So I realize I have been updating much less frequently but I haven't really done too much until this weekend to talk about. Things are going really well, I am so so so happy that I came to Europe this year and I love that I can just pick a place and go!
Let's seeeee....it's been about 6 weeks since I came to Rotterdam and I really can't believe it. I feel like I have been here much longer and today I realized that I don't feel like much of a tourist here anymore and I am even getting annoyed when other tourists walk across the bike path without looking and I almost hit them.
Last week on Friday I went to visit another au pair Sarah in Gouda. Oh and for everyone at home, we say gouda (as in gouda cheese) terribly wrong. So we went out in Gouda Friday night and then on Saturday met up with 3 other au pairs. Heather from the states, and Jenny and Lisa both from Germany. Gouda is small but it was still pretty and there was a carnival going on that week. It would have been a much nicer day if it hadn't rained the whole time so we all ended up going back earlier than I think we originally had planned on.
During the week I had my second dutch lesson and first art class that I am taking with Ineke. I am really liking my dutch lessons but I can only say a few simple sentences like saying my name, where I am from, that I speak english and then I can also say the same things but as questions. The art class was right after the dutch lesson so my Thursday evenings are going to be quite long. Dutch from 6-8 and then the art class from 8-10! The art class I think would be much better if I understood Dutch but hopefully just listening to more dutch along with my lessons I will start to pick out the words better.
On Friday night this week I went to an Irish pub with some other au pairs from Rotterdam that I have met. There is Maaike who is Mexican/Dutch but from Spain, Christiana from Italy, Hajni from Hungary and Elin from Germany. Then Christiana knows a lot of italians also in Rotterdam so I have met a lot of them and she has a dutch boyfriend so he and his friend were also out with us. It was a good night and I was home at 2 am because Saturday I was off to Antwerp!
So Saturday morning I got up and got everything ready for a train at 11 am to meet Marie Lou (I went with her to Brussels also) in Antwerp. We again ended up being on the same train so we were there at 12 and set off to find our hostel so we could put down our bags and not walk around for 6 hours carrying them like our last trip! It wasn't a very nice day...very dark and gloomy with rain on and off so it didn't look that nice. I really did like Antwerp though but it seemed kind of small but maybe we just didn't know where else to go. So we walked around the city centre, grote markt, the big cathedral, we went to the Scheldt river where there was a castle although we couldn't go inside because it is closed now. At night time it was much nicer, the city looked really pretty lit up. We found an italian restaurant for dinner because we wanted pasta which was yummy. People go out SO late in europe so we had a lot of time to kill until about midnight when people start heading out to the clubs and we didn't know what to do! We decided to see if we could find the club we wanted to go to which was a bit farther out of the city centre and in the middle of the red light district. The red light district was definitely something interesting to see but it was very creepy. In Amsterdam it is more like something that people go to see and walk around and lots of tourists but in Antwerp we were the only girls and it felt more like the guys were actually serious about going into the windows...gross! Walking around there we felt like we might as well have been in the window with how many people stared at us and said weird things.
So then we walk back to our hostel and the 2 Mexican boys were ready to go out so we went with them back to the same area we were to go to the club. We went to Cafe d'Anvers which is in an old church in the middle of all the girls in windows. It started out slow but once we realized the good music was upstairs it got much better. We ended up meeting a group of guys who live in Rotterdam and play lacrosse. Around 4 am we decided to head back to the hostel and took our showers then to avoid the line in the morning which ended up being the best idea ever. Woke up at 9:30 to eat the free breakfast and then around 11:30 we headed out for the day.
Today, Sunday, we went to the market. It was really really nice! We ate mussels and some other kind of fried fish both of which were sooo yummy! Marie Lou bought a really pretty scarf and then we got some baklava and fruit for the way home. Right next to the train station there was a Starbucks so I got really excited to have a frappacino and then we got on a train at 2 pm and I was home by 3:15. My feet hurt and I am so tired but it was a good weekend. Mom comes on Friday and then Saturday we are off to Paris for the weekend!! Then probably Amsterdam on Wednesday. Whew that was a long post but that's basically all that has happened! Dag!
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