Easy Breezy Bellingham

Monday, April 15.The very first day at Whatcom Community College. Together with Michelle we dropped Hattie off at Bellingham High School and went towards WCC. We were there around eightyish. Michelle showed me a bit around the College and then showed me the Library. Where Sarah, a co-worker, had dropped of a student of my class, Femke. We sat there for quite a while talking about our weekends and showed each other pictures of our place. Willeke joined soon afterwards. We talked a bit more and then Ullie came looking for us. He remembered us where we needed to go for our orientation. 5 minutes later we were on our way to Cascade Hall. The rest of the group was already there, except for a few. They all took the bus. Which is practically impossible for me. I have to walk 15 to 20 minutes to the bus stop, then get on a bus downtown, to catch a bus that goes to station near WCC.
But, to continue my story: we saw the rest of the class there and Ullie and Rachel talked about the program, asked about our Master Projects and discussed it a bit. Then we continued with our College Campus Tour. Ullie told us everything about the buildings. They’re named after either a person or a mountain (e.g. Heiner Center > person, Baker Hall > mountain; Mount Baker). It was really interesting. He told us also about the history and the students that go to WCC. After our Campus tour we got a library tour at Heiner Center. Their library is neatly organized. Everyone can come there. It doesn’t matter if you’re from another college or have a card from another library. We had a short break afterwards and the plan was that we get our Student I.D. cards. But, unfortunately, that didn’t work. The system was a bit messed up. So we had to wait.

After another little break we had our first lesson! Geography of Whatcom County. The presentation was given by Jim Hollingsworth. A nice elderly man that’s always in shorts. Except for Valentine, because then he wears pink pants. Oh, and on Halloween he wears a dress. Funny guy!
He gave us a map of Mount Baker and a prospectus with lots of information about the mountain, the weather etc. He talked about pretty much everything. The first settlers in America, the salmon in Whatcom County, about David Thompson, about the Indians, about WII, about Lynden (a very ‘Dutch’ place), about Seattle, Mt. Vernon even about the bicycle club! But somehow, he managed to link all of it to the Geography. It was really interesting. At 4:00 we had a Welcome Reception at the LDC Board Room which is in the Main Building. We were welcomed by the head of the program. Some host-parents were there as well. We introduced ourselves, talked about  the Master Projects (again) and had O.J. and cookies! It was a nice meeting. It ended earlier than excepted so I waited 15 minutes until Michelle was done with work. Together picked up Hattie, drove home and then Michelle dropped (after a quick dinner) Hattie of at soccer practice. She’s quite the busy girl.

I went to bed earlier because I was dead-tired. I slept that evening as a log.

Tuesday, April 16.

A lovely day woke Bellingham up. The sun was shining, it was warm, and everybody was happy en nice to each other. We had the Bellingham Walking Tour. We met at the cafeteria at Syre Student Center at WCC around 9:30. We hopped into the van and some students in Rachel’s Chevrolet (she got upgraded). We drove towards the Whatcom Creek and had an amazing walk over there. Ullie explained that the salmon were helped to grow and expanded here (there are not so many left of them). We saw unknown plants and enjoyed the sound of a waterfall. It was superb. The water was incredibly clean. We continued our walk into town. We saw the City Hall and some nice graffiti. Turned out to be, that the graffiti was one of the pictures of Mirjan’s photo challenge. She was overjoyed! Then Rachel bought us some real American doughnuts from Rocket Doughnuts. I had a really sweet one, covered in icing and clotted strawberry jam on the inside. I had a bite of Tina’s as well. I had the feeling
that my teeth died a bit. I tasted like gumballs. Horribly sweet. We continued our little tour and got back to the van over the other side of the creek. Tina found her photo challenge at the other side of the creek. It was a cute totem pole. We hopped in the van and drove to the harbor. That’s were Femke found her photo. It was really funny to see how happy everyone got from finding the places that were in their pictures. We enjoyed the view of the harbor and the great weather. We were ready to sit down and relax. But… Ullie shook us up and we had to hop in the van, again. This time driving toward the Bellingham Cruise Terminal. It was amazing. We had a clear view of the mountains. I took some magnificent pictures.
Note: I still don’t know why it was called a Bellingham Walking Tour. We sat more in the van than that we were outside of it.

We drove quickly to Lynden (the ‘Dutch’ city of Washington) and we had lunch over there at Dutch Mothers. The restaurant looked… horrible.. old-fashioned. But the people were nice. They served pancakes. Only Saskia chose a pancake. It was BIG. And it didn’t tasted like a pancake at all, but she still ate it. All the servings were huge and practically nobody finished their plate. We walked around the restaurant/store a bit more and noticed that we could buy ‘De Ruijter’. It was nice to see something that reminded you of home. They overdid it a bit with the wooden shoes (klompen) though. Outside we saw a Dutch Bakery, a Dutch Shop (also selling ‘De Ruijter’), Windmills, Tuplips and even a post office that said ‘Postkantoor’. At the Dutch Shop they had the flags of our Counties. It was really neat! The thing that wasn’t so cool over there were the Sinterklaas Christmas Decoration. I mean, really?
Of course, Ullie made us hop in the van pretty soon after lunch. We sang a lot in the van and eventually Ullie turned off the music: ‘No singing along in my van!’. But he enjoyed it anyway. We drove to the Fragrance Garden and a sort of lake/swamp/forest next to it. It was beautiful. It’s been a long time seen I saw something so gorgeous. We went up the tower and saw Mount Baker completely. The clouds were gone and everyone behaved like mad tourists. I could smell the Fragrance Garden even up there. They had thyme, lavender and many more plants. Then we walked into the lake/swamp/forest. It’s hard to explain. It was a sort of swamp where trees and plants grow. Wooden planks were our bridge (it was only 40 centimetres of water though) and it ended in a lake with hundreds, maybe thousands of water lilies. It reminded me a bit of the Hoorsnemeer and Frieseveen in Groningen. It was a sort of combination of this. I loved the cattails as well. The sounds that the rustle of the cattails created was magically. Mirjan and I enjoyed it for several minutes (and almost lost the group). We were all sad to go at the end. Some wanted to stay longer and enjoy the surroundings, the weather, the people around them, but.. and you guessed it.. we had to go in the van again! (hooray!). We drove to school and I did some homework there until Michelle was free again and drove us home.

Wednesday, April 17.

It was a loooong day. We had two presentations arranged by the NHL and WCC. But I and some other students decided to take extra classes. At eight the Psychology class started. It was thought by Carol. She’s the host of Josse. So there was no problem at all to be in her class. It was a very interesting class about the cognitive psychology (of the brain). Then we had a break and we went to Woodlands’ to have some coffee and tea. We stayed there for quite a while and then our second class started. Which was though by Amy. It was British-Literature. They did Shakespeare – Macbeth. It was amazing! All the six of us enjoyed it. It was so good. The teacher really know what she was talking about and the students as well. They all read the play and had it with them all the time. Every year they do a big author. This year was Shakespeare, last year was Jane Austen and next year will be Tolkien (I think I might just stay here, haha). It was superb!

The following lessons/presentations where arranged by WCC. The first was The Interdisciplinary Approach to Learning.  Which sounds really interesting, but was given by a crazy guy. He talked about women wombs belonging to the state, that you’re not really free, you only live to die. To sum up, which may not sound nice, a bunch of shit. Few liked the class and after an hour or so I just stared out the window. A guy climbing a tree picking up a bird’s nest was way more interesting. He talked all the way through our break and our next presentation started later. We were all kind of grumpy. Which was a shame because the next guy had lots of cool things to say. He gave Interesting Aspects of the geology of the Pacific Northwest. He talked about Mount Baker, that it’s a volcano. He talked about the peaks and summits, the tectonic etc., it was really, really nice!

So a very long day of four classes. Some better than the other, but all were amazing, great, superb, awesome and very good compared to our third class. I still have a headache from the guy.

Thursday, April 18.

I still have a headache from the third class. Serious. Today was a better day. Sort of. We went to Skagit County Public Defenders Office. We learned about the U.S. justice system and attended a courtroom hearing. The introduction to the justice system was interesting. We learned about bailers, defenders, prosecutors, death penalty, how a normal day is for an attorney, the judge, jury, guilty, not guilty. It was a good talk. The courtroom hearing.. a bit less interesting. Everybody was just talking and the ‘prisoners’ were barely in the room. Most left at 2 minutes because they just informed each other again: the trial is on the 5^th of June, and other things like that.
We had lunch at a brewery. Of course, they served to much food. I did ate it all though.
Then Ullie drove us to an outletmall. Which we were all looking forward to! But it kind of sucked. Not really my kind of shops, it wasn’t really an outlet and well.. yeah.

Now, Lauren just got home: the oldest daughter of Scott and Michelle. She surprised her mom for her birthday. It was so adorable to see. Tears were shed, lots of hugging. So much love!