Week 3

Bus party!

swimming at the lake

T-Pain teaching Kristen to ride the dirtbike

Our drinking water is this lovely pee colour...

Mexico, anyone?

Jordan and I having our bus party

My swamp piece that I finished with a PB day of 2100

All lit up

Building the box fortress (Jordan's the one up on the ladder)

I am a man! I will fight this fire with a watergun! (Jordan's in the middle, Barnes is up on the ladder).

Three weeks down, five to go.

In true Danielle fashion, I have decided to write this blog as a list, mostly because I hate prose and it takes way too long to join my thoughts into full sentences. For example, this opening paragraph has taken me five tries. Now you understand why it takes me forever and a day to write essays. But that’s getting off topic already.

Things that don’t make me smile:

1) Heat. The heat was brutal this week, and it’s only May, so I’m scared for June. Wednesday I had good land, and my boss was expecting big things from me, so I pushed myself hard to hit 2400. If you hit 2-4, you get an extra half-cent per tree, so I laughed in the face of the sun and planted 2400 trees. It was the longest, hardest day I’ve ever worked though, and at one point I got so frustrated and exhausted that my tears turned to hyperventilation. But I took a deep breath and kept on with my motto: “Head down, plant trees.”

2) Bugs. Black flies are Satan’s minions sent to make the miserable go insane. Mosquitoes are no better. And ticks… well those eight-legged, flesh-eating monsters, they just belong in the depths of hell. I got my first tick this week. I had assumed the situation would go something like this: “Oh, there’s a tick”, and Danielle calmly pulled the tick off her skin. Instead it was something like this: “AHHHHH!! A TICK!!!! GETITOFFME! GETITOFFME!!!”, and Danielle flailed her arms wildly, too scared to touch it, hoping someone else would save her from being devoured. Thank goodness Tim came to my rescue. By the way, ticks two and three were no better…

Things that make me smile:

1) Box fires. We made a big box fire Monday night when we got back to camp, built sorta like a castle. The flame was huge! It soon died down, because it was just boxes, and the 20-foot flame became a small 6-foot flame. And then I realized how ridiculous it is for a 6-foot flame to look small. Saturday night’s box fire was even better. We started with a pile of boxes over 20 feet tall, which was assembled using a ladder with the tallest guy in camp standing on top, straining to get the top box on. Even better was seeing Jordan and Barnes try to put the humongous fire out with the piss-packs (glorified water guns) on their backs. Funny stuff.

2) Swimming in the lake. This week was a cooker, and my daily motivation became “If you don’t die of heat exhaustion, you get to swim!” Our camp is about a 5 minute walk from a small beach on a big, cold lake, so after sweating buckets all day, nothing felt better than diving under the freezing water to cool down. Insert sigh of contentment.

3) The wonderful “galoosh” sound that black muck makes when you slice your shovel into it.

4) Cliffs. Friday and Saturday we planted a terrible kife block, but in the back of my piece I had a cliff with a 50-foot drop-off. I’ll admit I didn’t work as hard as I should have on Friday because I took a couple breaks to sit in a shady spot on the edge and take in the view of the lake across the valley. And then on Saturday, when Jordan came in to help me finish my piece, we spent awhile throwing stuff off the cliff. I remember several occasions when Jordan called me a night and said something like, “Yeah, today I had a cliff in the back of my piece, so Ryan and I spent half an hour throwing stuff off it. It was awesome!” I remember thinking “That’s that stupidest thing ever…that doesn’t sound like fun.” Wrong, it’s awesome! Yeah for cheap thrills!

5) Chilling with Kristen. Kristen is our cook (and a fantastic one at that!), and we were in the same program at Redeemer. We didn’t chat a whole lot during school, but it’s been great getting to know her here. I’ve established a “spot” in the cookshack, and nightly I park my butt on top of the counter (old habits, eh Mom?) and we spend time chatting and laughing. We both love stupid hypothetical question games, and she was thrilled to learn “Do, Dump or Date?”, which always has us giggling guiltily like school girls when a guy walks in. It also brings back fond memories of afternoons at Maple Leaf…. Insert sigh of missing friends.

6) Breakfast at the TBay Restaurant. This is another thing I’ve been hearing about for 4 years now, and again, it exceeded my expectations. The lady who owns and runs the place loves tree planters, and has an incredibly motherly, yet brisk way about her. When she came to take our order she didn’t recognize me. Our conversation proceeded like this:

“You new?”

“Yup!”

“You been wearing your sunscreen?”

“Yup.”

“You calling your mother?”

“Yup.”

“You changing your underwear?”

“Uh…yup.”

“Good, you’re doing fine. What can I get ya?”

And before leaving she insisted on a hug. She’s wonderful, and I can’t wait to go back!

7) Jon’s dirtbike. Our boss, Jon, brought his dirtbike to camp, and everyone took turns riding it. Travis taught me really quickly, and after a minor mishap that involved revving instead of braking, I had it figured out and took off for 3-minutes of death-defying bliss. It’s like a seadoo, except it’d hurt more if you fall off. Awesome!

8) Bus parties. Jordan introduced me to bus parties after we finished a piece together and walked back to the bus 10 minutes early. There was no one around, so we climbed up on the roof of the bus and laid in the sun. Apparently dance parties also frequently happen on the bus roof (?). Don’t worry Mom, that’s safer than a lot of things we do…I mean other people do…

Week 2

Dirt sleeve

This is what we do when we run out of trees. People you might know (left to right): Kara Jaspers, Sean Fallon, Matt Neal, Rachel Buithuis, Megan Hultink

The hot day; I was wearing a knitted touque from Oma in the morning and that came off pretty quick, that's why I'm wearing a shirt on my head.

My bags--400 trees loaded and ready to go

Partying at Fun Factor last week--glow in the dark mini putt

Second week down, six to go.

The week started on a bit of a low, because Tuesday was a gong show. The crew bosses weren't given GPS's, and we ended up spending the first two hours driving around looking for the block. Jordan kept us all entertained by singing, "Brett, You've Got It Going On" to Brett Elmers. Every morning on the bus I'm excited to start a new piece of land and see what I can hit, but at the same time, I secretly hope the bus will never stop and instead we'll just drive around and never have to plant. But they found the block, and by 10 we were planting. And because we got started late, we also got to work late...yay. That day I decided to try planting solo and found out that I loved it. It was the first time I was in unscarified land, which means there's no furrows to follow, you just always work 6 feet off your own line of trees, so I was a bit confused throughout the day, always wandering around looking for my trees. I'm sure it sounds ridiculous, looking for trees, but they're really tiny, and in land that's covered in grass and brush, they're hard to find!

Wednesday I a slow morning because a lot of my land was swamp. I didn't realize that I could plant it, until our quality checker, Brandon, showed up to check my trees. I turned to him, almost ready to cry in frustration, and said, "I don't know where to plant any trees!" He took his shovel, started poking lumps of moss and said, "Well you could put one here...and here...and here...and here...". I felt like an idiot--swamps are great! After that I really picked up the pace, and by the end of the day I felt like I had a really good handle on unscarified land.

Thursday morning the repo bus headed back to Saturday's block so the majority of the crew could fix their crappy trees. Guess who was in the van? Yeah, that's right, only rookie who didn't have to replant! That's cause I plant quality trees, yo! After a couple hours it started to rain, and I was excited because I love planting in the rain. But then it got harder...and rained more...and got windy...and rained harder...and by 2:00 most people were miserably cold and had given up on the day. I tried to hide under a tarp long enough to eat a couple cookies, but even 5 minutes of sitting and I was freezing, so I just kept pounding. And by 5:00 I'd hit 2k! Two thousand trees is a really abstract number if you don't plant, and sounds low when some people are hitting 4 and 5k. But it's a big milestone on the way up, and it felt good to be the first rookie to hit it. It also felt great to highball some vets, especially ones who wimped out in the cold and had to warm up in the truck. The day wasn't over a 5:00 though--we were welcomed back to camp with a reefer...which basically means stand in line and pass heavy boxes of trees from one truck to another for an hour. But some dry clothes, a cigarette under Brad's tarp, and a ride in the van just to warm up all helped take the edge off the day, and needless to say, I slept well that night.

Friday was fairly uneventful, other than a nice lunch break with Matt Neal. He was having a bad day, and the rain wasn't helping, so I took a 10 minute break to sit under a tarp with him and eat an orange. He's a great guy--really encouraging--and it felt good to start getting to know the rest of the crew a bit better.

Saturday we were told to expect to start late because of a long bus ride, and to work late and plant our faces off because we had a big block with lots of trees to finish in one day. I had a good start to the day, and managed to bag out (finish planting all 400 trees in my bags) before the vets I shared a cache with (Sean Fallon and Matt Neal). But after the first bag up my land got crappier, while theirs got better, so they pulled ahead of me. It was the first really hot day, so the bugs were out in full force. I read a quote somewhere that said, "This is the sound of your insanity: 'bzzzzzzzzz'." Nailed that one on that head. Once they find ya, they don't leave, and I swear they beeline (pun pun!) for every opening on my face. I ate three bugs, and choked one back up. Gross. Oh, and just as I was on stride to hit 2k again, we ran out of trees. Lame.

Saturday night the crew went out to Scuttlebutt's for some well-deserved drinks and down time. We tore up the dance floor, and I got to see strange phenomenon that is a ThunderBay bar crowd. It's a weird mix people between ages 19 and cougar, wearing plaid and cowboy boots, incredibly tight and short skirts, or camo-pants.

Oh, and church this morning was great--I love Grassroots! Pastor Chris had a great sermon about giving in secret. But even better was this little old white haired lady that came over to hug me. Apparently Jordan had talked to her there a couple years ago, so he struck up conversation with her during the break (yeah, there's a refreshment break DURING the service for fellowship and coffee--so great!). I saw him point to me from across the room while talking to her, so I waved and she blew me a kiss, lol. Then she came over, and before I could even introduce myself she was hugging me. She wanted me to write down our names so she could remember to pray for us as we worked / continued looking for work. What a sweetheart, eh? It's people like that who make church such a meaningful experience, not just the pastor or the message. Already looking forward to next week.

In other news, a few shout-outs:

1) Anna, nothing gets me jacked in the morning like some Alphabeat. Love it!

2) Maple Leaf girls, I found liverwort on a lot of the root pods this week, and thought of you. Not jealous that you have to sit in the freezing rain and weed pots though...enjoy!

3) Katlyn, had a cigar on my "porch" for nostalgia sake. Not nearly as fun without you.

4) Mom's turning 50 tomorrow--Happy Birthday Mom!!! Hope you have a great day and get spoiled by Dad. Dad, that's your cue to spoil Mom even more.

Well, I'll be back again in a week! Miss you all very much!

Week 1

Jordan caching hard at the end of a short day

Me, a tree planter

Jordan bagging up 500 trees like a real man

The piece Jordan and I planted together on Saturday. I love planting in snow! I do not love planting in slash!

I was about to say "Our Home Away from Home"...and then I realized, this is the closest thing we have to a home right now.

One week down, seven to go...

I'm officially 1/8th of the way to scratching another thing off my bucket list. Yup, tree planting made it onto my bucket list after I went up for a day last year and enjoyed myself so much I swore I'd come this year. It almost didn't happen when Haveman's lost one of their big contracts, but after Jordan whined and complained enough, they agreed to hire me on. I'm one of four rookies this year, and I'm on a crew with a lot of hard core vets.

We rode up in my parents old beater of a van, and, though I had my doubts, we made it successfully...minus the muffler, which Jordan had to pull off around Wawa. Tuesday we drove into camp, which is about an hour into the bush from the shop in Kakabeka Falls. Jordan volunteered the four rookies to dig hole for the four shitters as our chore, which was really funny...until the crew bosses found out and made him dig with me, lol. Sucker! We pitched our tent in the forest, and have a lovely little home that I don't even have to bother keeping clean. I love it--no sweeping, no cooking, just rinse the dishes with water...life's great at camp!

Wednesday was the first day of planting. My partner is Courtney, and she's a real sweetheart. It's difficult managing land together though, especially when neither of us know what we're doing, so I might decide to plant solo eventually. We'll see how next week goes. Friday was the first day the thought, "What the heck am I doing here?" crossed my mind, but mostly because I was so frustrated with managing my land, rather than the hard work. So once I figure land management out, then I'll be okay I think. I planted with Jordan on Saturday, and that helped a lot. He made me bag up 400 trees at a time, which nearly killed me the first bag-up. But it was good in the end, because the madder I got about how hard he pushed me, the faster I planted to keep up with him...although in the end I was still miles behind him. At the very least, I have a huge admiration for the fact that he has planted 4000 trees in one day. What a stud, eh?

We've had some rain and some snow while planting, but I love how cold it's been. Usually I hate being cold, but right now the cold means no bugs, and once I get planting I warm up really fast. At night though, the cold is not as fun. I sleep under four blankets, wearing slippers, long johns, pj pants, a tank top, t-shirt, sweater, and a toque. I'm glad I have Jordan for snuggling.

Oh, and one funny/embarrassing story: The second day I went to the outhouse before dinner, and after doing my thing, got up to leave and couldn't get the door open. There was a latch on the outside for some stupid reason, and it fell in front of the door while I was in there. Everyone had already gone into the mess tent for dinner, and I was stuck in the outhouse yelling, "Help! Somebody let me out!", hoping desperately someone would come before the fumes or the cold overtook me. Eventually Megan came out of the tent and heard me yell from across the camp. Saved! Danger comes in many different forms while tree planting...

Well, now it's the weekend and we're in ThunderBay at the Super 8. Last night was crew bonding at Fun Factor, and today is church, Iron Man2, and then the Vancouver game. And a call home to Mom because it's Mother's Day! Happy Mother's Day Moms! You're the best Moms I've ever had! Love you!

Peace out til next week, hope I get more great stories for y'all!

peacin' out

It’s almost over. Four days, one exam and a nine hour plane ride and I will be home!

Saturday I had my big Grammaire exam, the one that the entire semester was leading up to. I studied HARD CORE and I think it paid off. I didn’t do fantastic, and I’m already kicking myself for small mistakes I know I made, but I’m sure I did well enough to pass, so I’m content. I know that I learned a lot this past semester, and I hope the profs see that when they’re marking my exam. This afternoon I have my oral exam, and then it’s all over. I’m pretty nervous for this one, ‘cause oral’s not my strong point. I have enough trouble forming sentences in English…so it should be interesting trying to make stuff up on the spot in French. My prof is one of the people who mark me, and she seemed nice enough, so hopefully she’ll give me a passing grade.

Tuesday and Wednesday I’ll probably spend walking around the city, taking it all in for one last time. I’m definitely going to make a trip to the Latin Quarter and Montmartre again; those two are my favourite areas because they have so much character. They’re rich in history, and full of crowded streets with colourful shops. And I’m treating myself to one last amandine (almond tart) from a ritzy patisserie just up the hill from my apartment.

Thursday I’ll be doing laundry, cleaning and packing before room inspections. Then we’re heading off to the hotel (the Radisson!) to stay there for the night, since we have to be at the airport early Friday morning. We made sure we booked a hotel with a pool, and I am PSYCHED to go swimming! We’ll probably spend the night chilling and swapping photos, so I’ll have lots of pictures to show you all when I get home.

I’m absolutely itching to leave! I think it may have something to do with the fact that I’ve cooped myself up in my room for the past couple weeks to study, and now I’ve got more energy that I know what to do with. I wanna work, run around and get dirty! Even tree planting sounds appealing to me at this point.

However, I’ve definitely enjoyed Paris—it’s a beautiful city with tons of things to see and do, and I hope to come back with Jordan someday. But I’m a real sucker for Canada—for its food, for its friendly people, for its fields, forests and beaches. I’ve got so much to look forward to this summer, and I can’t wait to get started the minute I get back. Ok…maybe the day after. And I can’t wait to catch up with everyone again—to find out all the university gossip from my friends, to spend a Sunday afternoon at Grandma’s, to make fun of all the Hayhoe employees, to see the Burgsma’s new place and to be silly with my sisters (and Michael too of course). I can’t wait to see ALL of you!!!

Ok, so this is me officially signing off. My blogging days are over. And if you don’t mind, keep me in your prayers for safe travels on Friday. It’d be a shame to survive this long and then not get to drink an icecap ever again.

Je t’embrace, bisoux, ciao-ciao!

exam time

Steph and I at La Défense

My new "spot" in the Jardin Luxembourg

The "Port Stanley" of Paris

Sharon and I at the top of the Eiffel Tower

View from the top; I go to school just left of Montparnasse, the tall building

Waffels in Belgium

And of course, sea shell chocolates!

Nate's finger...keep reading...

Grandes Eaux Musicales at Versailles

Versailles

L'Arc de Triomphe on Liberation Day

I realize it’s been a couple of weeks since I last made an appearance here, so I’ll quickly catch you up on what I’ve been up to since Spring Break.

Well, I came home from Holland to sunny skies and shorts weather—absolutely amazing! Paris is finally showing her true colours, and it’s fantastic, I can’t get enough of the sun! The first week back I spent most days after class sitting in the Jardin Luxembourg, reading my book. It’s quite the hot spot, since it has a nice grassy “pelouse” that you can sit on. It’s like Port Stanley beach, except without any waves or metal detectors.

It was a short week at school, only 3 days, so Thursday Nate and I took a trip to Versaille. I have to say I was a bit disappointed by the palace…it was nice, but not worth the number of euros I spent to see it. But the gardens were definitely worth seeing—we went on a day when they performed the “Grandes Eaux Musicales”—where all of the fountains were going full blast to classical music. I felt like royalty walking around to the music, and could barely contain the urge to waltz around like they probably did 300 years ago. But for Nate’s sake, I did contain it…he’s had a rough enough time being the only guy in the group.

Friday we went to Brussels for the day, since it’s only a 1 ½ hour train ride away, and spent another nice day in the sun, wandering around the city. I ate a REAL Belgian waffle, and of course, bought some REAL Belgian chocolate. On a sort of related note, do any of you remember the show “Tin-Tin”? (he’s a French cartoon character). Well the chocolate stores sell truffles in decorated tin boxes, and I saw one selling “Tin-Tin tins”! I thought that was pretty funny…Tin-Tin tins…

Saturday Nate and Steph headed off to Holland for a few days, so I was back in Paris solo. Sharon Heuving and her sister were in town for the day, so I met them under the Eiffel Tower, and we went up to the very top. It was a great view—much better than the second level; I’m glad I waited to go all the way up! Later I took them up to Montmartre and showed them my quartier—we did the tour through the painter’s square, the Sacre Coeur, and then down through the red light district to see the Moulin Rouge. It was such a treat to tour people around, and to show them a bit of what my life’s been like for the past few months.

This past week has mostly been a lot of studying. Exams are next week, and we don’t get any study days, so most nights I’m at my desk typing up study notes. Friday we had a final test in Grammaire (which I think I rocked…in French standards…ie, 70% hopefully?), and it made me feel pretty confident for the exam, since it was a copy of last year’s exam. And in Phonetics my French prof told me that I pronounce my nasals “très, très bien”. It’s always great to hear some positive feedback, ‘cause I can be pretty critical of my French accent. So at least I’m doing one thing right!

Anyways, I was talking about Friday…Well after a long week of study-study-studying, Steph and I were in the mood for a girls nite. So we enjoyed a chick flick, and then some Shawn Paul with facials and magazines. Girls nites have kind of become a monthly tradition, and I look forward to them because I love being silly with Steph.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention one of the most exciting nights! Nate will kill me if he reads this, so hopefully he won’t read it (and if you’re nice, you won’t tell him to!). Well, we were sitting in my room, showing each other our pictures from Spring Break, and Jordan called, so I turned away to talk to him for a moment. When I turned back, both Nate and Steph looked like they were about to faint; Nate had cut his finger real bad with his Swiss Army knife, and was bleeding all over. I quickly hung up as they were going out the door, Nate’s finger all wrapped up in paper towel. They’d barely made it to the hall before I heard a big “thunk”…Nate was down. Steph got her neighbour, who happens to be a nurse, and by the time he came up, Nate was doin a bit better…although his face was still about the same shade of white as my sheets. Julien quickly assured Nate that all he’d need was a couple stitches, so we went next door to the fire-fighters to get him fixed up. Apparently they don’t do stitches, so instead he just came back with a huge band-aid. It was an exciting way to the end the night, and thankfully it wasn’t any worse. We laughed it off, and now Nate’s finger is doing just fine. If that’s the worse of our injuries abroad, I think we’ll have done just fine…cross fingers.

Well…it’s time for me to hit the books again; unfortunately my study notes aren’t gonna write themselves. I’m gonna finish this semester off on a great note, and then smile all the way home on the plane!

…2 days later…

Well I wrote that blog on Saturday (I pre-write my blogs to save internet time) and now it’s Monday and I’m about to post it. Just thought I’d give you a quick update: finished my first exam and I think I rocked the socks off of it in just under 10 minutes. Off to a good start!

Home in Holland

breakfast in the sunroom

my big bed

a water mill

a windmill


windmill

boat ride through the canals in Amsterdam

old houses along the canals

Herman in the tulip fields

me in the tulip fields too

rows and rows of tulips

Herman

Houses along the canal in a little town in Friesland

at the beach along the North Sea

sun bathing on the deck with Ypie

That hat says "Captain"...that's me, Captain Danielle

Herman and Ypie

The real captain

First mate

in Friesland again

Sunday I traveled from what felt like home back to my temporary home, all the while thinking about my real home. To translate: I travelled from Holland back to Paris, all the while thinking about Canada.

What’s “home” anyways? In Paris it’s where my bed and all my belongings are. However, Holland FELT like home. Holland has Weesjes’ and other names I recognize; it has spiced cake, King peppermints and home-made tomato soup; it has cows and grassy fields. It’s a little piece of home.

Before I stepped off the train on Wednesday afternoon, I had a feeling I was going to like Holland. And after meeting Herman and Ypie at the station, I was convinced even more of that feeling. I could not have asked for more generous hosts!

Upon arriving at their house, we sat down for tea to get to know each other a bit better. I wasn’t a tea drinker when I left Canada, but in Holland I drank an average of 4 cups a day…not bad. Because it was Queen’s Day (I already forget the Dutch name) there were big celebrations in every town, so that night we went to see fireworks. They put on a pretty good show for a little town!

Thursday I was allowed to sleep in, in my big room with a big queen-sized bed that was alllllllll for me…. After breakfast and tea in the sunroom we headed out to see the area—a water mill, a wind mill, and the town of Zutphen. Herman has a bit of a sweet tooth, but Ypie doesn’t let him eat too much sugar and salt (“because he has to watch his health of course!”), so any time he wanted something sweet, he’d ask if I was hungry for ice cream or fries or a milk shake. I’m not one to turn down sweet food, so I said yes to icecream (for lunch) and I ended up eating a soup bowl-sized portion of the best gelato in the world. Yes, it was even better than gelato from Italy. All weekend, as Herman kept on finding out more about me, he would classify my traits as either Weesjes or non-Weesjes. It turns out I’m pretty Weesjes, and preferring sweets to healthy food is no exception. I’m also Weesjes because I like meat, because I lose things a lot, because I’m emotional, and because I don’t get seasick. Glad I live up to my name (not for too much longer though!!!)

The afternoon and evening saw lots more tea drinking, a visit with his twin brother Sietze, a delicious supper and then a relaxing night in front of an English movie (“Two Weeks Notice”…lame. Don’t ever watch it).

Friday we were up early for a day in Amsterdam. We had a nice cup of tea beside one of the canals and then went for a boat ride through them. I love the old Dutch houses—they’re colourful and so different from anything else I’ve seen in Europe. We walked around a bit, through the red light district, past Anne Frank’s house and later enjoyed a pancake lunch. After Amsterdam we headed to the tulip fields, where I was amazed to see rows and rows and rows…and more rows of tulips of every colour; it was absolutely beautiful! We also took a drive out to the sea for a walk along the beach. We stopped at a nice little restaurant for steak, fries and icecream cake on the patio (Herman’s choice…I promised not to tell Ypie).

Because it was close to Liberation Day, there were lots of war movies on TV, so that night we watched Schindler’s List. I had never seen it before, and although I had to stay up late to see it all, I’m glad I did. It was a very touching movie, one I would recommend.

Saturday morning we were up early again, this time to go sailing on their boat. We drove up to Friesland, where it was docked in a town called Heeg, and then took it out to sea. Well, more like out to lake. There was no wind for the first couple hours, so we moved at about a pace of 2 sea miles per hour. On the way back there was more wind, but it was head on, so completely useless. We putted around with the motor though, and I got to be captain for a while. On the way back there was a nice restaurant right along the canal, so Herman parallel parked the boat and we disembarked for some…no, not tea…we switched it up for some hot chocolate, yum!

Saturday night we swapped photos—I showed them what I’ve been up to in Paris and some photos of Jordan and the family. They’re big travellers, so I saw some photos of their trips to Australia, Argentina and Antarctica.

Sunday morning we enjoyed a relaxing breakfast, and then headed back to the train station. Ypie even packed me a lunch with gouda sandwiches and suikerbrood (sugar bread from Friesland), that’s how well they took care of me.

It was sad to say good-bye at the station; I think I blinked back a couple tears as I boarded the train. I could blame in on an exhausting couple of weeks, but I think it was mostly because for a few days, I felt like I was at home. And then I had to say good-bye to home all over again, and to a couple who took care of me like my parents and grand-parents would. A lot of the tastes, smells, sights and sounds were familiar, and although at that moment it made me homesick, thinking about it now makes me excited about my return. Only 24 more days….only 24 more days.