Halloween

Halloween is really big here in America. Everyone is carving pumpkins, decorating their houses and going to school in customs. Back in The Netherlands we didn’t really do a lot with it. It was kind off just a normal day. This is one more big experience to celebrate Halloween big!

We still had to go to school but it was actually a pretty fun day. We woke up to snow. It is only the end of October and we already have snow! It is not much yet but everyone says it is going to be the coldest winter in 50 years so we expect a lot of snow. After we got to school we saw a lot of people with cool customs. There was one kid who is really small with red hair so he was dressed up as a Irish dwarf. It looked really funny. After lunch, we had an assembly (that means that we all come together in the big gym) for tomorrow. It was a woman who was telling about her life and that it isn’t always amazing. She was telling us about fake friends, her alcoholic dad, her career. She had a hard time growing up and thinking that she wasn’t good enough until she knew she was good enough for herself. It was really inspiring. She was going to say the same thing tomorrow. Tomorrow we have districts. All the student council groups of every school in our district is coming to our school. This means that we have to decorate the whole school to look good. We have been working on this for a few weeks and it is really good to see how it all came together.

After school, we all had to make the finishing touches on everything. Our job was to organize the registration. We had to make the name tags, give everyone lunch tickets and give them their shirts when all the schools come in. after we were done with having everything done and ready for tomorrow, we helped with the decorations and after everything was done, we could go home.

When we went home it was already in the evening so we saw a lot of kids dressed up as monsters or princesses and going from door to door trick or treating. It was really cool to see that in real life for once and not only in the movies. The houses were also decorated. Some houses more than others. Some had big blown up creatures as witches or cats in their front yards with cobwebs and spiders or zombies. A lot of houses had carved pumpkins too. It was a lot. There were even houses that turned their front yard into a graveyard. It was amazing to see. Even though we had to work in school for Halloween, it was still fun to see all the decorations and the videos online.

A fun weekend

The weekend started on Friday. As usual, we had a football game to cheer but this game was a little different then all the other games. For starters, it was our last home game of the football season. It was also senior night what means that all the seniors are getting recognized. They walk with their parents (or host parents for us) over the track while someone says a little about yourself for example what we are going to do after graduation. During the walk we had to stop for a picture and at the end we got a little gift bag with a cookie with our name on it and a blanket. After this we started with the game. It was against our biggest rivals; the hornets from Fulton. They called the game the 54 bowl because of the sign that was stolen once and goes to the winner of the game. We have had the sign for the past 6 years and this year we won again! It became 42-6 and we had a lot of fun during the game.

After the game it was time to leave because we still had to drive 1,5 hour to st. Louis. We were going to be house sitting for Chuck (Amy’s boyfriend) and watching the dogs while they were off to a wedding. We came there at around 11:30. We took our bags to our rooms and layed in bed with Anna for a little while and just talked and danced to the music of the 12 dancing princesses of Barbie (we know we are 17 years old but just living our best life). At around 12:30 we went to bed because we had to wake up at 8:30 because we wanted to go to the mall. In the morning, Amy and Chuck went to get 2 boxes of donuts and they were amazing! After breakfast we got ready to go to the mall.

Chuck brought us in his awesome sports car and told us some things about the buildings we saw. When we arrived at the mall, we went shopping because we needed some stuff for the winter (it’s gonna be really cold). Flora bought some new boots and Joy bought a new winter coat and a new sweater. When we were out of money we continued our adventure by making pictures in a photo booth. When we were done with that we waited for Anna to pick us up.

When we arrived at the house, it was time to facetime some friends and watch movies in Chucks movie theater. That’s the best place to watch movies and series! After watching 2 movies we were pretty hungry so chuck and Amy ordered a pizza with some chicken wings on the side for us. When our tummies were full again, we continued our movie marathon in the movie theater. The rest of the evening was pretty relaxing. We went to bed early and talked for a while before we went to sleep.

On Sunday morning Amy woke us up because breakfast was ready. We had biscuits and gravy and a casserole with bacon. After breakfast we got ready to leave and go to Anna’s grandparents to help them in the house. We watched some ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ and decided to cook dinner in the evening. We went to Walmart with Amy to buy our stuff for the ‘stamppot met gehaktballen’.

This is a typical Dutch winter meal that’s pretty easy to make. Everyone loved it, including us, it turned out better than we expected it to be. After we got done eating, it was time to go home because we still had an hour drive ahead of us. When we arrived in Mexico Anna invited a friend over, but Joy had to leave pretty soon after he arrived. We both fell asleep pretty early that night. It was an exhausting but fun weekend. We made some really fun memories that we will never forget!

Football season

Every fall it’s football season for American high schools. This means that there is a football game on every friday night for 10 weeks. Another name for this season is Friday night lights (fnl) because the games are on friday evenings. In total, we had 4 away games and 6 home games.

We think football is a complicated sport, there are a lot of players who change the whole time. Which players are on the field, depends if the team is in offense or defense. Each team has eleven players on the field regardless of they’re playing offense or defense.

The team with the ball is in offense. They have to score a touchdown or a field goal and they do this by running with the ball and trying to pass the other team without getting tackled. The other team is on defense, because they are trying to defend their end zone.

The team in offense gets four downs to advance minimal ten yards (that’s about 9,1 meters). If they don’t succeed, they turn the ball to the other team so the roles switch. When a team gets a player with the ball in the end zone, they score a touchdown and get six points. If they kick the ball in the goal after a touchdown, they get an extra point.

Sometimes, the team has only one more chance to score a touchdown, then they can kick the ball in the goal. If they do this right, they get three points for a field goal. Sometimes they chose for this so the chance at getting points is bigger.

We need to be on the field 45 minutes before the games start. Because we still have a lot of time before the game actually starts, we usually first go to the bathroom so that we don’t need to to during the game. After that, it is time to put our bows in our hair and warm up our stunts. When we still have some time to spare after this, we normally take pictures so that we have a lot of fun memories to look back to.

We cheer at every game, even when it is raining or freezing cold. The game can only be cancelled when there is lightning because of the big open field where we play on. Our task is to hype up the crowd by doing cheers and stunts. home games are (in our opinion) more fun than away games, because our crowd is way bigger and our band is playing. At the beginning of every game, the band walks on the field to make a big M (what stands for Mexico) and play the fight song. When they’re playing this, we have to dance in between them. After they do the fight song for the first time, we go back to the side line. That’s the moment that the band plays the anthem. We stand in a row with all the cheerleaders and put one hand behind our backs and one on our heart with the poms still in our hands. After that, we run back on the field to stand in two lines. The band plays the fight song again. When they finish that, the band will play another song and the football players will run on the field. They all collect in the bulldog. When that’s full, they run between our rows, while we’re doing a dance.

At the beginning of the game it’s time for the kickoff. A kickoff is when the the ‘’kicking team’’ kicks the ball to the ‘’receiving team’’. The receiving team must return the ball to the end zone (they try to score a touchdown). Kickoffs take place at the start of each half play, at the beginning of overtime and after scoring plays. During the kickoff we put five flyers in the air to cheer up the crowd. After that it’s time to go to our spots to continue with our first cheer called fired up to win. What cheers we’re doing next depends on how the game is going. During the first break we do a stunt with the whole cheer squad, the rest of the game we just do normal cheers.

During home games, we cheer at the dawg pound for 15 minutes. The dawg pound is where the students sit and has a different theme every week. Everyone dresses up in this theme, that’s part of the school spirit. Some examples of the theme’s are: hawain night, jersey night, pink out and camouflage.

Pinkout is every year in October for breast cancer awareness. For this month, we have pink poms and bows and at the pink out game we wear a special design pink out shirt.

At the end of every game, the crowd sings a song to celebrate the school, we all collect in one big circle at the field to do this.

Especially at the end of the season it can be really cold. Then we can wear our warm ups. This means that we have to wear black yoga pants with our cheer jacket. During the breaks we try to stay warm by going inside or by capsize a blanket.

When we have an away game, we go with the school bus to a different school to cheer. The first time we had to ride the bus, we were really excited, but after a few minutes we found out that the school bus wasn’t really comfortable. Most of the away games, we have to share the bus with the freshmen and sophomore football players.

They have to be at the field earlier, so most of the time we drop them off at the field and we go to a fast food restaurant to fill in the time. Most cheerleaders get a small snack, because we have to wait for dinner until after the game (this is usually around 9:30). When the game ends, we go back to the bus where we get pizza, if it’s really cold, we eat it on the bus, otherwise we eat it outside the bus. Most of the times, the cheerleaders are done way earlier than the football players, so we have to wait. In that case we have to wait until they’re done and then we can finally get on the bus for the ride home.

This Friday we have our last football game! It's pretty sad and we're happy that we had this experience. Now we're ready for basketball season where we don't have to freeze to death outside ;).

School tour

Homecoming week

September 23 was the start of homecoming week. This is a week where it is all about the school spirit with everyday another theme to dress up in. On Friday is a homecoming game and on Saturday is the homecoming dance.

The theme for Monday was Monster U, that means that you wear something from a college (college apparel). We were both wearing a Missouri state shirt that we borrowed from Anna, because we didn’t have any college apparel. All our classes were normal, but after school we had mini cheer clinic. This means that little girls from preschool until 5th grade come to the high school for a cheer clinic. This was fun, but it costs a lot of energy. We had to teach all the girls 3 different cheers and a dance. They performed that later that day during the JV football game.

On Tuesday everyone was wearing country clothes but we didn’t have that so we were just wearing our normal clothes. After 6th period we had to go help in seminars because it was Tys Lue day. This is a day were the whole school does community service to honor Tyronn Lue who is from Mexico, Missouri and also did a lot for the community. Flora helped a class making dog toys and Joy helped a class with reading to little kids at an elementary school.

On Wednesday we had to wear our class color. For us that meant red, because we’re seniors. This day we saw our first school fight after lunch! (omg bucket list item). In the evening was the powderpuff game. This is a little tournament were the girls play football. Every team represents one class. The seniors (our class) won. This was pretty exciting, because that means that our class won every powderpuff game all their four years of high school.

On Thursday, the theme was ‘you got a friend in me’ (dynamic duo). We were too lazy to go shopping for it, so we decided to wear our Travel Active shirts, braid our hair and paint Dutch flags on our face. After school, it was a little chaotic because we had to move the cheermats down for the next day. After that we went to Kayleigh's house to make cookies for our football players and later that night Joy spent the night at Flora’s place, because her host mom wasn’t home.

Friday was definitely the most fun day of this week. We had to be at school at 7:30 am to prepare for cheer. At 7:45 am we had to be at the science floor were we had to wait for the band to come up. When the band arrived, they started to play music and walk around the hallways of the school. We followed them and danced to the music. When we got outside, everybody circled around the flag. The band played the anthem while they raised the flag up in the air. After that, we danced one more time to ‘the fight song’ and moved to the sportscomplex were the assembly was at.

During the assembly some boys (they were escorts) gave speeches about the homecoming queen candidates. After that, the cheerleaders had to perform. We did a part of our competition cheer, which was really fun to do. When we finished our performance, the students played some games. At the end of the assembly we had to do a cheer to hype up the crowd for the homecoming game. After this we had to go back to our class. Because it was the game of the homecoming game, we got out of school early (at 00:45 pm).

We had to be back at 2:30 pm to get ready for the homecoming parade. This is a parade where a lot of school clubs and sports make their own float. We walked from school to the square (downtown). After that we jumped on the football float which brought us back to school. From there we went home again.

Later that day we had to be at the football field at 6:15 pm to get ready for the homecoming game. This was really exciting because there was a big crowd! Our team was playing really good and we won with 62-6! After the game we went to Denny’s, this is an American diner, where we ate some typical American food. We got back home around midnight, but we had a lot of fun so we hung out for a while after.

On Saturday was the homecoming dance. We were really excited for that so around 2:30 pm Joy and Kayleigh came to the house of Flora and Anna to get ready together. At 5:00 pm we left to Centralia (a town close to Mexico) to take some pictures in a garden. After that we drove to Columbia with Anna, Kayleigh and Keyon to eat at olive garden (the bread sticks there were so good, omg). Around 9 we arrived at the dance, but this was pretty boring so we left after 30 minutes to Joy’s house to watch a movie. It was fun, but we were all really tired, so most of us fell asleep during the movie. It was an exciting but exhausting week. A real American experience that we can get off our bucket list now!

First weeks

I (Flora) arrived one week earlier then Joy, so I had a little more time to get used to everything!

When I arrived at Anna, Amy and aunt Carolyn were waiting for me at the airport. After we picked up all my luggage we went to a restaurant to eat something. When we were done we went to Chuck's house (Chuck is Amy’s boyfriend). The house was really pretty and it had a pool so we relaxed the whole afternoon and got to know each other a little bit better! Because of the jetlag and talking English the whole time, I was really tired so I went to sleep early. The next day we went to the Cardinals game, that is the best baseball team of Missouri! I thought it wasn't really fun and the game took forever. After the game we went out for dinner before we were heading to Mexico. As soon as we got home Anna showed me around, but it was already dark so I couldn’t really see anything.

The next day was pretty busy, in the morning I had tennis practice for 3 hours, I went home to eat lunch and after that I had to go to the high school for my schedule and there Amy got a text that I could go to cheer practice later that afternoon. After cheer practice Anna picked me up to go home, because the family was coming over for dinner.

The rest of the week looked kinda the same. I took care of the last things before school started and I had a lot of practice.

I (Joy) arrived august 17 at the airport of St. Louis. Linda (my host mom) and Justine (a friend) were waiting for me with a big sign that said ‘welcome in the USA Joy’. it was really cute. After I got my suitcases, we went to Columbia to get me an American phone number with unlimited data, text and calls (finally!). When this was fixed, we went to cheddar's to eat something. I had something with chicken and I almost ate it all, even though I didn’t really like it. My parents raised me well (love you!). Around 5 pm, we finally got home and Linda showed me around the house. I unpacked all my stuff and made my room more off myself. After everything was done, I sat on my bed and started to cry. I finally realized this was going to be my life and because it was all still so new, that idea was pretty scary. After like 2 minutes off crying Linda knocked on my door and came in. She asked if I was crying but I blamed it on my allergies. Apparently Nyesha was sitting in the living room. She was a kid Linda took in the house last year. She visited us from her college because she wanted to meet me. After a little while, Nyesha took off and I went to bed.

The next evening Flora and Anna came over. This was the first time we saw each other in the US!

August 21 was our first school day and that was pretty weird. School in America is way different if you compare it to school in the Netherlands, but we’ll explain more of this in a separate blog post!

On Friday August 23 was our first game. It wasn’t an official game so we didn’t have to wear our cheer uniforms. It was really fun but we didn’t know all the cheers so that was a little embarrassing at some moments. After the game we went to Joy’s house with some friends to watch a movie, but that turned into a Dutch concert. It was a lot of fun! After this we went to the soybean festival at the square. This was a festival where they celebrated soybeans, because producing them is a huge thing here. We had so much fun that we decided to have a sleepover at Haley’s house (Haley is Anna’s older sister en Flora’s host sister). The next day we had to wake up early because we had cheer practice at 11 for competition. Flora left early to go to Saint Charles, while Joy went back to the festival to go in some rides at the fair. The next day we had cheer again for the whole day.

August 27 was Flora’s birthday, but she wasn’t really excited about it because she wanted to celebrate with her friends and family at home. In the evening we went to the country club for diner. Some friends came as a surprise. Even though it was still pretty hard for her, we also had a good time at the party.

On Friday August 30 was our first official game we had to cheer for! That meant that we had to go to school in or cheer uniform and had to wear our bows in our hair. We were a lot better at the cheers then the first time.

This weekend was Labor day. We were planning on going to the lake, but that was canceled, we changed our plans, so on Saturday we went to Columbia and ate at Texas Roadhouse. Our host moms told the waitress that it was our birthday so we had to sit on a horse saddle and had to yell yeehaw. It was pretty awkward but also funny and we got free ice cream! Who doesn’t want that. After dinner, we went to a shop. They said was really good but it wasn’t really our style so we just walked around and watch a few things. When everyone was finally done, we went to the Columbia big shopping mall. Even though it is a pretty big mall, we didn’t really like the stuff they had. It was too expensive or not in our style. That was disappointing because we had a lot of expectations.

On Sunday we had a sleepover at aunt Carolyn's (Flora her host aunt) house because we had that Monday off from school. Anna, Justine, Lexie, Flora and Joy all stayed over. First, we ate some pizza and picked out some movies. We also did some face masks. It was a real girly sleepover! We went to bed around 2 am. Justine slept on the couch, Anna and Lexie slept in one gast room and we slept in the other. Because Flora forgot to turn off her alarm, we woke up around 7 am (pffff) but fell asleep again shortly after. At around 11 am, we all woke up. When we got upstairs (we slept in the basement), aunt Carolyn got us all these cinnamon rolls, bread and cornflakes ready to eat. That was super sweet. After we got all done, we went to our homes and had a relaxing afternoon and made our homework for the next day.

The next week was only a four day week, but nothing really special happened. On Friday we had a football game again. The weather was way better than the week before. So the band was performing and the ambiance was way better than we previous games.

This was all the important that happened in our first weeks in Mexico, MO. In our nest blog post we’re gonna tell about homecoming week.

New York

We’re already more than a month is the USA so we have a lot to catch up to! We’ll start at the beginning: Saying goodbye and the New York orientation. We’ll both write our own experience about this, because Flora left one week earlier!

Flora:

I left the Netherlands at the 7th of August! The weekend before I left, my friends/coworkers threw me a surprise party (if one of you read this, thanks! I had so much fun that night!). On Sunday my family came by to say goodbye and on Monday and Tuesday my best friends came over!

August 7: My flight was at 9:15 so that meant that I had to be at the airport at 6:15. Saying goodbye to my parents and sister wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but that was probably because I was too excited to finally leave! I literally slept 6 hours on the 8 hour flight, so when we arrived in New York I wasn’t tired at all. After a long wait at the security and baggage claim we went to our hotel to drop our stuff. Our rooms weren’t ready yet so we went to a mall to fill some time. On our way back we got a flash flood warning so everyone was freaking out, but luckily there was nothing going on. Around 7, we had our first American diner and after that I went to the pool with some friends to fill some time. After that we all hang out in one room until 11 PM to make sure we got over the jet lag as soon as possible.

August 8: At 5:45 the telephone in our room went off. Apparently the people before us used the wake up call and they forgot to end it! We couldn’t sleep anymore so we decided to get ready for our first day in NYC. For me it was the third time in New York, so I knew what to expect. We started our day with a walk in Central Park, where a guide gave us a lot of information. After that we took the bus to Washington Square park where we had lunch (I had a Caesar salad with a pink drink from Starbucks). After that we went to Chelsea market to continue with a walk on the high line, this is an old train rail which they turned into a park. When we finished the walk, the bus took is to 34th street where we got some free time to go shopping or explore the city on our own. Around 6 we had diner at the hard rock cafe and some free time at Time Square. Around 9 the bus picked us up to go back to our hotel. The bus ride was really fun, because me and my other Duchies were screaming with the music and building a party.

August 9: This was going to be our last day in New York! The bus picked us up at 9:00 AM to go back to Manhattan were we went to the 9/11 memorial. Even Though I’ve already been there twice, it stays impressive to see and hear what happened. After that we went for a walk in the financial district and continued with sail so we could see the statue of liberty from really close. We got off the boat around 12, so it was time to eat our lunch at pier 51.From there we walked to the beginning of the Brooklyn bridge to walk to Brooklyn. The view from the bridge was amazing and we took a lot of pretty pictures.

Around 2 PM the bus picked us up and took is to Coney Island. During the bus ride me and some other duchies brought a box so we we’re building our own little party. At Coney Island we went in a crazy roller coaster and we had our first American milkshake at I Hop. Even Though we were all really full, it was time to go to a pizza place to have dinner. We had to hurry a little because we had to be at the top of the rock at 8. The view there was amazing! After that it was time to go back to the hotel. During the ride back we got in a fight with the German people because we were listening to Dutch music and they didn’t really appreciate that, luckily we controlled the box so we continued listening to our favorite music! When we got back to the hotel we all went to sleep because the next day it was time to finally go to our host families! 

August 10: Today it was finally time to go to my host family. I had to be at the airport at 9:30 and my flight left 10:45! One of the friends I made in New York had to be at the same terminal so we I didn’t have to wait alone. 

I’ll tell how my arrival at my host family was in another blog post! But if you want to see something off my new york orientation you can watch a video on YouTube channel Teenmag by Korthom about New York (It is in Dutch).

Joy:

I had a little more time in The Netherlands because I left on the 14th of August 2019. I already had my goodbye party on my birthday (the 5th of July); my parents threw me a surprise party to celebrate my graduation, my birthday and to say my goodbyes to everyone.  In the few weeks I had left after that, I just spent most of my time with my friends and family until the day came I had to leave. I didn’t want to have a lot of people at the airport because I already knew that would be too much to say goodbye to at once so I decided to just take my parents, sister and boyfriend. I didn’t know how hard it was going to be until then. The few weeks before I left I didn’t cry one time when I said my last goodbyes so it all hit at once. 

When we got in the plane we first flew to New York for the orientation of 3 days. When we arrived at the Newark airport we first went to the Double Tree by Hilton hotel and dropped our bags. After that, we went to the shopping mall to eat or shop something but I didn’t really do anything because I was still really shocked and emotional about the fact that I wasn’t going to see my family and friends in 10 months (I did have a milkshake between the tears tho). After eating some pizza back in the hotel we went to bed because the jet lag was real. 

After a little sleep (I couldn’t sleep very well) it was time for the first day in New York. we first had breakfast in the hotel but because of the time differences I wasn’t really hungry (it was a weird time to eat for me). At around 8:15 the bus picked us up to go to Central park. Because we were with a German organization as well, a few of our organization needed to go with a taxi so when we arrived to the park we first had to wait for them before our tour guide started. It was really hot but super pretty! After Central park we went to the Grand Central Terminal from New York. This was pretty cool because a lot of movies and series were recorded here and now I was standing there too! Our next stop was Washington Square park to have lunch. There was a man who brought his piano to the park ad started playing and singing. After lunch we went to Chelsea Market. Right after we went to the High Line because we could just walk to that. When we got done, the bus took us to 34th street where we could go shopping or eat something. I went with some friends I made to some shops just to check it out (I didn’t buy anything because my suitcase was already too big). For dinner, we went to the hard rock cafe. 

We took some pictures here and had some food. After this we went to Times Square. It was so weird to finally see it. Even when it got dark, the whole square was still so light that it looked like it was in the middle of the day. At around 9 o'clock we took the bus back to our hotel. 

On the third day in New York, we went to the 9/11 memorial (Ground Zero). The tour guide told some stuff about it and it was pretty interesting. It was definitely one of the things I thought were most interested to visit when you are in New York. after having a toilet break in the World Trade Center station next to Ground Zero, we walked through the financial district to Pier 51. From there we hopped on a boat to go see The Statue of Liberty from up close. 

After getting off the boat, we had our lunch there too. When we were done, it was finally my turn (with the group I was in) to take a taxi to the Brooklyn Bridge. When we arrived we walked from one way to the other. It was really old and the path was small but it was also pretty extraordinary to see it all from the bridge. On the bridge, there were a lot of people selling stuff like drinks and food but there was also my biggest fear; snakes. There were 2 guys with huge snakes around their necks. They were hanging the snakes on random peoples neck, that scared me so much that I screamed and ran to the other side. For the rest was the walk pretty fun. When we arrived in Brooklyn the bus picked us up to go to Coney Island, there me and someone else  bought a smoothie and met up with some other people. We took some pictures and walked over the fair. When we wanted to leave someone forgot the time so we had to wait 15 minutes before we could leave for diner at the best pizza place in town. It was the first time I was really hungry, so I was looking forward to it. After that we went to the Top of the Rock to enjoy the amazing view there. A lot of people were in the way to take good pictures but it was still a lot of fun! After that we went back to the hotel. We packed our bags because the next day it was time to leave. We said goodbye and hang out in someones room before we went to bed. 

When I woke up two girls in my room had already left for the airport. The girl that was still in my room, had to take the same shuttle to the airport so that was really nice that I still knew someone. At the airport I  facetimed my family for a while. After that I stepped on the plane and that was the end of my New York adventure. I was now ready to start my amazing exchange year!

Introduction

Hii,

We’re Joy and Floor and we’re 17 year old Dutch girls who are currently living in Mexico, Missouri for an exchange year. We already experienced a lot of things that we want to share with all of you! The reason why we’re starting this blog now, is because our English teacher thinks that some of our assignments are too easy for us. To prevent that we’re getting bored, we can work on our blog during English class, so our friends and family in the Netherlands and the USA can read everything!

We hope you enjoy reading our blog!

Love, Joy and Floor