Monday, February 7 - Walking in the Wind

Kamiyiha West leads her group on a scavenger hunt through the sites of the Hague.  The key was finding the building in the photo, walking toward it, and then searching for the next photo.  Thanks to Kamiyiha's leadership, her team finished first, with time for a nice tour of the Stadhuis (city hall)

UPDATE: NEW JOURNAL ENTRY ADDED FROM NAVIN CHRISTENDAT FEB 8

Cafeteria, StayOkay

21:00

This will once more be a short entry due to exhaustion.  Today was a long and productive day, starting relatively late, when the full contingent of Mondriaan students picked us up at 10:00 AM at the hostel, but filled with physical and mental exercise that left all of us tired.

Now, as seventies music plays in the cafeteria where the Hospitality and Tourism students are gathered doing last minute work on their presentation about the American educational system in general and the NAF program in particular, I will try to summarize some of the day via the entries that our tired students managed to write before dinner:

Devon McKnight's i-pod entry for "Day 3" reads:

Today was amazingly fun as I met with the people from the Netherlands.  I made many friends and they even showed us places we have yet to go see.  I loved how I was able to ask and share questions and mesh with them perfectly.  I can't wait to see them again tomorrow and get to know them even more.

Kamiyiha West's entry also mentions the buddies, but focuses more on the sites we saw on the walking tour they organized for us this afternoon:

The monument to Queen Wilhelmina

Today was a very long and cold day.  We walked around the city for five hours.  (Editor's note: This sounds like hyperbole, but actually isn't.  We left at 10:30, and the early group returned at 4:30, with an hour for lunch.)  We first started off with a scavenger hunt which my team won.  (Editor's note: Kamiyiha is too modest to say that the team moved so quickly largely due to her own leadership, as she navigated the streets, with photos of the next clue in hand.)  After that we went to McDonalds where we had free WiFi.  Their french fries were really good.  Also, McDonalds was very clean.  After that we took a 5 hour walking tour of the city where we saw the Queen's house and the Queen Mother's statue.  We also visited the Queen's gardens and found out that when the flag is up it symbolizes that she is there and when it's down she isn't.  Afterward we walked to another museum (Editor's note: the Mesdag Panorama)...Then the groups split and half went on another tour and the rest came back to sleep.  (Editor's note: In fact, they didn't get more than half an hour's sleep before journals and dinner time.)   Forgot to say we met our buddies too, and I had a wonderful time with them.

The Mesdag Panorama

Alison's version of taking the long way home with the more adventurous (less sleepy) group is bouncy as usual:

Me and Stephy were the only two girls who went with some guys and Mr. Whiston and Mr. Heegle and [buddies] Egmelis, Sietse, Stuart, Vincent and other buddies walking around.  It was fun.  We were making jokes, talking, getting to know each other.  Egmelis (Egg-mill-is) asked what season we were on in South Park and it started a whole convo that was so funny.  Stuart was so funny with all his sound effects about the shows.  It started us re-living moments.  

In front of the International Court of Justice

Then we went to the International Court of Justice and were taking pictures and some of the guys went too far and Mr. Whiston called them back.  Stuart was like "Get away from the gate.  You will get shot," in a loudspeaker voice.  It was so funny.  

Stephanie with her new favorite drink

We also stopped for hot drinks.  [Editor's Note: I'm not surprised.  I actually volunteered to go directly back to the hostel with the sleepy group because after four hours of walking slowly in the wind I was chilled to the bone and shivering uncontrollably in the summer scene of the Mesdag panorama.]  I drank a hot chocolate that was amazing.  Stephy had coffee and now she's addicted to coffee.  My buddy Egmelis always dances.  She reminds me of Ryan.  The buddies are so much fun.  I notice me and Stephy are always with Mr. Whiston or Mr. Heegle and they always entertain us.

Now at 9:30 a few kids are still hard at work, and those who were planning on going out for a second dinner have been persuaded of the virtues of staying inside in the warm and ordering nachos in their pajamas here at the hostel.  I am considering joining them for a hot chocolate after posting this, if I can keep my eyes open.

UPDATE FEB 8TH: NAVIN CHRISTENDAT WRITES:

Navin Christendat writes:

Feb 7th 8 o'clock on the dot, alarm goes off.  It's time to get up.  Struggling to get out of bed but I've made it.  Rushed in the bathroom to get done before it turns like a sidewalk rush in Manhattan.  18 minutes passed.  I'm done, ready to begin the day of meeting the buddies and touring around Den Haag.  Walking down the staircase hearing strange voices, and thinking about what my buddy looks like, I make the left turn and boom, a numerous amount of strange faces.  Looking for a person's face and trying to feed on the description and information my buddy gave..OHH THERE pops up in my mind.  There goes my buddy.  So I walk over here and introduce myself.  In the middle of a conversation there goes the teacher "time to go" so we started to head out to see what was planned for today.  "Scavenger hunt!" Ben shouted out, so we head out with our assigned group.  We walked and walked and saw amazing sculptures statues of important history.  We also visited the queen's palace and the stable where they keep the horses [Ed. Note: for Prinsjesdag].  This was very interesting because I got to learn some facts such as they celebrate the queen's mother's birthday and how when the queen enters there is a big celebration.