This year changed my whole life

This blog is about the last week of my exchange year here in Texas….
 
We went to the drive-in movies for a last time. Before that we went to MOD pizza to get dinner, which was amazing. Jake, Stephanie, the boys, Mathilde, Josh, Gaia and I watched Wonderwoman and King Arthur in the drive in theater. It was great, because it was not cold at all outside. It started super late, like 9 pm, and since we watched 2 movies we were all home at 3 am that night. We still had a great time there :)

Last Sunday, we went to church for the last time. Stephanie had to sing and Jake was there too. Even though I’m not religious, I’ll miss the times we spent there together. And I’ll miss Stephanie’s singing on the Sunday mornings!! That afternoon, I started packing for real. I struggled a lot haha. But I changed a lot of times after I tried that day. We spontaneously went to the gun range that afternoon!! Mom, Stephanie, Jake, Kat, Mathilde and me. I had been there once before, but it was the first time for Mathilde. These were real guns so it was so cool. Mathilde hit it right in the middle her first time, just like me a couple of months ago. I guess it’s just a foreign skill gheghe ;) We had ear and eye protection, because there were so many people at the range that it was really loud. Now we officially know how to shoot a gun, and it is amazing. It is also so cool when you hit right in the middle of the target haha :)
After the gun range, mom dropped Mathilde and me off at the Hill’s house and we had a game night. It was a very nice evening!
 
On Monday, Gaia, Rachel, Mathilde and I went shopping for the last time at memorial city. The crazy girl I am, I bought two pairs of new sneakers. The good thing is that I managed to fit them in my suitcase haha. After shopping, we ate Mac&Cheese for dinner at the Hill’s. We had a game and movie night again :)
 
I basically packed all my stuff on Tuesday. All the big things I didn’t use anymore and my clothes I packed. In the afternoon, Rachel, Austin and Gaia came to our pool and we swam for a while and then again, we went to the Hill’s house. We spent a lot of time with them, because they are our most important friends. Josh came too and we ate homemade hamburgers for dinner. We wanted to watch a movie so everybody put on comfortable clothes. Then we decided we wanted candy for the movie. We went in our ugly, but comfortable clothes to the supermarket to get candy haha. Gaia and I matched outfits, we were both wearing flipflops with socks lol. When we came home, we watched Johnny English, which was a hilarious movie! Sarah-Joy joined us too later that evening. Only Mathilde and I slept over that night. Mathilde in Rachel’s room and I slept in Gaia’s room.
 
Mathilde and Rachel woke up super early the next morning, but by the time Gaia and I showed our faces, it was already 11 am haha. For breakfast/lunch we went to IHOP. Josh joined us there too. It was delicious as always and we had a great time :)
Mathilde and I went home and we packed or re-packed our stuff in our suitcases again. Mom took Mathilde and me to the cowboy store (Cavenders) for the last time, to buy some souvenirs. That evening, Mathilde and I took the family (mom, Larry, Stephanie and Kat) out for dinner. What is a better place to end your exchange year in Texas at Texas Roadhouse!! We all ate steak there and it was delicious. During the time we had to wait for our food, Stephanie was reading us Harry Potter, it was super funny haha. We had a great time :)
 
On Thursday, mom asked us to make 2 batches of vanilla ice cream. So Mathilde andi thought we were following the recipe, but when we were done, we realized we had used the wrong heavy cream…. We made 2 new ones, and they were right this time haha. Oops…
Around noon, Rachel, Gaia and Austin picked Mathilde and me up to go to Whataburger. This was the last time for Gaia, because she went back to Italy that Thursday. On the way to the airport, everybody was kind of quiet, it was a really weird feeling. When we arrived at the airport, Josh came to say goodbye as well. It was really sad and heartbroken and I can't explain it. Gaia was one of my best friends here and I'm sure we'll keep in contact. We cried a lot haha, but it was okay. After the airport, Josh took Mathilde and me to Chopstix, the Chinese restaurant. On our way to the restaurant, we got stuck in traffic. There was one truck and on the side of it in big letters it said: SAIA. It was kind of funny and sad, because of course it made us think of Gaia haha. After the restaurant we went home and just hang out for a while, watched some Disney movies with Kat and Stephanie lol.

The next day, we woke up early to go to the beach! We went with Kat, Stephanie, Josh, Rachel, Mathilde and me. It was 1.5 hour away by car. That's something totally different than my 20 minutes by bike that I'm used to haha. The beach was absolutely great! A funny thing was that people drove on the beach with their car and they parked it right next to their spot. I have no clue why they did that, but it looked very funny, because we don't do that in The Netherlands. We all jumped in the water immediately, but Mathilde came out pretty fast, because she had been stang by a jellyfish. A little later I came out too because something has stang me as well haha. We'd all been stang by something that day, but it was all fine :) There was one moment when we were all in the water and suddenly I saw this big fish jump over Mathilde's had. Nobody saw it except me, but it was really funny to see. I think I used one whole spray bottle of sunscreen during the day, but it was worth it, because I was almost didn't get sunburned :) Around 5 pm we were all done so we went home. We ordered pizza for dinner and we all went home to bed soon. It was an amazing beach day :)

Today I said goodbye to Kat in the morning... A good thing was that Jake and the boys came to make me happy again. We played some games with them and later that day we had a water fight and played with bubbles in the backyard. I'll miss them a lot. Before dinner, we went outside for a quick Poké-walk. The heat and humidity were horrible today, but I even enjoyed it, because I know I won't feel this weather in a long time... My last Texas dinner was BBQ ribs and they were amazing: Thanks to mom's and Jake's cooking skills :) For dessert we had homemade vanilla ice cream, and even the one from the wrong recipe tasted good! Everybody went to bed early and now I'm just in bed. All packed, and I have the weirdest feeling ever. I am super sad, but also happy and I actually don't know how to feel.

This is my last blog, and I just want to say: Thank you to everybody who read them. I'm happy I did this so I'll have all the memories together as one big story. I'm really not looking forward to my goodbye tomorrow, but it will be good to be back in The Netherlands again.

I am going to leave my home, my family and my friends in Texas, and I am going to return to my home, my family and my friends in The Netherlands....

I LOVE YOU TEXAS!!