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