Carine Chronicles Continued...

First of all, thanks so much to all who wished me a happy birthday, already a month ago by now!! Made me feel very special and loved :) But jeez, how time flies!! I've been meaning to write another update for ages, coz lots has been happening, yet somehow I haven't been able to find the time for an update before. So I'm going to try and keep it as short as possible, yet knowing my long history of being quite unable to do so, prepare yourself for a big one :)

Well, like I said in my last update, I have left my teenage years behind and am now officialy categorised as a 'twenty-something' I had a really good birthday :) In the morning I was still at my parents' place, which meant I could see them on my b'day too and that was heaps coowl :) As they both went off to work in the morning, I slowly prepared to make my way back to my own place in Utrecht, where eventually I arrived somewhere in the arvo. My roommates had decorated the living room with flags and stuff and left a little birthday note on the blackboard in our kitchen, so it was a good way to come home :) In the evening we had a bit of a celebration for my birthday, of course accompanied by a really nice birthday cake :) My sis Renske and her boyfriend Paul dropped by as well, so that was heaps coowl too :) And somehow all of us roommates ended up watching Brokeback Mountain at midnight, even though we were all heaps tired and so all nearly (or completely) fell asleep during it, haha. But yeah, it was fun times!!

The week after, Loes, Lydia, Li-Yu (3 of my roommates) and me went out for a full day of shopping in Amsterdam, which was just great!! I had been having a few things going on, so it was absolutely a great way to take my mind of of things, even though I didn't end up buying anything myself :) Things like going shopping in Amsterdam for the day still have a way of amazing me somehow, coz it's so weird to realise I can just do that on the spur of the moment. Utrecht is so close to Amsterdam and as a uni student you can just take a day off if you want to, which just gives you so much freedom. Freedom amazes me :) That evening I was supposed to go to this martial arts workshop with my roommates, but I was absolutely done for because of the entire day spent going from one place right onto the next without so much as a break and because of other things of days before too, so I stayed home alone instead. Loved it. Sometimes I just need "alone-time" to figure things out :)

The weekend that followed was really awesome, as I had Monique and Damien over in Hengelo on the Saturday. For those of you who don't know who they are, Monique is one of the members of the up and coming Australian musical duo called InsideOut together with my lovely Aussie dad Andrew (now there's some free PR for you dad ;)) and Damien is Mon's boyfriend. It was truly awesome seeing them again and catching up on everything :) They had the craziest travelling stories, it was so funny!! And we just talked about lots of things, random stuff... Really good. They seemed so out of context in the beginning just sitting there in my parents' living room, but after a while it all felt so familiar again and it was the best :) And good practice for my Aussie accent again, haha. Apparently my parents had trouble following the conversation because of it, lol. So yeah, after a really Dutch dinner we located Monique's Dutch relies after several attempts of finding out the right number, leaving a few unsuspecting Dutch citizens confused and wondering who that stranger on the phone was asking whether they were related in the process. And then they left soon after that, leaving me with great new memories and a great big smile on my face for the rest of the weekend :)

The weekend after was once again a great weekend. Remember how last year I told you guys about the Dutch version of Santa Claus called Sinterklaas... Well, it was Sinterklaas weekend, which meant that everybody was in a last-minute rush to get their Sinterklaas poems finished :) I love the atmosphere Sinterklaas brings, it's full of excitement :) And it was really a fun night, everybody had put in a lot of effort into their poems and they were all really funny :) It was really a good night!! I'm a sucker for family traditions like that, haha.

Tuesday December 5, which is the actual Sinterklaas day, I had another Sinterklaas celebration with my roommates, which was heaps of fun too. Again everybody had tried their best to make a funny poem for the one they got and with my roommates we also did so-called "surprises" where you just make something funny to go with the presents and the poem. Maaike had made me a really coowl umbrella (see photos), coz I'm always complaining when it rains and I have to go to uni, haha. Very creative :) We all got DVDs, so there's a movie night coming soon, lol. Fun fun fun :)

And still the Sinterklaas celebrations weren't over for me, as this weekend I had one with my old high school friends here in Utrecht. Hadn't seen some of them for probably over 6 months, so it was really good to actually see them again and catch up on everything!! We had so much fun all night :) They're heaps crazy, but I love them :)

So now that the Sinterklaas stuff is all over, everything has turned to Christmas craze. Guess we'll be putting our very own fake Christmas tree up this week :) Love the Christmas atmosphere too, like I said, I'm a sucker for traditions, haha. But Christmas holidays are still two weeks away (as is Christmas itself) and before that I've still got quite some studying to do for two midterm exams I've got and there's also an AFS end-of-stay camp next weekend which I'm a volunteer for. Preparing a bunch of exchange students on their impending return to the other side of the world. Should be interesting and fun :) So I'll still have lots to do before it actually gets to Christmas and I can enjoy my two weeks of holidays!! Hope you're all enjoying yours :) (If you have them already that is...) It's a very hot summer I've heard. If Australian bush fires even make the Dutch news, it usually means really big trouble... Meanwhile I'm here putting on heaps of layers of clothing and turning on the heater to protect myself from the cold :) Winter's coming!! Anyway, I always love hearing from you guys. Hope everyone's well :)
Love Carine xoxo

PS. Photos of me on the various occasions will follow... Still have to get those from several people :)