Hi Everyone!

Last time I wrote was the weekend after the Elections, well to be honest I haven't heard anything about it anymore since the 9th. (Oh I decided to write in English this time)
After this week with the elections and the banquet we had only one more week of school left till thanksgiving break! The school week itself wasn't that exciting.I didn't have (mandatory) practises for Indoor Track yet so I had to walk home a few times. It is about 1.5 miles, but uphills most of the time so it takes around 40 minutes. On monday I was lucky, because Micheala (my neighbour and also a junior in some of my classes) also had to walk home, so we could walk home together and she showed me the short cuts through the woods. We had a lot of fun so that was nice! Oh and also, we have been ice skating with PE a few times, since we have our own Icerink at the highschool! It's Lots of fun. Oh also during this week I tried to make a Dutch apple pie and I converted everything, i thought. The dough just stayed rare, so I trew the pie away, and then I realized that degrees Fahrenheit are not the same as Celsius... A bit of a bummer.

On Friday I first went to school, and then my hostparents picked by up after block 5/6. We were leaving for NYC! I Finally had my first break from school because of thanksgiving and we were going on a trip! It takes about 6 driving to get there, so we splitted it up in 2 rides. After driving for 3 hours we arrived at Tracy's parents where we had dinner and stayed for the night. They live in a cottage at a park with a nursing home, so ofcourse there was also some entertainment planned: a Ukelele band! It was reallt funny to watch for a bit.

The next morning we left early in the morning, around 8:00 am. and we still had a 3 hour drive in front of us. I think it was arround 11:00 when we arrived in NYC and we dropped the car off at the parkingplace in the same street as our hotel. We had lunch reservations at 12:00 at this restaurant owned by ''Guy'' who appearently also has a famous cooking show! It was really good. On our way there we already did some shopping. After the amazing lunch we walked towards our next item on the planning: The christmas Spectecular show! I had never heard of it before, but when I told my friends here I was going, they all new what I was talking about and said it was amazing! So the christmas spectecular show is a show, appearently a well known one, performed by the rockettes in the Radio City Theater, just around the corner from Rockefeller Centre. The rockettes are a lot of girls that dance and the famous part of there dance is when they al put their legs in the are at the exact same time. It's kinda hard to explain but it kinda looks like a 'volksdans' but then really good. Well, I can only say that it was really really awesome, and typical American haha. After the show we walked around a bit and we stopped at Rockefeller Centre to watch people going on the Icerink and we also took some pictures for on the christmascard! We walked back to the hotel and just chilled for a litlle bit. Than we went out again and got some real New York Pizza! (Wasn't that good though..) We walked to Times Square again and did some more shopping on our way. (Ava and I figured out that I have a sweater addiction, so that is also good to know!) We had been lucky the whole day with the good weather, it was 60 degrees (Fahrenheit) with sun, which is pretty uncommon during this time of the year, but when we were on our way back to the hotel it started pooring rain, like really pooring and we still got totally wet, but It couldn't ruin the day! The next morning we went to this weird small luncherette for breakfast where I had 3 way to big of a chocolate chip pancakes.. Well probably also typical American? On the wall they had a picture hanging with the famous Ty from Extreme Homemakeover so ofcourse that made me thinking of my dad crying while watching the episodes

. We went back to the hotel to pick up our stuff and we rode to the American Museum of Naturla History. I had been there before, like 8 years ago so I couldn't remember a lot and it was really nice again! There were a lot of interesting exhibitions and we also went to this film about the north pole which was reallt interesting and fun! Afterwards we started our drive back and our first stop was at Tracy's brother and his family in Conneticut. They got a new kitten just that they so basically all we did was play with that kitten. Also Tom (her brother) is a really good cook so the food was delicious! We drove back to Tracy's parents in the dark and arrived there around 11 pm. so we just talked a little bit and then went to bed.

So as I already mentioned 60 degrees isn't normal for this time off the year and that is what we got to see the next day! After sleeping in a little bit and having a nice breakfast we left for Vermont again. It was pretty cold outside (I think around 34 degrees (32 = 0 graden celsius) ). We drove for a while and then we stopped at this restaurent liu liu, an italian place just of the border Vermont/ New Hampshire in New Hampshire. I can add another state to my list! After a nice dinner we got back in the car and we were only 10 minutes into vermont when everything started to turn white. The more North we got the wither everything got. It had snowed here since the day before and this time it stayed on the ground! It started snowing while driving and appearently it was really slippery, because every mile at least there was another car accident with a car bumped into a rock on the side of the road.. Well at least we made it home safe. Everything was white outside so that was Amazing. My winterjacket had arrived, so to test if it was really warm enough Ava and I went out for a walk in the evening and I was glad to find out that my winterjacket had passed the test!

The next day I didn't do a lot during the day just chilled a little bit and then around 5:00 pm Amber picked me up here. We went to Hannafords to get some more Ben&Jerry's and then went to here place for our monthly movienight with Sam and Jess. We watched Forest Gump, an AMAZING movie and ofcourse made our cinnawaffles. It was lots of fun! I got home around 00:30 AM so the next morning I was pretty tired. I tried to sleep in a litlle bit and then went Downtown (Burlington) with Grace by Bus to get a small Present for Carl and Tracy. We met there with Isabella and walked around a little bit and got some stuff. Some stores had already started there blackfriday sales so that was nice! We picked Ava up at her gymnastics and went home. That night the Buccis came over and we had some really good Chinese food. It was really 'gezellig'.

The day after was THANKSGIVING! In the morning we watched the Thanksgivingsday parade in NYC on tv and then started cooking together. We went out for a walk somewhere in the woods, what was really pretty because of the snow. It snowed a lot this day. Afterwards we did a little bit more cooking and then we started our Thanksgiving dinner (at 3:46 AM!!! A new record for dinner for me...) It was really good and fun, but thanksgiving wasn't as much or as special as I had expected it to be. Well, it was still really nice! We did some games and then watched this christmas movie called Miracle on 34th streeth. It was okay.. After the movie I tried to take a nap, because Amber and her mom would pick me up around 00:30 AM to go Blackfriday shopping!!

Since I'm staying in Vermont, I didn't got to see any fights.. but it was still so much fun to experience! We went to this mall with a lot of stored and shopped from 00:30 till 05:30! I got back home at 6:00 in the morning, to start my nightrest...! It was so much fun. Some stores had really good deals and others a little bit less, but I still but a lot (well mostly presents for christmas because it's the day after thanksgiving >>> here: ''aloud to go crazy for christmas'' I guess haha.

I slept for a while when I got home and then around 2:00 pm we left again to do some more shopping. I met with Amber again and now we went downtown. We already shopped a lot so there were just a few things we needed to get, but since Grace, Kayla, Tracy and Ava were still shopping we had to wait and we just chilled a bit in this restaurant. Around 6:15 pm we went home again. but ofcourse when I wanted to go to bed around 8:30 pm I got over my tiredness so I couldn't sleep till 11:30 pm. Today fortunatly I was able to sleep in a litlle bit and did totally NOTHING all day, and I am still so tired.. haha. Tomorrow I'm going Iceskating with Anna (Singer) so I'm looking forward to that, and then the break is already coming to an end again..

I kinda fell like this were my past 2 weeks, I had so much fun, and I don't think there is really something else to tell hihi. So uhm

See you guys later and oh, have a happy Sinterklaas!!!