Wednesday, September 6, 2006

Well things have been great so far. I am having the greatest time here in Groningen, and I really love it! The people are so nice, and I'm so happy that I have the church here! I went to church on Sunday and as soon as I walked in, a lady greeted me and introduced me to everyone. They were so excited to have me and everyone spoke at least a little English. The missionaries are awesome, and they're both American, from California and Georgia. They translated for me, so that was nice. After church, all the young adults ate together at the church and I liked everything we had, it was good! Then they invited me to one of their houses to play RISK. It was so much fun, but very interesting because I didn't know how to play the game, and they all were speaking Dutch and the game was in Dutch and everything! But they explained nicely in English and I figured it out. It was a lot of fun. I think I will probably learn some Dutch while I'm here because I'm around it a lot with the church people and everywhere, and I'm also taking a Dutch class for exchange students! Yay.
At church I met this boy named Chris. He is a dutch guy and he went on his mission to London, so he speaks good English. He has been my lifesaver and helped me so much! He has taken me on bike rides and shown me the city and how to get to class and answered my questions. He even got me a cell phone! Last night, we went bowling with the missionaries for their p-day then went over to another couples house and had dinner and watched a movie. It was a lot of fun, and I'm so glad that I have made friend here and everyone in the ward is so wonderful.
Classes don't really start until next week, but this week we have been having orienation and we're working on a group project with other international students. We had to make a cookbook with recipes from all of the countries in our group. There are 16 group members and 9 different countries, so the cookbook is pretty cool. We also have to give a presentation tomorrow and I'm in charge of that part, so it should be fun! Everyone thinks I'm in charge or something because I have the best English so it's kind of weird! But they are all nice. It's crazy because sometimes I feel like a retard because I only know one language and most people know several, but I'm really glad that the language I do know is a good one and all my classes and everything is in the language I know really well! A lot of people can't even really speak English, and classes are in English! It will be rough for them so I'm glad!
But I guess that's the latest, I will update some more soon and try to get more pictures with people in them. I have made some friends, but I just didn't take any pictures with them yet! Doei! (That's bye in Dutch)

This is my on my rad pink bike looking like an American in my hat and jeans! I seriously ride my bike EVERYWHERE! At least 10 miles a day! I love it!
I found some frosted flakes! I am soooo happy! I love them so much and they taste pretty much the same as at home! YES!
This is the Grote Markt (big market) and the building in front is the town hall type-thing.

This is the main building of the other university in Groningen. I wasn't looking at the camera.