Traditionaly dressed women.

Tulips

This Saturday I saw tulips. Lots and lots of tulips. There are so many kinds, some dont even look like tulips. Anyway, enjoy.

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More Bourtange

Bugs

A lady bug in Dutch is a lieveheersbeestje which roughly translates to " Our Lords Little Beast"

Happy Birthday

Today was my friend Agathas birthday, 15 years old. I went to her house and we went polstokspringen.
A very dutch sport of jumping canals with a pole. We only did a small one (well, she did a slightly wider section and I did an extra small spot) and neather of us fell in so overall a success Id say. The really good guys go over real canals that are big and they shimmy up the pole as they sail over the water. Amazing.
It looks so easy when you first see it. Run, jump, hang on to pole and land on other side.
But when youre standing there, looking at this very mucky water thinking,
" Okay, now jump!" except another part of you is saying " Wait, this isnt happening. You have clean pants on and lets please keep it that way."
In the end you jump, and make it. And then you jump a couple more times (thought there are some close calls).

Bourtange

Small pretty village we visited this weekend, I really dont know what this guy is suposed to represtent but hes nice isnt he.

Hmmm, not very flatering, blurry photo, but its all Ive got. Me and a Knack (from Thialand) at the Clog place. More videos.

Making Clogs

Today

Today I had only two classes in the morning, so I made cookies! Chocolate with a orange butter filling. I cant wait to eat.

Saturday

A busy day spent with the other AFS kids in my area. It was free museum weekend so guess what we did? Go to museums! Three to be precise.

First the Clog Museum where they also make and sell cloggs. We were able to see several steps in the making prosses and then explore the museum bit. After that we all got to paint our own clog to take home.

High heel clogs, for the stylish Dutch.

Helen from New Zealand painting her clog.

Next it was to a sort of farm museum.

They had the old tuels, scale models, practice cows to milk, all the good farm stuff.

And then we made our own Dutch style (aka really thin like crepes) pancakes. Yum. Actually I didnt really make my own but relied on one of our AFS volunteers who had actual skill and was able to flip my pancake by tossing it out of the pan, into the air, and then having it land back in the pan on the other side where it could continue to sizzle deliciously.
They also had some stilts we could practice on. It looks easy but its not.

The last museum was a hand made planiterium that I had already been to. Its beautiful and amazing but they dont allow pictures so.

The man who built lived back in the day, something like the 16 hundreds, and was a wool proccesor by profession. He was a true beliver in the Sun ant the middle of our galaxy theory and built the perfect modle to proove it. He wasnt highly educated and did all of the reaserch and building in his free time (yes it took a very very long time).

What you end up with is the ceiling of the house (because there was really only one main room in this house) being a perfet model of the Sun and all known planets with their moons. They all go around at the correct speed and there is also a phases of the moon thing and time and date thing that all work perfectly (the time is a little off because he used sun-dial time but really).

Its all powered by a pedulum clock.

We finished the day at a pizzarea where I had an onion and asperigouse pizza.

A Sad Day

I think its finally over, my watch is beyond repare now. It had a long and eventful life keeping me on mostly on time. Four years, an end of an era.

Bugs

Fresh air, Laundry, and Bugs

The Weekend

It started with my new favorite shoes. Arent they wonderful?

Julia made an oh-so yummy cheese cake!


Sarah and I painted eggs.
Mine (up, I tried a face but it bled and ended up lookinglike the Joker)
Hers (down, nestled among the fruit)








And ended with Ploy, another forigne student from Thialand, who I went to the movies with. We saw Dear John. Romatic and almost as wonderful as my shoes.
(She bought the popcorn, I got the m&ms
notice the two mutants!!!)

Heres a fun fact: my favorite m&ms are the yellow ones.

Happy Easter

Last Weekend

leaver dea as slaef

Better dead than a slave

(in Friesian)

A monument in Friesland for a battle they won against Holland back in 1345.

Yes, Friesland and Holland are two different places. Friesland, North and South Holland are now provinces in The Netherlands but they used to be seperet countries with seperet langueges and everything.