Hurricane Jimena!

So I was going to include this post in the other one I just made, but figured i'd give it, its own post.

This weekend has been a new and interesting experience, rather exciting but scary as well. On thursday September 3rd Hurricane Jimena passed through the area of my city. school was canceled both thursday and friday allowing us to watch, explore and experience the storm full on. Through out the day I wrote notes and took pictures of what i saw.

My thursday started off with waking up at about 3:30 into the morning with my mom screaming, turned out there was a gas leak to caused a little fire and she was putting it out when she was screaming. the police came to check stuff out and make sure it was safe, and my dad got home from Tucson. After watching the rain for a bit we headed back to bed. The woke up again around 8:30 or so knowing there was no school! One of the first things i noticed was our room was a little wet. went down stairs and got some breakfast. Starting early in the morning and through out the whole entire day, the electricity went on and off, as well as the internet, phone service, and water supply (the water cut out in the middle of my shower). After breakfast my brother and i rain around in the rain and crazy wind for a bit and then came back to shower off and warm up. As the day went on the same problems continued and the rooms such as our room and the bathroom started flooding, so we were mopping them every once and a while. After a while My brother, dad and I all went on a search to find some bread. While driving through the rivers (streets) and lakes (parking lots) we couldn't find any place that was open. So we went back home for a while only to head out again to explore the destruction and go get some drinking water. Thats when I saw dozens of uprooted trees, flooded everything, stuck cars, destroyed walls and fences, destroyed taco stands (at one there was a guy cleaning stuff up in a boat). Fire fighters and police were rushing around. roads were some what destroyed, it was a mess. After a bit of driving around we saw that some of the OXXOs were open and went there to get some basics for the house, since they were come of the only places open, lines were forming out side them to bye stuff (as seen above).

The strong rain and wind lasted for around 24 hours straight, including the weaker rain and winds it lasted more around 35 hrs. But the sight of destruction didn't end there, in these few days after i have seen cars stuck in mud off the roads, brand new streets torn up, concrete walls completely taken down and a lot more. I saw all of this close to my house but we got lucky, where i live we didn't get the worse of it. how ever surrounding areas weren't that lucky. areas surrounding us got it worse than us, and we got some pretty big damage.

I'm glad i was able to experience a hurricane from a safe spot, if you want to see more photos check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickdykstra/ and if you want to here more about the hurricane just leave a comment with what you want and ill fill you in.

Best regards,

Nick Dykstra

Lots to say!

It has been quite some time sense my last blog post thus giving me quite a bit to say. I think ill just kind of go in order, like a time line and recap the things that are worth mentioning.

So first week of school! School started for me on Monday, August 24th and the first day was not easy. I was the new kid, getting all the weird looks, between not having a uniform and having blonde hair i didn't blend in very well. Didn't know anyone, didn't get how the school was run or how the schedule worked, and couldn't understand or communicate with others very well and the school i was going to was a completely different atmosphere, people and all. I didn't think i could do it, but despite my bad feelings about it, i got up the next morning and went again. Sure enough the second day felt a little better, still wasn't feeling great about it but I was glad it went a little smoother than the first day. I kept plugging away, and kind of dragging my self to school, then when i had to time to step back and look at it i could see it getting better, i have now completed 2 weeks of school and I'm feeling better about it. I'm growing more accustomed to the people and atmosphere, and over all I'm realizing that even though I'm not being academically challenged I'm going to learn a lot being in a different atmosphere I'm not accustomed too. On top of that I'm going to learn some amazing stuff, this semester i will learn and practice the basics of scuba diving and next semester i will learn and practice the basics of deep sea fishing! Can't learn that in Wisconsin.

So after a hard first week of school, I had a great weekend to help me recover! I started off the weekend with a party on friday night! It was the birthday party of a friend and by far the biggest birthday party i've ever been to. Held on a rooftop property, there was a dance floor and DJ, amazing tacos and drinks being served, around 100 people and just a great atmosphere! After a great night out with friends i got some good sleep just to prepare for another day out. Woke up saturday morning, relaxed with my brother, and enjoyed a lazy saturday morning. Around 2:00pm we hit the road, grabbed some lunch at a great sea food restaurant by the name of "Cachoreadas". After fueling up we headed to the beach. there we met the two other exchange students and some other family friends. The time was finally here to try wind-surfing! We dragged the giant sails and boards out to the water and set um up. Plamosa, being the only one that already knew how to wind-surf, hopped up on one of the boards and started teaching us. Being to excited to try this out, was the first to jump on the board, of course first thing that happens is the string for puling the sail out of the water snaps on my and i go flipping off the board, only to get right back on! the string was fixed and i was back at it, i went for a long time with little success then gave up the board to let the others give it a shot as i went kayaking around with my dad. after a bit of kayaking i got back on the wind-surfing board as the others got out of the water to rest on the beach. i kept going and going, and couldn't seem to get any where then as i was walking the board out of the rough parts of the beach i cut my foot open but still really wanted to get some where on that board. i kept going and going until i was told i had t get out of the water to leave, sure enough before i left i was moving on the board, it was pretty amazing! i didn't make it super far and do anything impressive but i was moving :-D

We then packed up and finished the night at the movie theatre! Next morning we woke up and got a bit of an earlier start by heading out to our ranch to get ready for company. we set up everything as people started to come, we hosted the other rotarians and there families at our ranch. it was a blast; we had great food (fish tacos), played soccer, hung out, went swimming and had a great time. it was that night that i learned that the older brother of a friend here is one of the exchange students i met while still in the USA, that was a great time. So that is about what my awesome weekend consisted of, i sure didn't want to go back to school after that one!

That is a bit about what i've been up to lately. having some good times here and trying some cool stuff, still loving the food and i can't wait til i have more to tell you!

Comment and stay in touch,

Nick

fotos nuevos!!!

Acabo de poner fotos nuevos en mi pagina de Flickr! Hay Muchos nuevos, algunos normales y algunos muy interesantes! Mira! comenta! disfruta!

disafortunablemente, no puedo poner el todo de mis fotos por que Flickr no me deja con un pagina gratis.

Gracias,

Nick

p.s. don't miss that i just made two posts (not just one like normal) so make sure you see them both. one is titled "lots to say" and the other "hurricane Jimena"