Sending cards

Almost every year, when me and my family are on summer holiday I send cards to my friends and family home. Old school huh?

Usually those photoshopped and over-edited cheeky cards but not this year!

Yesterday (Thu August 15th) we went to Napels and climbed the Vesuvius Vulcano! (And visited some other places but more about that later)

At the top, next to the crater there was a cute little shop that sold all sorts of cards, and mu eye fell for this vintage looking card of a photograph of the eruction of the vulcano in 1944. Exactly the type of card I like!

So I immediatly bought 12 of them. One for me and the rest for friends and family.

Don't you love it? (:

Update

Good day everyone! It's been already almost a week since I posted anything on this blog. Sorry for that. Last week has been pretty amazing. I celebrated my birthday three times (!).On the day itself with my grandparents who came over for dinner, last Saturday for family, and Sunday for some friends. I got amazing stuff and I am very thankful for everyone who came.
Later on this week, or maybe next week I'll post some pictures of my presents. Excited to let you guys know!

It's also been a busy week, I have a lot of work to do, and I've been so tired lately. Can't fall asleep, and end up sleeping for maybe 6 hours and then I have to get up and go to school. It's pretty exhausting. Tonight I'm going to bed super early. My goal is to be in bed at 10PM. For my birthday my friend Nathalie gave me 'The Perks Of Being A Wallflower', by Stephen Chbozky (hope I wrote that right haha) and I really like it so far. Some parts are kind of weird, but the writing style is very nice and relaxt.

So that was my super duper short update. Hope to talk to y'all soon! X

My 16th Birthday!

Hip hip hooray! Today, March 6th, is my 16th birthday!

Presents I got ^^

So exactly a week ago it was Sinterklaas, and this year I celebrated 4 times in total. I know, that's a lot. We celebrated 1) at my grandparents' house, with the grandchildren, 2) with my family, 3) with my friends and 4) at club, in church. With club, everyone buys a couple of presents, and we play the so called 'Sinterklaas Game'. It's basically where you throw the dice, and when you throw 6 you get to take a present, and there are several tasks you have to do. It's quite complicated to explain, but you could see it as a mini-war where you steal presents from each other. But it's a lot of fun. At my grandparents' house and at home we just buy presents and give them to each other. My little brother and sister still think Zwarte Piet (translated into Black Peter) and Sinterklaas bring the presents (:

And with my friends we buy presents, make a poem and a surprise for the one whose name we drew. And of course I 'celebrated' it with Nathalie, but that's just the two of us so I don't think you could count it as a seperate celebration. But that doesn't make it less fun!

SINTERKLAAS!

The title must be impossible to pronounce for those of you who aren't from The Netherlands. We COULD call it Saint Nicolas but that just sounds lame in my opinion haha.
So today it's finally Sinterklaas! Yessss! This morning when I woke up the first thing I thought of was the long and boring day at school dat was ahead of me. At school we also "celebrate" Sinterklaas, but every year it's the same. The school band performs a couple of songs, a teacher dresses up as Sinterklaas, and one class at the time is called to the first floor, where we celebrate it. Other people at school have the opportunity to write your name down on a paper and hand it in anonymously to the 'helpers' of Sinterklaas. And when you're in the middle of singing a song for Sinterklaas and sitting awkwardly in the canteen at the first floor, they will call your name and you have to stap forward and sit on Sinterklaas' lap. How embarrassing! And than he will talk to you for a moment and everyone will laugh at you, and when it's finally over you'll get some candy and thats it! That's how we celebrate Sinterklaas at our school.
But unexpectedly I had two extra free periods, since my teacher was dressing up as Sinterklaas, so I talked to my other teacher if I could PLEAAASE do Greek (the last subject I had) another time. And she said yes! So first of all I was at home 2 hours earlier and second I didn't have to go to Sinterklaas (AKA my teacher). Party hard!

This afternoon and evening we celebrated at my granparents' house and it was amazing. Just very cozy and we had a great time, and I got some lovely presents. I'll post pictures of my gifts later this week, in a seperate blog post. We also ate there and as dessert we had an ice cream, yum (:
After that I had to hurry to be at my piano lessons on time, and when I came home the living room was covered in wrapping paper. What happened? Well, my family had celebrated Sinterklaas without me! But I get my parent's point, my brother and sister had to go to bed, so when I came back I unwrapped my presents, together with my other sister. I got some very nice presents from my parents. So today I am very grateful for my family, my parents, my grandparents, and for the presents I got. I don't think it's about the presents, it's actually about having a good time with your relatives, and I certainly had a great time today.

Now that Sinterklaas is (unfortunately) over, and the delish candy that is in stores around Sinterklaas time is gone, it's time to focus on my exam week and after that CHRISTMAS! I'm really looking forward to it, but first I'm gonna enjoy my presents and enjoy the Sinterklaas atmoshpere that is still around. After that I will start decorating my christmas tree. I bought some nice ornaments and I have a great idea for the tree, so hopefully that works out well.

Days left til Christmas: 20