Holland!

First, it's pretty funny that I'm visiting my blogger account and everything is in Dutch. I had some crash courses in it, but I feel confused by it mostly. I was just talking to the woman who we are doing the exchange with, (they leave for our house early tomorrow morning) and she was explaining the difference in the keypads for computers here versus my own keypad. Luckily, my computer gets an internet connection here, so I won't be making weird words with a foreign key pad. Seriously, when I was using their computer to send emails earlier, it was like I was learning how to type all over again. It took forever.

So, we are here at the house we got in the exchange and it couldn't be more different from our own. It is giant, for one thing, and extremely old (circa 1500's!). I've already gone on and on about the marble tiles to my loved ones, so if they are reading this they already know that there are like slabs of marble as the flooring in the kitchen and hallway. I never knew I was such a fan of marble...There are so many little rooms in the house I can't keep track. I tried to draw a floorplan in my journal today, but I ended up only drawing the first floor, and somewhat badly, I might add. There is a canal right across the street from the house. The streets are all brick and very small. In fact, when one leaves the house, they have to be careful not to be run over by bikes, which I think is a fantastic problem to have. There are flowers and plants everywhere and the cheese we have already had almost makes me tear up a little. It is old, salty and really, really good.

On another, even more Holland related note, the largest and oldest hash dealer in the Netherlands is a stone's (or stoners) throw from our house. When we got the tour yesterday, our hosts made sure to point it out, along with the meaty security guard who seems to always be there keeping an eye on things. Mostly he was keeping an eye on people who to me were a walking advertisment for not doing drugs because everyone who stumbled out of there was completely out of their minds and just looked really limp and stupified, but I guess you never know when things may go awry.

Tomorrow it is supposed to rain buckets so we will go to museums. Emma has already made a friend named Simone. She is really fun and speaks pretty good english. I think she is coming over on woendag. I have to say that even though it was a tremendous amount of work, I am thrilled that we did a house exchange. I just really hope that our house matches up to their expectations.