Hello there, dear readers. I know that it has been forever since you have seen a blog post from me, and I’m sorry for that. However, as you can see from the title, this will be my final blog for the RA blog. Although I have enjoyed writing, RA really eats your time, and I have decided that I find my grades more important than writing for this blog. Also, my life isn’t as interesting anymore as it was at the beginning. I already moved, I sort of know my way around Middelburg and I’m feeling very much at home in my house. Of course I will not leave you with this as a goodbye. Here are just some stories about my first half of the semester at RA.

Seriously, did you know that Bagijnhof is being terrorized by ladybugs? Not the sweet, little, lovely ladybugs that make you smile, but evil, mean and wicked ladybugs. I am afraid to open my window, because if I do they assemble their army and they invade my room with thousands at a time. And honestly, I cannot fall asleep if I know that there is a huge, scary ladybug flying (yes, flying!) around in my room.

Also, Bagijnhof has his own soap. The one of the dudes who sweep away the leaves. First, every Wednesday, there is one dude with a gigantic blower who blows all the pretty leaves to the side. When he leaves, the sweep-car comes by, who, with a tremendous amount of noise, eats all the leaves. Of course, this happens on Wednesday, the day that we all have to concentrate and work really hard. But to my surprise, not so long ago, the sweep dude had multiplied himself and now there was a force of two noise making leaf-blowing guys, taking away my concentration. And not just on Wednesday anymore, but also on Monday. And honestly, these leaves keep on falling anyway, so isn’t it just pretty useless?

And then there’s the killing of the stove. As you all know, I like a clean house. So when I got back here on Monday, after a party and a weekend, it was a terrible mess over here. So, as a true cleaning lady, I spent four hours cleaning everything. I even cleaned the toilet! But also, I cleaned the stove. It was really disgusting and after I finished, one of my housemates remarked: ‘It’s all *bling bling*, Inge!’. And that was true, and I was proud. However, my happiness didn’t last long, because when I wanted to start cooking the light flickered and then went off. The stove didn’t get warm, it didn’t work.. I killed it! And now I’m sitting here, hoping that the caretaker can perform magic and resurrect the clean stove..

The academics? Love! It’s fall break now and I’ve been here for half a semester and honestly, I never want to leave. Although it is busy, I’ve still managed to keep up my sleeping routine and I’m getting good grades. I love all the courses, the people are so enthusiastic and so dedicated and I’m really enjoying it! Right now, it is time to pick the courses for next semester and I’m just loving it – I want to take every course!

If you are still worried about the workload or something – please don’t be! I have to work really hard to get good grades, but I manage to go to bed every night before 12. Yes, it is a lot of work, but you also have a lot of time. There’s not that much class and the rest of the time is just yours – you can divide it yourself. Which is awesome, because you can work in the way that suits you best. Although it may seem like all the students at RA only work at night – I am the proof that it is possible to just get enough sleep and survive here, so don’t worry : )

But the biggest revelation of this blog post is the fact that I went to Barrel. Yes, you’ve seen it correctly, I went to Barrel! After the never-ending begging of more than 10 of my friends, thinking it was the end of the first half of the semester anyways, I decided to come. And I had a lot of fun! Although my hate for the music will probably never end (kaboom, kaboom, kaboom?), my feet hurt from the dancing when I got home. I had fun! : )

So, when I think back about my first half of the semester things have changed, but things have also stayed the same. But most of all, I enjoyed it. I’ve made some truly amazing friends, I have laughed so hard, I got some awesome grades, I’ve learned so much and I’m feeling very much at home here, in Middelburg.

Thank you for reading my blogs and I hope you enjoyed them : )

Lots of love and happiness,

Inge

For example – the studying during the middle of the night. Honestly, I just don’t get that. I mean, sure, at the end of the semester, I might get so busy that I go to bed at one or something. But seriously, just not sleeping the entire night because of your homework in the first week? And the strange thing to me is that it’s so normal! It looks as if everybody is doing their homework during the night.. I am busy as well, really, there’s a lot of stuff you have to do and I find it really complicated and hard. But then again, you also have so much time! There’s just not that much classes and the rest of the day you can spend doing your homework. At least, that’s what I think. Yet apparently, I’m the only person at this entire school who goes to bed before eleven.. Maybe this will change, because that is what everyone has been telling me, but I hope not, since I still believe that sleep (your health!) is more important than schoolwork. If I have a lot of work, I just go to bed in time and wake up a little earlier to finish it..

And then there’s the dishes. Seriously, how hard is it to just do your dishes when you are done eating? My house is really nice and here, most of the time, everybody actually does their dishes but I’ve seen some houses.. my goodness! I’m glad to be living in this house, where, most of the time, stuff is just clean. I mean, I’m no cleaning monster myself and my room can get a little messy at times, but I think that it is just common decency to do your dishes and keep the bacteria out.. right?

All of this makes me feel that I’m sort of an outsider in the student world. I don’t do my homework at night, I do my dishes, I don’t party and get drunk, I am happy in the mornings and I’m always in time. However, I have also experienced the student life last week. My housemates cooked a lovely dinner and it was really good, but after that I got a strange ache in my stomach. I tried to do some homework but it just got worse and I figured I’d just go to bed, and try to get some sleep.. wrong! The pain got worse and worse and well, I think you can guess what happened: I threw up six times that night and didn’t get a minute of sleep. I emailed my tutor and teachers that I wouldn’t make it to school that day, and after the pain and the puking had finally ended I fell asleep.

I still don’t know what the exact cause was. It might have been the dinner, but I’m the only one in the house who got sick so that would be really strange. But anyway, after this experience I honestly felt like a real student. So even though I do sleep, don’t drink and I’m always happy in the morning, I’m still living a student life.

I know that you are not much of a birthday person. I jump up and down when it’s still days away, but to you it is nothing more than just another 365 days around the sun. But to me, birthdays are important and so is your birthday. And though I can’t be with you today, and you probably won’t feel very much like a birthday boy: today is the day that you turned 18! Eight and ten, the year of change. You’re officially ‘grown-up’ now, you’re officially studying medicine at a university and you are, which I know you love, allowed to vote. All these cool things that you suddenly are allowed to do, all these people seeing you as an actual grown-up, that’s really awesome.

So enjoy! And be grateful for the years that you have been given already. The wonderful years, and especially that last one. Count your blessings and see that they are actually too much to count. Eighteen years of blessings, eighteen years of laughter, joy, happiness, wonder, gratefulness, togetherness and eighteen years of love, and I hope – so many more of these years to come (:

Happy birthday, sweet Joshua. I love you <3

Last time I was tired from the jet-lag, but the next morning my sweet mum got me some sleeping medication that actually worked, so that problem was solved. I went to IKEA, bought some really awesome furniture and paid a ton to get it delivered to Middelburg. After a nice day of relaxing with my boyfriend on Wednesday, I went to Middelburg on Thursday to pick up my keys. I had to be there at ten, or something, so I had to get up at six in the morning! After some wandering about Middelburg, trying to find Bagijnhof, I got there and I got my keys. I was really excited to see my room and I was not disappointed: my room is awesome! It’s pretty big and there’s a huuuuge balcony so that’s all really nice. I didn’t have any furniture yet that afternoon so I just walked around Middelburg for a bit with my boyfriend and we actually found our way to the Albert Heijn and back, haha! Then in the evening my parents delivered the first load of stuff, but my first night here was actually pretty lonely. All those boxes weren’t really good company and I felt a little sad lying there in the empty room on my air mattress.

The next morning I had to get up early again because the furniture guys came knocking at the door! I was determined to be a brave women and fix all the IKEA furniture myself. I did it, but it took forever. Two hours for the table, two for the chair and one for the bed. Next time I’ll let my father do it, because seriously, those blisters are NOT cool. That evening I had dinner at a friends house and it was really nice – pasta. I have now learned that every student dinner consists of pasta, or.. pasta and oh yeah, pasta (: I don’t mind though, I actually really like it. Another night in my new room with a little more furniture and then it was Saturday – official moving day! My parents and boyfriend came over and carried all my stuff (looaaads of stuff) up the narrow stairs. After that long day of moving I was really happy! My room looked so much like home and all my red-and-white stuff made everything look really nice. After that I went home for the weekend and spend the Sunday at the boyfriend. I arrived home on Sunday evening at eleven, talked to some people in the house and fell in a deep and very nice sleep.

The next morning was the first day of intRAweek. We got our cool pink T-shirts, we met our family, had lunch and of course there was the first party. I’m not really a party person so I didn’t go to most of them and actually tried to get some sleep. This resulted in me being all bright and shiny in the morning while all my house mates and family members were either hangover or just really tired. What I remember very well was the next day. The next day was called ‘beach-day’, but ‘walking-to-the-beach-day’ would have been a better idea. We walked from eight in the morning to two in the afternoon, arrived at the beach, were there for half an hour and then went home again. Although the walking was really tiring I had a really nice day because of my awesome family. I learned a lot more about everyone and had some cool conversations, painted a flag and took a billion funny pictures. Oh and we also had to name a leaf. We found one, named him Richard and gave him an incredibly long life story which had a lot to do with the First World War and drinking whisky – I will spare you the rest of the story (:

The next day was academic day and I finally felt that I was in the right place. Lots of speeches and talks about how awesome the Roosevelt Academy is and after that we got to meet our tutor and received our schedules. I was so happy, I have all these really awesome art and literature courses and I was really excited to start! In the afternoon there was committee afternoon which was also really nice, after that we had a wonderful family dinner and then I finally got some sleep. Next day it was raining raining raining. We went to the library and I skipped the afternoon sports day because I went to Breda to celebrate my one year anniversary with my boyfriend. I got home at eight and then we went to prepare for the ‘Everything starts with a P-Party’. Our family decided to be presents and after working on them for at least four hours, we all looked really awesome. Sadly enough, it was also really late, so I went to the party, was there for two minutes, and then left.

Friday – the last day of our intRAweek. In the morning I went to buy my books at De Drukkery, was totally amazed by their coolness and spent some time reading them. Then I signed up for a few committees and around one the afternoon program started: Dutch games on the Market Square! It was a fun thing to do with your family and surprisingly our Finnish girl was actually really good at all the games, hihi. She and I went to get some ice cream after that and we also went grocery shopping at the Albert Heijn. In the evening there was a barbecue and we got our RASA certificates. We didn’t win the competition, but at least we didn’t lose either.. I left that same evening with two of my house mates and spend a wonderful weekend at home. Sunday evening I got back to Middelburg and soaking wet and shivering because of the terrible wind and rain (seriously, Zeeland!) I arrived at my house. There we had a house meeting and I was really happy to be in my own bed again that night.

Monday morning – first day of classes! I had to start at 8.45 with a literature class and I really enjoyed it. Also my rhetoric class was great with some awesome discussions about Dutch politics and, of course, Geert Wilders. After that I spend some time cleaning my room, doing laundry (I was so proud of this), organising school stuff, cooking and doing a huge amount of dishes. To bed in time and we arrive at this morning. Today I only have one class which starts at four, so that’s really nice. I have loads of time to do my first homework and I’m not stressed – yet. The homework is actually pretty cool since it’s mostly reading and I really like that, haha.

So, after not doing homework for an hour because I had to type this blog, I think it’s time to start again now. I’ll talk to you soon about my new Middelburg and Roosevelt Academy adventures!

Seriously – I’m the kind of girl who usually goes to bed at ten and sleep until eight, and that keeps me happy. No late night parties for Inge. I need my sleep, because I need the energy for things I do during the day. And now, I need that energy more than ever. Signing letters for the public transit card, taxes and rent, putting all my stuff in boxes and buying furniture at IKEA is a lot easier if you’re not terribly tired. Even though I loved buying all my red and white stuff at IKEA, I would have liked it a lot more if I wouldn’t have been yawning half of the time. And then there’s another matter of great importance: to paint or not to paint. Half of my Facebook-friends say that I can surely paint in a Bagijnhof house, yet the other half assures me that they’ve called Woongoed and that those guys wouldn’t give them permission. So before I’m buying paint, brushes and all that other stuff, I need to call Woongoed too, as soon as possible.

Yet, through all the sleep deprivation, life has to go on. I’ve packed everything – my room is disturbingly empty and I believe that it seriously echoes here. Tomorrow I’ll the spend the day and night at the boyfriend, and the next day, Thursday, I can finally pick up my keys to my new home! There, I have to find out about if there are any common pots and pans or whether I have to buy them myself. I also have to be able to find my way to the closest grocery store (Albert Heijn!) and do some of my first living-on-my-own-shopping. Then the boyfriend will return home and I will spend my first night at the apartment with nothing more than an air mattress to sleep on, since my real furniture will be delivered the next day by IKEA. Another night of sleepies at the house and then Saturday the family and boyfriend will bring all the boxes and then I will officially be living in Middelburg, and after that the IntRAweek will start.

However, first things first. Number one? Buying some sleeping medicine that actually works..

The next morning we woke up really early for an early morning speaker, Bil Jack. Honestly, I didn’t like this one very much. Apparently, here in America, Christians are somewhat anti-environmentalists. If you say that you don’t want to eat meat because they slaughter the chickens in an inhumane way, they say: well, they’re animals and the Bible says we are supposed to rule over the world. If you say that you don’t want to drive a huge car everywhere because that might not be so good for the environment they say that CO2 makes the trees grow? Well anyways – I do care about nature and though I’m not a nature-freak I still believe that it is important that we take care of this earth. Yet the Bil Jack guy was totally making fun of it, barely using the Bible and mainly just using oneliners and a whole bunch of screaming. So definitely not my thing. I actually was pretty annoyed by this session and I was glad it was over.

After that I went to a teenage thing on fossils, which was fun but not a whole lot of new stuff and after that I went to the coolest thing of the day. There was a session on archaeology and it was SO awesome because the dude just seriously had archaeological evidence for so many things in the Bible. They had proved the existence of Jericho and many other biblical cities and so on. And he wasn’t just talking about the evidence but he was actually showing it! Só cool! I really loved this one. After that we went to some more climbing in the Smokey Mountains, but I made sure that this was mainly walking and not hiking (: Then we had dinner at Chic-fil-A, which is SO awesome! It’s a Christian restaurant which isn’t open on Sundays, were all the employees are Christians and were there’s Christian music on! And all of America eats there because it’s so jummie, hihi. Real cool. That evening part II of the archaeological session, so real awesome again, and then sleepies!

So the next morning we woke up a little later and packed all our bags and at eleven we checked out of the hotel and went to the last two sessions of the conference. I didn’t really like the first one but the last one was by Ken Ham, and it was pretty awesome. He wrote this book, Already Gone, and it’s about why all our teenagers are leaving the church. He found the answer. It’s because we only teach them the love and hope of Jesus, while they actually have all these questions about evolution and the age of the earth. But in stead of providing them with biblical answers to these questions we just say: ‘Oh Johny, it’s ok. Just believe what the secular scientists say, as long as you trust in Jesus!’ All we say is ‘trust in Jesus’ and we don’t provide ‘em with the answers in Genesis, while that is what they actually need.

After that we got in the car for a four hour drive to Cincinnati, Ohio, but our hotel was in Hebron and that’s in Kentucky. Over there the aunt and the two babies were there and the grandparents. Now the babies are really sweet, don’t get me wrong, but if you have to sleep in one room with them – they’re not. That night was a sleepless night. Next morning we went to The Creation Museum with the grandparents. Then I mainly walked around there on my own and took a whole bunch of pictures of everything. It’s a real cool museum (: There’s also a planetarium and that was I think the coolest thing. In there, you know the huge dome where the projection is on and you’re under there in a relaxed seat, they had the DVD of Dr. Jason Lisle (remember him? he’s cool) about stars and planets and that was reaaaally beautiful. I totally bought the DVD and tons of other gifts there to take home. After that we all went together to eat pizza at Uno’s, that was jummie.

The next day the aunt, the babies, the grandmother and I went to the petting zoo of the museum. That would have been nice if it weren’t for the terrible heat. Seriously – it was SO hot. But I did see a zorse and a zonkey! (Google that) After that we went to see another Planetarium show and then (finally!) got some peace at the hotel. That night we had dinner at Big Boy and that was reaaally jummie.

Evening came and went, sleepies and morning arrived. We woke up early and me and the brother went in the car with the grandparents for a looong drive to Memphis. There we met the aunt’s sister and husband, and they are a bit more like our age, so we spent the evening there playing Wii Games and Mario Kart. That was a whole lot of fun, after all the seriousness and grown-up-stuff we had had for the last week. I never knew Mario Kart could be so much fun (: That night we went to sleep at the grandparents but I couldn’t sleep that entire night because it was so terribly hot. That really sucked, especially because the next day would be water skiing with the young couple! It was a whole lot of fun, I did it, I was really scared, I really worked on my tan and got home utterly devastated. There we had some jummie spaghetti that the grandmother made and after that I went straight to bed, being soooo tired. I slept better that night, got up early in the morning for a very long ride to Dallas where we finally, after 8 or 9 hours, arrived. Ate pizza, slept.

And that’s where I’ve been the last two weeks! I spend my time mainly reading Lord of the Rings at the pool and I’ve finished the three volumes by now. I also went to The Dallas Museum of Art, the Hawaiian Falls Waterpark, Downtown Dallas, the mall, the huge supermarkets, saw Inception, Starbucks, stargazing and probably a whole bunch of things I forgot. I also have been baking pie and cakes quite a lot, and I spend much of my time putting babies in to car seats, giving them milk, changing their diapers and putting them to bed.

In three days I will be flying back, I will leave Saturday evening and come home Sunday evening. I actually am glad that I can go home, because even though it’s all been a wonderful experience I long for home. I long for a nice brown sandwich with some cheese, normal milk, potatoes with vegetables and not ten tons of meat, my own bed and no crying babies. But most of all I miss Joshua <3

Yet I am very grateful to my uncle & aunt for this amazing trip, so – thank you! It has been an experience of a lifetime, I have learned a whole lot, I have seen a whole lot and mostly I had a whole lot of fun. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Well, I’ll see you Dutch guys soon! Xoxo,

Inge

This is in the last part of The Lord of the Rings, which I just finished reading, again. It always makes me feel sad and yet hopeful, because to me, this is what happens when I will go to heaven. When all the world will fade away and I will finally be in the everlasting light. Oh, glorious day!

First, we had to go to registration where we got cool name tags. Apparently I’m Inge van Eck and my hometown in Dallas, Texas. (Yes, I had to explain to quite a lot of people that I was actually from the Netherlands and not really from Texas, to the disappointment of many.) After all the fuss was done we went to the main hall and found some seats near the front. The first speaker of that night was Ken Ham, the CEO of Answers in Genesis and the owner of an incredibly awesome Australian accent. His talk was mainly about what he called ‘The Genesis 3 Attack’.

In Genesis 3, satan, in the form of a snake, tries to make Eve question what God really said. ‘Did God really say that you couldn’t eat from that tree, Eve?’ And that was the beginning of all the trouble. According to Ken Ham, that’s basically what the devil has been doing ever since. The Genesis 3 Attack, the ‘Did God really say that..’, has always been around and every century has had its own version of this. Today’s Genesis 3 Attack is, according to Ken Ham, the age of the earth. Because, the Bible states clearly that the earth and all living things upon it were created in six days and then, if you add up all the ‘this son of that dude bore this dude who lived for 300 years and then bore this dude’-you know, you will get about 4000 years to Jesus. Add 2000 until now and tada, the earth should be about 6000 years old. Yet, all the secular scientists say that the earth is way older than that, it is supposed to be billions and billions of years old. And this is where the Genesis 3 Attack comes in. Because God says that the earth is young, and the secular scientists say the opposite. And then the devil whispers in our ears, ‘Hey, you young student. Are you sure that God said that the earth is 6000 years old? Because all these scientists say otherwise.. I think that maybe you should read the Bible differently..’ And in come all these theories about how the days of creation were actually all a 1000 years or how there was a world before creation and blabla. Doubting the word of God. And once we start doubting the word of God, there’s no holding it. Because if we don’t believe that Genesis is really true, why should we believe that Jesus actually died for us? And gone is our entire faith.
So that’s mainly what his talk was about, accompanied by funny pictures and slides. He had some funny things to make his point about the six days of creation being really days. Everywhere in the Bible where it says ‘yom’, the Hebrew word for day, we automatically assume it’s a day. No-one questions that. But when it comes to Genesis, a day all of a sudden is a thousand years? But why should it only be a thousand years in Genesis? I mean, if a day = thousand years, then Jonah should have been in the whale for 3000 years (funny picture of really old whale and Jonah) and Joshua should have been walking around Jericho for 7000 years (funnier picture of Jonah and all of the Israelites with incredibly long beards) but everybody thinks that’s weird, right?

The second session of that night was by Dr. Andrew Snelling, and while Ken Ham mainly told us that the Bible declared a young earth, he showed us that science declares a young earth. He had some really cool evidence, I will try to show a few of these to you, but I do not guarantee understanding.
- So, we all know galaxies – right? We know that these things have these cool spirally arms that wind up around them. The thing is that the outer part of the galaxy turns faster than the inner part, so the spirally arms wrap themselves up, to put it bluntly. Assuming that these arms have always been winding up at the same speed, the earth never could have been billions and billions of years old, because all the galaxies were supposed to be ‘wound up’ by now!
- Another one. We know that the earth has a magnetic field, and assuming that the rate of it losing its energy has always been the same (which is losing half of its energy every 1400 years), the earth could never be older (and this is a maximum) than 20.000 years, because all of its energy would have been gone by now!
- This one is easy. We know that there is salt in the sea, and that there is salt added everyday. If the earth is to be billions and billions of years old, the sea should have been a lot more salty by now.
- DNA material decays real fast. We know that blood and cells do not survive long, even in really good conditions. Yet, there are scientists who claim that they have found blood of bacteria who lived billions and billions of years ago. Yeah, right.
And these are just a few of the ton of arguments Dr. Snelling told us about. So interesting!
You may have noticed that there is quite a lot of assumption in there. And that is true. In science there are always assumptions to be made. A very common assumption is the fact that a process right now happens at the same rate as it used to do thousands of years ago. So, say if I eat a sandwich in half an hour now, humans who lived 2000 years ago ate that sandwich in half an hour as well. This is one of many assumptions that can not be proved, because no-one was there to check it out, right?
So therefore whenever scientist, secular or christians, ‘prove’ something, be careful. Because nothing can really be ‘proven’, since there are always assumptions involved. That’s why this scientific evidence can be used to help people believe, but it should not be put above the Bible’s authority. Faith comes in at first place, an whatever science discovers should always ‘match’ the Bible. If it doesn’t, that doesn’t mean that the Bible is wrong, but that means that our science is wrong.
Thus, do not rely on evidence but rely on your faith. If evidence seems to match that, wonderful, if not – faith!

Well, you might understand that after all of this I felt pretty tired. So when we got back to the hotel I was happy to find my four pillows still there and I immediately fell asleep. The next morning I first when to a session which was especially for women, but I didn’t really like that. The session after that was by Dr. Jason Lisle, and he was SO amazing. My goodness, I loved that guy. He’s like a supernerd (graduated summa cum laude) yet he is able to put even the most difficult concepts about stars and galaxies and whatever into simple and plain language so that even I, anti-science-Inge, could understand it! He was being real cool and starting from Galileo’s book on the discovery of some planets and stars, The Starry Messenger, he showed us how the universe declares God’s glory. I was overwhelmed – I never knew the universe was that big. You know, we are a tiny spot on the earth and the earth is a tiny planet in our solar system, and there are a whole bunch of these solar systems in our galaxy and then, this is what amazed me most, there are a whole bunch (like trillions billions gazillions) of galaxies that form our universe!
So seriously, go take an hour or something, grab your laptop and sit on the couch for a bit. Go google things like universe, nebula, galaxy or star and just look at God’s amazing creation. Wow. I just fall into silence. God is so great! It’s like Psalm 19:1 tells us so beautifully: ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the works of His hands.’ Wow.

And I think I’ll just stop here now. Because I want you to think about the glory of God and the amazing work of His hands. Be amazed. Glorify God.

I am allowed to say howdy now, because I’m currently residing in Dallas, Texas. And I believe that Texas-people are cowboys, and cowboys say howdy. Some of you know that I left The Netherlands almost two weeks ago for a journey to the great land of the free, and now, here I am. After a week of running and driving around like crazy, I’ll now have to weeks of peace and happiness by the pool of my uncle’s house. I will, of course, tell you all about my life here and I will start at the very beginning. Photos will follow later, and with later I think I mean a whole lot later, but I’m not sure about that. Anyways – it all started on that Saturday morning, nearly to weeks ago when Joshua and I, still sleepy, got into the car on our way to Schiphol..

We first left Schiphol for London, which was a rather short, but also quite funny flight, because all of the stewards were male. Me and my very little flying experience thought this rather funny, especially when they came over and asked everybody for drinks in their cool English accents. My brother was sitting next to the window so he could see London, and I just pushed my camera over his face hoping I’d get the London Eye on there. (I did, actually!) We arrived at London, late, so we had to hurry into this bus which took us to another terminal. There was this strange lady who tore our boarding passes apart and gave us new ones for no reason, and after that we walked real fast to our flight to Chicago, which was already boarding. This flight would take eight hours, so armed with my Lord of the Rings-book I settled myself into a seat, wearing a thick vest and covered myself in the blankets that were on the seats. The good news was that there was this cool screen on which you could watch movies (I watched The Last Song, it was pretty), the bad news was that there was a lot of turbulence and that sucked. I think I got some sleep, but I was pretty tired and I was feeling a little weird when we finally arrived in Chicago.

Over there it was superhot and we had to wait forever in line for the stupid custom guys (who told me that when I would go and study art history, I’d probably end up serving fries at the McDonalds) and our suitcases. Then we were kind of lost, and were not, walked through half of the airport and finally arrived at Gate 20, only to find it had been changed to 3 and so we had to walk the entire way back. Yeah, we love airports. After the short flight in the teeny-tiny airplane we arrived, tired and feeling a little lost, in Memphis.

There, tons of family was waiting for us. There was my uncle (who’s Dutch) and my aunt (she’s American) and her two cuuuute kids (like supercute-cute), also my aunt’s sister, her husband an her son and also my aunt’s parents. We drove to the house of the parents, drank coke, spent some time talking and had a lot of fun laughing at my brother’s strange Scottish accent (he’s Dutch, so..?) but I was very happy when I could lay my head down on the soft four pillows that were on my bed.

The peace didn’t last long though, because the next morning at 8.30 we had to leave for an eight hour drive (or something) to Sevierville, Ohio. There, we would attend the awesome Answers in Genesis-apologetics-conference. We were pretty tired when we arrived at the hotel and after we settled down for a bit I was about to experience my first American fastfood restaurant. We went to Ruby Tuesday and I got myself a burger and some fries while I was wondering about the nice waiter who was all like: ‘Hey, how you doing?’, because our waiters don’t do that. When we got back to the hotel I only remember my gigantic bed and the four pillows I so longed for, after that, it’s all black (:

The next morning, after sleeping in for a bit (finally!), I was about to experience some more weirdness: the American breakfast. These crazy people somehow love everything hot and toasty while they’re eating it at 8 o’clock in the morning. I’m not kidding, Americans eat hamburgers for breakfast. I settled for some yoghurt, fruit and orange juice, feeling kind of a loner eating that food. Then we went into the town and I was just laughing out loud. Seriously. There’s like a gazilliontrillion billboards everywhere with big shiny neon things and a hundred of attractions at the side of the road that are trying to be bigger than the thousands of fastfood restaurants that look like a forest so dense. I was seriously scared, at first. It’s SO big and everything is just SO huge. Really, really scary. And funny, haha. So when we passed the wilderness of billboards we got close to the real wilderness: The Great Smokey Mountains.

And that’s where the adventure really began. We went hiking to some place called The Chimney Tops. So when you know me, you are probably like this: ‘Inge, you probably mean walking.. Not hiking!’ That, my dear friend, is a very logical thought. Inge + sports activity = not happening. Yet, it did. I actually hiked to The Chimney Tops, and honestly, it was terrible. The climb was sooo long and sooo heavy and I just felt terrible, so terrible. When we made it to the top, there was more horribleness, because before you could make it the real top, you’d have to climb this. Yup. Well, I got half way before totally freaking out. It was cool though, and the way down was a lot easier. We stopped at this mountain river and we just totally relaxed there for a long time. So gooood! We drove down, got some MacDonalds driveby food and then went to our first night at the conference..

More about that in the next blogpost! Bye for now <3

1 – How did you begin in Photography?
How I started in photography.. Well, I guess that was about two years ago. My dad bought a Nikon D50 around that time and I figured I’d give it a try. I really liked it, joined Flickr and tons of people started telling me that I really had a talent, so, I continued until it really became my most favourite thing to do! : )

2 – How do you define your work?
Wow, that’s a difficult one! My goal in photography is always to picture the things that people usually don’t see. That little flower by the side of the road that you would’ve walked past without noticing if you hadn’t seen my photo. I want to take pictures of things and make them beautiful, make people amazed by God’s amazing creation! So the goal of my photos is showing beauty and I do that by mostly using vivid colours and a whole ton of bokeh, haha. So the definition of my photography would be, using Coldplay’s words, life in technicolour!

3 – Which picture would you like to take you haven’t yet?
Ohh I soooo badly want to take a picture of a beautiful girl with a ton of freckles in a yellow field when the sun is setting. That is my biggest photography dream right now, haha. Sadly enough, we don’t have golden fields here in Holland :/

4 – What’s the best photographic advice that you have received? What would be your best advice to us?
Ehm, advice. I really can’t remember that, actually. My advice would be, don’t try to find extraordinary subjects but try to make something simple extraordinary. You don’t need gigantic churches, golden fields or journeys to a far away country for good photos, a good photographer can make an amazing photo of the grass in his backyard, for example.

5 – Which photographers inspire you?
So many of ‘em! My greatest inspiration is and has been Katrina though. The light in her pictures always challenges me to look for that golden sunflare everywhere. And also Siebe Warmoeskerken and Natalie Franke are really awesome.

You can see the entire interview, with pictures, here at Photographic Project.