Gee Whilikers! It's getting close..

So it's about three weeks until I move to Rotterdam. Hard to believe. I'm cramming as much friend/family time in as I can before I leave all my loved ones for a year. But hot DAMN I can't wait... I've been reading the blogs of my host parents' former au pairs and the more I read, the more excited I get.

I'm trying to tie up all my loose ends... I have ordered like a year's worth of contacts (even though the kind I usually get stopped making my prescription... which is a -15.00 in both eyes... terrible) but whatever. And I was worried about my back messing up (stupid boobs) like it usually does once a year but Ineke and her most recent au pair both said that it's nearly impossible to get any kind of decent pain killer. Like, they will not prescribe hydrocodone or vicodin or anything and when my back is spasmed and I can barely move there is no way I can get by on tylenol. Seriously. And apprently they don't have anything even close to Excedrin or Nyquil. I'm glad I learned this b/c I went to the doctor and got all the scripts I needed... I'm gonna be bring like an entire pharmacy with me. Haha... my mother did this to me. We believe in modern medicine.

Got my luggage... three pieces which don't match at ALL... just how I like them.

OMFG THREE WEEKS WHATTT?!
I gotta get an ipod before I leave, as well. :))))))))))

I really hope...

that there are no cockroaches in Rotterdam.

Weird.

Don't let anyone fool you. Dutch is weird. It has similar sentence structure to English, which is good. Lots of the words sound (or are) the same but there are a lot of false cognates. And they can start sentences with " 's ". WHO DOES THAT?!?!?

I will never be able to say the word for shoes (schoenen) or ask someone how they're doing (Hoe gaat het met jou/u?)

Whatever

Rosetta Stone= My new BFF

Well, I ordered the Rosetta Stone for Dutch last Tuesday and was super excited about the prospect of getting a head start on the language before throwing myself into another country. Supposedly practically everyone over there speaks English anyway, but I'd like to impress a few folks with my rad language skills (*cough*yearight *cough*), plus I wouldn't mind being pseudo-trilingual. AND if everything is written in Dutch it won't freak me out as bad... hopefully.

So yea I ordered it and was tracking it through UPS and was super DUPER excited to see that it was to be delivered Thursday. So I was lounging around the house all day waiting for it-- there was nothing else for me to do since my back was still hurting like hell-- and I checked the tracking page to see that OH ITS ALREADY BEEN DELIVERED WHEE.

So I think to myself, that's kinda weird since I've been here all day and never heard a knock or a doorbell ring. But I hobble to the door to see that, alas, there is nothing there. So I start to freak out. That's a $200 package that has magically disappeared. So I call up UPS to see if there's any way they could have gotten over excited and marked it as delivered while it was still in transit but no.... "that's all the information we have right now." Ok, great, that's helpful. "You should call Rosetta Stone to start a retracing thing blah blah blah. "

Long story short no one's very helpful and I'm super pissed off. I go drive slowly and creepily up and down my street on the offchance that the UPS driver with my package happened to be dyslexic and misread the address. OMG I spot a package on the front stoop of a house a block down from me. I try to talk my roommate into letting me borrow his bird-watching binoculars to see if the address on the package has my name on it but he gives me a disappointed look, shakes his head, and leaves to go get Zaxby's. So I nonchalantly take a stroll down the road-- I'd feel so much better about walking down the street if I had a dog-- and I try and plan out what I'd say if the people at the house caught me on their front door looking at their package. Have you heard the message of the Church of Latter Day Saints? Have you seen my lost labradoodle, Sparky? But no one comes to the door and I see that it is, in fact, for a Mr. William Dawdle or something.

DAMN. Oh well... Rosetta said they'll send me a replacement if it can't be re-traced. Sigh....

Next day after work it's on my doorstep. No note. No explanation. None needed.

I now know how to tell you that someone or some people are sleeping, walking, running, eating, drinking, women, men, white, blue, green, red, black, or yellow. I can assure you that something is, indeed, a bicycle or a car. And lots of other things. Whoohoo! But the pronunciation is very strange. A little bit of rolled "r"s after "g"s. Some guttural noises. Some nasal noises. But I like it and I'm pumped to learn more.

Also, Ineke called my mother last week. My mom's a big fan and agrees that the Dutch accent is possibly the cutest and most endearing thing ever. And she's relieved to know that she appears to be sweet and sensible. I forgot what else they talked about but it was all good. :))

Tot ziens! ;)

Omg yess!!

Today, Ineke called to chat on the phone. After a few minutes talking to her and Caroline (who was--supposedly-- uncharacterstically quiet) she offered the job.

YES PLEASE!

So I have about five months left before I head on over to Rotterdam for a year and I couldn't be more excited about it!