Day 17

Dinsdag, 23 Augustus 2011

The first part of the day was so incredibly boring.

Woke up, got ready for the day, and left the house with Marcela and Truut.  We first stopped at the ING bank Wim (my Youth Exchange Officer, or YEO) works at to set up an account.  We were there for like half an hour, before we left for the school I'm going to next year (Heilig-Graf Turnhout) because there was a bunch of paperwork the bank needed to do.

At the school, we met Santiago, another exchange student with Rotary.  We talked for a bit before we got to ask about classes, and what direction we want to follow in school.  I'm sure I'm going to do music, but I can choose between classical and jazz for a part, and I can choose between the second to last year (easier) and the last year (people my age, but I have to perform a "concerto" of sorts I think).  Marcela still has no idea about what direction she wants to follow, so that makes me feel a bit better.  But if you have a suggestion, please leave a comment!  I have to choose by Friday.

After that, we still had some time before we could go back to the bank (they close for like an hour and a half over lunch, like basically everywhere here.  It's weird.), so we walked around Turnhout.  Went back to the bank, finished setting up our accounts, and we get cards for them next week.  Yay!  But we had to go to a different ING branch to deposit our 400 euros Rotary makes us have in case of emergencies.  From there, we went back to Turnhout, had some icecream (and then hot chocolate right after), and then Marcela and I took a test to get into Dutch lessons.  I actually don't know the point of the test - it was like really easy logic questions, the stuff you do on the MCAs.

But anyway, Marcela and I got perfect scores (of course), there was some talking, and then we went home.  I was practically falling asleep by then, so I was soo glad to be home.  Truut as tired as well, so we just deep fried fries and other various items for dinner.  Biked to music rehearsal.  There was literally no one around (besides one guy in his car on the other side of the lot) when I arrived, and I was only there like 10 minutes before rehearsal started.  I guess they don't really do the whole, arrive 30minutes early thing I'm used to from RCR.  The one guy there unlocked the doors, and let me mess around with the cymbals for a second before everyone else came.  :)  It was weird because the straps were super loose, but it felt soo nice to play them again.

Did rehearsal, and I could basically follow along to simple directions by myself!  Yay!  I'm super excited to learn more music vocab so I can completely follow along.  Had a drink with some people after, though I think I make them feel a little awkward because I don't understand Dutch, and only two of them (I think?) speak good English.  I hope I can fix that soon by learning some simple Dutch.

Home, went online, burned a CD for someone, and now it's time for bed - no HunterxHunter tonight even!  Slaapwel!

Edit:  Whoa, a month ago today I was in Winnipeg for the afternoon.  That was my last "out of the US" trip I had before I came here!

Edit edit:  I guess this didn't get posted for some reason...?  Oh well, here it is now.