and now, the detailed description...
Thursday
First off: ISB's ISTA team was comprised of me, Vicki (my 11th grade neighbor), Trena (Vicki's best friend), Polly, Lauren (11th grader I know from previous school plays), Nicolas, Gina (12th grader I didn't know), Daniel, Sasha, and Klaas (12th grade president of the student council whose little brother I know from MS.) Traveling was a bit of a bitch. I had a searing headache all day till we got to our houser's place and there I got some Tylenol. We had some free time in the train station before it took off for Holland, so I went with Daniel and Sasha to this grocery store to buy cheap water and shtuff. I really wish I had had a camera with me, because they started breaking it down and dancing in the aisles. Good stuff. Anywho, so there were a couple of serious druggies on the train that looked really, really scary but they were made to move because they were sitting in our seats. I met Nicolas' girlie friend Vicki from St. John's (another English language school here in Belgium), but with her came the horror that was Alisse. (No idea how to fucking spell her name.) She is the daughter of two missionaries, wears all those W.W.J.D. bracelets and religious buttons on her oh-so-trendy blazer (well I probably shouldn't talk because I have one myself), and I managed to offend her right off the bat when I told her how I got shit for being Atheist when I lived in Alabama. Kids used to call me 'Catholic' because that was the worst insult they could think of. (The next day I discovered that Alisse is Evangelic/Evangelical/whatever you call it.) Pretty funny.
We eventually made it to the school (American School of the Hague, or ASH for short) and it was FUCKING HUGE. The cafeteria alone was like a small replication of a food court in a mall. It sold American candy and nutri bars and everything; the American influence was obviously stronger there than here at ISB. I don't think I saw ASH teachers that were of any other nationality. So we went to the theater to listen to the jazz band for a while, and I noticed many a shaggy haired hottie, onstage and off. Unfortunately one particularly short one I had my eye on already had a girlfriend. Not once did I speak to him the entire weekend anyhow. We got some principal speeches, blablabla, then went off into our ensemble groups. I was in the Directing group (although we never did anything that had to do with the title) with Vicki, and our leader was this British lady named Becky. And here comes in another hilarious anecdote. One kid in my ensemble, Charlie, was particularly tightassed and a freak for control. He pissed me off royally, so when the day was over and we were retrieving our luggage, I loudly bitched about him with Vicki. Guess what, Charlie was right in fucking front of us. We all cracked up, but I was genuinely embarassed. Kristen had a good chuckle herself about 'what a good lesson it was to learn.'
I was housing with Polly, Gina, and Lauren, and so we met our hosts, who were a very sweet Norwegian family who had a quiet 14 year old daughter. When we arrived at their house, Julia (the mother) gave us cake, fruit, and Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Jesus Christ on a bike. This sort of hospitality didn't change the entire weekend. We were given two rooms to sleep in: one had two double beds, and the other had one. We decided we didn't want to be separated, so we all slept in the same room, Polly on a bed of her own, Gina, Lauren and I creating some sort of funky circle in our bed. And oh my god. I felt soooo bad because we stayed up till 2 AM, talking loudly and laughing our asses off, while our room was right next to Victoria's (the girl.) Oh oh oh, gotta describe her room. She has posters of Justin, Aaron Carter, and the Backstreet Boys everywhere. Not shitting. It was funny as hell.
Anyway. I can't believe all the stuff I talked about with these three upperclassmen I hardly knew that night. I've never been more open with anyone in my life before, not Cari, not Chelsea, and not Nicole. We talked about periods, crapping, farting, sex, picking noses, everything the general public considers taboo to discuss about life. I told them the Joe story because Lauren asked, and she in turn told me about this goth girl in their Choir class who has the hots for him. I learned a lot more about Polly. She is a godly music fan-she's been to 948 concerts in all her 19 years. She explained how she was considering becoming a music journalist at one point.
Friday
All of ISTA went to Amsterdam for the day. I ate lunch with all the ISBers except Daniel and Sasha, which was weird. Being the only 10th grade girl was really awkward, actually. At times, I felt I belonged just fine amongst the older girls, but then I'd escape back inside myself because I saw how I really couldn't fit in with them, and I couldn't even find solace in Daniel and Sasha. I actually really hated Friday's schedule, because my ensemble went off taking pictures of us doing random crap in the streets and alleyways that was completely irrelevant to the point of our ensemble. It might've been fun if I hadn't been cold, soaked through without an umbrella, and constipated. Yes, you heard me. If it's too disgusting for you to handle, you can stop reading now.
Oh yeah, and on top of that, I got lost with a bunch of people for an hour and a half, and when Becky finally found us, all I wanted to do was go somewhere warm and dry, but all she wanted to do was TAKE FUCKING MORE USELESS PICTURES. During our time being lost, an Australian guy and an American girl from a school in Frankfurt started a religious debate with Alisse. Her outfit for the day involved a red hoodie with that velcro patch thing on front, on which she stuck the words 'I ♥ JESUS.' She also wore fake pink Converse that had a patch on them reading 'don't judge me.' Ha. Ha. Ha. The thing that pissed me off was how resilient she was to all the good points they were making. And finally, she expressed how she "naturally" hated homo/bisexuals, and that sealed the deal for me on how much I fucking hated her. She continued to hang around the ISB kids the whole trip, because she seemed to think we'd become the best of friends.
After the ensemble work, we got free time, and I went shopping with Trena, Vicki, Polly, Gina and Lauren. One, I was in a bad mood because I felt so shit, two I don't like Vicki, so that furthered my feeling of alienation, and three, I didn't buy anything except for an umbrella to replace the one I broke because I felt guilty spending my parents' money on stuff I didn't need. I saw some really cute bags though. Lauren was actually escaping a late lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe with Alisse, hahaha. So at a set time, we went back to meet Kristen and the rest of ISTA, because we were going to see a dinner + improv show at Boom Chicago.
And LET ME TELL YOU. That was some funny shit. We laughed and screamed ourselves hoarse. I had such a fantastic time, it made up for the crappiness that was the rest of the day. When we got back to the houser's place, I went right out and asked for a laxative. Julia gave me some Norwegian pill that she described as a 'stabilizer'; it worked both for constipation and diarrhea. Well, I pooped. And I continued pooping the next day, and, although less, I'm still pooping sporadically today. It kinda freaked me out how I was crapping after every meal, but at least it got it out of my system. Again, we went to bed that night at 2 AM, but without talking at all. We got back late from Amsterdam and were just too damn tired.
Saturday
Not much to say about the daytime, but the nighttime was when everything happened. The ISTA-set curfew for the night was 11 PM, because everyone was going out to party. We asked our houser if we could be in a little bit later, but she was hesitant and said "11:15 at the absolute latest." Originally, Victoria was going to go with us to the Hague central to see a movie with her friends (the theater was like a 7 minute walk from where we were clubbing and barhopping), but when we left for the bus stop, she claimed she had a headache and wasn't going after all. We had to wait at the stop for Vicki and Trena, and then had a 30 minute bus ride. We were with a big group from ASH and Frankfurt, so we had people to guide our way to where we were meeting, at Jay's. The bar was freaking tiny, I really didn't like it. I had a few sips of a Heineken but didn't like the taste, and then I sucked down a grapefruit Breezer really fast because we were moving on to a foam party at a dance club up the street. If you don't know, a foam party is a dance party where they shoot foam from the ceiling. Well, at one point between the Jay's-foam party transition, Lauren and Gina got pissed off at Klaas and walked off without telling anyone where they were going. Polly and Klaas weren't thrilled, as they were taking responsibility for everything as the oldest. Klaas went off a couple times looking for them, but to no avail. He was all right doing that, being a native Dutchman and vaguely knowing the area.
Meanwhile, we went down to the club to dance and MAN that was oodles of fun. The foam kinda made me claustrophobic at one point though, because the dancefloor was tiny and packed with people to begin with. I took a step outside. Then suddenly while dancing, I experienced familiar pains near my liver. What. The. Fuck. I'd hardly had anything to drink! I don't know what did it, maybe it was my period, or because I chugged the Breezer and then partook in physical exertion right afterwards. But I had to sit out a good 15 minutes until the pain went away and that pissed me off. When I got back on the floor, Gina and Lauren showed up, very tipsy. We danced for a few more songs and then had to leave for the bus station. By the time we got there, it was around 11:10, so we weren't doing well for time. Polly did the smart thing and called Julia, though.
Upon arrival at the station, we discovered the next 43 bus was leaving at midnight. We freaked out and frantically searched for another bus that would take us home in half the time, and some ASH people told us to take the 90 and to get off after them. Well, we took the 90. Took a 30 minute bus ride. Got off after them. The driver then fucking tells Polly we're 45 minutes away from where we wanted to go when she asks.
We were supposed to have taken the 43 after all.
Fuck. I nearly burst out crying.
We got off, actually preparing to walk the 5 stops back to where we needed to be to pick up the 43 again. But on our trek, we passed by a window through which we saw a dinner party. Polly rang the doorbell, asking for directions. They all spoke English, luckily. A guy came out with a beer and gave Lauren a sip, who was faking a Londoner accent and asking for a puff off their joints. Eventually, a South African lady came out and offered us a ride. She was so kind to us, we got back to the house in about 5 minutes that way. And so, we made it home finally at 12:45 AM, an hour and 45 minutes past curfew.
We talked to Julia for a while and then called Kristen and told her the whole story. At the time, we thought everybody else from ISB was still downtown, but in fact they were just getting home as we spoke to Kristen. She was very understanding about everything, and although she has to tell Dr. Kotanen that we broke curfew, it doesn't look like we're going to be in any real trouble.
Sunday
Last day! Stories were circulating about the previous night, and there were worse than our own. Alisse and her housers didn't get home till 2:30 because they lost a member of their party for two hours, and Vicki (from St. John's) didn't get home till 3-3:30. Yeah, I don't think a single person made curfew. We gave our collective performance, it was pretty cool in the end. I'd had a fun time, but I was ready to leave Holland and go home. Polly was very sick and threw up bunches of times on the bus to the train station. On the train home, we all discussed with Kristen how ISTA will be hosted at ISB next year. Let's just hope I'll be around to see it. Alisse also stayed in the cabin with us the whole time, uggh, and got my email address. I don't know why I didn't give her a fake one.
I was welcomed by my parents at the train station, and on the drive home, I explained everything. Surprisingly...they weren't upset at all about what had happened. I left out the bits about me drinking and being driven home by a stranger, but they were all like, "as long as you were in a big group, oh well. We're proud that you stayed away from alcohol." Awesome possum! Now Kotanen can't hurt me because they know the whole story. I was sooo relieved. Even nicer, when I arrived home, my ticket for Interpol was sitting on the dinner table! I know this must sound lame to those of you who go to shows all the time, but you have no idea how excited I am just to see this one band living, breathing, in the flesh, and playing the music that I love for one night. Too, too thrilling. And I just found out that Secret Machines are opening for them, who I haven't heard from before but want to.
Going back to school was weird. I couldn't believe the weekend had actually gone by so fast. I told Tom my story in the morning, and as we watched Joe walk by, he asked if we were 'talking again or what.' It's odd how naive he is. Joe and I have nothing to say to each other, and there is no friendship to repair. Psh.
Well, I'm out now. Too exhausted to write more.
First off: ISB's ISTA team was comprised of me, Vicki (my 11th grade neighbor), Trena (Vicki's best friend), Polly, Lauren (11th grader I know from previous school plays), Nicolas, Gina (12th grader I didn't know), Daniel, Sasha, and Klaas (12th grade president of the student council whose little brother I know from MS.) Traveling was a bit of a bitch. I had a searing headache all day till we got to our houser's place and there I got some Tylenol. We had some free time in the train station before it took off for Holland, so I went with Daniel and Sasha to this grocery store to buy cheap water and shtuff. I really wish I had had a camera with me, because they started breaking it down and dancing in the aisles. Good stuff. Anywho, so there were a couple of serious druggies on the train that looked really, really scary but they were made to move because they were sitting in our seats. I met Nicolas' girlie friend Vicki from St. John's (another English language school here in Belgium), but with her came the horror that was Alisse. (No idea how to fucking spell her name.) She is the daughter of two missionaries, wears all those W.W.J.D. bracelets and religious buttons on her oh-so-trendy blazer (well I probably shouldn't talk because I have one myself), and I managed to offend her right off the bat when I told her how I got shit for being Atheist when I lived in Alabama. Kids used to call me 'Catholic' because that was the worst insult they could think of. (The next day I discovered that Alisse is Evangelic/Evangelical/whatever you call it.) Pretty funny.
We eventually made it to the school (American School of the Hague, or ASH for short) and it was FUCKING HUGE. The cafeteria alone was like a small replication of a food court in a mall. It sold American candy and nutri bars and everything; the American influence was obviously stronger there than here at ISB. I don't think I saw ASH teachers that were of any other nationality. So we went to the theater to listen to the jazz band for a while, and I noticed many a shaggy haired hottie, onstage and off. Unfortunately one particularly short one I had my eye on already had a girlfriend. Not once did I speak to him the entire weekend anyhow. We got some principal speeches, blablabla, then went off into our ensemble groups. I was in the Directing group (although we never did anything that had to do with the title) with Vicki, and our leader was this British lady named Becky. And here comes in another hilarious anecdote. One kid in my ensemble, Charlie, was particularly tightassed and a freak for control. He pissed me off royally, so when the day was over and we were retrieving our luggage, I loudly bitched about him with Vicki. Guess what, Charlie was right in fucking front of us. We all cracked up, but I was genuinely embarassed. Kristen had a good chuckle herself about 'what a good lesson it was to learn.'
I was housing with Polly, Gina, and Lauren, and so we met our hosts, who were a very sweet Norwegian family who had a quiet 14 year old daughter. When we arrived at their house, Julia (the mother) gave us cake, fruit, and Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Jesus Christ on a bike. This sort of hospitality didn't change the entire weekend. We were given two rooms to sleep in: one had two double beds, and the other had one. We decided we didn't want to be separated, so we all slept in the same room, Polly on a bed of her own, Gina, Lauren and I creating some sort of funky circle in our bed. And oh my god. I felt soooo bad because we stayed up till 2 AM, talking loudly and laughing our asses off, while our room was right next to Victoria's (the girl.) Oh oh oh, gotta describe her room. She has posters of Justin, Aaron Carter, and the Backstreet Boys everywhere. Not shitting. It was funny as hell.
Anyway. I can't believe all the stuff I talked about with these three upperclassmen I hardly knew that night. I've never been more open with anyone in my life before, not Cari, not Chelsea, and not Nicole. We talked about periods, crapping, farting, sex, picking noses, everything the general public considers taboo to discuss about life. I told them the Joe story because Lauren asked, and she in turn told me about this goth girl in their Choir class who has the hots for him. I learned a lot more about Polly. She is a godly music fan-she's been to 948 concerts in all her 19 years. She explained how she was considering becoming a music journalist at one point.
Friday
All of ISTA went to Amsterdam for the day. I ate lunch with all the ISBers except Daniel and Sasha, which was weird. Being the only 10th grade girl was really awkward, actually. At times, I felt I belonged just fine amongst the older girls, but then I'd escape back inside myself because I saw how I really couldn't fit in with them, and I couldn't even find solace in Daniel and Sasha. I actually really hated Friday's schedule, because my ensemble went off taking pictures of us doing random crap in the streets and alleyways that was completely irrelevant to the point of our ensemble. It might've been fun if I hadn't been cold, soaked through without an umbrella, and constipated. Yes, you heard me. If it's too disgusting for you to handle, you can stop reading now.
Oh yeah, and on top of that, I got lost with a bunch of people for an hour and a half, and when Becky finally found us, all I wanted to do was go somewhere warm and dry, but all she wanted to do was TAKE FUCKING MORE USELESS PICTURES. During our time being lost, an Australian guy and an American girl from a school in Frankfurt started a religious debate with Alisse. Her outfit for the day involved a red hoodie with that velcro patch thing on front, on which she stuck the words 'I ♥ JESUS.' She also wore fake pink Converse that had a patch on them reading 'don't judge me.' Ha. Ha. Ha. The thing that pissed me off was how resilient she was to all the good points they were making. And finally, she expressed how she "naturally" hated homo/bisexuals, and that sealed the deal for me on how much I fucking hated her. She continued to hang around the ISB kids the whole trip, because she seemed to think we'd become the best of friends.
After the ensemble work, we got free time, and I went shopping with Trena, Vicki, Polly, Gina and Lauren. One, I was in a bad mood because I felt so shit, two I don't like Vicki, so that furthered my feeling of alienation, and three, I didn't buy anything except for an umbrella to replace the one I broke because I felt guilty spending my parents' money on stuff I didn't need. I saw some really cute bags though. Lauren was actually escaping a late lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe with Alisse, hahaha. So at a set time, we went back to meet Kristen and the rest of ISTA, because we were going to see a dinner + improv show at Boom Chicago.
And LET ME TELL YOU. That was some funny shit. We laughed and screamed ourselves hoarse. I had such a fantastic time, it made up for the crappiness that was the rest of the day. When we got back to the houser's place, I went right out and asked for a laxative. Julia gave me some Norwegian pill that she described as a 'stabilizer'; it worked both for constipation and diarrhea. Well, I pooped. And I continued pooping the next day, and, although less, I'm still pooping sporadically today. It kinda freaked me out how I was crapping after every meal, but at least it got it out of my system. Again, we went to bed that night at 2 AM, but without talking at all. We got back late from Amsterdam and were just too damn tired.
Saturday
Not much to say about the daytime, but the nighttime was when everything happened. The ISTA-set curfew for the night was 11 PM, because everyone was going out to party. We asked our houser if we could be in a little bit later, but she was hesitant and said "11:15 at the absolute latest." Originally, Victoria was going to go with us to the Hague central to see a movie with her friends (the theater was like a 7 minute walk from where we were clubbing and barhopping), but when we left for the bus stop, she claimed she had a headache and wasn't going after all. We had to wait at the stop for Vicki and Trena, and then had a 30 minute bus ride. We were with a big group from ASH and Frankfurt, so we had people to guide our way to where we were meeting, at Jay's. The bar was freaking tiny, I really didn't like it. I had a few sips of a Heineken but didn't like the taste, and then I sucked down a grapefruit Breezer really fast because we were moving on to a foam party at a dance club up the street. If you don't know, a foam party is a dance party where they shoot foam from the ceiling. Well, at one point between the Jay's-foam party transition, Lauren and Gina got pissed off at Klaas and walked off without telling anyone where they were going. Polly and Klaas weren't thrilled, as they were taking responsibility for everything as the oldest. Klaas went off a couple times looking for them, but to no avail. He was all right doing that, being a native Dutchman and vaguely knowing the area.
Meanwhile, we went down to the club to dance and MAN that was oodles of fun. The foam kinda made me claustrophobic at one point though, because the dancefloor was tiny and packed with people to begin with. I took a step outside. Then suddenly while dancing, I experienced familiar pains near my liver. What. The. Fuck. I'd hardly had anything to drink! I don't know what did it, maybe it was my period, or because I chugged the Breezer and then partook in physical exertion right afterwards. But I had to sit out a good 15 minutes until the pain went away and that pissed me off. When I got back on the floor, Gina and Lauren showed up, very tipsy. We danced for a few more songs and then had to leave for the bus station. By the time we got there, it was around 11:10, so we weren't doing well for time. Polly did the smart thing and called Julia, though.
Upon arrival at the station, we discovered the next 43 bus was leaving at midnight. We freaked out and frantically searched for another bus that would take us home in half the time, and some ASH people told us to take the 90 and to get off after them. Well, we took the 90. Took a 30 minute bus ride. Got off after them. The driver then fucking tells Polly we're 45 minutes away from where we wanted to go when she asks.
We were supposed to have taken the 43 after all.
Fuck. I nearly burst out crying.
We got off, actually preparing to walk the 5 stops back to where we needed to be to pick up the 43 again. But on our trek, we passed by a window through which we saw a dinner party. Polly rang the doorbell, asking for directions. They all spoke English, luckily. A guy came out with a beer and gave Lauren a sip, who was faking a Londoner accent and asking for a puff off their joints. Eventually, a South African lady came out and offered us a ride. She was so kind to us, we got back to the house in about 5 minutes that way. And so, we made it home finally at 12:45 AM, an hour and 45 minutes past curfew.
We talked to Julia for a while and then called Kristen and told her the whole story. At the time, we thought everybody else from ISB was still downtown, but in fact they were just getting home as we spoke to Kristen. She was very understanding about everything, and although she has to tell Dr. Kotanen that we broke curfew, it doesn't look like we're going to be in any real trouble.
Sunday
Last day! Stories were circulating about the previous night, and there were worse than our own. Alisse and her housers didn't get home till 2:30 because they lost a member of their party for two hours, and Vicki (from St. John's) didn't get home till 3-3:30. Yeah, I don't think a single person made curfew. We gave our collective performance, it was pretty cool in the end. I'd had a fun time, but I was ready to leave Holland and go home. Polly was very sick and threw up bunches of times on the bus to the train station. On the train home, we all discussed with Kristen how ISTA will be hosted at ISB next year. Let's just hope I'll be around to see it. Alisse also stayed in the cabin with us the whole time, uggh, and got my email address. I don't know why I didn't give her a fake one.
I was welcomed by my parents at the train station, and on the drive home, I explained everything. Surprisingly...they weren't upset at all about what had happened. I left out the bits about me drinking and being driven home by a stranger, but they were all like, "as long as you were in a big group, oh well. We're proud that you stayed away from alcohol." Awesome possum! Now Kotanen can't hurt me because they know the whole story. I was sooo relieved. Even nicer, when I arrived home, my ticket for Interpol was sitting on the dinner table! I know this must sound lame to those of you who go to shows all the time, but you have no idea how excited I am just to see this one band living, breathing, in the flesh, and playing the music that I love for one night. Too, too thrilling. And I just found out that Secret Machines are opening for them, who I haven't heard from before but want to.
Going back to school was weird. I couldn't believe the weekend had actually gone by so fast. I told Tom my story in the morning, and as we watched Joe walk by, he asked if we were 'talking again or what.' It's odd how naive he is. Joe and I have nothing to say to each other, and there is no friendship to repair. Psh.
Well, I'm out now. Too exhausted to write more.