Produce, Friets and Hotel Rooms

The people here are so friendly! They smile and wave and honk their horns. They stare a lot. I feel like I have a giant stamp on my forehead that says "Hey I'm American, and you should stare as much as you want, I like it."
Now I don't mind getting stared at, but it's just funny to watch them stare at me.

Okay, let's start at the beginning. I am living in the small town of Brunsumm, the Netherlands and working on the Brunsumm base. I have five camp counselors working with me, and they are all AWESOME girls. I feel so blessed. Already, I know that this summer is going to rock. We are staying in a family owned hotel called Hotel Rupenerhof. Jack and Yolando own the hotel and they are so awesome. They make us breakfast every morning. For example, yesterday morning I had a traditional breakfast in the netherlands: coldcuts and cheese:
But let's back up and talk about living situations before I get too involved in food... I am living upstairs above a pub in this little hotel. I have a roommate named Jamie, who is also from Oregon and she is doing CDC (little babies through toddlers). I would say its going pretty well so far.
And this is our room:
and our tiny european bathroom:

Our first day we met our POC (Point of Contact), Allison and she showed us around the base a little bit and Brunsumm. We went grocery shopping and Jamie and I decided to get bananas. We grab a bunch just like you would in America and continue our shopping. We get to the front, and this nice Dutch woman checks us out. She gets to the bananas, holds them up, looks at us and says something. Now I didn't know what it was, but it was pretty accusatory and we both know we had done something wrong. Our response: blank stares...

She laughs and calls someone over who takes our bananas away. Maybe they don't let Americans buy produce in the Netherlands.... But she soon brought them back with this sticker on them saying the price. You have to get the sticker somewhere in the store, and this place is a complete mystery to me...COMPLETE MYSTERY. We laughed it off, but now I am afraid to buy produce. Where did that sticker come from???

Now this is for my dad. On this same night, we decided to go for a walk. There is a traveling fair in town and we headed on down to see what it was all about. Of course, being as jetlagged as we were it was pretty late when we got down there and everything was already closed except this little food booth. The only word I recognized was friet, and immediately had a flashback to my father and his cyclocross races and the kids always talking about getting friets. For the first time that day I had every confidence that I knew was I was doing, and so I got some friets and ketchup: mmmmm.

Here are some parting thoughts for you. I am doing a teen camp this year instead of daycamp, and I am excited for a new challenge. Although this change has been frustrating because I have known nothing of our camp situation, I am excited for next week to start doing what I actually love to do. This is so different from last year, and in a way, I'm not as excited as I was last year, but I think that will come with time.
Good luck to all you in the states. Don't forget those stickers on your produce!
Doi Doi

Jetlag wins again

Jetlag sucks.
No really, it does. My flights were good, but I didn't really sleep. On my second flight I was the in the middle of the middle of the plane for 9 hours, sandwiched between two people. One man I was sitting next to got as far away from me as he could so we wouldn't even be close to touching. That was an ego-bruiser.

But we made it: Me, Katy, Katie, and Jamie. We landed in Brussels, Belgium and then had an hour drive to Schinnen, which is where our hotel is. We are staying in this cute family owned hotel that is above a pub.

We get to ride our bikes to work everyday. So far this is a completely different experience than last year and I feel all disoriented. I've already been pegged as an no-nothing American at least three times today (story to come later). For now: sleep...maybe a shower at some point.

good night!

Countdown!

I wanted to have another blog for this summer, but I couldn't use my blog from last summer due to the obvious Japanese theme, so here we are. Since I want traveling to become a part of my life, I have created this blog to document that.
My decision to rejoin Camp Adventure was actually a hard one. While last summer was one of the coolest adventures of my life, I thought that this summer I would have to grow up. Graduating has left a lot of open holes, and I thought I would need to fill them right away. However, at the end of last summer, I decided that I wasn't ready to let this all go yet and who can give up the opportunity to travel and work with kids?
This year, I will be working on a base in Schinnen, Netherlands. It has been six years since I have been in Europe, and I am pumped to go back for eight weeks. I have basically no money in my pocket, but that's okay, this summer will be one of the greatest of my life, because I want to make it that way.
Instead of just being a counselor this summer, I will be a camp director, which means I will have a lot more responsibilities, but that is a responsibility that I am so excited for, because what is life without a challenge?
Well, this is all for now, I still have a month here in America. Stay tuned!
Over and out from Salem, OR!