Kerstgala!

Finally, Kerstvakantie is here! Meaning that Christmas is less than four days away, New Years is soon...and that I can sleep in every day! After school, in celebration of having our last school day in 2012, Beau, Maartje, Pascale and I went to Fiona's house and watched Sex and the City (the movie)! Het was erg gezellig.

   Wednesday was the Kerstgala! My school (Wolfert Lyceum) rented out Sarbone again, the same club in Rotterdam that the Halloween party was held at. Beforehand, I got ready at Beau's house with Pascale, Fiona, Maartje and Beau. From about five in the afternoon until ten, we  were all putting on makeup, painting our nails, doing our hair, dressing, taking pictures, etc.

The party was SO much fun. Similar to "Winterball" in America, all the girls wore formal dresses and had their hair all done up, and many guys wore suits or a nice shirt. For the first hour that we were there, it was very crowded, until at 11:30pm the younger classes had to leave. After those few hundred kids (or so it seemed) left, it was a lot more spacious! The whole night was one to remember, I didn't want it to come to an end at two! However, going back to Beau's house for the night was fun, and funny...we must have stayed up until 3:30 or 4 just talking and laughing. School didn't start until 11am for us the next day though! Nonetheless I was still exhausted the next morning, but luckily I only had three classes for the day.

I'm really looking forward to this Christmas break! I have so many things to look forward to...

-Christmas, of course! Katharina (my older host sister) and her sister from Germany will also be spending Christmas here, which I think will be great! Communication with her sister might be tricky however...I speak no German, she speaks no Dutch- but some English! So we'll so how that goes. Both Christmas evening and the next evening we have 5-course meals, two of those courses I must help prepare! Looking forward to it all...and the exchange of presents with the whole family too! I think it will be a very cheerful, family oriented 24 hours! I'm interested to see just quite how it's celebrated here. So far, I think I like the Sinterklaas gift exchange better, so much more thoughtful. But we shall see!

-New Years Eve! Katharina will also come, along with close family friends. We'll play games, eat good food, set off fireworks and such! Then at midnight I will go with Fiona, Beau, Pascale and Maartje to a big party in my town. Spending the night at Pascale's afterwards!

-The New Years Dive! The next morning we'll go to a popular beach in Den Hague (Scheveningen), and jump into the freezing water along with over 10,000 other people!

-Alaine; on January 2nd, I will go to Amsterdam to meet up with Alaine Miller, a friend from Homer who has been studying in Germany and is traveling to Amsterdam for a few days with friends!

-Skating in Amsterdam! On January 6th, I will go to Amsterdam again to go skating on the canals with other AFSers in my region.

-Shopping; at some point I hope to hit the after-Christmas sales (:

Unfortunately I also have a bit of work to do...I must write a 500 word essay (in Dutch) for my Nederlands class, describing the difference in school systems from here and back home. For maatschipijleer I must write an essay describing the difference in political structure/elections between Holland and America. For IB Engels I must also complete a writing task regarding a book we've recently read...and I'll have to study for my math test! Hopefully I'll have time to fit all of this is...

For now though, SLEEP!

-Molly