Hi Dutchies and Americans,

The last few weeks I travelled through America and got to see a couple more states. My host mom, Debbie, owns two condo’s in Gatlinburg (Tennessee), so we decided to stay there for a couple of nights.

We drove to Tennessee at night and arrived early in the morning. After we took a nap we had American Pancakes for breakfast and went sight-seeing. We drove through the Great Smoky Mountains and I was excited to see the view from the top of the mountain. Well I soon found out it’s called ‘Smoky Mountains’ for a reason. There was a lot of fog, so we couldn’t see that much. That didn’t mean we couldn’t see anything at all. Also, there were streams through the mountain and we could even see small waterfalls beside the road. I got the feeling of being on ‘vacation’, because there are no mountains in the Netherlands and the only time I would cruise through them would be when I went on vacation to France.
In the evening we drove around the city to find a nice place to eat. The Ferris wheel was decorated with lights and changed its colour every few seconds.

The second day, we went to a huge scrapbook store. There were so many kinds of paper, stickers and decorations, all in different colours, shapes and sizes. I am going to make a scrapbook about my exchange year, so this was the perfect place to look for materials. Now, I just have to go through all the pictures I have and select which ones I would like to put in my scrapbook. Help! Speaking of pictures, I won a 25 Euro gift card to print pictures. Thank you so much Travel Active!

We took our time in the scrapbook store and went shopping for the rest of the day. I guess we can say we succeeded, haha. There were quite a few bags in the car when we got home that evening. I bought a sweatshirt from the Smoky Mountains and got my shot glass from Tennessee. It’s not what you’re thinking! I am not an alcoholic, I’m just collecting shot glasses from all the states I go to. It’s quite a common collection okay…

Sunday, we got up early and cleaned the condo together. The rest of the day we spend in the car driving home. It was a 7 hour car ride with a beautiful scenery!

Sun, sea, beach and dolphins? New blog post online soon!

Love,

Tasha