Once again, these are various printable shots from around North Holland. I’ve chosen my favorite shots of the past few months and given them to you guys as a big thank you!

Download here

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I want this blog to be an honest lifestyle blog. I want it to be like I’m talking to my friends, face to face, because this is my record of everything I’m going far from home. I want to share these honest memories with my friends because I love them. It’s as simple as that. That’s what I have envisioned for this space. To get closer to my goal I need to be more open and more honest, instead of feeling like I’m trying to impress someone.

This past Thursday, I went to Amsterdam alone for the first time. It was a glaring reminder that I’m not in America anymore. It’s easy to stay at home and be with Sander. He always speaks English with me (even though he’s doing his best to add some Dutch in there). But when I go out alone I have my own honest thoughts to myself. I found myself thinking, this is Europe. I always wanted to be in Europe and here I am.

There’s always so much to see when I’m out. I feel like I’m eavesdropping because I’m listening to how people speak the local language. There are many words and sounds that are so like English. But because of a few difficult words, I find myself wanting to hold back in how I say them. It’s a bit stressful because you don’t know if people will understand you because of your accent. I suppose the same can apply to any language but I never had issues with pronunciation before. We learned Spanish in high school. I took Japanese in college. Nothing could have prepared me for the sounds that g or j make. Saying “goedemorgen” makes you start the g in the back of your throat and gen sounds more like you’re saying hen instead of gen.

The one thing that I’ve been able to explore, is cooking. Sander and I cook together most nights (unless we order out delicious pizza or fries with a kaassouffle). We try to throw together new things each night. So far we’ve had little failure and lots of delicious meals. Sunday is our anything goes day. We make American style pancakes for breakfast instead of having the typical bread and butter with tea. Our first adventure was a pile of thin pancakes with homemade syrup. It was unforgettable.

From now on, I’ll do my best to be more candid, more honest, like I’m talking to my close friends from home. This is my open letter to them, how I miss them and how I can’t wait to see them. I’m having too many adventures to keep all the stories to myself, so here they are. This is a collection of my adventures for them to read whenever they wish. So they know I’m doing well, even though I’m so far from everything I love.

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