Exchange Girl

dinsdag 5 augustus 2014

Italian adventures

I love Italy, the food, the language, the beaches, the weather, the architecture and the people. I've been to Italy four times already and ever time we go to a different part of Italy and you see a whole new Italy. This time, we went a couple hours south of Rome to the coast. Not a very wealthy part of Italy, but still very beautiful and the food is good anywhere you go.

The first week we had a little house, on top of a hill on the west coast of Italy, with beautiful surroundings. Our house was close to a little idyllic Italian town, with busy beaches and an even busier shopping street. The weather was great most of the time, although one night we had a huge thunderstorm and it just poured down. Though I've got to say, it was pretty amazing to watch the storm while we were sitting in the car in the harbour. Driving home over the streets that became rivers is a different story.

In the harbour

From the cape

During the first week we also visited an archaeological site, kind of like a little Pompeii, called Paestum. Compared to Pompeii it was very small and there were not a whole lot of buildings still standing. But the buildings that were still there were big and in good condition.

Paestum

A little break, while we were on the road

The second week we stayed on the east coast, and a one minute walk from the beach. The area had way more towns around it than the first spot we stayed. So a lot of the time we were wandering through cute Italian towns, shopping and eating Italian food pretty much all day long.

Brindisi, though it kinda looks like LA

On the beach

In the area that we stayed they have these buildings called ''trulli'', they are house build without cement or anything of that kind. The reason for this is that when the king came to visit, the landgraves had to pay taxes per house that was on their land. So one of the graves came up with the idea to build without cement so when the king came they could quickly break down all the houses and build them up again after the king was gone. Especially in Alberobello there are still a lot of these ''trulli'', two whole neighbourhoods full.

Alberobello

We also went to a little town called Matera, where you can see a whole bunch of old cave houses and the town its self, which is partly build in the rocks as well. It's a nice town, but also a whole work out to walk to the top of the town, though the view you get is worth it.

Matera

Old cave houses in Matera

So now I'm back in the Netherlands from Italy to spend some time with family and friends here since about two days, but not for long, because tomorrow I'm taking of to Switserland! I spend two weeks with my family in southern Italy, laying on the beach and getting tanned, but now it's time to unpack and quickly pack again and I'm of for my next trip.

vrijdag 18 juli 2014

Back to the European life (EN)

Over two weeks ago I got back to my little Holland, and already, I´m missing Canada. The Netherlands is a country a little big bigger than Vancouver Island. Vancouver Island has a population of about 800.000, where the Netherlands has a population of about 17 million! So as you can see, it´s pretty crowded over here. That also makes that we have no nature, forest, wildlife or even a centimetre that is not touch by humans in this country. Don´t get me wrong, it´s still a great country, but I do miss some space, nature and mountains. Oh yea, that´s an other thing, the highest point in the whole country is 320 metres above sealevel, so you can´t exactly call that a mountain, also keeping in mind that Prince George is already at 575 metres above sea level, it´s a little different living here.

Like I said, it´s not like the Netherlands is an ugly country, even though everything is touched by humans, it still has it´s beauty. Like when I woke up at 6 AM because of my jetlag, the sun was just rising and it was all foggy outside, which created a certainly not ugly view. Also I can finally see cows and horses again by just looking out of my window and jump in the water whenever I want since I live right next to a (man made) channel.

6 AM view from my balcony

Yesterday we went on the river with our little fishing boat enjoying the nice weather, the river here is nothing like the Fraser river, it's way calmer and smaller and very busy with boats on sunny days. Even on the water you see people all the time.

In our little harbour

On the river

Because of the lack of space on the land here, some people also live on the water in so called ''woonboten'' (livingboats). It might sound strange to you if you are not used to it, but you can kind of image it as a trailer,but then on the water. It's not like there is a lot of people living in those boats, but it's not unusual either.

The little white thing on the left is the side of a ''woonboot''

Living in such a small country definetly also has it's advantages, like great public transport and getting anywhere in the country never takes longer than 3 hours. So I thought that I might actually use that an take the trein to Leiden, a city close to the beach. From there me and a friend from Leiden went to the beach for the afternoon, and I saw the sea again for the first time in a year!

On the beach

Also, since everything in Europe is so close I went to Disneyland Paris with about 600 students from my school here. It's only a 6 hour drive to Paris, so at 4 in the morning they guided 600 sleepy students into 10 busses so we could be in Disney by the time the park opened. After a couple delays we arrived around 11 in Disney and had all day in the park. It would have been amazing, if it weren't that it did not stop raining for a second all day. We still had fun, but by the end of the day we were soaked and cold, actually I take that back, after an hour we were soaked, and after 3 hours we were cold.

Who said that only little kids can go in the carousel?

I notice that while I was in Canada, nobody knows ''the Netherlands'', everybody calls it Holland. So here is to the people that call The Netherlands Holland.

Since I live in Europe again I can be in pretty much any European country with a 2 hour flight max. So tomorrow I'm flighing out to Rome, Italy!

See you later!

maandag 14 juli 2014

Only just a dream

One year, a different country, a new home, a different school, different family, different friends, different city, different languague, different culture, a new life.

About a year ago I was preparing to start a new life in Canada: arranging a visa, packing up my life in one big, and one small suitcase, learning a different language and saying goodbye. Trying to keep my expectations low and be ready for anything to happen, for good times, and bad days. For a tear here and there, and an overload of smiles. For lost friends, and a whole bunch of new ones. For losing part of my life, but gaining a new one.

Now one year later I'm back in the same place I was a year ago, but with a completely different life. The past year has had difficult parts, where you question yourself what the hell you're doing on the otherside of the world than the one you've known all your life, but the past year has mainly created amazing memories that I'll never forget. It's been a year to remember for sure, I've done things I never did before and I've met people I could only dream of meeting. I've been to places I never thought I would go, and seen things I didn't think I would see, experienced things that will stay with me forever and fallen in love with a country that I now also call my home.

I still can't believe how much I've seen this past year: Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, Whistler, Banff, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, New York and of course Prince George. It was amazing to travel to all these places and see more of Canada, because there is so much to see, experience, enjoy in this country.

So some highlights from start to end I've: seen Ottawa, Parlement Hill and the lightshow, played beachvolleybal with great people, enjoyed a whole bunch of football games, joined the cross-country running team, loved the beautiful views on roadtrips, discovered whistler and surroundings on a mountainbike and in a canoe, jumped on rocks in Victoria, gone skiing 20 minutes from my house, met amazing people on a trip to New York, taken a picture of New York's skyline, conquered a snowstorm and skied in the Rocky Mountains, taken a ''deer-selfie'' out of my chalet and enjoyed the view in the Rockies with friends, found that cross-country-skiing is great and taking car-selfies even greater, discovered that taking a selfie on top of a mountain isn't bad either, walked with snowshoes in May, participated in an egghunt with 14 kids, had an amazing prom with friends and the whole grade for that matter, flown over the Rockies a couple times, seen Toronto from the CN Tower, taken pictures with friends in front of the Niagara Falls and been proud that the best part of the falls is Canadian, gotten a Dutch friend from Nova Scotia fly over to Prince George, taken a little road trip to Barkerville and made a bunch of selfies, gone to my friends grad, cheered for kids during a running competition, ran 10 km with a friend, gone to an other grad and finally my own grad, proudly thrown my cap up in the air, displayed my art after a year with amazing artclasses that I won't stop talking about, spend a lot of days on lakes and in boats, spend even more nights around campfires, spend my last day in Canada on a lake and in a boat again and finally, taken my last Canadian selfie.