zondag 22 juni 2014

HOME

Well… I’m home again. It’s one of the weirdest feelings ever. After being gone for like 11 months and than seeing your friends and family again is just so weird. First of all, my last days in Idaho were way fun but sad! My last week in America was so busy!! A lot of people wanted to see me at least one more time before I left so I did so much stuff. Sunday was the last day of church so I had to say goodbye to a lot of people there (almost the whole community). Sunday night I packed all my suitcases and thank goodness everything fitted in all of my suitcases. Monday was my last day; it was one of the weirdest days I’ve ever had because everything was so unreal I didn’t have the feeling that I was leaving on Tuesday. Anyways on Monday I had a little lunch with some friends and later that day I went longboarding with one of my other friends. At night I said goodbye to some more people. It was so unreal and I didn’t cry because I still didn’t believe I was leaving. Later that night I cleaned out the rest of my room and packed the rest of my stuff. My plane was leaving at 06:00 AM so we had to leave at like 4:00 AM to the airport. That night I probably only had 2 hours of sleep. I just couldn’t sleep at all! At 3:15 I woke up and got everything ready, I felt so weird. At 4:15 we left. Those hours were like the weirdest hours of my life because it’s the last time you drive that road and see all these people. Maybe you see them again, maybe you don’t. You realize that this life, you lived for a year will never be the same again. You can come visit, but it will never be the same as how it was during your exchange year.
At the airport, were of course, more exchange students that were leaving. I checked my suitcases in and talked for a little with my family. After a while it was really time to say ‘goodbye’. My mom had sent me a bunch of orange t-shirts for the whole family here. So they were all wearing orange which looked so fun ha! So we took one final picture before I left to go through security. That last moment when you see them is just so weird. I said bye to everybody and left to go through the security. Once again I was all alone, on the airport leaving a country you called ‘home’ for a year, waiting for my flight to Denver. The whole plane was just filled with crying exchange students ha. After I landed in Denver I had to wait for 2,5 hours for my flight to Chicago. There was one other Exchange student I met on the airport that was from the Netherlands and had the same flights as I did. In the plane from Denver to Chicago I was seated next to some fun Americans so that took my mind a little off! In Chicago I had to wait 4 hours for my final flight to Amsterdam. Oh my, it took forever! An hour before take off there came more and more people into the gate and they all spoke DUTCH. I was so happy to hear my own language again haha. I could understand them and they could understand me! I didn’t speak Dutch once the whole exchange year, except with my parents and friends of course. And when I spoke my own language in public in Idaho or wherever I just felt awkward haha. Anyways, once in the plane we were on our way to the runway, but when we were about ready to take off there were mechanical problems, so we went back to the gate and they fixed it. So our plane was delayed for 1,5 hours. Once in the air, we had a flight of 8 hours. And I just couldn’t wait to just be there. I slept for a little bit in the plane but not really long. It was just horrible waiting, trying to sleep, watching movies. I was so happy when were finally landing!! We flew over Amsterdam and it was just soooo good to see Dutch ground and all the green and BIKES ha! Once out of the plane on my way to the baggage claim I felt so short again because there were tall people everywhere!!! In Idaho I was always the tallest. Now my length was normal haha! I got my suitcases and went through a small ‘security’ thing. I had two big heavy suitcases, so one of the security guys asked me in dutch: “where have you been?” So I said “America” and he asked me what I did there, so I wanted to start talking dutch but I was so nervous that just talked back to him in English haha. He answered me back in English and asked me if I could even speak Dutch. Oh my! How embarrassing I was just so nervous and didn’t know what to say because I knew I would see my family in about 20 seconds. Once I came through the big ‘arrival’ doors I saw my mom, dad and my little sister. They had taken one of my best friends with them and I had no idea she would be there too! So that was such a fun surprise!! We ate a sandwich on the airport and went home! Seeing my own house and neighborhood again was so weird too. I wasn’t home for like half an hour and my grandparents came to see me haha! People just came visiting the whole day! That night the rest of all my friends came! It was just sooo fun and so good to see them and than I realized how much I actually missed everybody!!! When I was finally in my bed at like 12:30 AM dutch time, I was so tired!
This past year has brought me a lot, and it was just so fun meeting new people everyday. It was definitely not the end I just love traveling and I really want to do another exchange. Not for a year but just for a couple weeks and find out how other countries are like! Thanks to everybody who followed my blog the past months!!!




























donderdag 5 juni 2014

Last weeks

I made it!! I can officially say that I ‘survived’ a year of highschool in the USA. I only have a couple of days left until I will fly home. I don’t even realize that I will be home next week. It kind of seems like a dream that I will sleep in my own bed and see family and friends again. Anyways first of all It’s been a while since I wrote on my blog and it’s so cool that people read this from all over the world! I can see at my statistics who reads my blog (only the country where people come from.)
Since prom the time went by way fast. School was counting down, seniors were graduating and soon enough I had summer vacation too. I’ve been so busy!! One of the things I really wanted to do before I would leave Idaho was going to the sand dunes. Idaho has like 5 miles of completely sand, I also call it Africa cause there is literally nothing besides sand haha. A lot of people go there to ride razors and four wheelers, we just went there and made a little fire and roasted some marshmallows. So that was kind of cool to see!
The weather has become so much better!! It’s 20-28 Celsius all the time, only the wind is blowing a lot so that makes it a little colder. But I’ve been sun burned a couple of times and lots of swimming! The last 2 weeks of school have been so chaotic. The seniors had summer 1 week earlier than the rest of the school and we still had some finals so all the classes were messed up, the only thing what’s so nice about American school is I don’t have to do or study anything and I can still get A’s haha! I honestly wish school was like this back home.
That Friday was the last day for the seniors and that night we had a ‘lock-in’ in the big gym. You could go to school on Friday 21:00 till 06:00 in the morning and do all kinds of fun stuff. It took forever though.. and everybody was so tired! We mostly signed yearbooks the whole night. Because we got our yearbooks that day! It looks so cool and like everything is in it! It’s just a little photo album of the whole year. And everybody can sign it and put a little story in it. So my whole yearbook is literally full with it haha! I’ll probably
keep it forever!
Our principal wouldn’t let the exchange students graduate or walk or even participate in anything the seniors did, so we couldn’t do American graduation which was kind of sad but it was still cool to see the typical American things. The only thing we could participate in was seminary graduation. Seminary is a religious class, so it’s part of the church. And our teacher is so nice! so we could ‘graduate’ from the church haha. It started around 18:00 on a Sunday and it was at the church, we just had to sing a song and walk up front when your name was called so they could give us a little diploma paper. It was not really special but still fun though and really nice that they would let us participate in this since we’re not even from this religion. On Wednesday they had the real graduation. Students were wearing those typical graduation outfits with those little heads haha. It took like 2,5 hours. A teacher spoke and a couple of students did too. After that everybody took pictures and people got presents etc.
Friday was finally our last day of school. Well school… I’ve never seen something so unorganized it was so chaotic. Everybody was everywhere and nowhere it was mostly cleaning out lockers signing out of classes; sit around in the hallway and signing yearbooks. After we got officially signed out we were free to go and we had summer!! We went with a couple to this little hamburger place to celebrate school was over. After that we went to the lake to go swimming and canoeing! That night Ilse and I had a goodbye party for all the people from school. It was so weird to realize that you probably won’t see some of those people ever again… and I still don’t realize it. Anyways we just had a bonfire with everybody and it was way fun!
Saturday I went to town with some friends to have lunch and get our nails done. I’m gonna miss the cheap American manicures (it’s only $25) everything is so cheap over here ha! And I’m also going to miss the big sizes of food, free refills, and if you don’t finish your food in restaurants you can just take it home! Or water is free in most restaurants and things like ketchup. They really should have these things in Europe too!
Saturday night I went riding four wheelers and fishing with a guy from school and ofcourse I had to say goodbye. it’s just so weird to say ‘goodbye’ to people all the time. I don’t realize it at all and telling people: “well it was nice meeting ya this year, good luck in the future and hope I’ll ever see you again.” is the weirdest thing in the world.
Monday we went to grammy in Rexburg and hung out there the whole day. Tuesday I went with a couple of friends to town to do some fun stuff. We went (lekker burgerlijk) to the zoo, had dinner, hung out in the park and went back. And of course another goodbye I’ll probably realize how much I’m going to miss everybody and this place two weeks after I’ve been home. I have no idea how things are going to be when it’s home, I’ll probably get a culture shock again. But I’m also really excited to go back home and see friends and family again, eating normal food and having a little part of freedom back. Like biking, oh my god I missed biking so much haha!! But I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to live in Idaho and with this family the past year. It’s amazing how they opened their home for me and treat me like I’m their own child. And I definitely see them as my second family! I can’t believe that this exchange year is almost over. Thanks to everybody who helped me through this. It’s been amazing!

Well, I’m going to enjoy my last couple of days here and I’ll write soon (: