Oktoberfest!

Day 30- October 13, 2012
After breakfast I decided to go for a 10km run. Halfway through, it started POURING rain, and it was so windy! So difficult, but I didn't give up. After a nice warm shower and lunch I tried an "appleflop" that Bart got from the bakery- it tasted like a donut with cooked apple slices inside.
After lunch, Bart, Guusje, Liv and I headed for Limburg (South Holland) to visit Bart's parents. Limburg is right on the German border, and we even had to cross into Germany to get to the city. When we arrived, we were served Limburg's famous rijstevlaai with coffee- mmmm.

I helped prepare supper- a very typical dutch meal of meat, potatoes, beans, red cabbage mashed to a pulp, and a gelatin dessert.

At 20:00 we headed to an Oktoberfest festival! We met up with Bart's two friends and drank lots of Brand beer. It was fun music and costumes.

I even tried my first German bratwurst and sauerkrout

Day 31: October 14, 2012
We all slept over at Bart's parents house. We had bread and boiled eggs for breakfast - how typical - and lots of tea and coffee. We went for a long walk around their village and saw highland cows (long hair and horns) roaming free. I always wish Curtis was with me to enjoy in these experiences!
For lunch we had more sandwiches and rijstevlaai cake and coffee. The whole visit made me feel like a visit at Opa and Beppe's house and then I felt a little homesick.

It was a two hour drive back to Capelle aan den IJssel. On the drive back I read Bart some sections of "The Undutchables"- a hilarious book making fun of the Dutch culture.

For supper we had tapas- cheeses, meats, breads, meatballs, rice salad, olives, stuffed peppers and wine. Poor Corry had invited a colleague over for dinner but they cancelled last minute, so we had a lot of leftover food! I tried talking to Curtis afterwards on skype, but my Internet connection was too poor :(

Canadian Thanksgiving in Holland

Day 24: October 7, 2012
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! Corry and I had a 10km run in the city of Breda this morning. The entire city was shut down for the event, it was really neat to be involved! There were 13,500 runners- I've never seen so many people. It was really hard to run because we were literally packed on the street like sardines.

Because Corry's work funded most of the event, we got to have soup and buns afterwards and one free drink.

Team Corry and Sara (our other two team members never showed up)

 

We headed back to the house for our Thanksgiving dinner-turkey, mashed potatoes, peas, carrots, wine and cheese cake for dessert. The kids didn't like the turkey as it is not a meat they have ever tried before.

I went up to my room afterwards to talk to Curtis on skype for over an hour and then with dad. Great Sunday!

My Canadian Connections

 

Day 23: Saturday, October 6, 2012
So the au pair agency that I went through, Travel Active, provided me with a list of all of the other au pairs in the Netherlands and their email addresses. Out of all the au pairs, there was only one other Canadian! Katrina Raney from Brantford, Ontario. We started talking first on facebook, she also has a boyfriend back home and has also been here since September. We decided to meet today in Amsterdam to tour around.
At 8:50am I left for Amsterdam in the pouring rain. Corry and Bart said it would take me an hour to get to Amsterdam, but I didn't arrive until 11:00am! I felt so bad, and ran around the station trying to find her. The station is huge, with lots of entrances, and finally we found eachother via cell phone. We walked around Amsterdam for hours- what an amazing city!!

Luckily the rain stopped, so touring around was a lot of fun. We then met up with another Canadian that I met online- Paige Campell. He is also a coordinator of a Canadian Meetup group online, and has been in Holland for over a year. He gave us a more formal tour of the city and we decided to check out the Nemo Science center- super cool! It even happened to be free entrance today, even better!

The science center is so huge - you can even sit up on the roof of it and enjoy a spectacular view.

We also went to the Red Light District. Before I came to Amsterdam, I was naive and thought the whole city revolved around it lol. Actually it was quite the walk to get there, and during the day appeared to be just like any other street. Until you start walking down it and looking inside the windows. You see nasty looking girls/ladies sitting mostly naked on stools and texting.

 

 

All in all a fantastic day- it was so great connecting with other Canadians! I can't wait to come back. Afterwards I took the train back home and skyped with Pa:)

Class Trip

Day 20: October 3, 2012
Corry worked from home today. We went to Liv's school to volunteer with her class trip to a children's farm. I felt useless as Liv is the only child in her class that can speak English. They had little tasks and activities for the children to do to learn about each animal. The farm was really cute, but unfortunately cold and rainy weather.

Since it is Wednesday, Liv only goes to school until noon, so we all went back to the house for lunch of sandwiches and raisin bread. Corry and I looked up recipes for our Thanksgiving Dinner from her Jamie Oliver cook book and found a yummy looking stuffed turkey recipe.
While I was playing with Guusje and Luca I started to really miss Elaina (my niece). I haven't seen her since August 15 :( That girl is my world and I miss playing with her and having sleepovers.
I had  nice dinner with Bart and Corry then had a chance to talk to Curtis for a bit.

Friesland

Day 17: September 30, 2012
Another great day off!Toda Corry went to Friesland with Guusje and Luca for her Beppe's bithday and I came along for the drive. Corry dropped me off at the Van Velde home- their daughter Lisanne lived with my parents for several months last year as part of an exchange program They had a Canadian flag hanging outside their home for me! How sweet

It was around 11:00 when I arrived so we right away had filtered coffee (finally!) and tompouce- a typical Dutch cake. The brittleness of the pastry makes it almost impossible to eat with a fork, so the way to eat this cake is to remove the top frosted layer of the pastry and hold it in one hand, while eating the bottom half with a fork.

For lunch we had dutch soup, ham, bread with salmon dip, filet americain. Lisanne, her sister, her mom and I then went for a very nice bike ride around their village.

 

In the Netherlands they typically eat one warm meal a day, since we had our warm meal in the afternoon, we had sandwiches at dinner time. Lisanne and her sister dropped me off back with Corry and we headed back to Capelle. Arrived home around 9:30pm so I could skype with Curtis then head to bed. Fun day!!

My First Friend!

Day 16: September 29, 2012
Wow! Awesome day! I slept in until 8:00, had some breakfast then went for a run. I had dutch pancakes for lunch with appelstroop (a dark brown, sweet, apple spread) -yum! We then all went to the neighbour's house for a birthday party, their son and twin children were all born on the same day so it was a big birthday party for all three kids.

Around 3:00 I took the train to utrecht to meet up with my first friend yet- Nanna Farrup. I found her online on a website called Expat Netherlands. She made a post on there looking for friendship- she's an au pair from Denmark. We hit it off right away! We walked around and stopped for drinks. Walked around some more then found a nice little diner for dinner (american style). We had some more drinks and just relaxed- it was refreshing to finally meet someone to relate with and have a fun girl's night with. I bussed back home no problem.

Day 10

September 23, 2012 (Sunday)
Today was a lazy/relaxing day. I walked to the park with Corry, Guusje, and Luca after breakfast. I had delicious ham and gouda tosti's with Corry and Bart for lunch (after the kids ate lunch). I just watched Teen Mom and relaxed in my bedroom until 3:00. Bart took me and Guusje on a boat tour- Spido Rotterdam. Bart said any time they take me out for a tour like this they will be paying for it! I hate when other people pay for me, but when you're on a tight au pair budget, I really appreciate anything they are willing to pay for. The boat tour was really neat! But unfortunately, a very overcast day so I was not able to take good pictures.

Corry made a very impressive lasagne dinner and we tried eating all 6 of us together, but that is difficult with 3 high energy kids! Afterwards I went back up to my room to skype.