Holidays, American and Dutch

My apologies for being so negligent last week. I have been aiming to write something at least once a week, but in my new found freedom of life post-Dutch classes I got all busy with other stuff and didn't make time to write!

Two Saturdays ago (golly, I can barely remember that far back!!) we had a Thanksgiving dinner with some friends. Emma and Melanie organized it and it was at Emma's house. I made raisin and walnut stuffing, and of course boiled onions (since it is my favorite companion to turkey). We had a lovely evening, although it wasn't by any means a satisfying substitute for Thanksgiving with my family.

My last day of Dutch classes was actually ON Thanksgiving, and then our final exam was the following Monday (Dec. 1). I am happy to report that I passed my Dutch exam with flying colors! Now Rene is my teacher, and he's assigned me to read one newspaper article and one story from his Dutch children's bible a day, writing down any words or sentence structures that I am unfamiliar with. I definitely don't want to lose everything that I have worked so hard to learn!

I also went to pick up my residence permit the day after. I had to go to Rijswijk, all for what took about 5 minutes to do! But now I'm officially a resident and allowed to work, so my next task was to properly start looking for a job.


Then Wednesday I was invited to go to Germany with Emma, Rebecca, and Rosie to a Christmas market. It took the whole day, including about two hours of driving each way, and we had a good time, even though it was bitterly cold!

your typical Christmas market, but in Germany!

I applied to several ex-patriot job agencies online. With them I am simply looking for something that will support Rene and me and not bore me to death! However, yesterday I was searching for schools online and came across a new website with schools listed. I clicked on a school without remembering that I had looked at it last week, only this week there were actually specific positions listed, one of which being a middle/high school music teacher (choral emphasis). So I quickly wrote up a cover letter and emailed them my resume! I don't want to get my hopes up too much, so I'll just wait and see.

In any case, Friday the 5th was Sinterklaas, but Rene and I were ready to go on Thursday so we exchanged our gifts/poems that night instead! Rene made my name out of a chocolate K, a necklace for the I, an almond pastry M, and then BERLY made out of papernoten, with earrings to match the necklace in the B. He also struggled over a poem for me, but as he was agonizing over it I told him he didn't have to finish it! I wrote Rene a three stanza poem in Dutch and drew pictures all around it, and gave him these foamy candy thingies that he likes a lot.


We celebrated Sinterklaas with our Bible study on Sunday night at Emma's. We had drawn names the week before and had to write a poem for that person, as well as bring a gift for a gift exchange game. It was very fun, and Rene won me a pair of mugs that Rosie had bought in Germany, one a tiger and one an alligator.

This past weekend Rene and I bought our Christmas tree! We cycled over on my bicycle, picked out the best tree they have (so I've told myself, don't try to convince me otherwise), and wheeled it back home on my bicycle! It's now decked with white lights, balls of different colors and sizes, candy canes, and a popcorn-popcorn-popcorn-cranberry garland.

always so hard to get a photo of a Christmas tree that does it justice . . .

We had a bit of trouble getting the lights on- well, who doesn't, but our problem was a specific one that I've never encountered before. Rene and I could not find lights that a) go in a straight line, and b) connect to another strand of lights. All the lights we found are a loop! It was so frustrating trying to figure out how to put the lights on in any kind of orderly fashion that looked decent! It's ridiculous that we couldn't find normal strands of Christmas lights! Grrr, I'm still a little riled up about this issue . . .

Last but not least, yesterday afternoon we had a church ladies' coffee at Melanie's house. I made my (now) famous oatmeal raisin cookies and we had a nice time meeting new people. Coincidentally, one of my former Dutch classmates has been going to Melanie's life group as of late, so she was there too!

Tonight is our last night of Chi Alpha, our Bible Study. We're going to the Leiden University Orchestra concert at Pieterskerk because Danelle, one of our peeps, plays a mean violin in the orchestra! But first everyone's coming to our house for a pasta potluck dinner! That means I've gotta go out in the rain now and pick up some groceries so I can make meatballs . . . yes, it's raining here . . . again . . . :)