Hi everyone,

First, let’s take a moment to realize I’ve been in the United States for 3 months now. This month’s blog post is full of many different activities. My adventures in Tennessee and Alabama are already online, so make sure to check those out. A lot of things have been crossed off my bucket list this month.

Let’s start with Halls Haunted Halls. Halls Haunted Halls takes place in an old school, decorated to make it a really dark and spooky place. The five of us had to wait in line for about an hour and a half, so we had plenty of time to discuss who was going to be the first one in line. Well… that took us about 3 seconds… They voted me to go in front, which in the end turned out to be the most fun. I’ll explain in a minute. Becca was behind me, followed by Bre. Erica (Bre’s sister) and her boyfriend Carter were the last two in line. We were waiting outside when suddenly a skeleton/ghost walked through the crowd. Okay here comes the funniest part! When we went in, there was a lady waiting for us on the stairs. She disappeared for a second, so we were left there… on our own… standing… waiting… in a dark room. When she came back she told us it might be smart for the first person in line, me, to keep your hands out whilst finding your way through the maze. Oh, and if we felt anything touching us, it wouldn’t be anyone from the school (the actors weren’t allowed to touch the visitors).

I wasn’t scared, but I knew that the four people behind me were, so I decided to have a little fun and frighten them a little bit more. I had to lead our way through the maze, but because it was completely dark, which I loved, it wasn’t very easy. I decided to take some more turns, what led us to a dead end over and over again. At some point we got stuck at a dead end and when I turned around to tell the group we had to go the other way again, I saw a sixth person in line. He was dressed in black, but had a scary mask on. Before I could even tell the rest that someone had joined us, Carter, who was last in time, turned around and looked the guy with the mask straight in the eye. It scared him so bad, but for me it was the funniest thing ever. The guy with the mask told us to follow him, because he was going to lead us out of the maze.

I must say that they did a really good job decorating! There were skeletons, dolls, spider webs and ‘dead’ people on the floor. When we found our way to the slide, I told the group I wasn’t going down by myself (going down a slide, not knowing what was waiting for me, frightened me). There wasn’t really space for two people, but Becca and I made it work, haha.
We walked through different rooms, but sometimes we ran because a ‘ghost’ was following us. My favourite part was when I would just randomly scream, to scare the others, and they started screaming too. It was just too funny! I’m not sure if they would say the same thing, haha.

All right, enough scary stories for now. One day, Cary’s sister came over and together with Debbie and Cassidy, we went to see “The Interview” in the movie theatre. Great movie, I can definitely recommend it!

As most of you have seen on Facebook already, we had a family photoshoot. We went to the house where Debbie grew up, because we thought the woods behind it would be the perfect place. We had a great time and took a lot of pictures. The photographer was really nice and also quick in sharing the pictures. We’re all really happy with the results. I’ll upload some of the pictures on my blog soon! The most of you will probably have seen them on Facebook already.

On October 24^th Debbie, Cassidy and I woke up early to drive to Chicago. We were meeting some of the other foreign exchange students in the Science Museum. Our local representative arranged this get together and it turned out to be a really fun day with a LOT of fun stuff. The Science Museum was big and very interesting. There was so much to see I could barely stay focused on the information right in front of me. It was a really beautiful museum. If only I’d had the time to look at everything. Because everyone went their own way, we didn’t really have the time to get to know each other. I loved the museum, but I was also very interested in what everyone else’s exchange life is like.

Good thing the day wasn’t over yet. As a group we went to the train station to ride the train to ‘The Bean”. Does that sound familiar? It’s a famous piece of art in Chicago. In my pictures you’ll see what it looks like. It’s basically one large mirror in the shape of a bean. What better place to take selfies right?

Okay, you ready to hear what made my day? Suddenly someone of our group notice people were gathering. There was this guy asking random people to join him for a “family photo”. The crowd got bigger and bigger, so our group of exchange students decided to join the group. When the picture was taken and the guy turned around to thank everybody, I could finally see his face. I recognized him, I was sure of it, I knew him! Who was he and where had I seen his face before? Only way to find out was to ask him, I guessed I must have known him from YouTube and I was right, he was from YouTube. That’s when we took a bunch of pictures with him when at the same time some of his friends were filming. A few days later he posted a video online with all of us, the exchange students in there. Even my host mom was in there. It was just the perfect video.

We had dinner at a pizza place and I had my first ‘Chicago pizza’. It kind of looked like a quiche to me, but it tasted like pizza. We rode the bus back to the car and went home. I’m happy that I got to meet the other exchange students, because I loved hearing their stories, their accents and hearing them speak their own language.
Where were all of us from?
Rose from France, Dora from Tunisia, Mizuki from Japan, Israr from Pakistan and Akshay from India and me from the Netherlands. Cassidy and Abby are born Americans.

Debbie, Cassidy and I got tickets to a concert called “Jingle Jam” on December 9^th. The people performing will be: Walk the Moon, Rachel Platten, Pentatonix, Becky G, Max Schneider and Tori Kelly. You might not recognize them right away, but go to YouTube and listen to a couple of their songs. I’m sure you’ll recognize a couple from the radio. We’re all so excited to go see them perform! I can’t wait!

October is the month of Halloween. I heard some people were wondering how I spend my Halloween. I’ve never celebrated Halloween in the Netherlands, so it was very special getting to see what it’s like in America. A couple days before Halloween, Cassidy, Hannah and I carved our pumpkins, which was a lot of fun. It was also the grossest thing ever, because the inside of the pumpkin was wet and slimy and …. just gross, haha. It made me think of a tv show where the candidates are blind folded and they have to stick their hand in a box in order to guess what’s inside.

On October 31^st Cassidy and I went to her grandparents’ house to see the trick or treaters. By the time we got there a lot of kids had already been there, so we only saw a couple of people ringing the bell. To me it looked exactly like what kids do in the Netherlands at November 11, only difference is that people dress up for Halloween.

(Pictures will follow soon!)

Love,

Tasha