Adventures in Europe

Ik ben naar huis! I am home!

Well I finally made it home about a week and a half ago. After about 24 hours of traveling, I was back home in Salt Lake. Luckily I didn't get sick at all this time! It was really fun to see my family again and the next day after I got home, we drove ALL THEY WAY to California to visit my family there. It was nice to see them, but I had a hard time with the time change and everything. I kept waking up everyday at 4:30 or 5:30 am! I finally adjusted and now I'm back in Utah. It's good to be home, and it's funny how I notice different things. I have been sharing the stroopwaffels and everyone loves them! I miss Holland but it's good to be home. My experience over the past 5 months has been unforgettable. I am so glad that I had the opportunity to go to Holland and travel around Europe and I know that I will never forget it! Now I just have to plan my next trip back! Thanks for reading my blog everyone!

Volendam, Netherlands

Chris and I went to this really cute town called Volendam last week. It was so much fun! We were supposed to go two weeks ago, but there was a massive storm and the trains shut down and everything. But when we did go, the weather was magnificent! There were a lot of cute little shops and we got dressed up in Dutch clothes and got our picture taken with this cute backdrop! It was awesome!

We're standing out on the dyke.

Chris looking out into the sea.

Zeddam, Netherlands

So I only have 2 weeks left here in Holland! I can't believe how fast time flies! It seems like just barely when I was planning and counting down the days until I came, and now I'm almost done! But it has been fun and I'm ready to come home. So last weekend, I went to Zeddam, Netherlands with my project group for school. We are doing a project on the law firm of Tim's (guy in my group) dad and we had to go there this weekend to interview the staff. We stayed at Tim's house and it was awesome. It was huge and so nice and in a cute little Dutch village in the south of Holland. We went for a walk in the center of the town and we walked around this big castle and it was really nice.

Tim's house in Zeddam, Netherlands.

This is the pool. I've never seen someone who has a pool in Holland!

Tim's backyard with a huge yard and garden and fountain.

This is the castle that we went to. We walked all around and it was really beautiful.

Pictures of the quaint little Dutch village.

That is the oldest windmill in Holland (apparantly...)

More cute pictures, these are really typically Dutch houses and gardens and everything.

The grass is always green in Holland.

This is an old church next to a cemetery.

Gelukkig Nieuwjaar! (Happy New Year)

The holidays have been really nice. I had 2 weeks off of school and even though I don't go to school that much to being with, it was still nice to have a break...haha. But Christmas was really nice even though I was far away from home. The day after Christmas, me and Chris and Meredith drove to Paris for 4 days. New Year's was insane here in Groningen. They do billions of fireworks here and all of them would be illegal in Utah! It was madness everywhere with fireworks all over the place! I was actually a little afraid for my life. But it was fun. Here are some pics from the past few weeks.

Me making cookies!

Me and Meredith on Christmas Eve at Chris's house with his family and the missionaries.

De Zendelingen! The missionaries. Elder Peterson on the left (from Vernal), and Elder Stiles from Orem.

This is me playing the Dutch game "Shulen" I don't know how to spell it but it's really fun and I was concentrating.

This is on New Year's Eve. I just lit some sparklers because everyone else is so crazy about the fireworks, and they like to light them, so I was happy with my sparkler just watching the madness.

Right after midnight we all toasted and then everyone gives each other 3 kisses on each cheek and says, "Gelukkig Nieuwjaar!"

Some of the fireworks. This isn't even an idea of how crazy it was.

Jenny lighting some fireworks. She was so nuts about them, she loved them!

Me and Chris went to Amsterdam (again) because I had been a lot, but I hadn't been to any museums, so we saw the Van Gogh museum, the Rijksmuseum (Dutch national museum with a lot of Dutch history and works by Rembrandt), and last but not least, the Sex Museum!

It's Amsterdam, what do you expect? We had to go and it was really funny.

Pictures from the Sex Museum.

Me in the Red Light District...not really, this was just inside the Sex Museum, but we did go to the Red Light district later that night and it was pretty interesting...