Paris Continued Plus Other Stuff

Monday we went to the eiffel tower. I just wanted to see it. Had no interest in going up top. Which was lucky because there was a massive line. It was finally really nice out though. We walked around that area a lot. We went to La Madeleine, which is a very pretty church. People were taking communion inside. I never seen people take communion before.

At noon we went back to Simon's apartment to return the key and get my stuff. Then we had lunch in some super pretty park that I forget the name of. Then we went to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery and saw some famous people graves. I love cemeteries!

After the cemetery, I left Paris. I actually got work done on the bus, so that was cool. I also got to see glimpses of Brussels and Rotterdam and stuff.

When I got back to Amsterdam, however, I realized what a crazy week this is. Tuesday I had class, and I participated in a role play for conflict studies research stuff. It was really interesting. Then I had to go right from there to meet with my group to work on a presentation due Wednesday. We all stayed up most of the night, but it came together really well. The teacher liked it. We had to do a presentation about a conflict in an urban setting, applying some stuff we've been reading about. I ended up in a group of all Americans, so we decided to do an American event. We chose the Little Rock Crisis (Little Rock 9). It was good.

After the presentation Wednesday, I went out for a drink with some of my friends from class. Then I went to Haarlem, to Annabel's house for dinner with a small group of students from my program. (Annabel is one of the CIEE directors.) Annabel lives in a really, really cool house that's a national monument or something. She's an anti-squatter. Like, she lives there super cheap to make sure nobody squats there. She made us mushroom soup and salad and hutspot (with carrots) and leek-pie and yummy desert stuff that had yogurt and pudding and stuff. So good! The Dutch also have something brilliant! See, I don't like gravy. It grosses me out as a concept. The Dutch do eat gravy, but they also use applesauce as an alternative. Like, on mashed potatoes. Think about it: Applesauce on latkes is delicious! Why not on other potato dishes???

And guess what else? Annabel's boyfriend told me about this place: http://www.familiebofkont.nl/

Apparently there's a Dutch lady who has a whole farm full of happy pigs that she's rescued from all over. She gives them massages and plays with them and cuddles with them and doesn't kill them or eat them. And you can visit and play with the piggies! I'm so going there!

What else is going on? The queen thing was an April Fool's joke, but they sent our letters to the queen anyhow. Tomorrow I'm hanging out with my friend, Colin, from high school. He's in town with his parents (his father was my high school physics teacher for 2 years). Saturday's our Delta Works tour. The schedule is:

09.00 We play the movie ‘De Storm’ in the bus, about the big flood in ’53.
11.00 Coffee and a ‘Zeeuwse Bolus’ at park Neeltje Jans.
11:15 Visit of the exposition (seals, models, etc)
12:00 Movie about the Delta works in the film room
12:30 Lunch with soup
13:00 Tour of the Storm Surge Barrier
14.30 Choose to do a boat tour or further visit the exposition
15:30 Take the bus home!

I don't really know anything about Delta Works, but it should be interesting.

I feel like there was something else I wanted to say. Oh well.

I have a cold. It's no fun, but it's not terrible. It's finally starting to get nice out. I'm probably going to do my homestay in May or June instead of April.

gotta go to class now! :-)

Ok I remembered a couple things i was going to say. Today I had a Dutch exam. I think it went pretty well. Probably. My head feels full of cold, but oh well. Also, in Paris I went to an awesome Judaica store and I found Ma Première Haggada: Le seder pour les jeunes enfants. Yup, it's the same one as the Dutch one! :-)