My Thanksgiving

I realized that I hadn't told you about my Thanksgiving so now I have to tell you late. This was my first Thanksgiving that I was not at home or with most of the family so it was a little weird for me but I ended up having a lot of fun with just my Aunt...who knew that was a possibility. We couldn't figure out what to do at first but we wanted it to be a fun and new kind of thing so we ended up picking this really good place we had gone to in Leiden when my bestemom was here. This was the second time we had been to this Indian food place but we liked it so much the first time we had to go back. That Indian food place is not just any Indian food place it is The Best one around and makes me love Indian food even more then I used to which is really hard. When I say the best I mean that it was the 5 star Indian food restaurant. There were a few thing I missed about the thanksgivings at home and that was that there weren't any of my grandads roles and that I was not with the whole family but it was ok. What reminded me of this was that I am going to a Thanksgiving Party thing tonight at the church youth group that I still go to even though they are a LITTLE weird but it gets me out of the house so I'm all good with it.

The Dutch Weather

I know that when I started this blog I said something about the weather but now that I have been here for a lot longer, I can give you a better understanding of how bad the weather really is.

As I am writing this it is raining outside and is very cold which is how it is almost all the time. The few times the sun is out even if it is 5 degrees everyone is outside because it is "nice weather" but I used to think that they were all dumb that really it was incredibly cold and miserable.

Sadly, I may be becoming Dutch! Now, when we see the sun out we get very excited and put on our heavy coats and head outdoors because it is "nice weather". It also gets really windy here and there have been small lightning storms at night a few nights ago. So really all I have been able to tell you is that it is worse then when I got here. And, I thought it was pretty bad then! My Aunt tells me that it gets even worse than what I am experiencing now. I find that pretty hard to believe. In fact, its such bad weather now that I am the one who doesn't want to ride a bike now because when I do it is SO cold that I think my hands and face will freeze right off!!

California here I come!!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

On Friday night my Aunt and I went over to Josy's house and helped put up the Christmas tree. We got there at about 8 and started to help by fluffing up the branches. I will add that my Aunt actually helped this year which she never does at home. I was actually pretty impressed, though of course, her main priority was the glass of wine in her hand.

Once the fluffing of the tree was done and looked like it could be tree we started putting up the lights. The lights here seem too hard if you ask me they are a big loop that only has a plug so you cant plug them into each other so then you need an extention cord and when you are puting them on and it's difficult to do the two diffrent parts at once.

After that was over we started puting up the garland and then the decorations with the help of Julianne. She is 2 and a half and did a great job helping out. She helped me put up the star or at least watched as I put it up and smiled the whole time. She was having a really good time hiding things that she didn't know where to put on the tree then we brought out the fake snow! We started putting it up and by the end it looked like a really good Christmas tree.

Then I learned something very important about Josy. She is just a little over happy about Christmas. This became very apparant when she got out the advent calendars and the Christmas card string so she can hang her Christmas cards on it. After we finished the decorating, we listened to the Christmas music and sat and talked. All around it was a really fun night and we got to experience a little Christmas decorating even though we weren't home for it this year.

Afrika Afrika!!!!

This past weekend was an interesting one. On Saturday we planned to go into Amsterdam for the whole day to see the Van Gogh museum and go to the Heineken experience. Then on Saturday night we had tickets to go see "Afrika Afrika".

But, we were both to lazy to get up and I was a little sick. Finally at about 11 we got up and got ready to clean the house a little because Twiga is shedding like crazy and shop to get the food for the week. We ended up staying home till 5ish and then headed up to Amsterdam with Eleni to pick up the tickets and go to the show. Once we had got to the show we went to our seats but there were other people already sitting there (they had doubled booked our seats). So, they moved us to different seats that were so much better and we were right in the front.

The show was so cool and it looked really fun to do. There were dancers and singers and acrobats and just so many cool things. It was all music and costumes and actors from the continent of Africa, and my Aunt (who loves Africa) was so happy to see it all. My favorite acts were the acrobats because they were so talented. It was amazing. I would definitely recommend the show!

Movies and Documentaries

So, this past weekend I went to two documentaries. There is a film festival going on in The Hague this month. I think its because The Hague is supposed to be the city known for international law. It has a whole lot of Courts and international tribunals in the city and most of the people that live here seem to be expatriates like me and my Aunt and they either are lawyers working for some court, or Shell (the oil company). So, anyway....back to the movies.

On Sunday I went to two movies one called "War Photographer" and one called " The Devil Came On Horseback". They were both about horrible wars that were and continue to go on. "War Photographer" was about a war photographer and how he felt about his work and the state of the wars he photographed. He said that the only way he was able to do his job and not think he was a horrible person for benefiting from the people's pain that he was filming was by respecting them. That really stayed with me.

The second movie " The Devil Came On Horseback" was about Darfur genocide and how the Janjaweed were created and trained buy the Sudanese government. The Janjaweed are what the title of the movie refers to, they are like gangs of turban headed men that ride into villages of people in Darfur and burn them down and murder the people there. The Sudanese government pay and train the Janjaweed to do it. The government is Muslim and they hate the people who live in the western part of the country which is where Darfur is located. The Janjaweed even openly admit that the government is how and why they are doing what they do even though the Sudanese government refuses to acknowledge that they have anything to do with the Janjaweed.

In the end the war still happens and all that is happening is that the UN is looking into it. This weekend was the first time I have seen documentaries (except for Michael Moore films and Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth"). I really liked watching them, and I learned a lot. It was kind of depressing though....to realize how horrible the war in Sudan is and how much the people of Darfur suffer and still nothing seems to be being done. I don't know if there is nothing else that can be done or if the rest of the world is just not willing to do anything. What do you think??

Do you think more can be done for Darfur or not? Any suggestions on what should be happening for the people of Darfur?

My Second Weekend Alone

This weekend my aunt went on vacation with her friend and left me at home with Twiga and a report to write. My aunt left at 4ish on Friday for Barcelona and left me with 100 euros to buy the food for the week and for the movies that I had planned to go to this weekend.

Friday night I went to the church youth group and played dodge ball with about 20 girls and 8 guys to start. We kept beating them so in the end 3 of the guys on our team went over to their team. They still lost so we stopped playing.

After the group ended, I headed home because I was not planning to sleep. You might ask why and I would tell you "because when it is day in CA, it is night here and I want to talk to my friends". So that's exactly what I did!!

Well, I also talked to my Bestemom for little but it was nice to talk to my friends like Megan who I don't really get to talk to much but I really like to talk to and miss hanging out with. The next morning once all my friends were offline so about 12 AM I got out of the house and did the grocery shopping. Then, I came home and started working on my report but fell asleep while I was in mid sentence. I woke up two hours later and kept working and then again I stood up really late and talked to my Bestemom then went to sleep.

Sunday morning I had to go to a movie that started at one but I didn't wake up till 12:30. I had to bike there so i actually broke my record for how fast I can bike to Den Haag central. It only took me 10 min but i was only part way there and I didn't know how the building looked so it ended up taking me 25 min to get to it.

Once I was finally there I really enjoyed the movie. It was about War photography. Then I headed home to meet Cynthia, my Aunt's colleague and I went to see another movie with her and her husband. It was really good. It was called "The Devil Came On Horseback" and is about the genocide in Darfur and how the Sudanese government has been trying to cover it up.

Finally, late Sunday night, my Aunt got home at about ten from Barcelona. She had gotten me a gift so she gave it to me. I really like it. It is hard to explain but it is a sweater which you can zip up and is really warm because it is lined with fleece inside. Apparently, they are very popular now in Greece and Spain. She and I told each other about our different weekends and we decided...we both agree that the weekend was a good one. I hope yours was good too!!

Its been a while

Sorry it's been so long since I have written anything but nothing really interesting has happened. Most of the time i am just living a normal daily life, only I am living it in Holland instead of CA. My Aunt and I have our daily routines of school work, and her work and dinner and lunches and taking care of Twiga. We go to the market on Saturdays - I go to a church youth group every other Friday, and then every other Tuesday I/we go to Shamim's house for a spiritual talk thing. Then we have dinners out with friends and stuff. Sometimes we go to a friend's house for dinner, and we sometimes go on the tram down to Delft for dinner or poferjes. My Aunt got a poferje pan from my Bestamom for her birthday so now we usually have poferjes for breakfast one day out of the weekend and that's pretty fun. Last weekend I got a haircut. I will take photos soon and post my new haircut. I will probably get it cut one more time before I head home for Christmas.

That is pretty much what has happened since last I wrote but in a next weekend I will be home alone for the weekend while my aunt goes on vacation with a friend of hers and no doubt I will be writing about that weekend so for the 3 readers I have don't stop looking at my blog.

Halloween

I spent Halloween in Den Haag this year and we had to make our own Halloween because they don't really celebrate it here. At least not in October. The Dutch have this thing on November 13th supposedly, that is kind of like Halloween but kids don't dress up, they go door to door singing for candy or something. Stay tuned, I'll tell you all about it after it happens here.

So, in order to make our own Halloween we went out and got these miny pumpkins and carved them as best as we could, We really looked hard to find the big pumpkins but they seemed no where to be found. So, we finally found a few small pumpkins at the grocery store and picked the best two out of the 6 or so sad, uneven pumpkins and figured we would make due with those. Then, we also got all these baby pumpkins and corn and squash and stuff to make decorations around the house with. Finally we bought our own candy and just had fun. The night before Halloween we carved our pumpkins, which I have to admit was pretty fun. Back in the US now, there are pumpkin kits and everything to make fancy looking pumpkins, but these pumpkins were just done with a kitchen knife. It was actually pretty fun to do.

On the actual night of Halloween, my Aunt came home and ordered us some pizza and we had our dinner and then met her friends out at this bar that was "celebrating" Halloween and hung out there and just had fun. So, that was Halloween here, not exactly the way that I would have done it at home, but probably a Halloween I won't ever forget.