My House

Rather than tell you my activities from the past few days, I'm going to tell you about my house and host family.

As I mentioned earlier, houses here go up instead of out, so...you walk in the door and Paul's office is to the right, then you go up a flight of stairs and the living room, dining room and kitchen are through the doors on the right, up another flight of stairs is the full bathroom and WC (water chamber) i.e. tiny room with a toilet in it, up another flight is Paul's and Thea's bedroom and another mysterious door, up another 2 flgihts are Allison's and Paul's and Thea's daughter Marika's room and up the last 2 flights are my and Maren's rooms. It's a bit of a workout to get to my room and going to the bathroom in the middle of the night is treacherous, because it's really dark, the stairs are narrow and the bathroom's a ways away. It's very cold in my room a lot of the time, I use my fancy blanket. Thank goodness I brought slippers.

Paul and Thea are the nicest people ever maybe. They're both retired, Paul used to be sailor in the Carribbean and Americas and Thea was a nurse for 5 years and then she opened a toy store. They're having old friends over for dinner, a woman Thea nursed with whose husband was also a sailor. I was thinking how nobody's a sailor at home and that seems like an odd profession to me, but then I remembered I live in the midwest thousands of miles from any ocean. Besides being nice, they're also adorable which could have something to do with the fact they're Dutch, probably. Their daughter Marika just moved back in right before we arrived, apparently she's almost 30 but you'd never guess that. I also have a host dog, Cleo, a fox terrier. She's a tiny white dog with brown spots and a long snout and she's adorable. They got her when she was 3 from a breeder who was going to use her for breeding but then she was 3 cm too tall, the crazy world of dog shows and breeding. She's the most well trained dog, whenever Thea says "Cleo en the maat" she goes to her bed. Thea always says "she has to listen." My dog would NEVER do that. Fun fact about fox terriers that Thea told us: back in the day when fox hunting was a big thing, the hounds would chase the foxes into their holes, then the hunters would bring out the fox terriers to dig them out using their long snouts. Cleo may be the happiest dog ever, her tail is constantly wagging and it moves her whole tiny body.

Another thing near and dear to my heart as we all know is FOOD. Paul and Thea are amazing cooks, they haven't made the same thing twice since we've been here and everything they've made has been delicious (except endive, but that wasn't their fault it was just a gross vegetable). I don't know what I'm going to do when I go back to eating at Creighton. Dear parents, when you retire I expect delicious food every time I visit, the bar has been set and you must rise to it.

Well, now I'm hungry and since I'm still in pajamas I should probably get ready for the day.

-Lauren :)