Hello dear people

Hello dear people,

For the english speaking ones I'll try it this time in English ..good practice for classes tomorrow..

So far still so good. Weather changed a bit into the dutch way (rain, cold..) unfortunately. I also caught myself with a bit of, what they called in my introduction week, 'a culture shock'. No need to worry, they already said, it's a good thing, happens to the lucky ones that dare to dive into the 'American culture'. Well I think we can say we did.

Experienced this weekend a real Bonfire on the beach! They have this ritual every year after Xmas to burn all the trees they can find and make it a real big fire. Lots of people stand around warming themselves, drinking and chatting with eachother.



We've heard about this event through our craigslist guy(net zoiets als marktplaats waar je vanalles kan kopen/verkopen) who moved our furniture for $40, he arranged it. It was all lots of fun until the big american cops came to ruin our happy party..bummer! So then we picked up the dutch student friends (who ran a bit late..) at the busstation and went to show them our new home.


After having a few drinks at home we went to a house party of a student guy a few blocks up the road. We found out we don't live so downtowny for taxidrivers cause it took them a big hour to reach our place... But the party was nice, met a lot of new people and got a idea of the american vibe, although there were also many international students.



Then on monday there was ofcourse my birthday...yes I've come to face the number 29 now...bought some wrincle cream and yes will use it.... Spent the day with anne, he'd bought me some nice presents that were on my list because of the different electrical wall plugs they got here (eg. an hair dryer), very nice! And on top of that he treated me with a massage from the best in town. A big black guy molested me for an whole hour...! no he was just very good and could find alle the painful, tensed places and worked on it. Then, because it also happened to be our 1,5 year anniversary, we treated ourselves to a nice french/spanish (cause we had tapas..) meal in a french restaurant with a nice glass of champagne!





After that we found out that on the 21st of Jan. your lucky to find a bar that is open, because of Martin Luther King day. But after some searching and with some help of a local student friend we found in a real nice place to to celebrate, with the dutch girls and some others, the last hours of my birthday.

Today went for the first time by tram into town, to find out that it's very big, busy and that there are a lot of shops I don't know..Apart from my well-known and very much appreciated H&M, I definately have to find some more familiar/similar shops like that to get that real 'homy' feeling. What made my culture shock smaller is that I found, and went to Bikram yoga today! There you always know it's familiar, they even give the same instructions!

Now I let you all go, I got to go to bed too. By the way we love to read comments so don't hesitate to put one in!

Love, Phin