You Can't Take it with You

Why not?

Because it's too heavy.

This was a conversation between a father and son over a snowman.

Thaaaaaaaaat's right! It started snowing again. I woke up this morning, looked at the time, realized it was already time to leave, leapt out of bed, threw on some clothes, rushed down the stairs, flung open the front door - and stopped. I just stood there for a moment. Then I said, "....Oh, man..." because this snow was just ridiculous. It was really coming down. By the time I got to school, my jeans were soaked from half my calf down, my scarf had frozen over, and my backpack had become white. I don't know exactly how deep the snow is, but maybe it's 4 or 5 inches in my backyard.

Today was my last day of school before the Christmas break, and also my last day at that particular school. I didn't go to the Christmas dance yesterday because I had a cold. It's okay, though, because I got to watch a movie with my host parents, and today was the Christmas breakfast potluck at school, which I did go to. I brought mandarin oranges. There were also brownies, cookies, crackers, croissants, chocolate milk, donuts... basically everything more desirable that fruit. My teacher brought these little crackers with fancy mayonnaise filled quails eggs and caviar on top.

I might go to Amsterdam tonight... I'm not sure though. For one thing, I'm still sick, and something about walking through the snow at night doesn't sound like a good idea, and for another thing, I feel like all I'm going to do is walk, sit around in bars, talk to cool people and be cold. Talking to cool people is always good, but the rest sounds sort of.... "been there, done that." I'll think about it.

Mmmmm lekker! Why do I love Dutch food so much? I think when I go back to the US I won't want to eat anything.

"What would you like to eat, miss?"

"Do you have whole, raw herring covered in onions on roll?"

"Uhm......No. We only serve normal food here."

"Well then I'm leaving."

We'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll create an American Dutch fusion restaurant. But what would I sell? Stamppot pot pie? Cream filled oliebollen? Bacon and egg croquettes?

Never mind, all of those sound pretty gross, so I think I'll just keep the two cultures separate.

Vrolijk Kerstmis and tot ziens,

Emily