Jessica's stay with the host family

Hi everyone! Well, overall I had a good experience with the host family. Thursday night, the families picked us up at the show is Eddlebruck. I stayed with the Versteegh family with a girl named Emily from Michigan. I have to admit, I was slightly disappointed that the family did not live on a farm but the experience was still good. A guy named Aart picked us up. The ride to the house was fun. Aart spoke very broken English and it was hard to understand what he was trying to tell us. We had to help him with some words, which wasn't too bad because we had hand gestures to help us out. He told Emily and I that later we were going to his neighbors to visit a "ghost farm." I was VERY scared. I then realized that he meant goat farm instead of ghost. That's what I was hoping at least. I learned that people here drive REALLY fast. I don't exactly know how to convert kilometers to miles but at one point I looked down at the speedometer and saw 110. That was the last time I looked down. On the ride, Aart pointed to his house, which was all the way on top of a mountain. The view from our bedroom window was absolutely gorgeous. We arrived at the house and met the family. Aart's wife's name is Anja and they have two daughters; Dominique, who is 16, and Anouk, who is 9. Anouk did not speak any English but Dominique spoke some. We had a nice meal with the family, consisting of a pasta dish and cucumber salad. I did not know what was in the dish and didn't ask, I was just hungry and happy to have a home cooked meal. After dinner, we went to a goat farm, not a ghost farm, which had somewhere over 1,300 goats I believe. I have never seen that many goats in my life. They had a 45 carousel milking parlor and the farm was pretty nice. After the farm, we went to pick up dessert at a friends house, which was some kind of pineapple pie that was actually really good.

The next morning we had breakfast before we went to the show. Aart had a tent at the show so we had to leave fairly early. I had milk with my cereal in the morning. I was so incredibly happy to have milk. Aart is a dealer for robotic milkers and some feed. He told us how popular robotic milkers are in Luxembourg. There are 100 here, which is a lot, especially considering the size of this country. Anja works with kids in a nearby village. The girls are still in school; their summer vacation starts in about 2 weeks. School is different here; primary school goes every other Saturday and from 8-1 everyday. They also start school when they're 6 and go until they're 20, if I understand correctly. At the show, there wasn't a whole lot to do but the sale was really fun. Kaitlyn and I really enjoyed helping and leading heifers to and from the ring. We did a lot of work since not a lot of people were there helping. We left the show at midnight and went home to sleep.

The next morning we had breakfast with the family and then went to town with Dominique. We rode the car to the train and the train to the bus and reached the center of the city. We saw the cathedral and the government buildings. The city was really pretty and the walls were amazing to see. The city used to be walled in and the architecture here (and everywhere in Europe) is stunning. We went to some shops and Dominique took us to some stores that she usually shops at. I ended up buying a skirt I liked and a few postcards to send home. We ate at a restaurant called bananas. We walked through the center of the city, where they have a market every Saturday with all kinds of food and trinkets. We went back to the house and I took a nap because I have yet to catch up on sleep. That night we went back to town to the barbecue, which was nice because we got to see our friends again. After we got home, Emily and I gave the family our gifts, which they really seemed to enjoy. Aart also gave us some things from his company which we were not expecting.

This morning, we ate breakfast with the family for the last time. We went to the show and said our goodbye's when we got our suitcases out of the cars. I had a really great time with the family. They were very nice people and fun to be around. We exchanged e-mails to send pictures so hopefully we will stay in touch!

~Jess