i saw him with you,
stupid bitch,
stupid bitch"
it wasn't too crowded, we were definitely the rowdiest ones there. "we" of course meaning debby and friends, whilst her friend tom and i exchanged concerned glances :P in any case, it was "weer gezellig". they stayed in the city until about 6 am the next day, which i also wanted to do, but my hardcore partying days ended exceedingly abruptly several months ago. i just don't have that raging desire to be unfunctionally shitfaced anymore, what can i say? i did want to stay a bit longer, but unfortunately if i didnt stay until 6, i had to leave with the last train at 12:30. soo, a little bit early home.
[this is an ongoing issue, that could potentially be solved by being able to bike alone after 11 pm. buuut i'm not sure if i'm up for dying in a ravine on the way home from hengelo, so 12:30 it is. this is also a problem when i work, because the things usually last until 2-4 or so, and i always have to pussy out and go home early before everyone cleans up. slecht!]
anyway, so that was saturday. it was also absolutely beautiful weather on saturday, 25 whole degrees. which roughly translates to 75 f, or "fucking get out your bikini this is about as warm as it gets" weather. wencke and i and another exchange student from columbia [simena] biked to hengelo to finally get some of hengelo's famous vanderpoel ijs. it was only the most delicious creation ever. i got crème brûlée [don't you wish your keyboard was dutch like mine?], which was custardy with little bits of praline, and stroopwafel [of course], which had chunks of stroopwafel in it. and was homg-amazing. then we enjoyed a lekker full-tummied ride back to borne. in short sleeves! with no jacket! i could have died of happiness.
on sunday i was feeling just a bit dysfunctional after my "late night" at metropool. because, though i didn't drink much, i did manage to pack in 3 glasses of white wine at the end of the night.

i guess it's been long enough since berlijn in october that i am no longer repulsed by wine. mostly.

but, i hauled myself together and paula, henri, ik, en simena went to duitsland to visit a castle. it was pretty cool, i'm always a fan of that kind of old timey stuff. though, some of it was excessively ridiculous. in the olden days, they enjoyed making things out of animal parts much more than they do now. for the taxidermy, i was like "okay", i endured the antler encrusted lighting fictures, i even managed to be like "this is understandable" for the antler lounge-seating.
in my mind, the line was crossed with the giant goat[?] leg serving utensils. which, in case you don't understand, were A SPOON AND A FORK MADE OUT OF ANIMAL LEGS. LIKE, WITH HAIR ON THEM. AND HOOVES.
it was ever so extravagant. laughably so. i <3 symbols of high status.
but anyway, it was enjoyable. :)
monday i went to enschede with tutti and simena, not too much to report. i picked up a large bag of assorted drop schepsnoep and a leopard print poncho. also, in traditional nederlands fashion, a giant shitstorm of hail appeared out of nowhere right as we were about to leave, so we had to take shelter in burger king for half an hour. which was actually sort of painful, since i am not a huge fan of fast food, to put it lightly.
tuesday jelle came over, always gezellig :> tuesday is our day, since i am out early and he only has his ridiculously low-leveled core-courses. since we haven't been able to hang out on the weekend for a while, it's nice that most weeks we have a day <3 even though, since we're both dirt poor, we're sort of running out of things to do XD thinking of a free hobby is much more difficult than you think. but, a new sushi restaurant is opening up in winterswijk soon, so we want to go there and try it out. because sushi is my god and master now. C:
eueuehehhhuuuhhhhmmmm wednesday was "sportdag", for which we all had to choose a sport to do after school for some unknown reason. seemingly the reason was to torture us, since like 90% of kids today were complaining about their back/leg/arm/everywhere pain like old people. but that i think is because they all entered the wonderful worlds of canoeing, kick-boxing, rollerblading, salsa dance, etc. i , in traditional angela fashion, chose archery, the least sport-y sport. also the most in line with my future dreams of becoming robin hood.

look it is me, they have painted my future.

 anyway.
besides being kind of a haul and a half on the bike to get there, it was pretty cool. we didn't do a whole lot. but! i did make some new fraaannnzzz. a group of boys from my grade and the grade below me, including a boy who exchanged to japan but then came home early, decided that for some reason it would be beneficial and not social suicide to interact with me? [HEY, UNPOPULAR OPINION :D score.] so that was fun. i've also been provided with a long list of animes to watch, which is wonderful actually since i spend a good amount of time listlessly staring into space at home. now i can fill that time with deliciously weaboo-y glee.

obviously an improvement!

precisely what my life needs more of.

so! that brings us to today. no activities planned, i'd expected a pretty lame day. my first hour fell out, and then i had a free hour, and then biology. tentatively free at 11:45. i figured i'd maybe go to the c1000 and pick up a loaf of bread and some more wheat bran, y'know. whatever. [i usually don't eat bread, boterhammen are kind of against everything i stand for and enjoy in the food realm. but i have to go travelling tomorrow and i wanted to pack sandwiches. so i got all fancy like and bought a pack of smoked salmon, which is one of the only bread toppings i am ridiculously fond of, and a half loaf of the full-grainiest brownest bread i could find. also because i manage to turn every piece of bread i try to defrost into a crumbly crisp of dissapointment, so i figured i'd just purchase my own goddamn loaf of ready-to-use angela bread for this week.hokay. continuing with plotline.]
just to make sure i wasn't like, magically required to make a test for some reason, i took a look at the roster board before i left. just for giggles. pretty sure i even had my bike key out already.
low and behold, jesus christ, my art class was listed to attend a "tea party".
...what. okay. i figured it was probably a little meeting to explain some things for tomorrow, because we're taking a class trip to den haag. but secretly i was kind of excited, because 1. i like tea and 2. i enjoy anything that doesn't involve me sitting, doing nothing, letting my brain melt.
sooo, headed over to the art room. when i got there, i was greated not by some teachers with cardboard cups full of engelse melange, but a giant tatami mat setup,  boiling tea kettle, and a large dutch man in a kimono.
... tea party. japanese tea ceremony demonstration? is it possible to be so lucky? i know i'm a giant nerd, but i can't help it! it was very much a pleasant swerve away from what my day was supposed to be.
the rest of the students seemed fairly unphazed by this obvious gift from the heavens. first he explained in dutch how most tea ceremonies go, which i think might have killed everybody with boredom, but i was right there with him! like an a++ student puppydog. he said that, alas, only two students could participate in the demonstration and taste the tea. obviously it was not a WHOA DON'T EVERYBODY RAISE YOUR HAND AT ONCE NOW sort of situation. i tried to volunteer myself without sounding too overjoyed, maybe with a hint of "oh well if nobody wants to then i guess i will take the fall for all of you". i and the other boy who was volunteered took our shoes off and knelt on the tatami mats. first, he offered us "snoepjes", which were sweet miso crackers. then he made the other boy tea. which, to say the least, he did not find especially lekker. he said it tasted like liquid sushi, which made dutch-kimono-teamaster-sama lol. i thought it tasted yummy, like really strong green tea. which, i guess makes sense, because it was matcha tea, and that is exactly what matcha tea is. anyway, it was a pleasurable and unexpected experience. like... the last thing i would ever expect to happen. ever. 
buuut. tomorrow i accidentally managed to plan myself an impossibly busy day. i set out at 6:45 for school to catch the bus to den haag. then i spend the whole day checkin' out all of the wonderful and inspiring sites of den haag, such as museums. and probably some stores or something. maybe a snack automaat. hopefully no rain. thennn, we get back in the bus and arrive in hengelo around 8:30. at which point i was stupid enough to sign up to work at metropool. so then i run over there because i am already an hour late, and work in the coat room until 1:30 am. at which point i am assuming i either die or have developed a tyler durden, one of the two.

we both know which option i am rooting for.

saturday i am going to sleep until a ripe hour of 3 pm, then haul ass to the albert heijn to pick up some melons, and then i have a chocolate fondue birthday party of a girl from my class :) thus, the melons. because melons go good with chocolate, right? yes. i'm excited! mostly to spend time with the girls in my class outside of school, but also because i am a huge fan of fruit.
also, sidenote, i've started reading that jerry spinelli book stargirl in dutch. i figured it'd be handy to read a book i already had some vague plot guidelines for. its going well, i'm about half way done, shamelessly mentally compensating for words i don't know because i've forsaken all use of my dictionary. ka-pow!

lastly, a special treat for all the liefhebbers,

oh yes. it's even better if you can understand it, i promise. it is about having to shit in the shoarma restaurant and going in the ladies room.


another winner. i just shamelessly love dutch rap.

anyway. muis has just invited herself to lie down on my arms, so i guess i am done typing. wish me luck for tomorrow :D

i am a busy little bumblebee.

so, dear blog/ participants of my blog,
don't be butthurt that i post sporadically and with seemingly no relation to how exciting the things happening to me are. some days, i do particularly exciting things like go to amsterdam and don't blog about them at all, and other days i do absolutely nothing, get deeply inspired by a dutch cookie, and decide to write a page and a half.
one really needs to be in the mood for blogging.
lucky for you, today i am! and, DOUBLE LUCK, i actually did something wildly interesting yesterday!
first of all though, i just wanted to make an announcement. i am one exceedingly large step closer to not being an outsider. the language barrier was only step one. now i've overcome barrier two.
drop.

so many different assortments of questionable.

drop, as we know, is the salmiak [read: salt] flavored chewy licorice candy that the dutch love and everybody else thinks is absolutely hideous.
it is, to say the least, definitely an acquired taste. when i first got here, i was sort of like "meh, salty, weird woodsy aftertaste, very chewy, decidedly not terrible, but not something that i choose to voluntarily put in my mouth where more delicious things could be."
but then i met autodrop, dropberen, and schoolkrijt.

autodrop.

see dat bus? its half drop, but half fruit gummy. a genius invention. first type of drop i will willingly eat.
and that black car to the right of the bus? half straight up drop, half yummy chewy dropness i-don't-even-know-what. also a thing i would chose, over another thing, to consume. which says a lot, because i have spent 90% of my life absolutely despising black licorice.
its weird, but salmiak-smaak is kinda...good. sometimes. i've grown to crave that weird, woodsysalty aftertaste. sometimes.

Add caption

these cute little babies are dropberen. i only like the blackfaced ones, because they're more drop-y. I KNOW.
the white part on the ears is sweet marshmallow-y flufffluff.

finally, with a sort of candy that i find to be the most enjoyable for normal people, is schoolkrijtjes. this means school chalk, for those of you without common sense. :) they are hard and chalky on the outside, then a layer of salmiak, then a minty, fluffy filling. they are wonderful. weirdly medicinal feeling, but still wonderful.
ANYWAY. that is a full description of my accomplishments. which, kind of aren't that big if you consider the amount of people happy to wolf down piles of dubbel-zout. but still, i am definitely in the minority by being an exchange student with a soft spot for drop.
okay so onto the real blog story here.
yesterday i did two interesting things.
first, we had a potluck for AFS oost-nederland to see how everything was going. i had to bring an actual food, and not a dessert, which made me very uneasy because cooking for people sometimes makes me uncomfortable. i decided to make slider burgers, because very few things are more american :D
the most difficult part was admittedly finding a type of cheese that wasn't gouda to put on them. cheddar is a rarity, and obviously american cheese is just silly and not real. so we i think did use gouda, which was still yummy :P
we put some mustard in em, grilled the buns, yknow. all classy like. they were yummy, i was proud.
everyone else made lekker dingen, too. empenadas, chocolate cake, pannenkoek, pasta, chicken, arepas,  etc. omnom.
after a gezellig AFS meeting, i went off to go do my first night of volunteering at metropool! for a sold out show, no less :O
so spannend. i worked in the coat check, which was quite busy and ridiculous and i was beginning to foster a hatred for people who's jackets didn't have hangy-uppy bits, but it went really well! i didnt lose anything :D and the other people who work there are chill. they didn't even know i was american until late in the night. so i felt quite accomplished. i have now reached the status of "probable shy dutch person with a limited vocabulary who is not very interesting". AND I WILL TAKE WHAT I CAN GET.
after a long [but cut short, everything quieted down earlier than planned] evening, i rode on the back of alex's bike back home.
and then we ate 1 am cinnabons, because wencke is amazing and made them! :D perfect post-busy night snack.
anyway, i think i'm going to go work there again next week, because it was good.
tomorrow i have a doctor's appt, then saturday it's jelle's sister's birthday, wednesday chorus, blahblah. busy nice week ahead :)

being alive is hard. *super special unedited late post!

i am now transporting you back in time to a month ago. woOoOoowoOoOwoowoOoOoOoo~
~~~
 i am wearing a snuggie right now. that should give you an idea of how terrible my day was. let me explain;
every half year, they change the rosters at school and everyone gets a new schedule. all of my friends found their rosters online, but when i looked for mine i couldn't find it anywhere. which i wasn't really surprised about, since i'm not on a lot of the mailing lists and things, but i'm not sure which ones i'm not on cos y'know... i'm not on them.
so i was just kinda like "o-kay. i'll just ask about it monday."

the exchange students get all sad when you forget that they exist.

what i didn't realize is that the new roster started today. so i came into school first hour all ready for gym, and no one from my class was there. because on the new roster we don't have gym until second hour.
so i was like "uh craaap, i am probably supposed to be somewhere, i am a failure and they are going to be mad at me." because i figured that by some power of divine psychic connection, i was supposed to have my roster already. or something. i imagined the office people sitting around with a little pile of un-fetched exchange student rosters, collecting dust from not being picked up.

i ran into matt, the hungarian exchange student, in the hallway, so we went up to the administration to ask for our rosters. basically i was kinda like "it kinda sucks that they didn't tell us we had to pick up our schedules, but its my fault for not going earlier to get it." i thoughtthat them not emailing us anything or telling us anything meant that they expected us to get our asses over there and ask. doop de doop off we went to go apologize for waiting/ sort stuff  out.
BUT THEN.
when we got to the office, we were like "oh hey, can we have our rosters? cos we don't have them yet."
and the guy was like
"UHHH funny thing about that. i haven't actually made those yet. i'll get on that"

.... :| YOU WHAT.
so you're telling me that not only do we recieve absolutely zero information on how this system works or where our new schedules are or even that the schedules do, in fact, change, YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE THEM?
and you didn't think maybe "oh hey we should probably tell them not to come to school since they don't have rosters yet" or possibly "maybe we should give them something to do for the day because they don't have rosters yet"
because having us show up at school at 8.45 in the morning and not even have an inkling of a place to be because we ARENT ENROLLED IN ANY CLASSES was not a very well thought out plan.
like, i don't get it. what were they gonna do if we hadn't gone to go get our schedules, were they just gonna not make them at all?
*huff* anyway. so we sat in the hallway for the first two hours. after that i pointed out that they were definitely not going to have our schedules done by the end of the day, and maybe we could ask to just go home, since its pointless and stupid to have to wait around if we have no classes to be in. so we went to one of the office people and asked. and he told us to follow the roster of another girl out of our class. which, uh, good fine, but you couldn't have maybe started off with that plan? like two hours ago, when we asked the first time? instead of just leaving us to die? also, this girl had class until like 6th hour, which is BULLSHIT.
so i went to english class, helped out with my cvk project for a while, and then went home. because hey, i am not going to two extra hours of class that i'm not even in just because you forgot i exist.
like okay. i know i'm being rude about this, but really? i don't even. meh.
also, i have a bunch of other stuff crammed into the next three or so days and its FREAKING ME OUT and i do not want. that is all.

but enough about how i hate everything. let's talk a little bit about how i love everything! namely cats.
this weekend was actually quite good c: okay, maybe some of it was a little bit rotten. but only the beginning part!
saturday i had my taaltoets in utrecht, which i just narrowly made it to. first i missed my train by about .03 of a second, so while i had originally planned myself an hour to leisurely walk to the location of the test from the station, i wound up with 10 minutes. which woulda been cool, had it not been a 15 minute walk. through fucking maze-ville.
also apparently utrecht enjoys being sneaky jerks with their street signs, so that was fun.

nah it's cool, i'll find it.

BUT, i did make it, AND i had enough time to literally sprint-dash through the albert heijn to go and pick up a big american triple chocolate cookie.
which i then ate for breakfast before the test, for that extra boost of sugar energy.
the test itself was split into two parts, a reading and a listening. first was the reading. i had expected the reading part to be easier than the listening part, cos you can read at your own pace.
i had not expected that the subject matter of the reading part was completely ridiculous. they let you use a dictionary, but oddly enough that doesn't really help when trying to decode an informative pamphlet on laminated flooring. or a set of instructions for accepting shipments of food in a restaurant. or an application to have one's curtains washed.
the choice of odd reading material was to make sure nobody had a vocabulary advantage, i think. anyway, i think i did okay on that.
then we stopped for lunch and chilled out for a while. which was completely necessary. i had a krentenbol met  kaas. aka a raison roll with cheese. but the krentenbollen didn't come with cheese already in them, so i had to sneakily steal a piece of cheese from one of the other sandwiches.

i don't know why i think raisons and cheese are a wonderful combination.

thenn onto the luistertoets! which was actually easier than the other part :D admittedly, some of the questions were still a little weird ["can you tell us something about the chairs in your stadium?"] but it was a lot more fluid to understand than the reading part. though, remaining an active listener was difficult. in the first interview i was all like "yeah sarah, tell us about your job in the vegetable aisle at the supermarket!"
but then by the third or fourth interview my mind had definitely wandered to other places. so i sort of had to patch together some of the question answers.
all in all though, i definitely passed. which is good, because if i hadn't learned dutch i would probably feel worse about not doing much of anything else all year. C:
once the test was over, artur, jelle's hostbrother, and i went out into utrecht to look around a little.
we were walking down the street when something caught my eye.

is this real life?

... i did a double-take. in the window of a store, stood several boxes of american cereal. captain crunch, cheerio's, apple jacks. upon closer inspection, i also saw a giant box of reese's cups. OBVIOUSLY we had found meccha and NEEDED to go in.
my prayers were answered. they had almost legitimately every american thing that i'd been complaining about. duncan hines cakemixes and frostings, dehydrated milk, syrup, fluff, shortening, reese's cups, corn syrup, instant arizona tea, pretzel m&ms. IT WAS AMAZING. unfortunately, i didn't purchase anything because the idea of carrying around a box of cereal for the day was not appealing. BUT when i go back to utrecht, i know where i'm headed.
http://www.jacbostelaar.nl/
that's their website. i almost melted. THEY HAVE LUCKY CHARMS AND POP-TARTS YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND.
it was literally an amazing experience.
thenn artur n i went and got sushi, and then i walked around n stuff, n then i went to paula's sisters house to sleep.
the end!
the next day i went to a cat show with paula but ill talk about that later c:

a short, bubbley novella.

hoi blog :) this week+weekend has been treating me well. yesterday, i saw a kid get hit by a car! it was like a movie, he and his bike legitimately flipped over the car and landed in a pile on the other side. also, he was completely unharmed and proceeded to bounce back onto his feet and awkwardly run his hand through his hair a couple times. which, uh, cool but YOU JUST CATAPULTED OVER A MOVING VEHICLE WITH YOUR BODY, SIR.
i of course lost all control over my face and inadvertently shouted "OH, FUCK!"
cuz thats what you do when someone gets hit by a car.
anyway.
last week i had my photoshoot with jelle, if you remember back that far. i wasn't really quite sure what we wanted to do, so i just brought a bunch of stuff with me and hoped that it was the right stuff. y'know, communist beret, large pink fake fur shawl, fluffy pink bear onesie. the basics.
it was at his school in apeldoorn, which is a really lovely place. actually, let's be honest. it is kind of only sort of a lovely place. it's a very modern city, so a lot of it is lacking in the "old-timey brothers-grimm sparkle-wonderment" kind of charm that some of the other parts of holland possess.

amsterdam, mmm and all the houses are inhabited by wizards and troll-people!

oh... hey apeldoorn. yeah, i guess you could be like the "endless plane of concrete desolation" or something, idk whatever.

anyhow. first we walked around the city a little bit, stopped in at the asian market, saw sights. but my giant combat boots were giving me hellablisters, so eventually we decided just to go back and start shooting.
predictably, i'm not the most graceful person in front of a camera. i sort of just butt-ed around in my bear suit whilst jelle took pictures XD he definitely managed to catch a few of my chance shining moments, though. after the bear suit we took some normal fotos, but then that got boring. we decided normal fotos would be better drenched in fake blood. so we did that.

everything is better drenched in fake blood. 

my personal favorites of the day were the ones in the bear suit with the fake blood, it's a look i should really consider sporting on the weekdays. the juxtaposition of how ridiculous it is combined with how i'm just kinda sitting there herpin' my derp is what makes this shot truly beautiful.

glamour shots. 

when i can, i'll post some more favorites from the shoot c: there were actually a lot of shots that i liked. they will all eventually be online on jelle's website, i believe. wihiiiich i can link you to. i really can. soon.
i got to play photographer for a little while too, and i managed to take some photos of jelle with my exceedingly limited camera skills. it was a fun day c:
after that was a boring stupid day when nothing happened and everything was dull. so i won't blog about that.
but on saturday i went to a concert with debby, annemiek and bente! for my birthday, they bought me tickets to go see this band, only seven left, in hilversum. buuut, since [if you recall] holland picked that particular evening to shit snow gratuitously all over the country, we couldn't go. so then, because they are absolutely amazing, they bought me a ticket to come with them on saturday to the show in haarlem >w<
they played well, it was fun. c: also, i got my picture taken with all of the band members XD also also, i wound up talking to the guitarist of the warmup band, mimi soya, about hardcore bands and how they toured with cobra starship, it was a jolly time. i also scored some free stickers, a button, and their cd! because obviously, chris the guitarist and i are now close personal friends.

lookit that. so close n personal.

on a sidenote: 1. did you know that the mcdonald's here have toffee flavored milkshakes? they are better than all the other flavors. they just are. you are missing out.

sorry, america.

2. it was legitimately warm enough to go outside without a jacket on the night of the show! NOT warm enough to enjoy it at all, per se. simply enough to not y'know, freeze to death in a matter of minutes. which is good enough for me.
actually, the past few days its been hovering around 5-10 degrees, which is roughly 40-50 in normal people tempuratures. i don't have to wear two layers of gloves anymore! it's a joyous occasion. it's also allowed me to build up the will-power to dress in real outfits in the morning sometimes, and not "ohh god its going to be so cold i'm just going to wear this bullshit so that i can sit through the day in preparation for leaving again" clothes.   cos sometimes i can be stylish, i promise nederland! just cos you haven't seen it yet doesn't mean it isn't true.
~~insert appropriate segway here~~
yesterday was debby and my audition for my school's cultural night! we didn't actually know what we were doing up until that morning, so we had to find time to practice before. since i rarely have to do anything for anything, i managed to get out of english and music, and i had a tussenuur. so we had those hours of practice. we're doing yellow, by coldplay. first, we lowered it down 2 frets with the capo, so now it's actually legitimately in my range, and then we just practiced the hell out of it. the audition itself went great. i don't think people were expecting much out of two girls looking so grungy as we XD
anyway, the thingy is on march third so we're gonna get crackin' on making it sound godly amazing.
ALSO, the other interesting thing that happened to me yesterday;
somebody spit. on my neck. our school has free levels so you can like throw stuff down and crap, so the 1st floor is always kind of covered with debris. i was standing there and i felt this big wad of liquid land on my neck. i touched it, it was obviously spit, and i was like...
EW. EWEWEW. WHO FUCKING SPITS OFF THE SIDE OF THE STAIRS. EW.
it was pretty much the grossest thing ever.
i was going to run up the stairs, find the first year who has the balls to spit down the stairwell and tear them off,
but then i decided i wanted to wash the spit off in the bathroom instead. a more humane choice, i think.

anyway. after my audition i came home and felt really really painfully ill, i think because i've been eating loads of bread and wheat recently and i almost never do anymore, so my body is like HAHA WHAT? NOOO.
i stayed in bed and basically didn't come out until 10 o'clock this morning. today i felt better though, so at like 2 i got dressed and decided to go "wandelling" in the "lekker weer" we've been having :)
i usually go out towards the animal farm when i leave my house, but today i decided to do some adventuring and find out what happens if you go the other way. i found the hospital and walked by it, because there were some pretty duckponds on the side. then, i saw this little old church that you could walk through. sorrrta like a secret portal to another dimension. y'know. i walked through, and it was really beautiful and serene and just nice. but, on the other side, i couldn't believe my eyes. apparently, there is a huge section of borne, old borne, that i didn't even know existed until now. it's filled with quaint cobblestone streets, ADORABLE old houses, and big windows so you can creep and see inside everybody's beautiful living space. it reminded me of some of the older houses in providence a bit, they kind of have that "carriage-house" appeal.
actually, remember that "old-timey brothers-grimm sparkle-wonderment" charm i was talking about before? this place like, invented that. i seriously thought i was going to cry tears of pixiedust, my face was like

I THOUGHT I WAS IN A FAIRY TAIL MAGICAL TIME WARP GUYS IT WAS AMAZING.
the illusion was of course shattered when i walked a little further and wound up outside the library on my route home from school, which is not where i was expecting to be at all. borne is a dorp of MAZES and TRICKS.
also, the library is apparently directly on the other side of the hospital i began at. which freaks me out, i did not know that. as of today, i now have a better understanding of how borne internally connects to itself.
basically, i can't believe i lived here for 6 months and didn't even realize that this wonderland-y anachronism existed. paula said she didn't know about it for the first 6 years she lived here. if you don't have any business there, it isn't really the kind of place you'd just stumble into on the way to where you're headed. unless you're me, and you're headed nowhere and looking for adventure. which i always am.
so that was my fun discovery story of the day. i spent the rest of today napping and listening to dubstep on the couch.
tomorrow i have my volunteer thing for AFS with paula and jelle in coevorden. n then jelle is staying over for the night :3 YAY SLUMBER PARTY.
plus this weekend is pre-valentimes day. oh sweet lordy, i can't believe its been a year since last valentine's day. freaky.
anyway, i'll keep you all posted. <3

today has been good.

[i have another blog entry drafted but i wanted to write this one instead CHRONOLOGY IS FOR SUCKERS REMEMBER] also ill put pictures in this later, yum yum.

anyway c:

today i am going to apeldoorn to do a photoshoot with jelle <3 before that though, i had to go to school. but i only was supposed to have 3 classes and a between hour today, so i was like "okay i can handle this, i'll be out at 2.10 and then i can train over to apeldoorn."

so, i got to school, looked at the big airpport-type television to see if any of my lessons fell out. music, okay cool. so i'd be free at 12.45. i was pumped :D

then i went to my first class, dutch. the teacher messed up something with the schedule, long story short she gave us a free hour. so i commented "oh haha wow, i have this hour free and then next hour free and then bio and i can go home"

and susan was like "who do you have bio from?"

"the one with the... he- *motions hair*"

"the one who looks like einstein?"

"yeah."

"he's sick today, his lesson's cancelled."

...

C: OKAY THEN, RIGEROUS 1 HOUR SCHOOL DAY OVER, GONNA GO HOME NOW.

and the one hour was mostly travel time and figuring out which lessons were cancelled, i didn't actually have any classes. new record!

so, since i got home at 10.45, i realised something beautiful! i was gonna be home when the mailman delivered my GLOOMY BEAR KIGURUMI. which i wanted today for the photoshoot. if i hadnt been home, i wouldnt have gotten it until saturday. 

when i saw the post truck come, i was like ooh okay, gonna get my shit together so that i can get this package. BUT, my jerkbag of a mailman decided that no one was home, and without coming to the door, just left a delivery notice in the mailbox, as he always does. cos he's kind of a jerkbag.

OH NO YOU DIDN'T. DO YOU WANT TO GET BETWEEN A RABID TEENAGE FAIRY PRINCESS AND HER PINK ONESIE BEAR PAJAMA? I THINK NOT.

i ran outside as he drove away, and picked the notice out of the mailbox. seething, i came back inside and plotted. what could i do? he'd be delivering packages all day, so even if i went to the post office, they wouldn't be able to help me.

i decided to do what any logical minded person would do. hunt down his truck and ambush it.

viable plan.

i got all suited up for the elements and trekked outside with my notice. it didn't take long to find his truck, it was bright orange. i walked up next to the window and peered in with big innocent baby doe eyes. this must have been terrifying, because he looked ever so confused.

"ben je toon?" 

"ehh, ja."

"ik was thuis. mag ik mijn pakketje hebben? want ik moet eigenlijk het VANDAAG hebben."

"O_O maar je moet betaalen"

"weet ik al, 32.77, toch? *holds up sheet*"

he said he's come back to my house in 15 minutes with my box. and he did c: and i have it now c:

BECAUSE I AM A GO GETTER, MY FRIENDS. he was obviously a bit disgruntled. but, i did what i had to do.

ANYWAY my gloomy bear kigu is the best and most comfortable garment ever, i never want to take it off, ever. half because its so amazing, and half because the fastening is comprised of ten buttons. ten. thats a lot of work.

anyway, gonna go catch the train to apeldoorn in a few hours <3 but first i have to gather up all my photoshoot thingies. :D

toodles guys

ensche-day with alex!

today nothing interesting happened, so i'm going to talk about yesterday! actually, one interesting thing happened today, my maatschappijleer teacher brought our whole class suikerwafels and slagroom because it was our last lesson. i don't really need to describe suikerwafels, i will just say that that translates to "sugar waffle" and they taste several times better than you think they will.

the most interesting part of my day is a waffle. that's laughably pathetic.

also, i know there's a lot of stuff i need to talk about that happened before yesterday, but i'll get there. fear not.

this week it toetsweek. it is a thing they like to do here, sort of like exams except i don't have to take any of them. i just reep the benefits, which are only having to be in school 'till like eleven every day :D
i decided to take advantage of this opportunity and finally go to enschede to shop, which i had been telling myself i'd do all year. i figured it was also a good idea because i could visit alex too! who i hadn't seen since christmas. which is simply tragic.
so, after school was over, off i headed.
i *happened* to catch site of the albert heijn to go on the way out of the station, and *maybe* i went in and bought a cookie and ate it for lunch, maybe i didn't. who knows, not important.
anyway, enschede is a pretty self-explanitory place, and if you've been there once you can probably find your way around, so i wandered over to where most of the shops seemed to be and browsed around. even though i was there to shop, i am horribly thrifty, so i would up in the bargain fashion store, where most things are under 25 euro. these types of stores are plentiful, carrying mostly the same type of stock. or maybe it all just looks the same to me, since the entirety of their color palette is pastel pink, gray, white, black, army green, navy, and taupe. seriously, i was browsing the "taupe" section of the store when i realized WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY LIFE. also, most of the stock stems from questionable taste, and only comes in one size. even with those roadblocks, i did alright :D
i bought a black lace dress with a zip-up drop back [or i am just fashionably wearing it backwards, it doesn't have a tag] for 7 euro, and a pair of 4-inch lace up black pumps for 12. because girls here wear high heals on a regular basis, and my suh-weet doc marten work boots were starting to feel a little bit insufficient. you understand. but y'know, stuck to a theme of black because why would i need other colors? i will see your limited color scheme, nederland, and go one further.

cave into peer pressure.

after i was done shopping, i headed in the direction of alex's appartment c: i walked through the market on the way there and caught sight of a large piece of pink faux fur fabric. WHICH I OBVIOUSLY PURCHASED, because i didn't think it through very well :D so now i have that. it could be a shawl, or a uh, giant pink piece of faux fur have i mentioned that it is pink faux fur?

or i could make a this thing, don't judge me. 

found my way to alex's, we chilled out for a bit, he showed me his hamster who is ADORABLE and his name is Awesome :D he is not one of the large, rat-like hamsters, but rather one of the ever-so-tiny "sweet jesus how is it alive its so little and fluffy" hamsters. i am fairly sure it is a roborovskii, or one of the similarly impractically-sized hamster breeds.

but where is your leg part? do you have those?

then, since alex recently found a bulgarian supermarket in leeuwarden [he is bulgarian.], we snacked on some of the things he bought. apparently bularians don't eat like.. meat n cheese n stuff on sandwhiches. they mostly eat a vaguely tomato-sauce like paste or a supersalty spicemix, and some butter. or at least alex does. WHICH IS FINE WITH ME, it was actually weirdly delicious for being not a real food item. like i ate a piece of plain brown bread with butter and a thick layer of harena sol [colorful salt]

this stuff. 

and it was so delicious I ALMOST DIED. though admittedly, it could have also been the sodium content, i wouldn't challange you on that arguement.

this took me forever to find, internet. 

after that we went out and did some shopping. y'know, hamster cage had to be changed, cereal had to be bought, etc etc.
we would up purchasing this cereal that i've had my eye on for a while? its called tresor, and it is assumedly a young child's dream breakfast. seeing as how it is cereal pieces filled with that liquid chocolate stuff.

don't worry, it has nothing on lucky charms and fruity pebbles.

of course we didn't have any milk, so i ate it with chocolate pudding. same difference.
we also found an asian market in enschede. which is wonderful! they sell pocky/frozen sushi [questionable and wrong], and delicious crackers, and those little sugar covered bits of ginger. we also bought some lychee pudding, which was good, but not too good so i gave most of them to alex.
we came back home, ate dinner and spent some time with his housemates watching family guy c:
then, alex had a meeting at metropool, the poppodium where he volunteers in hengelo. he was like "YOU SHOULD VOLUNTEER TOO, COME WITH ME!"
an offer i simply could not pass up >w<
so i went, talked to the guy in charge, filled out some forms, and ta-daaa~ i am now a volunteer at metropool! c: which means i can work at shows, and if i do two a month, i get 5 free tickets. so basically i cannot wait and i hope its fun C: fun fact: the word for this type of work in dutch is "horeca".

and now you know.

that was the first image that came up when i searched horeca on googleimages. i just hope i can be as classy as that fine gentleman, goodness me.

so yeah, yesterday was full of new jobs and clothing and hamsters and bulgarian and i got my cookie. IT WAS GOOD C:

okay sidenote: my dog is the loudest snorer EVER and all she does is sleep all day all the time. make it stoppppp T_T lol