Past few days

Hi folks,

Here is my new update and probably one my final ones. The previous post was for our trip to Seattle, a lot has gone by in the days after that. On Monday 14 April we had an excursion to the Lummi tribe reservation. This is still a real Indian reservation in the US.
David (one of the Indian tribe members) introduced the history of the Indians by asking us how long they have been here, on this continent. He said: “It’s starts with fo(u)r.” Most of the things said were all numbers of years, but it actually was forever. Which really gave me a feeling that it is true, they were the first people who lived in what is now called the United States.
As the Americans moved along the country, from East to West, they made treaties with every Indian tribe they came across. As the Lummi, David’s tribe’s name, were in the area which is now Washington State, their treaty was only made in 1855. According to David, these treaties weren’t as much to make clear which rights the Indians would have, but more to make clear which rights were taken away. This is what I found pretty disturbing, because they were the people who lived there the longest, and their rights were just taken away. Just because the Indians don’t see the land as something you can claim and own. According to the ‘white people’, it was just a piece of land that has not been used.

A few days later, we traveled to Mt. Baker. Well not actually the mountain, because this a volcano. But, we went to the Mt. Baker ski-area. I found it pretty amazing to see that the climate can change so drastically by driving for only an hour. Because, in Bellingham we had some pretty nice weather during Spring. Yes there was some rain, but what do you expect when it is Spring. When we arrived on the mountain the scenery completely changed, it was like we were in another country. There were no more grassy areas, the only thing you saw was, tons of snow. I find it interesting that the weather and climate can change that many in such a short distance.
We had great fun though. We brought some sleds, we borrowed from our host families, which we used to slide down the hill with. The only bad thing was, is that we had to walk up the hill again when we got down. The pain was that in some places, is were not careful enough, you could sink into the snow up until your waist. Your legs just disappeared. But it was so cool to be on the mountain.

Then we had our trip to Vancouver. If I have to look back on this trip, I would say that it was a waste of time. The instructor that took us there, should have showed us around town. But, he didn’t, he dropped us off in downtown and gave us some pointers and the time limit we had. We didn’t know where to go and we didn’t see a lot. We could have gone to lots of different places, but it was pouring down rain when we were in Vancouver. In the end we ended up in a bar to have a drink and we stayed there until we had to go back to the bus. Don’t get me wrong, it was fun to have some quality time in Vancouver. But, I had preferred to see a lot more, especially because I was looking forward going to Vancouver.

After the weekend, we went to see the Sehome High School. This was a pretty cool experience to do so, because we were buddied-up with a high school student to show us around. We got to follow some classes, which made me feel as if I was back in high school again. Don’t think that is a good sign, haha…..
But nevertheless, it was a good experience to see how the teachers in the US teach high school students in comparison to our own country. Me myself, didn’t see a lot of differences, it was pretty much the same in the classes that I saw. The only thing that annoyed me was the fact that I saw a French class, the woman who was teaching French knew how to write everything correctly, but she didn’t know how to pronounce the words correctly. I was like, I know what you are trying to say, but I doesn’t even sound familiar.

And then, the best excursion we had, was the one we had yesterday. We had an excursion to Mt. Erie and Whidbey Island. It might have been the beautiful weather we had, but the sights were just amazing. The nature was beautiful, it really gave me the feeling I was somewhere far away from civilization. The places we saw were quiet and calm and the scenic views were just breathtaking. Please take a look at the pictures to give you an example of the things we saw that day.


Well this is about it. I hope you enjoyed reading and I try to update one more time before we get on the plane.