Catching up... again

So obviously I'm not very great at the "write every week" thing... Sorry :(

Let's go back to the beginning of winter break...
On the last day before break, we only had two classes (!) and then all of 4VWO gathered together in this cafe by our school and we had oliebollen (a Dutch New Year's tradition-more on that later) and hot chocolate and other scrumptious things. It was pretty low-key, just celebrating the end of school, the snow, and the holidays. Santa showed up too :)

On Monday morning, we (as in the family plus Puck) piled all our stuff into the car and were on the road heading north-east to Germany through the snow by 6:30 am. Despite difficulties in the beginning (the Dutch don't know how to handle snow...), we drove safely to Groningen to drop Kees off for work and made it to the harbor with plenty of time to spare before catching the ferry to the small German island- Juist.

Juist is one of the seven inhabited East Frisian Islands located in the North Sea. It's only 10.5 miles long and -at it's biggest (when the tide's out)- is a little wider than half a mile. That's a really small island for those of you who aren't good at picturing distances :) There are also no cars on Juist, meaning that all the transportation is done by bike or horse-drawn carriage (not that it matters really, it doesn't take long to walk anywhere on the island...). The first day Hans, Janny, and I went on a walk down to the beach and it was amazing to see the beach covered in about a foot of snow. There were almost no footprints either so it was almost like we were out in the Artic... Except then there was the sea. It was gorgeous, snowy, freezing, and I took many pictures on that first adventure on Juist. We wandered through the town on the way back to the house and found lots of little stores and finally a post office (that's where I mailed my package to you Americans haha). It was weird being a tourist again and not being able to understand/read any of the things in the stores (okay, some I was able to guess at).

One of the other days we walked to the other side of the island (back to the harbor) and walked around the tip of the island, with the (dune) dike on one side and red German houses on the other. We were lucky that we got to see Juist in the snow, as it rarely snows more than a few centimeters there (if that). We went out to dinner at this fish restaurant by the harbor one night- it was definitely weird not being able to read the menu but the food was delicious and we even found a group of Dutch people there :) Another highlight was when Janny, Nienke, and I went swimming in this huge saltwater pool (inside of course!). We had the pool almost to ourselves and it was cool to look out one window and see the North Sea and then look out the windows on the other side and see the Wadden Sea and the harbor.

We spent a lot of time walking the beach, putting together a puzzle (1000 pieces!), watching movies, and reading books. Quality relaxation time :) We didn't really do anything for Christmas Eve- except listen to Christmas music on the computer. We took the ferry back to the mainland on Friday (Christmas) and then drove 3 hours back home. We stopped at this nice Dutch restaurant for dinner and though it was a little weird to not be home on Christmas, it was certainly nice to be back in the country where I could understand everything :)

While the Dutch do celebrate Christmas, it's quite different from how Americans celebrate it. For the Dutch, the holiday of Sinterklaas (Dec. 5) is their Christmas- it's the holiday that little kids wait all year for, the whole month of November is spent preparing for it, and it's a time for family and presents. Because Sinterklaas is the big Dutch holiday, Christmas means to them a week off from work (two weeks off from school) and another reason to eat and drink too much and spend lots and lots of time with family. Not that that's bad of course, just different :)

On Saturday (the day after Christmas but the second day of Christmas for the Dutch), we started frantically preparing for Janny's family to come over that night for Christmas dinner. I also gave my family all the gifts from America that my mom had sent and we had a little gift giving celebration, which was really nice- It made it seem more like Christmas to me :) I think we were 15 people altogether, so we had three tables pushed together and of course a LOT of food :) Three courses plus the mandatory coffee/tea and chocolates afterwards. After everyone left, we all went to bed exhausted and slept in late on Sunday.

I'll write about the second week of break in another post, but I promise it'll be done tonight :)
Liefjes xx