August 19, 2002
Greetings from Vlaardingen, South Holland!!! So far I have spent three weeks in my new country and I am having a lot of fun! I arrived in Amsterdam on July 30. I was greeted by my rotary club and my counsellor who were all very excited to finally meet me. Language Camp did not begin for a week, and so I was kept quite busy by my counsellor, who I was staying with. Our most important task was to go to the local bike shop to get me a new bike. After all, it is the national mode of transportation here in the Netherlands! We checked in with the police and made appointments with the Town Hall, for my registration in the country. Besides that we went sight seeing, to parades, Rotterdam, and the Hook of Holland. Language Camp began on August 4th in a town called Heiloo, located in North Holland on the North Sea. For two weeks, I followed Dutch lessons with 36 other exchange students from the Northern Hemisphere. Each afternoon from 2-6 we went on field trips. Highlights included a day-long trip into Amsterdam and sailing on the IJselmeer. It was an enriching week, and I made many friends. At the farewell party, we all had to make presentations that represented our home countries. There were seven girls from Canada, and we presented the "I AM CANADIAN" speech and song (Molson Canadian commercials). So now I am glad to be back in my host town, after such a long (but fun!) two weeks in Heiloo. I am staying with my first host family the Pietersens, and I am just settling in for the next three months. In two weeks, I begin classes at 't Groen school, and of course I go by bike each day! :)

September 16, 2002
Well! These are busy times for me in Holland. I'm trying very hard to learn the language, and I find that I can successfully communicate with my host family using simple Dutch. Before school started I went sight-seeing in many places with my host family. Places you may have heard of are Delft and the Hook of Holland.

I've been at school for about two weeks now, doing my best to follow the lessons. All of the girls in my class (about 27 students in total) are really great and they help me out with anything I need - which is great. I am following a course of study in arts and social studies in which I learn a lot about the history and cultural aspects of Holland. Tomorrow evening I am going to my host rotary club Vlaardingen, to make a presentation to the members about where I come from and what I have been up to so far. I have visited the club informally once when I first arrived, but now I am expected to do the presentation mostly in Dutch with a little bit of English! Wish me luck :)

This week I am hosting a party with my current host family where we have invited all my future host families and their children to attend. This way I can meet everyone and things won't be such a suprise when I change houses! On September 28th I am going to represent Canada with students from other countries in the province Utrecht at an open house for all the children in the Netherlands. It will be a great chance to get together with the exchange students again, and to meet kids who might soon be going abroad just like me.

I am planning to help one of my host sisters on Saturdays because she's a Scout leader. Once school settles down and I get more used to get out to do some sports (at least try to keep off the exchange pounds!).

October 11, 2002
Greetings from the European Seaboard!! :)

Last time I told about the party with all my host families - which turned out to be a great success! I really enjoyed it because now I know where I'll be going to after I leave this host family (*sniff, sniff*) and it's not such a mystery! (I change host families in mid-November) School's going better because I'm getting to know the other kids at school, which makes school more interesting. I've been to MANY birthday parties, which are quite different than back home! These parties have a more intimate atmosphere and are shared with friends and family alike! We give presents, and then sit by a nice fire with a piece of tart/cake. It's a nice opportuntity to get to know people in my class better.

In the near future, I have quite a few big plans lined up! Next weekend I'm going to a ROTEX overnight with almost all the other exchange students. We're going to have an international buffet (which the students are preparing themselves!) and lots of fun and games. It's always great to see everyone again, because we're all going through the same hard times, and culture shocks! For autumn vacation (one week in October) I'm headed to Turkey with my host family. I'm really lucky to have my birthday while I'm there also! Happy Birthday to me...In Tur-key. :) Not long after that I'm headed with the exchange students again on a day-trip to Warner Brothers Movie World in Germany. It's a big theme park and it's sure to be a great time!

Happy New Year!!!

January 15, 2003

Well peeps, here I am again. It seems I have resurfaced or something to that extent. Please excuse the english mistakes I may happen to make, as it really is not my fault :).
Let's see, what have I been up to this holiday season? Well, in December I went on a 4 day tour of Paris and London with the short term exchange student group. They're on an exchange for only 6 weeks, so we tried to pass on some of our "all knowing exchange student" knowledge and power on to them. It was great fun, and you can check out the pictures here on my site to prove it! The rest of the break, I spent time with exchange students and dutch friends just chilling around doing normal things. Went to Schiphol also to say goodbye to southern hemisphere students, whose year was up :(. Very very sad, and this Friday I have to say good bye to a really great Aussie that i've known the whole time!!! As one of the darling brazillian boys told me as he was saying goodbye in the airport: Today is the first day of the end of your year...weird thought..but true.
On the bright side, the canals have frozen over 2ce and we've been able to go skating...that's something you can't do here every year, so that's lucky. Also, 20 new southies are starting their year for the next 2 weeks. So we're going to go harass them, and try not to compare them too much to the old southies. hehe
Well, I'm out for now. If you wanna know more, e-mail me, yo!
kisses, Marina

THE HILLS ARE ALIVE, WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC!P> February 14-23

Hey there, here is the report you've all been waiting for (although pictures are still in processing!)

Let's see here, we left feb 14th in the morning from South Holland and headed off to our destination, St. Anton am Arlberg/Austria! With traffic jams and such it probably took us 13 hours in total. We stopped the first night in a small town just over the austrian border so that we could rest.

The next day we got settled in and checked out the town. We also took one run at the end of the day. The pain of getting back on a snowboard was quite brutal, and I had to go back a few times to the rental shop and insist that i needed to have soft boots. AFter that things went great. We had blue skies the entire week and the weather just kept getting more and more beautiful. Every evening we walked back into town and had a wonderful dinner. I ate VERY austrian things: wienerschintzel, apfelstrudel, garlic soup, deep fried mushrooms, frankfürters, etc! very hefty eating indeed.

The first day in the rental shop, we went back and since the rental shop boys decided that It was so much trouble the offered us a drink. "do you need some schnapps? i think you do" so they opened up the cupboard and offered us all a drink. very austrian and very funny. The next day when we went back to put our stuff away, we got hot chocolate. They were hilarious boys in that shop, and with their broken english and Rianne's "german" (har-har) we had a barrel of laughs.

2 days in the week we went to one of the neighbouring villages, Lech, with the bus. The queen of the netherlands, Beatrix, was staying there so we went to go find her. Didn't work, but we chatted with a bunch of Dutchies who said they heard her leg was hurting a little bit so she was taking it easy. Hehee. This is really such a ridiculously posh place that it was nuts. You pay SO MUCH for everything (luckily for us you buy one ski pass for the 5 ski areas). The worst part? The women in fur coats, fur boots, with Dolce & Gabanna everything and little dogs. Parading around. Every second person had a private ski instructor/guide...and we even saw a guy taking his DOG up the chairlift with him (THAT was a struggle!)

The highlight of my week was on the "roddelbahn" with Rianne Thursday night. You buy a gondola pass and rent a sled, then go down a track which is like a wider bobsled track (and a LITTLE less icy)...that was crazy. It took about 20 minutes to get down and you just went screaming the entire way down. Halfway they had a restaurant/bar where you could get drinks and soup, but we didn't go because it was too busy and filled with old people. heh.... My second favourite thing was going to the highest peak there: +2811m! You really feel on top of the world, and I broke into song with my host sister: "the hills are aliiiive, with the sound of muuusic". Really quite appropriate timing :D.

The trip was a great success and we had so much fun! Apres skiing great fun, and the best part is watching all the people TRYING to get down the last part of the hill after TOO MUCH apres skiing!

We made it back in 11 hours yesterday and now it's break time and time to organize the next big adventure. Rotex weekend and Carnaval are coming up next week and this week I have vacation from school.

Auf wiedersehen,
Marina

March 17, 2003

THere are some pictures now up of my trip to Austria in february and a few pics of carnaval. Like I said, this is from a while back! heh heh

take care, lots of love Marina -xxx-

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