Brief Question

So yeah, I have lots to say, obviously, but right now I would just like some input. The issue at hand is this: I have realized that I do not think in a language. I think I've mentioned this before, but I'll rehash. I don't just mean that sometimes it's one language and sometimes it's another, I mean that most of the time I don't need words. Someone in my Dutch class told me that it's a sign of an abnormal brain (he wasn't just picking on me, either), which I hope is not true. So does anyone know what this IS and why other people find it so strange? Most of the time I don't have trouble speaking languages, I just don't use them to think. Ideas?

Assorted pictures

So this is just a random collection of pictures that didn't go in any other post. They are MOSTLY chronological. Ahaha.

Everyone at AFS camp, like three weeks after we arrived in the country.
The Disgusting Tangerine competition at AFS camp. Story: we were eating lunch and Natalie got a tangerine. Except it tasted really, really odd. So what can you do with such a tangerine? Why, make it taste as disgusting as possible, of course! Everyone got a slice or two of tangerine and tried to make the most disgusting one possible using appelstroop (NASTY, NEVER EAT), fruity hagelslag (also nasty, it's these weird multicolored sprinkles that you're supposed to put on bread), bell pepper, Nutella, peanut butter, margarine, salt, pepper, cheese, and pretty much anything else we could find. I believe for the this picture, I was enjoying a succulent Nutella/bell pepper/appelstroop/salt combination. Oh my god, revolting.
BOSLOOP BOSLOOP! Julia looks dead, but I, as you can see, was still super-pumped après-bosloop. The bosloop is where you run 3km through the woods and get graded based on your time. Not unlike cross-country, except it's completely flat and the course is much shorter. Raha.
HAMSTER WEEK at Albert Heijn. It's ridiculous. They deck out the entire store in orange and pictures of hamsters, and there are special HAMSTER DEALS where you're supposed to buy lots of things and "hamster them away"...or something like that?
Julia and I in the back of the Hotel New York in Rotterdam. Apparently it's where most emigrants to the US stayed the night before they left.

Rotterdam.
The front of the Hotel New York.
This building has a giraffe on it! (Rotterdam)

The bridge is supposed to look like a swan. I don't see it, but okay. (Rotterdam)

Another visit to Nijmegen. Inside that rad cathedral this time.

Outside the cathedral. Hey, medieval 'n' stuff.
Ahahaha. This bird picked a very nice perch. (Den Haag)
Binnenhof in Den Haag. This is the seat of the Dutch government. Personally, I think this is cooler than the White House/Capitol Hill.
Scheveningen. The EASTERN coast of the Atlantic Ocean, whoaaaaa.

Canal in Amsterdam.

The Anne Frank House. (Amsterdam)
A really big palace-thing in Amsterdam. Carol told me what it was, but I forgot. Sorry.

Carol, me, and Natalie. Doing the Fortress. This was pioneered in Berlin to keep out the cold as best we could, but in this picture it's being applied for the same purpose in Amsterdam. If anyone ever tells you it's warm in Europe, DO NOT LISTEN. They don't have snow, but it certainly is not warm.

Berlin Pictures

Alright, well, these are going to be slightly annoying because half of them are centered and half of them I accidentally made left. But oh well. Yeah these are some of my pictures from the AFS trip to Berlin, which was completely awesome. Really, it was.

Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Sunset over Berlin.
Checkpoint Charlie, complete with Snoop-Dogg-lookalike "American guard". Yeah he was totally a German in a costume, WHATEVER.
Holocaust memorial.
This ridiculously sketchy underground screaming techno club. Yeah, crazy.Carol, Natalie and I in a poor attempt to look as hardcore as the patrons of said techno club.
Tower-thing on Alexanderplatz. WHY IS THIS BLUE AND UNDERLINED?!

The view from the top of the tower-thing on the Alexanderplatz.

Brandenburg Gate.
Reichstag. It looks nice out, but do not let that blue sky fool you--it was FRIGID. Seriously, FRIGID. My lips turned blue while we were climbing the cupola.
Steven and I looking pretty rockin' in the cupola of the Reichstag. Again, it was freezing. Note the nice German flag in the backgroud though.
East Side Gallery. "Can we have our ball back?" No. No you cannot.

A picture with a bunch of us right after we got to Berlin (and trooped into the first Starbucks we'd seen since leaving home...HOLLAND HAS NONE)

This is a frame covered in a tarp. NOT A BUILDING. It doesn't have walls. We touched it.

The French Cathedral on Gendarmenmarkt.

Former Berlin Wall.

Berliner Dom from a random bridge on the river.

Picture time!

So I've finally decided to upload my pictures. Or, a few of them anyway. Uploading all of them would take WAY too long and would be boring anyway, but I have a good selection. I'm going to make a couple of separate posts just to separate the photos into somewhat logical groups.

The local windmill. It was actually MOVING today. Imagine!

The only picture that came out well from our AFS Veluwe excursion. I need to ask one of my friends to send me some other ones, but yeah basically our little regional AFS group (me, Julia, and Cecilia from Italy, plus a returnee named Rens) went on a daytrip to Utrecht. Fun.
Marina and a sweet horse puppet. We like to play around in HEMA.
Nice courtyard of the Domkerk in Utrecht.
Canal near my house. There are about a million of the same exact bridge...they just go on and on.
Julia and me.

Aaand a couple of updates: I broke my wrist. Rahaha. Yeah I was doing hurdles on a slippery track and I fell. The accident itself was hilarious, but quite painful. Anyway yeah, that was two weeks ago, and now I only have to have my cast for one more week WOO! It's a nice blue one, complete with signatures from Julia and Natalie (friend of mine from New Zealand who is in Holland with AFS), plus a left-handed Monster Sheepie. Yesssss. Let's see, what else. Julia and I are both changing host families, but I don't have my new one yet. Julia is leaving for her new home in Oosterhout tomorrow. =[ Uhhh yeah, other updates in the next photo posts, once I have an idea of what I've already said.

Dutch School is Odd

Heh heh, Dutch school IS odd. Very amusing, though. The Christian-ness of my school in particular can produce some rather funny moments, but the two events I am about to relate could have happened in any Dutch school. That's what's so amusing about them, actually.

Event number one: this week my French teacher spent two of our three class hours talking about wine. The first of these two hours was spent talking (for absolutely NO reason, or at least not one known to me) about Beaujolais Nouveau, and the second was a class discussion about the students' favorite types of wine. And it was totally serious. In America a discussion of this sort would have an air of SCANDAL: ZOMG the children are imbibing, what ever shall we do?! Here, though, the drinking age is sixteen, so the students in the fifth class (mine) are old enough to purchase their own beer and wine. Insanity.

So yes, second example of strange happenings in Dutch school. Today during the morning break (a 10-minute break between the second and third class hours), everyone spontaneously went outside. I had no idea what was going on and didn't much care to be shoved about by eleven-year-old boys, so I stayed inside reading 1984. The ending buzzer went off, so I started off up the stairs to my Dutch class on the fourth floor. Halfway up I ran into three girls from my class coming back down, and they told me that Dutch class was cancelled. How random. I went back to the Atrium to wait out another period, and I saw that everyone was still out in front of the school building. I asked a random passer-by what on earth was going on, and he said that the students were protesting the ninth hour...I guess they only want to have eight hours in a day? COMPLETELY incomprehensible to me; Streek only HAS eight hours to begin with, so they have no reason to complain. I guess they were showing solidarity with Marnix, though. (Marnix is another high school in another part of Ede.) The crowd--several hundred strong, possibly more than 1000, as 1500 people attend Streek in my building and there was hardly anyone left inside--marched off to Marnix to...I don't know. Something. Anyway, they marched off and left very few people at school. My physics class took place in the fourth hour, but in the middle of the hour it was announced that all classes were cancelled for reasons of safety, and all students and teachers could leave. For reasons of SAFETY?! What on earth do they think is going to happen? Ridiculous, that's what I have to say about that. Nice for me, though, as Friday is usually my longest day but today was done at 11:30. Sweeeeet.

Sinterklaas

Woo so yeah random updates. Again. Because, you know, I suck at regularly updating a blog. In my defense, I do write in my diary every day, so I'm not going to totally lose everything that's going on here, but for you curious people in the US it's not so nice when I don't update my blog. Sorry n stuff.

Had a meeting with my AFS person on Wednesday. I will be changing families, THANK GOD. I would feel sort of bad about being glad to change, but I'm so irritated by my host family's antics that I don't care anymore. My biggest problem with them is that they never say anything outright; in preparing to come here I was told countless times that the Dutch are very direct and I should be prepared for that, but in actuality it is the complete opposite. I never hear about any problems unless it's third-hand or so. My host mother email's Julia's mother, who emails Julia, who may or may not mention something to me...it's madness. I would rather have someone incredibly direct than someone who never tells me anything at all.

Today Julia and I went down to the Rijnhaven (local harbor on the Nederrijn river) to see the arrival of Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas is kind of like American Santa Claus--the names even sound similar--but there are slight variations in the legend. Sinterklaas arrives with his helper, Zwarte Piet (Black Peter...incredibly un-PC, yes, but supposedly he's black because he's a chimney sweep, not because he's a slave. Yeahhh, whatever you say.) on a boat from Spain. Today this part of the legend was upheld magnificently, as Sinterklaas arrived on an old-fashioned boat flying the Spanish flag and accompanied by a small army of Piets. There was even a marching band made up of about 15 members, ALL of whom were dressed up as Piet. I was under the impression that only one Piet figured into the legend, but hey, whatever floats Sinterklaas's boat. OH I'm good, I know. I guess multiple Piets isn't as ruinous to little children's hopes and dreams as multiple Sints would be. Anyway! Yes, so they arrive from Spain by boat, then proceed to leave sweets in the shoes good little children have left by the chimney. BUT if they find naughty children, Piet stuffs them in a sack and spirits them away to Spain. Slightly disturbing, yes, but I suppose the German version, in which Piet carries something to beat the children, is equally disturbing. I guess American kids are lucky when they get just a lump of coal instead of being taken away/beaten. Oh yes, and all of this takes place on December 6th, not the 25th. And thus far I have seen no connection with Jesus in this holiday. But hey, I go to a Christian school...I'm sure they'll find somewhere to insert Our Lord and Savior.

And now it is picture time.

Julia and I with Zwarte Piet!

Sinterklaas and Piet down on the shore, shaking hands and distributing pepernoten.

Sinterklaas and the 30+ Piets are on that green boat to the right. Notice the Spanish flag it is flying. There were also kayaking Piets throwing pepernoten at whoever they could reach.

So yes, more about this event...there were SO MANY people! Sinterklaas and the Piets arrived on the boat at about 1 PM, then walked around on a preset path with metal barricades (like the ones on the Today show!) to greet people. The Piets handed out pepernoten to the children while Sinterklaas appeared generally useless, just shaking hands and such. The children gave Piet their lists like American children would write a letter to Santa...it was quite cute. One girl jumped the barricade and ran up behind Piet to give him her list, which Julia and I found adorable. Anyway, after they had made that circuit, the Piets began hiding themselves away in random corners of the city and Julia and I saw several in the course of our random Saturday wandering. AND THEN there was a parade, complete with military band, Sinterklaas in a horse-drawn carriage, and Piets on donkeys. Leuk, for serious.

These are pepernoten...just as useful for throwing as they are for eating, and there seems to be an endless supply of them crushed on the floor of my school. Always. Today there were so many of them about--in little children's hands, in Piet's bag, crushed on the ground--that the very AIR smelled like them. It was rather festive, I'm not gonna lie. I am mailing some home to someone who shall remain anonymous for now, so Plattsburghians BEWARE! for these deadly holiday projectiles.

Sound of Silence

Sooo Dutch people seem to be afraid of silence. I do not mind if no one is talking; sometimes it's the best possible thing. But most people I've met here need to talk to fill the quiet...I really don't understand it. What do they think is going to happen if no one is talking? That evil silence-demons will sweep in?

This also applies, in a slightly different form, to their inability to deal with solitude. Sometimes I really just want to read, but the people at Dutch school do not understand this. One of my acquaintances told me I should hang out with more people because I'd be happier. How does he know? Just because I'm not afraid to be alone or to be quiet does not mean I'm unhappy or won't talk to Dutch people. I can be very loud and social, given the chance. I just don't see the need to fill silences and never be alone.

Herfstvakantie

So yeah, my vacation was very, very good. Berlin, Amsterdam, Zeist, Walibi World, Den Haag, Nijmegen, all kinds of fun things. I just don't like having to go back to school. AAGH. But the vacation was amazing.

Berlin.

Okay, so Berlin was completely excellent. AFS needs to set up more activities like that, because everyone is so totally chill and wow, I felt home. I have some of my closest friends through AFS, even though I've only hung out with them a total of what, six days of my life? Still, they are amazing people and I don't know what I'd do without them. Currently they are my reason for staying in the Netherlands...even if school sucks, I have the AFSers. It's just so weird to think about though. I went out to dinner with some kids on Sunday night before catching the bus, and we discussed how surreal everything still is. A year ago, I would never have IMAGINED I would be going to dinner in Berlin with kids from New Zealand, Switserland, Brazil, Australia, Perú, Italy, etc. Crazy crazy.

Yes, I will post pictures, but I'm too lazy to do it right now haha.

AWESOME POSSUM

So today was completely rockin'. I got out of school at 12 because uh, yeah, all my classes always get cancelled. I came home, had some lunch, you know, finished LOTR 2, etc. Then I had to go out and buy some shampoo and whatnot to take to Berlin because I don't want to steal my host family's hahaha. Then when I got home from shopping there were two HUGE packages from my parents waiting for me. I guess both sets of parents sent me packages at the same time? Anyway yeah, I now have food to last the next eighty million years, plus some good books, my amazing calculator without which there is no math or, indeed, life...and warm clothes, my track spikes, a general assortment of excellent things. And tonight I am leaving on the AFS trip to Berlin. Weooo I love my life.

The only not-so-fantastic thing that happened today was that applesauce exploded in my bag. It was entirely gross and a huge mess, but I managed it and my bag just came out of the wash, good as new. Bahahaha, I suck.

Bijna Herfstvakantie!!!

So yes, it's almost the autumn holidays. I really don't understand the structure of the Dutch school year; they seem to have about a million more days off than we do in the US. Not that I'm complaining, though. A week off from school (actually a little more, since I'm leaving on the AFS trip to BERLIN tomorrow) will be quite nice.

My brain is going all weird. My English has actually deteriorated...I find myself using really, really odd words and sentence constructions sometimes and I have to wonder what happened hahaha. Dutch is getting better, I suppose. I understand a lot in school now, although my ability to speak it myself is not too impressive. French is also kind of screwed up. I can understand it fine, both reading and listening. But when it comes to speaking, I can never seem to get out what I want to say. I always end up inserting a Dutch word instead. Crazy, crazy. Also, yesterday there was a test in French class and we had to translate sentences. I kept trying to put them into Dutch, only to realize that they were already IN Dutch. Aghhh! Confusing.

Speaking of languages getting mixed up, I don't seem to be using a particular language for thinking anymore. I used to think clearly, definitely in English, but now I kind of just have thoughts without words put to them, or with words from different languages put to them. Very, very weird.

WHAT?!

Wow. What the hell. I was having a relatively good day until I was pretty much smited a couple minutes ago. Hans was in the same room as me, not addressing me at all, and then he got up to leave the room, turned round, and said, "So Renee called AFS and the volunteer is coming on Sunday."
I was confused. "What?" I responded.
"Jaaaa, we called and the counselor is coming to talk about how to deal with things."
"What things?"
"The situation."
"What situation?" (OH MY GOD please give me a concrete answer sometime in the next five years.)
"Ja, well, we just don't really know how to handle it, you know."
"No, I don't know, because I can't tell what you're talking about. Could you please explain this to me?"
"Well, Renee feels that you're just really unhappy with the school, with flute, with us, with everything, and you're really inaccessible and not open to discussion."
I understood the unhappy part--yeah, I DO hate school, but YOU WILL NOT LET ME CHANGE!--but I did not understand the inaccessible part. I answer all their questions and start conversations of my own accord; I do not have to be prodded for information. But okay, whatever. So now there's an AFS counselor coming Sunday to "discuss our options". Which means, essentially, I am getting kicked out. Awesome, thanks guys.
And then Hans felt the need to throw down one more. "You know," he said pseudo-comtemplatively, "we've never had to do this before." (Implication: You are the worst foreign exchange student ever.) Yeah yeah, I know that was completely necessary to tell me. Just like it was completely unnecessary to diguise the fact that you didn't want me in the first place and basically got stuck with me.

So now I am in an extremely foul mood due to events that took aproximately three minutes to transpire. Even though the rest of my day was fine. I mean really, though...could they not have attempted to talk to me before calling the exchange organization and getting into a whole mess?

Mostly, I just don't want to leave Julia.

Don't Romanticise.

So it seems that before I came here I had the entire thing romanticised up in my head. Of course people are prone to thinking about what certain experiences will be like--I mean, how else would we decide what to do with ourselves?--but from what I'm currently experiencing it would appear that I really took it to the limit with unrealistic thoughts. Which is odd, you know, because I felt very prepared before I left. I actually did all of the AFS preparation crap and kept telling myself not to have any expectations so that I could just experience things as they were. But I guess that, in itself, was a delusion that I created for myself; one of being prepared for this whole deal and being ready to take whatever was coming. Truthfully, I wasn't ready then, am not ready now, and will probably never be ready. I can see that now. I'm despairing that everyone else seems to be having a better time than I am, which is, of course, one of the things AFS specifically tells kids NOT to do. The comparison, that is, not the having a good time part. We're allowed to have fun. Anywho, not the point. I am trying very hard to stay positive about things, but it's difficult when my life is completely off-balance. In my opinion, a normal life consists of a mix of days: mostly passable, with some very good and a few very bad thrown in. This allows for a general feeling of content...perhaps some boredom, but general content. Right now, though, my life seems to be made up of bad day after bad day with the occasional somewhat good day thrown in. And then even the good days have their little flaws that can manage to bring the whole thing down. I full-out hate my school. School here is such a huge waste of time. The teachers, for the most part, do not even teach. It's always "Read pages 193-200 and do exercises 14 and 15." Seriously, what are these people being paid to do? Julia and I both fervently hope to change schools, but so far our host parents have been entirely unsupportive. Not like they would support me anyway; I refer primarily to their approach to her. I want nutritious food but cannot find any. My flute teacher is not interested in what I have to say and, therefore, cannot tailor his approach to help me. The orchestra conductor pretty much blew a gasket when someone at rehearsal (not me, actually) asked him to speak English. Since I got here I have felt like my host family never wanted me, and this was recently confirmed. I get annoyed at pretty much everything that ordinarily wouldn't bother me at all. The kids at my school do not go out at all because they're always busy with church--always, no lies. I miss my family and I miss my friends. I even miss my school. But this entire feeling is not really homesickness; it's not so much that I want to go home as that I just don't want to be here.

Scream.

When will people learn that it's OFFENSIVE to say "You certainly eat a lot. You should watch it or you'll get fat. It'll probably happen though. It always does."?

When will people learn that the proper way to deal with people is NEVER to treat them like inferiors?

When will people learn that I, contrary to popular belief, am NOT RETARDED?!

I Command The Demons Inside This Oven To COME OUT!!

Holy potatoes! So today I didn't have school (again) and decided to do something worthwhile. Time for some homemade bagels, awwwright. Everything went smoothly except the part about running out of white flour in the middle, but I used wheat flour and yeah, they're probably healthier now anyway. So yeah, you know, I did all the bagely types of things, boiled 'em, did the egg wash...and then it came time to cook them. Now, I am WELL aware that my host family's oven is quite different from mine in America. It has a whole host of weird symbols and buttons on it that don't make any sense to me, but I selected the settings I thought would be most appropriate and popped the bagels in. The recipe called for 35-40 minutes at 400F, but this oven only goes up to 250. Whatevz. Bagels were in and I went about cleaning the kitchen. After NO MORE than three minutes, I began to smell finished bagel. "Well, that's odd," I thought to myself. I opened the oven and lo and behold, the bagels on the top rack were done. DONE! I took them out and inspected them; they were quite browned on the top but the sides and bottom were not as well done. Regardless, I did not want to burn them and so I set them aside. "There is NO WAY these are done," said I. Curious, I took one of them and cut it in half to see if it was still gooey inside. It wasn't. I took a bite. It was cooked all the way through.

THERE ARE DEMONS AND LITTLE SATANS RUNNING AROUND IN THAT OVEN.

It's Not As Bad As It Sounds

It seems to me that this blog has taken on a somewhat negative cast, which is not entirely fitting with the rather good days I've been having lately. I think a second post is needed to clarify that no, I am not having an awful time.

Yes, I have been sick, but we'll gloss over that hahaha.

So on Saturday we went to Cologne. Amazing, amazing, amazing. This city was founded in 30 BCE. That is so long ago it's ridiculous. We saw the incredible cathedral and the really old city gates...ah man, I can't even explain what it's like to be looking at something that old. Hell, there's a church in Ede that apparently was built in 1300 something. Old stuff is all over the place here; that's strange for me, considering that my country has hardly any history.

Flute lessons today were better than they have been. I've decided that I'll listen to the teacher's suggestions and incorporate them into my playing when I'm around him, but I'll decide for myself what to keep. This way he's happy and my lessons are more tolerable. It really did make all the difference today.

So apparently I have no school for the rest of the week...?

One piece of bad news: my phone freaking out is due to a software problem and it cannot be fixed. So now I have to buy a new cell phone. Yeargh.

And now for pictures from Cologne, for which I know you've all been anxiously waiting. My face sucks. The cathedral does not.

A SWEET window in the cathedral. Yes, it is supposed to look like this.

Spirals own.

A kind of bad picture inside.

One of the three remaining city gates.

This is what I saw as soon as we got off the train. Incredible.