United States > Netherlands 17/18

The shortest month of the year went by reasonably quickly. Today, the last day, is the only day we got any snow. A February without snow is a bit weird for me, but I've taken advantage of the mild weather.  I made my host family chili for the super bowl, because my family makes it every year. I was home alone all day while I made it, and it felt pretty sad not having the usual game festivities. On Monday however, I was greeted by the Canadian exchange student (who has become quite a good friend of mine), who was very excited about the game. We watched the highlights together, and it felt a bit like home. In another instance of bringing American food to Dutchies, I was invited to a Mac and Cheese party as the official American representative. I ended up really taking the wheel, and the Mac and Cheese was very delicious (if I do say so myself).  The second week of February began Carnaval, the Dutch equivalent to Mardi Gras. The holidays celebrate basically the same th...

I would say that this month was generally slow moving, but a lot of great things happened. New Year's feels like so long ago. I am happy to be tonsillitis-free once again. The month started with a lot of Rotary New Year's dinners, which varied in their likable-ness and formality. During these dinners we were promoting the charity Shelterbox, which provides housing and basic survival supplies to victims of natural disasters. All of the exchange students were finding sponsors for a charity swim, where sponsors would pledge a certain amount of money per lap. The swim "marathon" was the first weekend of January. All of the exchange students met about an hour or so south of Lelystad (some of them had to take the train for 3 hours to get there) to swim some laps and do a few water games. It was a nice event but I was a bit nervous. They don't really have lifeguards in the Netherlands. So you basically had 50 teenagers all in a pool (which, by the way, had such a high...