Anke Prinsen

Heey Everyone,

It is a while ago I wrote my blog. I just have one week left in the US right now and I can’t believe it!! 😮 I don’t want to go home yet, I just want to stay a little longer with those amazing people here.

I ended last time with my hbrothers getting puppies. So it is great having puppies here. The name of Jed’s dog is Ruger, he lives in the same house as me. So I see that puppy a lot of times. My oldest hbrother Luke got this week a puppy named Cinder. It was a surprise for all of us. Because we didn’t know that he would get a puppy too. All the puppies are really cute!! 🙂

My last day of class at Willowbrook highschool was June 4^th. This day we did review for our finals. A lot of seniors weren’t there because they didn’t have to make finals and would graduate that Sunday. I went to the graduation and it was great to see. Just like a movie. Everyone is wearing the special graduation clothes and they got called name by name to walk over the stage. After the ceremony I went with Rachel and her family to Gullivers. Here we ate deep dish pizza. It was a lot of fun!! I’m really proud of all my friends who graduated this year!! You guys are awesome!!

I was done with school after my last final on June 9^th. I only had 1 final that day, so I was done really early. To start off the summer good I went with Natika and Alicen to Simons to eat breakfast. It was a lot of food. We also came with the idea to go to Starbucks. Which was fun but maybe not the best idea. I couldn’t finish my drink there because it was just too much after the big breakfast. After that I walked together with Natika to her home where we could get the car so she could drop me off at my home. From there I would first go downtown with another exchange student. But it was hard to catch the train and it would get too late because I had to get up really early the next morning. So that’s why I didn’t go and I went to skating practice instead.

That evening I finished packing my bag to go to the lake house of my hfamily in Hayward, Wisconsin. Éviny came too, because she would come with us there. Also Ethan and Michael (skaters) came with. The next morning we had to leave around 6am. We first had to put all the bags in the car and we had to fit all the bikes we had on the cars. In total we had like 8 bikes to take with. On each car we fit 3 bikes and my hdad who drove up later that week brought the other 2 bikes. The first day we stayed around the house. Just looking around and make plans for later that week. Hannah, Ethan, Michael and I did an dryland practice. After that we all went swimming and canoeing in the lake. I also had a watermelon eating competition with Ethan. After finishing 1,75 watermelon together we decided to stop because we weren’t sure if it was still healthy. That day we had some problems with the water in the house. So we had to take our bath in the lake. It was kinda cool haha. We just walked into the water with our shampoo and conditioner to wash our hair. Again a new experience! 🙂 In the evening we enjoyed the amazing sunset above the lake.

The next morning we went canoeing again. Michael caught a crawfish while we were getting the canoe ready. So of course we took pictures with the crawfish before we left. We went onto the lake pretty far. Ethan was too late to get into the canoe and so we left, he went to get donuts together with Tessa. It is a family tradition to go under in the water the first morning and then you can get a donut. So when we came back from canoeing we first had to go all the way under the water to deserve our donut. Later that day we went to an inline track so Hannah, Ethan and Michael could do a practice. Éviny, Tessa and I just made pictures. We found a small place with a lot of flowers. Éviny and I made a lot of pictures in here until the others came back. We also went biking. Hannah, Ethan and Michael more as a practice. Me, Éviny and Tessa more for fun. In the evening we played volleyball and we enjoyed the sunset again. Hannah, Éviny, Ethan, Michael and I also had a campfire that night. It wasn’t a big success. But the fire was just good enough to make our hotdogs and smores. It rained earlier that day so a lot of the branches where wet and didn’t want to burn.

The third day we left in the morning to Duluth, Minnesota. It is really pretty there!! First we went to a small beach which was still in Wisconsin. While we were driving here Éviny said it looked like the place where she lives in Brazil. It was really pretty, so I’m kinda jealous now. Haha Sure I will go to visit her!! After that we really went into Minnesota where we started at the Enger tower. This is an old tower which is there for a memory for someone. From the tower you could see over Duluth. It is really pretty!! After the tower we walked around through the park, there was a Japanese (?) bell which you could hit. So we all hit this. When we were done looking around there we left to the cliff jumping place. Hannah already showed me pictures of when she was there before. I couldn’t wait to jump!! It was really cool!! We didn’t jump from the highest spot, just to keep it safe. But there were people who climbed into a tree to get even higher and then they jumped. The place we jumped is like a big hole which is really deep (I don’t know how deep). It was great to jump down there!! After that we went into town. Here is another family tradition, if you swim in lake superior then you get ice cream. But it was really windy and cold. So we were walking around with towels around us and we didn’t even want to swim or eat ice cream. We went to a pizza place to eat  and we walked around town. We were really tired after. So we just drove back to Hayward instead of going somewhere else. In the evening we had some fireworks which we fired next to the lake. It was a great and long day!!!

The next day we went into town and we went fishing. In town Hannah, Éviny and I went in a lot of stores without buying anything. We were in the 4^th store when the guys had seen the whole town. So they had to wait for a while. We bought some tie dye in a store and on our way back to the house we bought some white shirts at Walmart to tie dye. With fishing Éviny won with catching the biggest and the smallest fish. We kept one fish we caught to eat. We skinned it and baked it ourselves. In the evening we tie dyed our white shirts we bought and we watched the Hawks game, who were still playing the Stanley Cup.

The last full day in Hayward we went tubing. It was so much fun!! We couldn’t stop laughing. I also went on the sea-doo with Hannah and Éviny. Hannah drove and we got to the maximum speed of 69 Miles per hour. It was great!! We went mountainbiking too that day and we played some more volleyball with the family. Tessa punched her uncle somewhere this week. With this she fractured her arm. A stupid way to do that, but we can laugh about it. In the evening with sunset we made some awesome pictures!! That evening we had to pack our bags again and we would leave the next morning back home with my hdad. My hmom would stay a little longer in Hayward.

When we got home we Éviny and I finished the movie we were watching and we just rested. In the evening we went to Seraina to say goodbye. She would go with her hfamily to Mexico and after that she would travel with her own family through the US. So we wouldn’t see her anymore. Bruno was here too and later in the evening Roos came. Éviny and I got picked up just after the Hawks game began. That night was the last game of the Stanley cup if the Hawks would win. So we wanted to be home quick. But there was a lot of rain and roads were flooded. So it took a really long time to drop off Éviny and after that it took like double the normal time to get home. The traffic was horrible. I think houses in my neighborhood where flooded, my house is more on a hill. So ours wasn’t flooded. The water came up high in our backyard. I walked into the water and only halfway the backyard I was into the water too over my middle, of course I had to walk into the water again to make pictures and videos haha. The Blackhawks won the game that night. This meant they won their 4^th game against Tampa Bay. They had to win 4 to win the Stanley Cup. So hereby they won the Stanley cup! 😀

The next day I had a day to clean my room before Eleni would come to visit me for a week. Eleni is a friend from the Netherlands who went to the same school as me. Once I was joking that she should come so I could put my stuff in her suitcase to bring back for me. She looked up prices and thought it would be a good idea. I never expected she would really come. I picked her up after my skating practice where I had to leave a little earlier. I asked her to write a blog about her week here. I will upload that one when it is done. 🙂 It will probably be in Dutch, but my website has an translation button. So you can always translate it!! 😀 I’m just telling you it was a great week!!!!!!

Yesterday we dropped off Eleni at the airport again after a great week (blog comes later). Her flight was delayed with 22 hours. But we managed it to get her on an earlier flight that day. So she is back in the Netherlands again now. At night I had my last skating practice on ice with Glen Ellyn Speedskating. I brought some souvenirs to practice that KPN (the sponsor of the Dutch skating) gave me to give away here. So now everyone from the club who was there had a souvenir from the Netherlands. I can’t believe I am back in the Netherlands next week.. I don’t wanna leave yet.. I just want to stay a little longer with all those people here!! This team here is great and I’m going to miss them a lot!!! It is nice to know some are already planning on coming to visit me in the Netherlands! 😀

After practice yesterday I went together with Hannah, Colleen, Michael, Brandon and Ethan to a drive in Cinema. This was one thing I wanted to do really bad here!! And now I did it!! It was pretty cool. We took the truck and we were just all laying in the trunk. It was great!!!  We saw the movie Jurrasic World. I already saw it with Hannah and Eleni a week before that. But it was still really fun!! It was so cool to be in a drive in cinema, really happy I could experience this with great people!!

Today I have a lazy day. I was really tired and didn’t really have anything to do. This won’t happen later this week haha. I will do as much as I can before I leave. Tomorrow I will meet up with a friend from school. I still want to go bowfishing, if it is possible. I have to ask my coach here if they can take me this week. And I still want to go tie dyeing a shirt one more time with another kind of tie dye. Saturday some friends will probably come over at our house. And not sure what I will do Sunday yet. Monday I have to finish packing all my stuff (which I will do the whole week) and in the evening I will have to leave my hfamily.. It is so sad.. I really don’t want to leave them. But on the other side, it would be fun to see my family and friends in NL again. But they can wait longer I think, just want to stay a little longer here. But that is not possible…

I’m going to enjoy my last week here as much as possible now! This will be my last blog I’m writing myself from the US. The blogpost Eleni will write will be up soon and I will post a blog after being home again for a while. Thank you for reading!!

Byeee!!