What's Up?

I'm glad you asked. Aside from rubbing lotion into my sandpapery chapped lips, I just wanted to tell you something important:
I've been here for over half a year.
Thaaaat's right, today marks the 6 months, 1 day point on my journey! Celebration!

In other news, I rode my bike back home from the station. You know, even though I was only without it for a little while, I was really happy to be back on. But I do have a new rule for biking: always bring gloves. We don't want a repetition of today's little epidemic when I could hardly open the front door because my hands were frozen into bike handle position. And then I had to submerge my handsickles into luke warm water for a few minutes to get some feeling back into them, other than pain. Not fun.
But actually, I'm glad I didn't start riding my bike until now. It's not that windy anymore, and it stopped raining so often a while ago. One of my American friends who has been biking all year told me during the windy season:
"Whenever I bike to school, the wind is ALWAYS blowing against me. So I'm struggling to get somewhere that should only be taking me ten minutes, while old men are passing me on foot." Ouch.
Plus, riding the tram is a totally different experience, which is also part of the culture.
Oh, so today this guy came into our Dutch class and read some poems to us. Then he told us to write our own poems. I chose to write about a childhood experience. Lizzy, you'll remember this from our baby videos.

Lunch van een Twee Jaar Oud Meisje

Ik zit tegenover mijn oudere zus,
spaghetti aan het eten.
Ik ga langzaam, netjes met mijn vork
met een ernstig zekerheid.
Tegelijk lacht mijn zus,
haar gezicht helemaal rood met saus.
Zij lacht.

Stel je voor dat als ik zo groot word,
dat ik het niet zo grappig zal vinden?


The guy (who didn't know I wasn't Dutch, by the way) liked my poem and he read it to the class. The other students told me it was good. Some were even impressed (ehm, I like to gloat sometimes, hehe). But I heard a couple of other kids' poems, and they were actually pretty outstanding, especially considering our time limit.
Sad that so much art/literary talent is discovered/appreciated after the artist has died.
I guess that's all I really had to say. I had a nice day today. Oh yes.... I am planning something, but that is for a later post.
Tot ziens,
Emily