Winterbreak - Home, Paris, Terschelling and Seattle

During winter break I decided to go home, mostly because I was missing my family. Being home was great - I got to see my family and best friends, I got to celebrate Christmas with family and friends, and I got to eat Dutch food again.

The first week of break was hectic. I met up with lots of friends, hang out with my family, celebrated Christmas about three times and went to parties. It was great to see how everyone was doing, but I have to admit that it freaked me out a little bit that my little brother and sister were growing up so fast. I still can't really believe how fast time goes, and how fast the people around you change. Most of my friends had moved out of their family's houses and were busy with their own studies and their new student life.

The beginning of the second week of break, my family, Marise (Julie her best friend) and I spent in Paris. We had a great time visiting the Eiffel tower, Musee D'Orsay, the Grand Palais and more. Paris is gorgeous, and every time we visit there are new things that catch my attention. Whenever we were not in some tourist attraction, we were either driving around or enjoying the French cuisine.

After a short pitstop in Haarlem, we left for Terschelling. We spent the last day of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 with both the family and some family friends. We walked around on the beach, "raved" in our hotel room and spent most of our time eating. It was a pretty good time.

Terschelling was fun, and after we spent some more time with family and close friends back home. It was soon time to leave the Netherlands again and go back to the U.S. Luckily I didn't go straight back to school: I got to spent some time with family friends in Seattle. I made it there in time, but my luggage sadly didn't.

In Seattle, I went to the movies quite a couple of times. I watched Selma with a bunch of college kids that I met on the day itself, The Imitation Game (great great movie) with Amy and Lynn and a documentary on the maintaining of sea life in a beautiful part of the world (I have no recollection of the name of this movie, but is was in an ONIMAX theater and it was beautiful) with Amy and Eric.

I didn't spent all of my time in the movie theaters: I also got to shop a little and see more of the city. Just like when I visited Seattle with my dad, I visited the Pike Place Market and the Seattle Museum of Art (SAM). Both are amazing. The market is adorable and the SAM had some gorgeous new expositions. After a couple of days with some amazing people in an amazing city, it was really time to get back to school.

Making dinner with Tessa

Serious Request in Haarlem

Jopenkerk with Hannah

Grace Kelly exposition with mom, Val, Jules and I

Christmas & Meeting a new family member for the first time!

Paris

Me, Jules, Marise

Oh Christmas...

Louvre, Paris

Family picture! Walter, me, Valerie and Julie in front of the Eiffel tower

Happy New Year!

Terschelling

Jules & I

Walter, Felix and Eduard in Terschelling

Goodbye again...

Pike Place Market, Seattle

Seattle Art Museum (SAM)

Making new friends!

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Sinterklaas and Secret Santa

The weeks before winter break were busy. Everyone had final projects and exams, and on top of that the holidays and break were coming. The Dutchies at Wittenberg wanted to celebrate Sinterklaas (a Dutch holiday) and invited some Dutch students (Seymour and David, both studying at Denison) over to celebrate it with them. We all had to buy two gifts of a total of $10 to $15 dollars. We ended up playing a cart game to divide the gifts over the bunch of us. We had lots of fun and got to show the fellow Dutchies both Wittenberg and Wittenberg its nightlife. Of course we also introduced them to the not so impressing CDR food, but studying in America themselves they already knew what that was like.

A day later the field hockey team celebrated Christmas. The field hockey team had decided to celebrate Christmas together by playing Secret Santa. Everyone bought a present and we played a game in which everyone got a number. The lowest number had to pick a gift and unwrap it. After that, the second lowest could either "steal" the gift of someone that went before them, or they could pick out a gift themselves. I ended up getting a cute gift with some random thing in it, under which a pretty cool hat.

On the same day, the internationals also decided to play Secret Santa, but played a cart game instead of the game we played with the team. One again everyone had brought two presents, and at the end of the game everyone had two presents to keep. I was pretty ecstatic about what I won. At the end of the day we all went out together and we ended up having a pizza party :)

Sinterklaas with other Dutchies

Car opening her gift

Party with the other Dutchies!

Secret Santa with the team

Sarah & I both got a pretty neat hat

Team picture!

Anne opening her first gift! It contained tampons...

Secret Santa with the internationals

Action picture

Secret Santa in Rayika & I's room

Pizza party!

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First Snow!

Last week, all Wittenberg students suddenly got an e-mail warning us about an upcoming snowstorm. "Chance of a Storm: Good." I didn't think much about it at first, but within the entire campus was covered in snow. Everything looked beautiful, and the temperature had suddenly (in a period of two days) dropped from 19°C to a perceived temperature of -11°C.

Living in a building with a lot of internationals was probably one of the most fun things that could happen at the moment. Some had never seen snow before and had been amazed, it was the cutest thing. They were looking at the sky for an hour straight, trying to catch some of the falling snow.

The first day of snow, some of the internationals decided to have a snow fight at midnight. Martin, Micky, Neo, Rayika, David and Vicky (a non-international, one of my teammates and the soon to be girlfriend of Martin;) all grabbed our jackets and went outside. Making snowmen wasn't a big success, so we kept it to throwing snowballs at each other, tackling each other, sliding down a hill on our butts and dropping snow inside each other's clothes. We had a blast.

I think it was the second or third day that we went out together again. We decided to go sledging and, because we didn't have any sledges, used our laundry baskets instead. We went to The Hollow, a beautiful hill on campus, and tried our sledging skills out. The snow wasn't ideal but with some pushing each other down the hill, we all made it to the bottom of the hill. Sometimes with our laundry basket, sometimes without: we often fell out at some point. I don't think I've ever had this much fun while sledging.

We were about to head out, when David took the wrong exit. Instead of walking outside, he walked into a girls room. We we're all laughing and rolling around when he fled the room with red cheeks and headed out of the right exit.

Our snow fight started in our own hallway.

Our campus is even more beautiful when it is covered in snow.

Walking towards classes was a struggle though: it was cold and slippery.

The Hollow, where we decided to go sledging in laundry baskets.

Campus again - Making my way back to my dorm.

In my opinion the most beautiful building on campus, covered in snow.

Because snow means the beginning of winter and Christmas, I started writing some christmas letters!

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Tiger Buddy

During season, everyone in the team had a tiger buddy - a team member who they would make a poster for when we had a home game, and a "tiger buddy package" for when we had an away game. You weren't supposed to know who had you as their tiger buddy until the end of season. We all had to write down our name, likes and dislikes on a note at the beginning of the year and put the note in a bag, after which everyone took out a note. Whoever's name was one the note you grabbed would be your tiger buddy for the rest of season. My tiger buddy was Paige, a super sweet Junior and in my opinion one of the best players on the team :)

Every week, I would make Paige a poster to cheer her on. Most of them included either inspirational quotes and a "Tiger Ups", and some of them would include "Kick some asses" and "Don't be a pussy's". If I had the time, I would draw something to make the posters look nicer. I think I did pretty well.

Every week, I would go to Meijers, Target, Walmart or Walgreens to get Paige a tiger buddy package. The tiger buddy package should include something to drink, something to eat and something fun for during the bus rides (that could sometimes take four hours - that's four hours to reach our destination and another four hours to get back). Most tiger buddy packages costed about $10 (although I often spend a dollar or two more because I got so excited). It might sound like a bit much to do this for every away game, but everyone needs something to eat and drink anyways when you travel for more than six hours, and giving it to someone else was actually a lot of fun.

I loved giving Paige tiger buddy stuff - she loved the packages and the posters that I made her and didn't find out that I was her tiger buddy until the very last game, the semi-final against Kenyon, when I wrote her a note. I was Maria her tiger buddy. She made me packages and posters as well, and I loved receiving them - it was like receiving a birthday present once a week. Thanks again Maria, you're amazing :)

The semi-final against Kenyon was fun, but sadly, we lost. I could use the break but I'm sad that season is over. The last game was pretty emotional: the seniors and the Dutchies (Car and I) played our last game and everyone got a little teary. I'm going to miss everyone!

One of my first and definitely my best posters: it took me more than two hours to make it, but I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.

Kittenberg instead of Wittenberg - someone in the team once told me about this joke (we had a lot of kittens on campus) and inspired me to make this poster. It didn't turn out the way I was hoping it would, but I still think it's pretty cute.

I didn't have a lot of time to make this poster, but yeah. TTFU stand for Tiger The Fuck Up.

Halloween inspired tiger buddy package!

I thought it was cute. And Paige loves fluffy socks! I've actually seen her walk around in them already :)

Trick-or-treat package for the last in-season game!

My last tiger buddy package was Christmas inspired. I'm going to miss making those packages.

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