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.

Well, not much new to write about these days since I haven't been really on any trips.  Last Friday I went to Maastricht with another au pair.  Maastricht is in the south of the Netherlands.  She is looking at a bachelor's program at the university there and her parents said she could take a friend and they would pay for our hotel room :)  So lucky me I got to sleep for free and she even had him pay for our dinner haha...The train there was awful.  We were supposed to have one change in Eindhoven but the trains were all messed up and lots of construction is going on so for some reason we had to get off 40 minutes before Eindhoven and switch to another train which had a 30 minute delay...so probably 45 minutes after getting off the train the next one is finally there and we go to Eindhoven.  Then the train to Maastricht from there is delayed 30 minutes, a train comes but everyone gets off it for some reason and it leaves again and we had to wait another 10 minutes for a different train.  So finally we make it to Maastricht and find our hotel which was right in the center market.  It was dark and rainy the whole time so we didn't get to see much but it seems like a really nice city.  I definitely want to go back sometime and see it during the light and maybe hopefully it won't rain.

Other than that I think I may have decided what to do next year.  (Or at least until I come up with my next big idea and change my mind like usual but I think this one is going to stick).  After being at a university and talking about classes and studying I really really miss the schedule, classes, studying and honestly taking exams haha I am such a nerd.  So the current plan, after I really considered teaching english in Asia (still a slight possibility), is to apply for Work and Organizational masters programs mostly here in the Netherlands but I am going to look into other countries too.  The program and Amsterdam sounds really awesome though, but it is 2 years whereas most are only 1 year.  We'll see though, who knows since it is still early. 

Currently, I am really really REALLY missing home a lot.  I think it has a lot to do with the holiday season starting.  I am going to miss Thanksgiving with my family for the first time. :( Thankfully, one of the American au pairs I know is having a big dinner at her house.  Her host parents offered to make a Thanksgiving dinner and let her invite a couple friends over.  I think me and 2 other Americans, and a Canadian are all going over on Friday night for dinner! I am excited, I hope it is like home although of course there will be no Portuguese rice since that is certainly not a typical Thanksgiving food, albeit it is my favorite part. 

Today all I am craving is nachos.  But since I am not at home, I have NO idea how to get them.  There aren't many Mexican restaurants here and the ones I know aren't open until dinner time.  At home basically any restaurant you go to will have nachos on the menu as an appetizer but here I don't think so.  And I can't make my amazing buffalo nachos quite the same here since I still haven't found tortilla chips anywhere. 

I really miss my friends and my family and my kitty a lot.  I wish that my cat was laying on my feet while I am sitting here typing this but there are 3 cats here and one (Sam) always comes into my room and snuggles on my bed, so it's kind of like home.  Today would be a good day to go hiking too with my friends but I don't think anyone I know here hikes and I'm not so sure it would be so easy to find anything to hike up haha....anyways I miss everyone from home a lot!  And I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and that the Portuguese rice is up to par haha

Cars -3
Danielle - 0

Saturday 10/30 new update on the cars.

also, how do people here manage to ride a bike everyday and not have to buy new jeans constantly?!?!?! my favorite jeans are now ruined with a giant hole in the crotch and the ass is all faded and no longer dark blue :(

I made the mistake of trying hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles) the other morning...they put them on bread here.  At home I hated sprinkles because they were dry and just gross to me, although I don't think anyone would put them on bread!  It's really popular to have a piece of bread, spread some butter and then put the chocolate hagelslag on the bread too.  When I first got here I thought I would never try it because 1. sprinkles are gross and 2. sprinkles on bread is not supposed to happen but alas I gave in.  And it was awesome!  I was so surprised to realize how much I actually liked it and now sadly that is just one more dessert like thing that I will now want to eat. 
I don't think there will ever be a day where I try the "American" filet...spreadable meat is not something I am interested in.  I really wish I knew why it is called American because I think it is as far from American as you can get.  Definitely need to do some research and figure this one out...This is what I've found:
" In Belgium and The Netherlands steak tartare is known as filet américain (translated as American fillet).  Steak tartare is a meat dish made from finely chopped or minced raw beef^[1]. Tartare can also be made by thinly slicing a high grade of meat such as strip steak, marinating it in wine or other spirits, spicing it to taste, and then chilling it. It is often served with onions, capers and seasonings (the latter typically incorporating fresh ground pepper and Worcestershire sauce), sometimes with a raw egg, and often on rye bread."
Most things I've read seem to point to the fact that people think Americans will eat any kind of red meat.  Interesting but I don't think I know any Americans that would want to try this.


The Dutch also have these things called stroopwafels.  They are amazing!! When my mom was here I had her try some and she ended up bringing home 3 things of them.  They are small waffles with some kind of syrup in the middle.  It tastes caramel-like to me.  You can also buy really giant ones on the street in some places that are fresh and warm.  They are really good too if you put them over a cup of coffee or tea and let the syrup start to melt.  I think I am sending some of these home so my mom can give them out to people to try.

Well other than all this food talk, this week the kids were on vacation.  It is their fall break.  It's definitely starting to get cold here too! :( At night it is really cold and I need to wear gloves usually on my bike because my hands get so cold.  There has been a lot of wind too.  The wind one day reminded me of how when I first got here I was so uneasy on my bike and a strong gust of wind blew me over, now I don't think that would happen to me although the wind is pretty strong sometimes. 

It's getting close to Halloween too and I haven't seen any decorations!  I feel so uncollege/unAmerican like because it's a week before Halloween and I don't have a costume, nothing is decorated.  It's really sad, I miss Halloween a lot.  I think I will still dress up for it though, one of my friends is having a Halloween party and there are a lot of pubs that have their own too.  Halloween here just is not quite as big as at home.  No pumpkin carving, apple picking, pumpkin flavored coffee/lattes, and no hay rides or anything haunted!!! I really really wish I could go on a haunted hay ride or a corn maze or in a haunted house.  Well that's all for now.

Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

My mom has come and gone and it was a nice visit with her last week.  She got here last Friday and then on Saturday morning we left for Paris...only 2 days with LOTS of walking but we got to see quite a bit and had a good time.

Saturday:  I think we first went to the Notre Dame.  Inside was really impressive.  The stained glass is so detailed and it was very pretty.  We walked and walked and walked and then towards the end of the afternoon we were finally heading towards the Eiffel Tower to see it before dark so that we could see it both in the day and at night.  It felt like the longest walk ever!!  We just kept going and going and going..you could see it in the distance but it really never felt like you got any closer.  It reminded me of the Washington Monument in DC..you can see it from almost everywhere in the city but it's like you never get there. 

So finally we arrive at the Eiffel Tower and the lines to go up were so so so long...my mom said she would never go up that high anyways so we just walked around down below and then went a bit away from it so we could see the whole tower in our pictures.  There were people everywhere and lots of annoying men selling warm champagne and beer and shooting little toys in the air.  Also, lots of military walking around with their hands on their guns ready in case anything happened.  Once it started to get dark the lights on the tower began to come on.  It was absolutely gorgeous!  I love the Eiffel Tower and at night it is definitely something to see.  The sky was a really pretty dark blue and against the lights it just looked awesome.  Once we were done there we started to walk back towards our hotel to find something to eat for dinner.  We were walking behind a group of guys who at some point all turned around and started walking back towards the tower for some reason so I looked back also...turns out the Eiffel Tower was sparkling!  It was so pretty and I am definitely glad I noticed the other guys otherwise we would have totally missed it.

Sunday:  We over slept!!!! We wanted to get up around 7 or 8 so we could shower and go to the Louvre early and have plenty of time.  Turns out we didn't get a wake up call or set an alarm and so at 11:30 the front desk called asking if we were checking out since 11:30 was check out time.  He let us have a check out of 12 and we had to rush to get out.  We walked to the Louvre and ended up having plenty of time to see what we wanted.  You would need several days to see everything in there.  It was really really crowded also.  It was cool to see some of the most famous pieces of art but art is not really my thing.  I guess I just don't know how to appreciate it...some of it was very impressive though.  There is a lot of detail that goes into paintings and sculptures.  We also ate some really really yummy crepes of which my mom thought she was getting an egg in hers and when she found out she exclaimed "this is going to be disgusting" and then quickly changed her mind after the first bite.  I also got a reaaaaallllly good sandwich on a baguette!  It was so good to have a sandwich like that.  I also spent a lot of the time we were walking looking for post cards from Le Petit Prince which I read in high school in my french class.  It's a great book and it's where the title of my post is from.  It basically means that you can only see clearly with your heart, the essential is invisible to the eyes.  Finally towards the end of the day I found some post cards with some of the drawings from the book!!!  When we got back from Paris I went back to the house and they went off to their hotel.

Monday we spent walking around Rotterdam...the Euromast, the Erasmus Bridge, all of the shops in the city centre, we walked along the water..it was a nice day but more walking!  I had to come back to the house to do some stuff around here and then I got the kids after school and we met up again later that night for dinner.

Wednesday is my day off so we went to Amsterdam for the day.  The last time I went to Amsterdam it was during SAIL 2010 so it was really really crowded.  This time it was much nicer and I really do like Amsterdam a lot.  I still need to go back and go into some of the museums, I really want to see the Anne Frank house and of course do the Heineken Experience as well!  This was my last day with my mom since they had to leave early Thursday morning but it was a good week.  I still don't really miss home however which I think is a good thing...

On Saturday Marie Lou, who I went with to Brussels and Antwerp, and another au pair from outside of Amsterdam (Kira from Oregon!) came to Rotterdam for the day.  We walked around and went to the market which is awesome!!! I am definitely going back to buy my shampoo and stuff there because it is so much cheaper.  Plus there is lots of fresh fruit so I got some strawberries and raspberries; I haven't had either in so long!  We got lunch and then walked all over Rotterdam...then for dinner we decided we were all really craving sushi.  We walked for sooo long trying to find a sushi restaurant and then we just ended up back in the center going to one I had seen before.  It was very satisfying though.  When I got back to the house Caroline had all her friends over for her birthday party/sleepover.  It was quiet for a bit and then their movie ended and there was lots of barking, and yelling and running around.  I just watched a movie in bed and went to sleep by 10 I think!

Well anyways, now this post is getting quite long and I am bored of writing it...till next time!

Pictures for all who are not lucky enough to be my friend on facebook :)

Gouda cheese in Gouda!  Even cheese in the shape of clogs.

Antwerpen train station!

Pretty fall leaves in Antwerp.

Marie Lou and I eating mussels...they were yummy!

Standing in the big square with the Cathedral in the back.

Violinist in front of the Cathedral.

Castle along the river.

Where we stayed.

One of the main streets in Antwerp.

Antwerp and other life happenings

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!