Flight dates home?!

Last Thursday I got an email from EF saying: EF Homebound Flight Wave. In this email I found out that I'm assigned to the wave of June 7th to June 9th. This means that I'm flying home on one of those days which is only 3,5 months away. This email also made me realize that I should actually post on my blog again. So here's a blogpost with everything that's been going on in my life lately!

Snow!!!!

The play
I have rehearsals for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' almost every day after school. The part I play is that of a fairy and I have all my lines memorized by now. I've also seen my costume already which is really cute. We perform on March 23rd and 24th, which is the week my parents and sister are here. I'm so happy they are gonna be able to see it! Play practice is also a great way to make new friends and I met a lot of nice people there. Doing a Shakespeare play is not boring like you would think, but it's fun and challenging. I love it!

Winter time

Hi everyone!
It has been more than a month since I've written something on my blog, sorry for that! It's January already (can you believe it?!) which also marks the first 5 months of my exchange year. I'm exactly halfway through now with only 5 months to go. I know I've said it before, but time flies!

Winter has only started a few days ago here. It was still quite warm during christmas but now it's finally starting to get cold. There hasn't been any snow yet though. It's really different in the Netherlands right now: it's been so cold there that streets have frozen over and turned into ice skating rinks! So basically, people ice skate through their street. I don't think it's ever been like that before.

The Christmas lights in Disney World

Christmas is so much more important here in the USA than what I'm used too. A lot of houses are decorated with cute lights, Christmas music & movies are everywhere, people go caroling and bake Christmas cookies. Of course I did all of those things. I also went Christmas shopping with my host family in Charlotte, and went to a few Christmas parties!

Thanksgiving Break

My thanksgiving break just ended (sadly enough), and I'm back to school and tests. It was nice to have a few days off because apparently American schools don't really like holidays. ;) I've only had 5 days off school so far. 2 days for fall break and 3 days for thanksgiving break. I had a great time together with my host family! It was awesome to celebrate thanksgiving for the very first time. This blogpost will be all about what I did during thanksgiving break.

Me, Cassidy, Kaylee & Duffy, Kendall, Amy & Chandler. 

For the ones who don't know what thanksgiving is: it's the fourth Thursday in november, when people give thanks for all kinds of things in their life. It originates in the 17th century: native Americans had helped Pilgrims with their harvest and they held a big feast to celebrate that, the first Thanksgiving day.

A week in my American life

After writing a blogpost about A day in my American life, I thought it would be fun to write about a typical week here as well! I won't tell much about specific classes but I'll mostly tell the activities I did after school. I'm not going to start on Monday but on Friday, since I want to write about my weekend as well. My week was filled with a retreat, exchange student meeting, lacrosse practice, birthday and much more! Hope you enjoy reading. :)

Everyone that was at the retreat!

Video #2 / EF Student Video Crew

Hi there!
Just a short post to let you know that the second video of the EF Student Video Crew is online! This one is all about the Welcome Days. It brings up some really good memories since I loved my time there. Please let me know if you have anything you'd like me to film during my year here. Enjoy watching!

Halloween, chorus concert & more!

Hi everyone!

It's november already and I can't really believe it. I've been here for over three months now and it's crazy to think about that. I've done a lot of fun things but during the week I also just go to school and do homework. Last weekend was Halloween and it was awesome! In the Netherlands Halloween isn't a big thing, and no one goes trick-or-treating. But here in the USA it's an important time! Lots of houses are decorated and all the kids go trick-or-treating. Even though I'm not a kid anymore I still went trick-or-treating with Julia, a German exchange student. 

Our first video!

As most of you know, I'm a member of the EF Student Video Crew! If you don't know what this is: the crew consists of 31 EF Students who make all kinds of videos about their exchange year. We send all our footage to EF and their editors make professional videos out of it.
If you want to read more about it and how I became a member, click here to read my blogpost all about this.

The reason for this post, is that our first video is out! This video is all about the preparations, saying goodbye to our family and friends and leaving our home countries. On the website The Exchange Life our new videos will be posted, which will be every month. And there are also a lot of videos on the website that EF already made, so check it out if you're interested in an exchange year yourself!

Enjoy watching!

Homecoming

Last weekend was a really exciting one for me, because it was homecoming weekend! For the ones who don't know what this is: it's an annual tradition in the United States to welcome back alumni of a school. It includes a lot of activities, like an homecoming football game and homecoming dance. It shouldn't be confused with prom, since homecoming is mostly in fall and prom in spring. I went to both the game and the dance, and I had a lot of fun! In this blogpost I'll show you some pictures and tell about my experience.

The great group of girls I went to the homecoming dance with! 

A day in my American life

Hi y'all!

In this blogpost I want to describe a typical day in my life here. I usually write a lot about special or fun things I do, but I realized that I haven't talked yet about a normal school day. An exchange year is not only fun, because I have to do homework and take tests as well.

7:30 - Rise and Shine! This is the time I usually wake up. I'm glad that my school doesn't start really early, since I need all the sleep I can get. Being an exchange student is really tiring, especially speaking another language all day. I notice that when I'm tired, I often confuse Dutch and English. The result of this is that I accidentally speak Dutch to my American friends.

Fall break @ Walt Disney World

Hi!

Two weeks ago it was finally time for the first holiday of my year here: fall break! I'm used to having a fall break of one whole week, but in the USA you only get 2 days off school. Luckily there's a weekend right after that so we had 4 days without school. And we spent those days in the best possible way: by visiting Disneyworld in Florida! It was my first time there and I absolutely loved it. This blogpost will be all about our trip.