Wow, so it has certainly been a LONG time since I have updated this!  Sorry about that....so since my last update there has been Sinterklaas, Christmas, and my sister and my cousin were here for New Years, a weekend in Amsterdam and 2 days in Brugge, Belgium!  Lots to update.

Skimming over Sinterklaas and Christmas....both were good.  I was really missing my family of course on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day since it just isn't the same without them and without everyone getting together, all talking at once, sneaking smirnoff ice's for my cousin Marc and LOTS of amazing Portuguese rice but I had a good time with my family and went to another au pair's boyfriends apartment for Xmas day where we had a nice dinner. 

New Year's Eve, my sister and my cousin Nick came to Amsterdam!!!! I was so incredibly excited to see them and luckily I had the afternoon off so I could meet them earlier than I had originally thought :)  HUGE weight lifted off my back when I originally had imagined the two of them wandering around and never being able to find them but we met up easily....especially after a 5 second phone call from nicole saying "meet us at burger king....LOSER." We spent that weekend in Amsterdam and went to the Heineken Experience, Van Gogh museum and a bunch of other site seeing and of course a lot of coffee shops.... ;-)  Then I had to work Monday and Tuesday morning so I showed them around Rotterdam a bit and Tuesday morning we were off to Brugge!

 Nicole and Nick drinking LEGALLY in Amsterdam!  Happy New Year!

 Fireworks at Museumplein...New Year's is the only time fireworks are legal in the Netherlands.  I think I heard little fireworks going off for the entire day before New Year's until that night when everyone went crazy setting them off in the streets and in front of their houses.  Literally, fireworks EVERYWHERE!

 This little guy jumped in our picture with us.

Michelangelo's Madonna

Brugge was really cute and we definitely saw a lot in the 2 days.  The stupid train was late/didn't come for probably 2.5 hours before we left though which was annoying!  For Christmas my host family had given me a card and reserved a room for us in Brugge for 2 nights :)  It was really nice.  The city is really medieval and they had a bit of a Christmas market still going on.  Sadly they left on Saturday morning, I went with them to the airport and a big suitcase of stuff to send home.  I can't wait for someone else to come visit me from home....hint hint TARA!

Aside from that I have a trip planned to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day with my friend Sarah!  I am super excited to go celebrate being a quarter Irish :)  And I am also planning a trip to Prague in February hopefully with my friend Marie Lou!  Hopefully I can plan some more trips soon too...I still need to go to London, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, Germany and I'd like to see a few other countries too if I can fit them in.