Disneyland: Day three

Thursday was the last day, and also my mom's birthday! This was pretty much the reason why we were going in the first place, so we tried to make it very special for her. After another nice breakfast, we celebrated it in my parent's hotelroom. We sang for her, and then she unpacked our gifts. Dylan and I both gave her a Pandora bead for her bracelet, but my siblings forgot to take their gifts to France so that was kind of funny. My dad gave her a  cardboard phone, symbolizing the new smartphone she can pick for herself when her contract ends. Then, we packed our belongings, checked out, put our things in the car and went to Disneyland for the last time.

We started out in the movie studio's, to do some rides for the last time and see if one of the rides we hadn't done yet was less busy now. After the tower of terror and the rock 'n rollercoaster, we went to 'Crush's Coaster' from the movie 'Finding Nemo', which Dylan was really excited about. Unfortunately, the line was still 45 minutes long, but this time we decided to go and wait anyway,  because it had to be something special if everyone wanted to go on it! We played 'I spy with my little eye' and 'twenty questions' over and over again (Dylan's initiative of course) until it was finally our turn. We got into a cart that looked like a turtle shell, two peope facing forward and two facing backwards. It was a really cool ride, at first it was quite peaceful, you really got the feeling that you were under water, but soon it got dark and scary and wild, the whole cart was spinning around so that gave the ride an extra dimension. It was quite thrilling! We then decided that this was our favorite rollercoaster.

Then we went to the 'normal' park again, we started by taking some more pictures of the pink castle and then we walked on to adventureland, where we went on the 'Pirates of the Carribean' ride that was closed before. Dylan got all excited about being a pirate again, haha! We then got a fastpass (a tickets which allows you to go come back later and join a special line, which saves you generally about 30 minutes of waiting!) for the Thunder Mountain rollercoaster, and then had lunch near it.
After enjoying that one more time, we went on to the haunted house again. This time my sister went with as well, after we convinced her that it wasn't any scarier than the tower of terror, which she loved! The wait was a lot longer than the first time, but we - once again - played twenty questions the whole time. My mom got to choose the next thing because it was her birthday, so she chose the steamboatride once again. It was lovely weather, luckily!




Afterwards, we explored discoveryland again. We went on the all the rides there again and got a fastpass for the Buzz Lightyear ride we liked so much. We looked through some souvenirshops and wanted to go on 'It's a small world' again, but unfortunately that was closed. We couldn't get back to discoveryland because the parade was just passing, so we had to wait. Officially, our fastpasses were not valid anymore but they still let us join the line. Then, it was time to say goodbye to the park and have dinner in one of the restaurants just outside of it. It was quite good food, and the atmosphere was really nice. In the reservation the man had said that it was for my mom's birthday, so when it was time for desert, the halloween music changed into happy birthday (in French) and about 8 waiters and waitresses came singing at our table! That was a really fun surprise, my mom got a cup of icecream with a candle, very cute :)


After dinner, we bought a ton of souvenirs that we'd been looking at during our stay. Dylan and Max both bought a Star Wars mug, I bought some things related to Marie (the little cute white cat from 'The Aristocats'), my sister bought a Tinkerbell mug and a keychain, and my mom also bought a mug. Then we took the bus back to the hotel, and we got into the car. We wanted to see the Disney Dreams show again, but it was getting late and my dad still had to drive for 5 hours... So we left at about 8pm, and arrived home safely at 1am. It has been an amazing trip!

Disneyland: Day two

Today was a lot better than yesterday, at least for me! We had a great night of sleep and woke up well rested. We had a breakfast buffet at 9 am, it was quite good! We packed our backpacks and waited for the bus again. This time, we went to the moviestudio's first, which is a separate department of Disneyland. There are a lot of shows in this part, so we had to plan the times quite carefully before we left the hotel, to make sure we would see everything.

The first show we saw was called Cinemagique, it was a tribute to lots of non-animated (also non-Disney) movies, like Titanic, Star Wars (Dylan went crazy when he found out), and Narnia. It was about a man, who got trapped in the screen and then travelled through lots of movies (from old, black and white, to new in color) and eventually got out. It was very cool to see! After that, we went to a motor/car stuntshow, where they also explained how the vehicles were different from normal ones, and they showed how they put separate stunts together into a scene from a movie. Very spectacular of course!

Afterwards, we were ready for some action again, and went on the 'Rock 'n Roller Coaster' featuring music by Aerosmith. We were launched from 0 to 57 miles per hour (92 km) in less than 3 seconds. That feels very weird, but it gives you so much energy! The ride itself was almost completely in the dark, which made it even scarier. Dylan didn't like it, but felt like he had to accompany me and my siblings. Afterwards we were telling my mom to come with us, because it was cool. And Dylan went again, so it couldn't have been that bad. My mom really didn't like it though, she felt a little sick afterwards so we felt kind of guilty for making her go. She enjoyed it anyway.

We moved on to the Studio Tram Tour, which is a little tram/train that takes you past parts of sets, equipment, special effect areas and props which have been used in the movies, such as the cars. I took some cool pictures there, it was great to get a little look 'behind the scenes'! We then moved on to Toystory playland, a recently built addition to the studio's park. We went on the 'Soldiers Parachute Drop', so you were lifted up in a 6-person seat under a really big army parachute, and then you were dropped down again. This wasn't Dylan's cup of tea either, but he likes Toystory a lot so he really wanted to go. It wasn't quite as bad as he thought, so that was good! After that, the parade came by, a different one then we saw yesterday. However, we were quite late (if you want to see it and take pictures without heads all over it, you have to line up along the route at least 30 minutes in advance...) so we didn't see much. This one wasn't as cool as the one in the main park though, so it wasn't that bad.

Then we went to the Animagique show, which was about Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, who both took drawing classes. After school, Mickey went home and Donald stole his key to the forbidden cinema. He went inside to get some inspiration. He go moved from one movie to the next, these were all the animated ones. The characters were played by people in costumes so it wasn't a movie like the other one. There were a lot of cool lightshows with it, and it was a lot of fun! The only thing was, that we get fed up with everything being in French here... Maybe ten percent of the visitors actually speaks French, so there is no point in translating every single song... All well, at least the costumes and rides are cool.

My sister and I then went to the Tower of Terror, a old, cursed, hollywood hotel with elevators that shoot up and down randomly. It was so cool, you were lifted very high and then just dropped down to the ground. We were quite scared to go in at first  but we're both really glad we've done it, as it was super cool! Then we moved on to the normal Disney park, where me and my siblings went on the 'Space Mountain' rollercoaster. It was fast and scary but also quite beautiful, as you only saw stars and planets. Dylan might go with tomorrow if we do it again.

Then, we waited about 1,5 hours for 'Disney Dreams', we sat in front of the pink castle and watched an amazing show. They projected lots of different disney movie-parts on it, accompanied by music, water fountains shooting up, laser lightshows and fireworks. It's hard to describe, but I hope my pictures make it a little clearer! It was so pretty, definitely worth the wait. It was a lot colder today then yesterday, we didn't see the sun a lot... Tomorrow is my mom's birthday, so let's hope it's better then!

Disneyland: Day one

This morning we had to wake up at 3.30 am, because we were supposed to be in the car at 4. We went to bed quite late as well, and for some reason we both couldn't really sleep, which caused us to wake up incredibly tired. I have this weird thing, that every time I have to wake up in the middle of the night to go somewhere in the car, I get nauseous. This time was unfortunately no exception... Ok, so the 5 hour car ride was no fun. Dylan didn't sleep at all, so he's probably the most tired of all of us! When we got to the hotel it was 9.45 am, so we got the entrance tickets for the Disney parks and waited for the shuttle bus.

Arrival at the park is always so magical! Sounds exaggerated, but the whole atmosphere is so great. Because it's almost halloween, there were some themed plaza's, roundabouts and gazebo's decorated with pumpkins (with two mini-pumpkin-ears of course) and friendly looking ghosts. It was extremely foggy, so we couldn't see the pink castle very well in the beginning, but luckily it got a lot better in the afternoon. It's over 20 degrees Celcius here, which would be in the lower 60's Farenheit, a record for this time of the year here! So it was incredibly nice to walk around there.

First, we went into the castle and after that, we tried to pull Excalibur out of the stone (which is also a virtual geocache!) and took some pictures with the 'bad guys' from the movies who were walking around there. Dylan wanted to hug Atilla the Hun from 'Mulan', but he just punched him back with his sword. We thought that was very funny, of course, haha! Then we went on to the labyrinth of Alice in Wonderland and 'It's a Small World' which is my all-time favorite ride ever! :)

Then we walked on to Adventureland, where Dylan felt completely at home and let all of his pirate-dreams come true. We walked through Dave Jones' Locker, (looked for another geocache, but didn't find it..) explored the treehouse of Robinson Crusoe, and went on the Indiana Jones ride. We didn't know that it would go upside down (which Dylan doesn't like) so it was quite a surprise when it turned out that it did... It was quite scary but also very cool!

We went on to Frontierland (with lots of Minnesotan names on the engines and mine equipment), where we conquered the 'Thunder Mountain' which is now everybody's favorite rollercoaster! After that, we went on a big white steam boat that went around the island where the Thunder Mountain is. By that time, we were completely falling apart but it was only 3 pm... My sister was scared to go in the haunted house, so my dad stayed behind with her while the rest of us checked that out. It's more pretty than scary, actually! (I don't like scary things either... But this one wasn't bad. It was beautifully made.) We then decided that we needed a break, so we planned what we still wanted to do for today.

We then went to Discoveryland, because my sister really wanted to go on the 'Buzz Lightyear' ride, which is now also everybody's favorite. You sit in a little spaceship that you can  turn, and you have a lasergun with which you have to hit moving targets along the track. The spaceship counts your points, and my dad won with a stunning amount of 75000 points. I had 25000, Dylan 30000, I don't know my brother's and sister's score but my mom, who didn't completely understand it,  only got 2000 points, haha!

It was amost 5 pm, which is when the magic Disney parade would start! We found a nice spot along the route to sit, but also see every car clearly. It's always been my big dream to be a princess on that parade, so I'm thinking of applying for a job in Disneyland when Dylan goes to America next summer. I wish I could go with him of course, but if he's going to be working all day I'd better earn some money myself too! And Disneyland just sounds like so much fun to work at, even if it's just in a store or on a ride. Then, everyone was so broken and hungry that we went to the hotel, where we had an all-you-can-eat buffet. Now I'm going to sleep, so we are ready to walk another long day tomorrow!

Dylan's golden birthday!

I had been looking forward to this day for a long time, and I spent quite some time thinking and planning everything out! After my last exam yesterday I wrapped my gifts and wrote my cards, and then went over to Dylan's house. We stayed up until midnight so I could congratulate him, and he insisted I gave him a gift but I didn't. Even though he's nineteen now, he was still as excited as a little boy :)

We have a family tradition here, on someone's birthday we go into his room in the morning and 'sing him awake', so that's what I did. Except I waited until he woke up because I wanted Dylan to get enough sleep! So I sang happy birthday and two Dutch songs, and then I gave him my first gift. It's two tickets for a concert of Soweto Gospel Choir, the South-African choir who has recorded the Grammy-winning theme song for the game Civilization IV. (I'll post the video of the song Dylan loves so much at the end of the blog.) So when I found out they're giving a concert in The Hague in January, I ordered two tickets in the middle of the first row! He was really excited about it :)

Then he played some pokemon on his new 3DS XL, and I fell back asleep... I woke up around noon! It has been a stressful week so I think I needed it, haha! Then we went outside to go geocaching again, this time in another part of The Hague. We found all of them! So that was really exciting, the weather was really great again. After that, we just hung out at Dylan's house until it was almost dinner time. We ordered Domino's pizza, because when he found out that we had that over here, he was determined to eat it on his birthday. And we also ordered Cinnastix, they were really good. I wrote a comment with it, if they could write happy birthday on his box, and they did! After that, he was getting impatient, because he knew I had another gift and I told him I would give it at 7. So he started guessing... Why couldn't I just give it  before? Well... My parents were coming over to my house to surprise him, and they would bring a part of my gift along that had been at their house. When they came in, singing and all, Dylan was really surprised! My mother had baked an apple pie that she brought along.

From my brother and sister he got a Star Wars book, and a giftcard for a clothes store that my sister likes a lot. My dad gave him a book as well, it's called 'Merchant, Soldier, Sage: A new history of power' he thought that Dylan would be interested, it had gotten good reviews. From both my parents he got really nice Sennheiser headphones. From my grandmothers he got a card. I also got him a Star Wars book, the last one of the author he really likes that he hadn't got yet. I found the author on facebook, (Timothy Zahn), and messaged him, if he would maybe write a little birthday message for Dylan. He responded! My mom printed it on a Star Wars background, on some sort of plastic, so it functions as a bookmark now :) He was extremely happy with that, because he's such a big fan of that author!
Earlier this week, a package from Amazon arrived; his dad had sent him a Risk boardgame that he really wanted! We're going to play it once Dylan is done with his essay. The other package from America hasn't arrived yet, but that always takes a while so we hope to get it Monday.

It was a really fun day. We had so much fun and he's so happy with his gifts! Next Tuesday we are going to Disneyland Paris with my parents and siblings! We're both incredibly excited and of course I'll blog about it with lots of pictures!

This is the video of the song Dylan and I love, from Soweto Gospel Choir. I recommend it to everyone, just listen to it and I'm sure you'll see why we think it's so special.

A nice day out

Hi everyone! Sorry it's taken so long  before I could post an update, but school has been really busy. Last week was 'reading week', basically a week without classes but with a bunch of deadlines and exams. I'm done now though! Dylan still has one deadline to go, but that's for his elective (political expression in videogames) so those 3000 words shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Last week on Thursday it amazing weather, quite cold but a clear blue sky. Autumn has really kicked in here, so the leaves were beautiful! We decided to go to the park that Dylan's grandpa Jack had lived close to, to take some pictures and see if we could find the street. Of course, we also checked if there were any geocaches, which was indeed the case! So that was fun as well..

For my family: Geocaching is een soort spel, waarbij iemand een doosje of kokertje verstopt met een logboekje erin. Dan plaatst hij de coordinaten op internet, waarna iedereen die (gratis) lid is van die site het kan gaan zoeken. Als je het dan vindt, moet je je gebruikersnaam en de datum erin schrijven, en vervolgens op internet kun je bijhouden hoeveel je er gevonden heeft. Dylan's vader heeft er meer dan 6000! Dylan 347 en ik inmiddels 10 :) Het is eigenlijk dus gewoon schatzoeken, en mensen over de hele wereld doen mee, echt heel leuk!

The park, Clingendael, was so pretty! We took a lot of beautiful pictures there. The GPS on my phone was really bad so it was hard to find the geocache. Luckily, in the end I managed to get it! We were extremely happy. After that, we went looking for the street where Jack had lived, and found that as well. (Ary Schefferstraat). We had a really nice bikeride and it was great to just be outside and not have to worry about anything for a little bit.

Dies Natalis

Last Saturday, we celebrated the 'Dies Natalis' of our school, which is Latin for something like 'the day of birth'. So basically, we celebrated our schools birthday. And where could you do that better or more fancy than in the Peace Palace?

I had to be there early because the choir would be performing and we had to practise and warm our voices. At 2.30 pm the actual ceremony started. Everyone looked really nice, almost all the boys wore a suit and the girls put on their prettiest cocktail dresses. Of course there were a lot of boring and some less boring speeches, the main lecture was by Michael Hardt from Duke University. It was really interesting but also hard to follow for non-native speakers.

After the speeches and the inauguration of the Fortuna board (which is our student association), there was a part where some people got awards. Neither of us won one, which was of course very disappointing... ;) But it was a great day to experience anyway! We had a group picture taken after the ceremony and then we all went home again.

Ragus

We've been to the theater again yesterday, to a traditional Irish music and dance show called Ragus. It was truly incredible! I've always wanted to see a riverdance performance ever since I was little and saw it on television. For some reason, those shows don't come here very often and thus I had not seen one. When I saw it on the programme and found out that tickets were only 10 Euros, I decided to ask Dylan if we could please go there. He thought it was very excited as well, so that's how we ended up there.

It was a matinee with a lot of old women sitting in front of us, but that was quite adorable. It was a mix of music, singing and dancing, which we thought was very well balanced and they were all extremely talented! I was very impressed by their background and lightshow, it just all fit together beautifully. Dylan decided during the break that he really likes that theater, as it's only a 10 minute bikeride from our house. So we'll probably end up going to performances more often, which is a lot of fun of course!
Here is a little video which gives you a nice impression:

Other remarks: I'm moving tomorrow! It just didn't work out well with my roommates, and I ended up feeling pretty unhappy and uncomfortable. I'm very excited and also quite relieved that I get my own room now, with a balcony! I'll only be going one floor up so it shouldn't be too much work. Dylan is still very happy with his room, even with all the partying that goes on right outside of his door about twice a week.

After this week, we'll only have two more to go, so we're almost done with Block 1! After which we get to relax and have fun in Disneyland Paris for Dylan's 19th and my mom's 45th birthdays. My sister has been counting down since this spring, which gives you a nice impression of how much everyone is looking forward to it. We'll keep you updated on our adventures!