Butterflies, School and Pets

Hiya! Nope, not dead!

Actually, I'm very much alive, and the Kantors are definitely feeding me well. So far, I'm having a great time here. The past four days have been a big blur of great times, so let me run you through some of the things we did.

On Monday, we kind of stayed at home. I organised my room a little further and generally got settled in a little more.
We went out for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. They had a guy, Juan the Guacamole Man (if you read it in a specific way it rhymes), who would make awesome guacamole right at your table. Seriously, Laura, this guy could give you a run for your money. Anyways, Andrew liked the food.

After dinner, we went to the mall. It would stay open until 9, so we had some time to get me a backpack and a new pair of shoes. And, may I just say I bought the most awesome backpack ever?! I haven't got a good picture now (at least, not one where I don't look like a complete dork), but I'm sure you'll see it plenty later. It is the American flag, very fancy and big, making up the entire backpack. It's amazing.

Then, on Tuesday, Karen, Sam and I went to the botanical garden, to look at the pretty butterflies. Because it wasn't that sunny, the butterfly-area was actually a pretty comfy temperature, so I got some nice butterfly shots.

Then we went outside to look at the garden, which was very pretty. Sam was also very amusing, since he had scratched open a musquito bite, and it had started bleeding. He was convinced he was bleeding to death. Yay siblings! In Holland, I didn't have any siblings (or pets that were bigger than rats, and yes I had two rats), so this is all very new! I'm liking it so far!

Yesterday, Wednesday, we had a nice day inside. It is incredibly hot and humid outside, so the airconditioning is always on and you're stupid if you go outside. It's a great opportunity to explore the American Netlfix in detail. Karen made chocolate chip cookies, and I helped her with the first batch, although I made the cookies way too big, and I ate about 3 spoonfuls of the dough. They were still super delicious. Long live homemade cookies!

Today, we went to my High School! I got enrolled, and I was able to choose my classes. Now, EF (the organisation I do my exchange year with) requires me to do English and American History, so those were already chosen. I could choose 5 other subjects, but I didn't have to decide right there so the counsellor gave me a paper with all the subjects I could choose, and a book with little descriptions of all of them. I think everyone who knows me understands how difficult I think this is. I wanna do ALL the things!!!
Anyways, I think I came up with a pretty good selection, though I won't tell you until it's all been figured out.

The school is BIG. There are about 1000 students there, and I only saw one hallway, but I'm thinking it's pretty big. There was no one there today though, but I'm sure that will change soon. When we go back to tell them which classes I'll take, we'll hopefully get a little tour. Knowing me and my great skills at remembering things, I'll probably still get lost all the time. We did see a bit of the marching band practice though! When we arrived, they weren't marching yet, because someone put the sprinklers on. After our appointment, they were marching though, and playing the Star Trek theme! Or at least, trying to play the Star Trek theme. I don't think I'll do marching band.

The rest of the day I spent playing the ukulele on my bed. Sam liked the music that was coming down the stairs, so he decided to join me by playing Farmville 2 on my bed. He was very helpful, because everytime I played something out of tune he would physically jump off the bed in fright, sometimes accompanied by a scream: "What was THAT?!" Which is quite funny if you're practicing some hard chords.

Now, the pets still love me. As I'm writing this, Lucy is taking up about 1/5 of my bed, and I don't think she'd like to move. She follows me around everywhere, and it's the cutest thing ever. Phred kinda hated me yesterday. That means he followed me around the  house, and whenever I sat somewhere he would kinda sit near me, watching me, and sometimes he scratched me a little. I ignored him though, and this morning I gave him a paper box to play with so we're best of friends again.

So, usually they don't look this scared, but these dogs are Lucy and Maggie. Lucy is the big one and Maggie is the fat, little one. Maggie generally likes me, but sometimes she forgets who I am and she just starts barking like STRANGER DANGER!!! And then she remembers I've been here for about 5 days now, and we're fine again.

Something that's still very weird, is my closet. I packed clothes for 10 days, to live through camp, but if you see all those clothes assembled in one closet it's just so...little. Well, I'll have to do something about that tomorrow.

Basically, everything's going just fine here! Tomorrow, I'm going to meet the other Exchange Student that will be at my high school. Together, we'll plunder the local Forever 21. And, I'm going to Skype with my dad for the first time since I've been in the States!

For now, goodbye from the Kantors and I!

-Marga

p.s. I guess I just wanna say thank you to everyone who has been reading my blog so far! According to Blogger, my blog has been seen about 1600 times now! I'm assuming that's not just one person refreshing the page about 1500 times. So thanks for that huge huge number, and I'm glad that I'm entertaining enough to read!