it's great, but I miss you...

Okay, from the beginning...the flight went well. The first half from Portland to Chicago I watched the movie, The Guardian, again. Two hours of Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner, need I say more? Anyhow, then I had to book it across Chicago airport to the next terminal, because my plane was boarding 10 min. after I arrived. I got there on time, but it wasn't a big deal, we sat there boarding for nearly an hour. On the plane, there turned out to be 4 other NSPICE students :) Marena, Jenni, Mike, and Maggie (my roommate), were all there, which was a comfort. I gotta say, so I walked onto the plane and saw all these comfy seats, with plenty of room around each one, that leaned back and had leg rests like La-Z-Boy rocking chairs, and I'm like, "wow!" that'll be nice, though by the time I had got to my seat, it definitely wasn't the same...Anyhow, I did get 2 seats to myself, and was able to watch a movie and sleep for a few hours off and on. The meals weren't bad either. Here are a couple pics. I took of the clouds out the plane window, while going over the Atlantic... Once we got to the airport, I ran into a little trouble, since my big suitcase was left in Chicago, though it was delivered to the house the next day, so that turned out well :) From the airport, we left on the train to Zwolle, which was about an hours' ride. At the train station we were picked up by our host families. Maggie & I live with the den Ouden's. Albert & Marja den Ouden have 7 children, though only 2, Ciska (17) and Jaco (13), still live at home. Their home has 4 levels--a basement (which is unusual here), the main level, a level with bedrooms and the bathroom, and then the top level--the attic, where Maggie & I have our bedrooms. Mine is a good size, with bright lime green walls! and a window. There's plenty of closet space, and my favorite part is the sink. It is so convenient to have here in the room. Albert also hooked up internet cords for our rooms, which is absolutely wonderful!! Here are a couple pics. from my room: 1) my bed/window and GREEN walls :) 2) my wonderful little sink!

Thursday through Friday felt like one continuous, neverending day. I was so so tired, it was hard to even stay awake on the train ride from Amsterdam to Zwolle, once I almost fell asleep but then Marcus tried to get someone to give me a wet willy :0 so I tried even harder to stay awake after that :) Here's another picture of me, before I went to sleep on Friday night, so tired looking and gross looking, really...Anyhow, that first night I slept for 13 hours. I had set my alarm for 10 am, and as you know, I sleep like a rock, and never even heard it, so I didn't get up until Maggie came in around 12:30 pm. Later that day, Saturday, we met the rest of the NSPICE group again at the Peperbus in downtown Zwolle. The Peperbus (pronounced like paper-boos) is a Roman Catholic church, and up until 2 years ago was the tallest building in Zwolle. We climbed a narrow, winding, staircase consisting of 236 steps ALL the way to the top! This is when we all discovered how out of shape we were as we panted and huffed our way to the top, thinking all the while how we were ready to just die :) Once we were at the top, it was really quite worth it. The bells from the Peperbus tower were chiming, and you could see so far, all through Zwolle. The view really was amazing. Inside the church was really also quite beautiful and ornamental. High, painted ceilings, ornate decorations, huge stained glass windows, and an enormous organ. Following our look through the Peperbus, we took a walk through the city with Professor van Loon as our guide. We actually walked around/through the whole downtown of Zwolle, seeing many famous and historic places. One restaurant is supposedly really quite famous, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston ate there once. The city is really quite a beautiful place, with all the mooi architecture and canals. This was when I really felt better about coming on the trip, it relieved much of my homesickness and renewed my excited feelings :) Here are some pics. from our city walk:

From left to right, top to bottom: 1) view of the apartments from the top, 2)the Peperbus, 3-5)me & the view from the top of Zwolle, 6)me & Maggie, the girl that lives with me :) and 7)inside the Peperbus, 8)old shoes that hang from a tree in Zwolle, and 9) my favorite, along one of the canals! So that was Saturday.

Sunday morning we attended church with the family, which was very nice, except it was all in Dutch, so we didn't understand much. Though Marja, our host mum, translated the sermon into English as the pastor spoke, so that we would get the general idea of the sermon, which was very nice. Afterwards, we had a small progressive dinner with the two other NSPICE homes that were closest to us. This was very nice, though we almost got lost while biking back to our home. While the family attended church a second time, Maggie and I took the opportunity to bike around the lake behind our house. It was very beautiful with swans and everything. That evening we also played games with the den Ouden family.