Two Parties and Biking the Drive-Through

I've had quite the weekend!  (And quite a lot of naps to recover from it). 

Friday morning I went to Dutch lessons.  I don't think I'm mentioned them yet, but there's a story there as well.  Every Friday at the church there's a sort of food bank (Voetselbank) as well as free Dutch lessons.  So naturally I jumped at the chance!  The first week I went there I was put in the beginner's class, where I heard a lovely story about shapes, students, and teachers.  It was a very fun class, but I found it too easy.  There were only two words that I didn't know yet.  After the class I was quite thrilled when the teacher suggested that I move up to the intermediate class the next week!
So the next week I took my place in the intermediate class, where we had a more challenging Dutch story about the weather.  I was quite surprised when after the class that teacher also suggested I move up- to the highest level!
Thus, for the last two Fridays I have been in the advanced Dutch class.  It's definitely more of a challenge, but I love it because I can learn so much more!  I also look up grammar rules and words I don't know in my spare time at home.  I'm really getting there, and it's incredible to finally be able to understand almost everything.  Now I just have to learn to be able to say what I want to say in Dutch.  I have three months yet!

Another thing I do to learn more is write down words I don't know from the sermon at church.  Last week I only had 15 from an entire 40 minute sermon (of course I might have missed some).  And then my Dutch friends help me to translate them after the service is over.  I'm so glad that they're so helpful with that.  And it's fun!  It's almost like a game to see who can translate the most words for me.

Anyways, back to Friday.  In the early afternoon I worked on homework (I am after all taking a few classes at university).  This week I have a 2500 word Qualitative Research Proposal due.  It's in a group with three people and my job was to write the introduction, the research question, and to set up the sections for everyone else and send out the info we'd gathered.  Boy, did that writing ever take a lot of brain juice.  I've mentioned before that I am very much a science girl and not a communications girl (although I love to learn languages).  But although this paper definitely isn't the type of thing I usually enjoy, I was determined nonetheless to do a very good and thorough job on it.  Thus I looked up half a dozen literature sources, read articles chock full of complex vocabulary, extracted the important information, and put it all together into a 500 word Research Proposal introduction.  Referencing and sourcing included.  It's been a while since I've had to do that.  But once it was cranked out of my brain it felt quite good.  My group was also very impressed.  Phew!  So this science girl can also do communications if she puts her mind to it.

Shortly after sending off my finger sweat and brain juice (aka Research Proposal) to my group I got an exciting phone call.  Rob's birthday party was that night and Kim and I were invited!  Thus followed a busy and fun afternoon of present shopping, card making, and meatloaf making.  Meatloaf isn't a Dutch food, but Tante Joke had it once in the US and asked me to make it for dinner that night.  For the present I knew instantly what to get: a bucket of Ben and Jerry's ice cream (cookie dough flavoured because that's Rob's favourite).  I've never tried Ben and Jerry's ice cream personally, but apparently it's the best in the whole world.  It's definitely on my bucket list of things to try in the Netherlands.  And as for the card- I made a Minion Card (from Despicable Me).  I was quite proud of it indeed because I drew it and it actually ended up looking the way I wanted it to.  Success!  Usually when I attempt to draw something it turns out looking more like a nightmare, or maybe a random unrecognizable blob.

And the party of course was fun.  Parties are always fun!  I won't say exactly how late Kim and I went home... but I think early in the morning would be a better description. 

The annoying thing was that I woke up at 7:30 the next day, thanks to my annoying inner alarm clock.  Grrr!  So I zombied around for most of the morning before going back to bed around lunch time to take a nap.  Kim and I were supposed to help Andre paint his new flat (apartment), but Kim went without me because I was sleeping.  I woke up two hours late for painting, but decided I'd better do something active, so I went anyways.  After getting lost on the way there and biking an awful lot of circles I finally found the place.  Painting was pretty much done, so I more or less just got to wander around and supervise.  I think it was a good thing I showed up when I did, because Sander and Kim were doing a better job painting each other than the walls! 

And that night we got a phone call shortly after 10:00.  Did we want to go to another party?  Ummm, YEAH!  When in Rotterdam do as the Rotterdamers do.  So we headed off on our bikes, giggling about the crazy Dutch people that would start a party so late, but excited all the same.  We left earlier than on Friday night, but past our bedtime all the same.  And biking back with a group of eight of us or so, the Dutch people all of a sudden decided to make an impromptu trip to McDonalds for hamburgers or ice cream sundaes.  So we all biked through the drive through and then sat down and ate our treats under the stars.  I think I'm starting to really like this life in Holland!  It's full of excitement and surprises.

I did have a very lovely nap between church services though.