No one leaves comments anymore. :( Why not? Catie gets tons of comments on her page... then again, half of them are from people expressing their views on the Homosexual War that she started a while back... but I'm still proud of her for that. Hear me, sis? I've taught you well! LOL!
Anyways, quick quick quick update:
Saturday: more Staatsexamen. The writing was actually sort of fun, I didn't mind it, but the speaking was something else again. I can speak reasonably coherent Dutch if I'm talking to a PERSON, but this was to a computer, with headphones on... all sorts of robotic stuff... "U gaat luisteren naar... blah blah blah... U hoort eerst een voorbeeld... blah blah blah...U moet alle plaatjes gebruiken... blah blah blah..." Argh. Plus I was practically hyperventilating... anyway, it's over and done with and I get the results in six to seven weeks.
So then I went to Emmen and met Martin's parents and had dinner with them. His mom is German - I liked her right away, one of those faces that's always smiling. His dad is Dutch and I liked him a lot too - makes a lot of jokes - but I have trouble understanding him through the accent (Drenthe). I'll get used to it, I suppose - I mean, I can (usually) understand Martin just fine - but yesterday it was difficult. But I suppose my lack of sleep contributed to that.
Anyway, so then today I came back to Utrecht... another two-and-a-half hour trip... and then went to Bilthoven to meet Linde as we'd 'afgesproken'. But when I got to Bilthoven, she wasn't there. So after about 20 minutes I called her, with my dying GSM (apparently T-Mobile doesn't get good service underneath Martin's staircase, where my coat was... LOL!... so it did a Network Search all night and drained the battery) and she said, "I thought we were meeting at six?" I told her that she had told me to take the 15.39 train and I heard, "I did?"... and then the phone died. So I hopped onto the train back to Utrecht, which was already there, and went home and got rid of my heavy backpack and charged the phone as much as I could in the 15 or so minutes that I was there, then went back to the centrum and met Linde and Esra at Broers (a cafe at Janskerkof, for those who don't know).
Anyway, so we sat there for a while and then Linde and I walked back to the station and took the train to Bilthoven (again) and I had dinner with her family. Typical Dutch meal: meat, potatoes, vegetable. (And for dessert, if there is a dessert, maybe some yogurt-type thing.) That's what I had at Martin's and also at Linde's. Not bad - lekker, really - but different from what I'm used to. We eat that kind of stuff, sure, but not three and four times a week like here. I'd get bored with that, I think.
So Linde and I looked on the Internet for cheap plane tickets - she and Alette (her identical twin sister, for those who don't know) are still planning to come back with me, and probably Samantha as well, a friend of theirs whom I met at New Year's. Anyway, we did set tentative dates - 23 July to arrive and 6 August for them all to leave - but we didn't find anything, and we figured out that we'd have to go to a travel agent anyway because we all want to be on the same flight and sitting together, but the three of them need round-trip tickets and I need a one-way. You can't do that via the computer. So we gave that up and turned the computer over to Jaap Enno (L's brother) and his friend and the rest of us (me, L, her parents, and her sister Marianne... Alette wasn't there) curled up on the couches to watch How Stella Got Her Groove Back on Net5. I really love spending time at their house... it feels like a 'real' family house... there's always lots of bantering and talking and yelling and it just feels friendly. Like tonight, Jaap Enno got some weird phone message via the regular phone line (not an answering machine) which Marianne ended up hearing instead of him, and we all got into a discussion of how those messages could be left, what the girl's name was, etc. etc. etc., plus of course teasing JE about what the girl had 'really' said. And Linde kept getting SMSes from the new guy she's seeing, so we were reading those, and we were all (except their parents) complaining about how cold it was (L and I were huddled under blankets), so her mom told us to put on sweatshirts, and I was wearing a sweatshirt, so more sarcastic banter followed... it turned out that the thermostat, which had been on 18 degrees (which is already low for winter) had been turned down instead of up, to 15 degrees. So we all had to yell at/tease their dad for a while... and then of course we were all making comments on the movie, and so on and so forth. Anyway, gezellig!
Okay, this is not short.
And I'm exhausted.
And I still have to do those two translations and the DPDS assignment.
And I wish I hadn't agreed to tutor Wim on Wednesday because otherwise Martin could have come, since my class is so early.
And why haven't I seen Tristan in like two weeks? T, I miss ya... :(
And why will my Utrecht map not stay on the wall?
And ... I'm (maybe) going to Spain next month! Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyways, quick quick quick update:
Saturday: more Staatsexamen. The writing was actually sort of fun, I didn't mind it, but the speaking was something else again. I can speak reasonably coherent Dutch if I'm talking to a PERSON, but this was to a computer, with headphones on... all sorts of robotic stuff... "U gaat luisteren naar... blah blah blah... U hoort eerst een voorbeeld... blah blah blah...U moet alle plaatjes gebruiken... blah blah blah..." Argh. Plus I was practically hyperventilating... anyway, it's over and done with and I get the results in six to seven weeks.
So then I went to Emmen and met Martin's parents and had dinner with them. His mom is German - I liked her right away, one of those faces that's always smiling. His dad is Dutch and I liked him a lot too - makes a lot of jokes - but I have trouble understanding him through the accent (Drenthe). I'll get used to it, I suppose - I mean, I can (usually) understand Martin just fine - but yesterday it was difficult. But I suppose my lack of sleep contributed to that.
Anyway, so then today I came back to Utrecht... another two-and-a-half hour trip... and then went to Bilthoven to meet Linde as we'd 'afgesproken'. But when I got to Bilthoven, she wasn't there. So after about 20 minutes I called her, with my dying GSM (apparently T-Mobile doesn't get good service underneath Martin's staircase, where my coat was... LOL!... so it did a Network Search all night and drained the battery) and she said, "I thought we were meeting at six?" I told her that she had told me to take the 15.39 train and I heard, "I did?"... and then the phone died. So I hopped onto the train back to Utrecht, which was already there, and went home and got rid of my heavy backpack and charged the phone as much as I could in the 15 or so minutes that I was there, then went back to the centrum and met Linde and Esra at Broers (a cafe at Janskerkof, for those who don't know).
Anyway, so we sat there for a while and then Linde and I walked back to the station and took the train to Bilthoven (again) and I had dinner with her family. Typical Dutch meal: meat, potatoes, vegetable. (And for dessert, if there is a dessert, maybe some yogurt-type thing.) That's what I had at Martin's and also at Linde's. Not bad - lekker, really - but different from what I'm used to. We eat that kind of stuff, sure, but not three and four times a week like here. I'd get bored with that, I think.
So Linde and I looked on the Internet for cheap plane tickets - she and Alette (her identical twin sister, for those who don't know) are still planning to come back with me, and probably Samantha as well, a friend of theirs whom I met at New Year's. Anyway, we did set tentative dates - 23 July to arrive and 6 August for them all to leave - but we didn't find anything, and we figured out that we'd have to go to a travel agent anyway because we all want to be on the same flight and sitting together, but the three of them need round-trip tickets and I need a one-way. You can't do that via the computer. So we gave that up and turned the computer over to Jaap Enno (L's brother) and his friend and the rest of us (me, L, her parents, and her sister Marianne... Alette wasn't there) curled up on the couches to watch How Stella Got Her Groove Back on Net5. I really love spending time at their house... it feels like a 'real' family house... there's always lots of bantering and talking and yelling and it just feels friendly. Like tonight, Jaap Enno got some weird phone message via the regular phone line (not an answering machine) which Marianne ended up hearing instead of him, and we all got into a discussion of how those messages could be left, what the girl's name was, etc. etc. etc., plus of course teasing JE about what the girl had 'really' said. And Linde kept getting SMSes from the new guy she's seeing, so we were reading those, and we were all (except their parents) complaining about how cold it was (L and I were huddled under blankets), so her mom told us to put on sweatshirts, and I was wearing a sweatshirt, so more sarcastic banter followed... it turned out that the thermostat, which had been on 18 degrees (which is already low for winter) had been turned down instead of up, to 15 degrees. So we all had to yell at/tease their dad for a while... and then of course we were all making comments on the movie, and so on and so forth. Anyway, gezellig!
Okay, this is not short.
And I'm exhausted.
And I still have to do those two translations and the DPDS assignment.
And I wish I hadn't agreed to tutor Wim on Wednesday because otherwise Martin could have come, since my class is so early.
And why haven't I seen Tristan in like two weeks? T, I miss ya... :(
And why will my Utrecht map not stay on the wall?
And ... I'm (maybe) going to Spain next month! Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!
stormed at 19:33
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