Hey everybody,

I'm already five months in America and I have done a lot of nice things, so here’s a little update!

Let me start by celebrating New Year’s Eve. I woke up on December 31 and it was incredibly quiet. Normally I am always woken up by hearing all the popping of the carbide and the fireworks, but this year that was not the case. It is not common in America to have fireworks during New Year’s Eve. Setting off fireworks happens, but only at special places. I had a party with other exchange students and it was a lot of fun, but none of us had a ‘’New Year’s Eve feeling’’. It felt a little bit strange to not be with my Dutch friends and family. This was also the first year without the Dutch oliebollen, rolletjes and kniepertjes haha.

School started on January 3^rd. The midterms were coming up and the atmosphere at school was a bit tense. Also everyone was preparing for the Ticos! My school always organizes an exchange with Costa Rica and with France. This year, the Costa Ricans came to Honeoye. This meant that I was not the only foreigner at school anymore haha! The school organized a number of nice activities for the Ticos and everybody else who wanted to join. There was a welcome party on Saturday night, which was very nice. One of my friends slept over at my house because the next morning we would go to Niagara Falls! We left early in the morning and I thought it was great to see the falls. It was very cold and everything around it was frozen, which looked amazing. I have only been to the American side this time, but I'm going next weekend to Canada with my brother to visit the falls on the Canadian side.

After the falls we went for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. After lunch, it was time for the aquarium. We walked around and watched a sea lion show. After this we went to a candy factory. It was a great day.

Two days later we had dinner with everyone and then we went to an ice hockey game. I really liked it. The atmosphere in the stadium is very crazy and everyone is excited. The mascot was doing his best to entertain the audience during the breaks. There were a few fights, but I thought that they weren’t real, it still looked impressive though!

Another activity was going to the Corning Museum of Glass, where we saw a glassblowing show . We also had the chance to make our own ornaments by blowing it ourselves. This was really fun to do.

I’m living with my second family now and I like it a lot. We do a lot of things together and we have a lot of fun. Last Sunday we went hiking in a large nature park, called Grimes Glen. It is a very beautiful park and there are a lot of waterfalls, which are really pretty and nice to walk and climb up.

My Senior Banquet, also known as Senior Ball, was yesterday. I went to the hairdresser in the afternoon and a friend of mine came later to my house to get ready. My first host family also came by to take some pictures. When we finally finished our photoshoot we went to the house of a friend, where the limo picked us up. Our ball took place in a restaurant a few villages away. We had a dinner, a photo booth and of course a dance. I thought it was great. I really enjoyed my first American Ball!

Love, Laura.