A typical English weekend

Saturday morning was time to repack the bags (repack; for anything that came out of my bag and was just piled up next to it), say bye to Christine who had to leave in the morning and thank her for letting us stay at her house for the amazing first week. When Christine left, Rose was off working in Brighton and Dominic went for a long bike ride, Manon and I got ready. Manon packed her bags while I was ironing the clothes we washed the night before. Around 11.30, we headed to the hockey club to watch the Ladies 4s match (this team is mostly made up of LOGS girls). At 12.30, I had to meet up with the Ladies 2s for their match. I got my Lewes kit and we had our team talk. Because of the rules, I couldn’t play the match as Sanny Toonen, so for the following 70 minutes I was known as Finch; it really took me some time before I reacted to this name, but when someone calls out ‘your name’ for about 3 times and nobody else answers, you quickly get to realise again that Finch is YOU…..

Saturday was one of my pretty aggressive hockey days, which would be something good in Holland, but here in England it’s not really a positive thing. This is what happened: I played left mid for the entire match and about 10 minutes into second half, my player got the ball, so I went after her and got the ball by “tackling her”. The umpire blew his whistle, got a yellow card out of his pocket and sent me off for the full 10 minutes..... The very first time I have got sent off, in my very first important match I played here in Lewes… now that’s how to make a (good/bad?) first impressionJ. I already noticed it in the 2 previous matches, but English hockey is sooooo soft in comparison to Dutch hockey….. I truly think the English should Dutchalise their way of playing (I do think this is the only thing they should Dutchalise)!!!

After my own match, I had to wait at the club for Harvey and his dad Geoff to pick me up (I will stay with the Waller family for the next 2 weeks). Harvey played away with Men 1s and they were a little delayed, so I watched the matches of Men 2s and Men 4s. When Harvey and Geoff came to the club, we went to Christine’s house to pick up my bags. After saying goodbye and thank-you-very-much to Dominic, we went (to a new) home where I got to meet mother of the Waller family, Claire. Everyone is very nice and welcoming and we had a nice cup of tea. They have a very nice and cosy house and I have a lovely roomJ. For dinner, we had typically English, Fish and Chips.

Sunday morning, I woke up around 10.00. When we were all ready, Geoff brought Harvey and me to Claire’s café: The Buttercup Café. It is a very nice café and we had a really good and typically English, an English breakfast! After breakfast, Harvey and I took the train to Brighton where we spent the rest of the day. First, we went to a huge shopping mall with lots of different shops (nope, we didn’t buy anything) and then we went on to the lanes. The lanes are very nice and busy streets with lots of shops and little cafés and bistro’s; the atmosphere there is very good! The weather was beautiful today, so we went to the beach where we had an ice cream and sat in the sun for about an hour, it was absolutely FAB. Brighton has a very large pier, so before we headed back to the train station we walked up and down the pier. Brighton Pier isn’t just a random ‘thing’ sticking out of the mainland, but it is a real attraction (literally!). At the beginning of the pier, there are some small food shops and at the end there is a pretty good-sized fair. Everything in between is more food shops and places to sit. It is pretty amazing out there and I found it pretty special J. For every Dutch person that still needs to form an idea of what Brighton is like: Brighton is a mix of Amsterdam, London and ScheveningenJ!!

Around 4.00 pm, we took the train back to Lewes, to the Buttercup Café, so Claire could take us back home. After dinner I did quite some Dutch work and now I’m working on my blog….

This was our first weekend of exchange and I really enjoyed it!

Xxx <3