It's the holiday season!
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Marit
26 December 2016 | Verenigde Staten, Houston
Hi everyone, I have experienced a lot of new things I would love to tell you. It's a long time ago since my last blog so this is going to be loooooonggg..... But this blog is about my time in Houston and I will make another blog for all the things that happened on my holiday in Kentucky.
I'll just start with weeks ago when we had the YFU Christmas party. We saw all of our foreign friends again. Everyone had to bring cookies from their own country, homemade or you could just buy them. We also sang "Silent Night, Holy Night" in all the different languages. The people from Denmark sang their version in Danish and the one from France sang their version and then there was me, I was the only one from The Netherlands that night.... But with my 'beautiful' singing talent, I performed in front of everybody. Mom came and tried to sing it in Dutch with me, it was really funny :) We ate dinner with each other and had fun. It's cool how many friendships we created with nights like that.
When we went to church that Sunday some crazy things happened. First of all people all drank wine or something from a really small glass, it was like one drink and it's empty. And they had a really small piece of bread I have no clue what it was. But they prayed and then they drank and ate the small things. There are two other exchange students in our church. Josephine from Denmark and Carl from Sweden. That day in church 2 people were playing on their phone but forgot that there volume was on so suddenly out of no were we hear some weird sound when everybody is listening to the priest and it was so funny. We laughed so hard, because it happened twice!
It's the Christmas season so that means Home Alone marathon! Mathilde and I watched three of them :)
That Monday I had soccer practice (I have soccer practice every day during 4th period and after school) I made the Varsity team. The Varsity team is the highest team and participates in tournaments and competitions. Another team is the Junior Varsity, that is a lot of freshmen girls and they don't do all the things Varsity does. One day we had to run on the track, 2,5 miles.... I thought I could do that easily but I forgot I didn't do anything in months so I just died because it was so hard.
After we ran we had to do sprints, 100 sit ups and 25 push-ups, great.... But it was fun though :)
At school during lunch break suddenly Santa walked out of the door and asks people if they wanted to have a free picture with Santa and of course we wanted a picture, so we did. We should do something like that in The Netherlands!
On Tuesday there was a choir concert and Gaia is in the Choir class so Mathilde, Rachel & her mom and I came to watch. It was really cool because I have never seen something like that, and I thought there would only be girls, but there were also boys. They sang a lot of Christmas songs and they all looked pretty and it was really nice :) They had to sing really high though, I can't do that haha. In the end, ex-choir students who already graduated came to the front, and together with the current choir-students they sang a song everybody knew.
We're moving on with more singing, because Stephanie is a music teacher, and she and her 4th grade class I think also performed Christmas songs for us. It was in a book store, and all the parents came and it was so cute. They all looked at Stephanie, while they were singing to see if they were still singing the right thing. We also just hang around in the bookstore for a while and I found a Dutch book!!! It was amazing and Haarlem was in there too, lovely :)
After the little concert we went to a Mexican restaurant, and Jake and his boys were there too. We ate some really good taco's, I love the Mexican food here. When we drove back home, we saw more and more Christmas lights in the neighborhoods, and I love it. It's so pretty :)
The next day it was like 3 degrees Celsius and it was so cold. But then of course, 3 hours later it's 20 degrees Celsius again.... welcome to Texas! On Friday it was ugly Christmas sweater day so everybody looked pretty ugly but cool. I was wearing a red ugly sweater I borrowed from Aunt Nancy.
The Varsity soccer team had a Secret Santa evening, so everybody bought presents for each other. I came in the team later I didn't buy anything... but my coach, Coach Brown, bought a soccer ball and socks for me and it was so sweet, he is a really nice coach :) We wore Christmas PJ's and everybody had so much fun. One girl’s mother made Tamales, I still don't really know what it is, but it's Mexican food and oh my goshh it's so good!!
SJ brought me home and we drove through the neighborhood again to look at more Christmas lights :)
For the first time in my life, we have a fake Christmas tree and it has colored lights in it. I brought something creative from The Netherlands with me for in the tree. It's paper to make your own 'Delfts Blauw' ornaments! So that is hanging in our tree now :)
We also decorated the whole house. We have red and white lights hanging on the roof tops and sticking in the ground in the front yard. We have a Santa Clause that lightens up and green lights spread all over the bushes.
The inside of the house is decorated too. We have those big Christmas socks hanging above the fireplace together with garlands. And we have garlands on the handrail of the stairs. We have a looott of advent calendars in the house. We have one that mom made herself. It is made from quilt and she filled it with chocolate. We have 2 that Mathilde’s parents sent her with Danish chocolate and we have one that is from Playmobil and at the end of the month it creates a happy family that is celebrating Christmas. And at last, a lot of our plates and other kitchen and eating stuff is changed into Christmas theme. Then it was December the 9th, it was mom's birthday. And you know the Jones tradition by now. We had birthday dinner and Aunt Nancy and Uncle Gerald came to celebrate with us. We ate the best home-made steak ever and birthday cake for dessert of course.
That Monday our final week started. We had a normal day on Monday. On Tuesday all the periods were a little shorter and 7th period we had our final. I had art and I actually got a 100 :) we had to draw a still life thing. There were apples and cups and flowers so it was cool. The art teacher actually used my ‘master piece’ in Mathilde’s art class to show it as an example, prouuddd :) On Wednesday I had algebra 2 and US government. I got a 98 in algebra 2 and a 85 in government. On Thursday I had psychology and Spanish 1. The psychology teacher had given us a review with a couple of multiple choice questions and that review was exactly the same as the official final.... Almost everybody got a 100 on that final, but then we also had to write an essay so my overall grade was a 90 because writing essays is not my thing lol... Spanish wasn't really hard it was more fun, I got a 96 :)
On Friday I originally had to do my anatomy&physiology and English 4 final but my flight to go to Kentucky was leaving Friday morning from Dallas. So I missed 2 finals and I have to do them when I go back to school after Christmas break. On Thursday in the afternoon Mathilde and mom brought me to the Greyhound bus station downtown Houston and my adventure to and in Kentucky started. I will tell y’all about that adventure in the next blog :)
I'll just start with weeks ago when we had the YFU Christmas party. We saw all of our foreign friends again. Everyone had to bring cookies from their own country, homemade or you could just buy them. We also sang "Silent Night, Holy Night" in all the different languages. The people from Denmark sang their version in Danish and the one from France sang their version and then there was me, I was the only one from The Netherlands that night.... But with my 'beautiful' singing talent, I performed in front of everybody. Mom came and tried to sing it in Dutch with me, it was really funny :) We ate dinner with each other and had fun. It's cool how many friendships we created with nights like that.
When we went to church that Sunday some crazy things happened. First of all people all drank wine or something from a really small glass, it was like one drink and it's empty. And they had a really small piece of bread I have no clue what it was. But they prayed and then they drank and ate the small things. There are two other exchange students in our church. Josephine from Denmark and Carl from Sweden. That day in church 2 people were playing on their phone but forgot that there volume was on so suddenly out of no were we hear some weird sound when everybody is listening to the priest and it was so funny. We laughed so hard, because it happened twice!
It's the Christmas season so that means Home Alone marathon! Mathilde and I watched three of them :)
That Monday I had soccer practice (I have soccer practice every day during 4th period and after school) I made the Varsity team. The Varsity team is the highest team and participates in tournaments and competitions. Another team is the Junior Varsity, that is a lot of freshmen girls and they don't do all the things Varsity does. One day we had to run on the track, 2,5 miles.... I thought I could do that easily but I forgot I didn't do anything in months so I just died because it was so hard.
After we ran we had to do sprints, 100 sit ups and 25 push-ups, great.... But it was fun though :)
At school during lunch break suddenly Santa walked out of the door and asks people if they wanted to have a free picture with Santa and of course we wanted a picture, so we did. We should do something like that in The Netherlands!
On Tuesday there was a choir concert and Gaia is in the Choir class so Mathilde, Rachel & her mom and I came to watch. It was really cool because I have never seen something like that, and I thought there would only be girls, but there were also boys. They sang a lot of Christmas songs and they all looked pretty and it was really nice :) They had to sing really high though, I can't do that haha. In the end, ex-choir students who already graduated came to the front, and together with the current choir-students they sang a song everybody knew.
We're moving on with more singing, because Stephanie is a music teacher, and she and her 4th grade class I think also performed Christmas songs for us. It was in a book store, and all the parents came and it was so cute. They all looked at Stephanie, while they were singing to see if they were still singing the right thing. We also just hang around in the bookstore for a while and I found a Dutch book!!! It was amazing and Haarlem was in there too, lovely :)
After the little concert we went to a Mexican restaurant, and Jake and his boys were there too. We ate some really good taco's, I love the Mexican food here. When we drove back home, we saw more and more Christmas lights in the neighborhoods, and I love it. It's so pretty :)
The next day it was like 3 degrees Celsius and it was so cold. But then of course, 3 hours later it's 20 degrees Celsius again.... welcome to Texas! On Friday it was ugly Christmas sweater day so everybody looked pretty ugly but cool. I was wearing a red ugly sweater I borrowed from Aunt Nancy.
The Varsity soccer team had a Secret Santa evening, so everybody bought presents for each other. I came in the team later I didn't buy anything... but my coach, Coach Brown, bought a soccer ball and socks for me and it was so sweet, he is a really nice coach :) We wore Christmas PJ's and everybody had so much fun. One girl’s mother made Tamales, I still don't really know what it is, but it's Mexican food and oh my goshh it's so good!!
SJ brought me home and we drove through the neighborhood again to look at more Christmas lights :)
For the first time in my life, we have a fake Christmas tree and it has colored lights in it. I brought something creative from The Netherlands with me for in the tree. It's paper to make your own 'Delfts Blauw' ornaments! So that is hanging in our tree now :)
We also decorated the whole house. We have red and white lights hanging on the roof tops and sticking in the ground in the front yard. We have a Santa Clause that lightens up and green lights spread all over the bushes.
The inside of the house is decorated too. We have those big Christmas socks hanging above the fireplace together with garlands. And we have garlands on the handrail of the stairs. We have a looott of advent calendars in the house. We have one that mom made herself. It is made from quilt and she filled it with chocolate. We have 2 that Mathilde’s parents sent her with Danish chocolate and we have one that is from Playmobil and at the end of the month it creates a happy family that is celebrating Christmas. And at last, a lot of our plates and other kitchen and eating stuff is changed into Christmas theme. Then it was December the 9th, it was mom's birthday. And you know the Jones tradition by now. We had birthday dinner and Aunt Nancy and Uncle Gerald came to celebrate with us. We ate the best home-made steak ever and birthday cake for dessert of course.
That Monday our final week started. We had a normal day on Monday. On Tuesday all the periods were a little shorter and 7th period we had our final. I had art and I actually got a 100 :) we had to draw a still life thing. There were apples and cups and flowers so it was cool. The art teacher actually used my ‘master piece’ in Mathilde’s art class to show it as an example, prouuddd :) On Wednesday I had algebra 2 and US government. I got a 98 in algebra 2 and a 85 in government. On Thursday I had psychology and Spanish 1. The psychology teacher had given us a review with a couple of multiple choice questions and that review was exactly the same as the official final.... Almost everybody got a 100 on that final, but then we also had to write an essay so my overall grade was a 90 because writing essays is not my thing lol... Spanish wasn't really hard it was more fun, I got a 96 :)
On Friday I originally had to do my anatomy&physiology and English 4 final but my flight to go to Kentucky was leaving Friday morning from Dallas. So I missed 2 finals and I have to do them when I go back to school after Christmas break. On Thursday in the afternoon Mathilde and mom brought me to the Greyhound bus station downtown Houston and my adventure to and in Kentucky started. I will tell y’all about that adventure in the next blog :)
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