3 Months

Sooooooooooooooo... I've been in Holland for 3 months! Which I guess is a little bit dissapointing because I am just starting to settle in and I have to leave again in 23 days (boo) Oh well you win some you lose some I guess... Anyway I've done a few interesting things since I talked about my room.. in my second last blog.
Sinter Klauss
So first I would like to talk about the Dutch Christmas traditions a little bit. As I think I mentioned in one of my blog entries, I now have a volunteer position with an after school program on Wednesdays as schools only have half days on Wednesdays and some children have nowhere else to go. The volunteer position is very nice and is teaching me a bit more Dutch, although it is a massive challenge to try to communicate with the children. So as the story goes, two weeks ago, Sinter Klass arrived in Holland on a boat, and an elaborate story is unfolding about how he's lost the list of the children who he should give presents to. So every night, since two Saturdays ago, Children leave their shoes by the fireplace and often wake up in the morning to find a small gift or candy in their shoe. These fesitivities culminate on Dec. 5th, St. Nicholas' eve when the children get lots of presents and family spend time together. My favorite aspect of St. Nicholas' eve is that rather than getting a lump of coal in your stocking if you're bad, you get shipped off to Spain!!! So then, what you ask, do people do on Christmas? Well they spend it with family of course, and while they do give gifts I think they must celebrate it in a little bit more of a Christian sense than we do in Canada as the festivities seem to be geared more towards the Birth o Christ rather than the comming of Santa.. (not to say that it doesn't happen that way in some families in North America just rather that there's less emphasis on Santa comming on Christmas here) So I have organized a small gathering of friends on St. Nicholas' eve, which should be nice! But WHAT? you ask, does this have to do with your volunteer job, Kirsten??? Well I'll tell you my friends, I had a very, very busy Wednesday.
Wednesday, Wednesday, WEDNESDAY!!!!
So Last Wednesday (two days ago now) Was very, very busy. To start with, Sinter Klauss came to visit the after school program, so it was essential that I be there despite my otherwise busy schedule. It really put me in the mood for Christmas though, and the Children were so happy, it was so nice!! My co-volunteers and such also decided to give me a bag of the Dutch candies which we had made for the Children as I had never had any of them before, which was also very nice!!!
So also on Wednesday I had my last essay due for advanced public international law, which was very stressful as both my partner and I for the assignment had a lot of work due around this time. But we got it done. Finally, I also had an exam in Introduction to development economics on Wednesday night. SO I had to be really super organized and ready for all three things on Wednesday, Wednesday, WEDNESDAY!
Comming Home
So I am arriving home at Pearson International Airport on December 23rd (Christmas Eve's Eve as Linus from Peanuts might say) just in time for Christmas (I'm so excited about Christmas) And of course, if you're from Canada, and you're reading my blog I FULLY expect you to be there when my plane lands at sometime around 7 pm (flight details will follow at a later date)
Other than being super excited for Christmas, I am a little bit worried about comming home. I'm sure I've changed a bit while I've been here (beyond now using Dutch Words intermingled with the French intermingled with English) and I'm afraid yall are going to find me a bit weird... or weirder than I was before anyway... Maybe I'll be so weird that I'll seem normal. Yes so I'm worried about an increase in my weirdness factor as well as jet lag and perhaps a bit of reverse culture shock. But alls well that ends well I guess.
See you Soon!
Cheers!

P.S. pictures are mainly from Rotterdam, but the one with the Christmas lights are in Den Haag

Disclaimer:If anyone has a problem with something that I've written, I don't really care.