Day Trip with the Host Family

Its Saturday night here in Hattem so time to update everyone on how things have been going after a whole week here in The Netherlands, yes we learned it is The Netherlands.. NOT Holland. The living room is extremely cozy, and my parents want to see a picture of the fireplace so here it is! It is a fireplace from Finland so the heat is stored in the stones and released long after the fire goes out.. in other words Michael and I run to it and put our feet against it every day as soon as we get home after our long bike ride!

We are still in the intro two weeks at the GH. Things are going well, we learned that one of our classes we have an excursion to somewhere around the country every single time we meet.. so I am not complaining about that! "Survival Dutch" is going well for most.. although I can't say that much for me. I think i'm just going to have to travel with someone who can pronounce things better than me! All in all though class is going extremely well and the entire group is growing to be great friends.

Brian working hard. 

Class truly is hard! 

You can find the American's sitting by the heaters trying to warm up during our many coffee breaks! 

We went on a scavenger hunt around Zwolle to get more acquainted with the town. Of course we found Mcdonalds!

Today Freddy and Gerda took Michael and I out for a day trip around Kampen in the car, we were thankful for the break from biking.


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Our families awesome car! We learned tonight that it would get around 54 miles to the gallon! 

 We drove through Kampen, but decided it was close enough that we could come back another day to walk around more. Today was the coldest day so far out here, and hopefully the coldest day of the year! The locals are all getting really excited because if it continues to be cold then Elfstedentocht will happen for the first time in sixteen years! Apparently if it happens school and the entire country will shut down.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfstedentocht

Our first stop was in Schokland. This used to be an island, but around WWII they built the dikes up so that the area is all now land 6 meters under sea level.

These rocks came all the way from Norway I believe? Back when there was water and ice here. 

This is the church that used to be on one end of the Island.
The barrier in front used to be for protection from the waves. 

Hard to see but this was the harbor with the lights to mark the entrance on the other side of the island. 

It was awesome to see a lighthouse way out here! First lighthouse I have photographed that wasn't close to water!

We continued to the small town of Urk, where we found another awesome light.

They have a lot of "green" power just like in Iowa, but are having conterversies about where the windmills can go because the locals don't want to ruin their skyline. 

The dike is 30 km long.. should be easy to see on the map where this was. 

An aqueduct.. the pleasure boats can go above the road so that they don't have to raise and lower a bridge continually.

The aqueduct from the top. 

They even have someone watching the dike!

Halfway across the dike we stopped for coffee at a small harbor. 

 In Lelystad we saw an old ship built in the original way, and they are working on building another one right now. We also did some shopping at a massive outlet mall before we headed back.

Next stop was our host brother Steven playing volleyball. 

That's it for now! For a class we are going to visit all of the Netherlands, and if I blog about it I don't need to do reflections so I will be posting often once classes get started ;) Trips are being planned to Rome, Paris, Berlin, and Ireland. With soccer games, castles, and lots of history I should have plenty of pictures to post! Please keep all of us in your prayers as we are still getting used to the bikes and the culture!