So here we are in Velserbroek NL. On monday we left beautiful Paris for the quaint land of our ancestors. We left Paris Nord train station at about 10:25 and arrived in Amsterdam Centraal at 2:15, already the lanscape was so different from france. We had just started getting used to saying "merci" so the first time we used the metro in NL Lydia very politely said "merci" to the driver. Needless to say we've adjusted to "dank je wel". We are staying with the tamminga family, they have 4 children and Annerie is our age, actually its her birthday today!!! Lyd is amazing at dutch, me on the other hand... well lets just say its better than my french, we call it Dinglish! Annerie and Harmjan(14) are pros at their "engels" so its pretty easy to communicate, the first day here (monday) was english day, and yesterday was nederlands day, and today english, etc. etc.. Its cold... even for us canadians its COLD, and when the main mode of tranportation is your feet it feels even colder. Apparently its way colder then average for this time of the year, how convenient. Lydia came down with a sore throat and head cold, but for the rest it hasn't really stopped us very much. The first night here we ran around and had the first snowball fight of the year, cold, but super fun!! Margreet (19) and Annerie took us shopping in ijmuiden on tuesday, the streets here feel like you're in one of piet prins books or something, its so small and clean, and the food...!! Lydia has been quite shocked at how much i've managed to shovel down;)
Yesterday Annerie turned 17! She is at school during the day, but last night she had a bit of a party with the family, and the significant others, and her friend. It was very gezellig, and i'm able to follow the conversations now!!!