The Netherlands

1401 El Norte Pkwy # 239
San Marcos, CA 92069
United States of America

10 October 2005

Dear Mr and Mrs Mase,

My name is and I live in the top of The Netherlands, in xxx. I’m a fifteen-year-old girl and I’m in the 12th grade. We (my parents, my brother, my sister and I) live on a farm. We have dairy cattle. Next to the farm is our detached house. My brother is 9 years old and my sister is 13 years old. I have a dog, a horse, three bunnies and four cats.
I am very preciousely, properly and helpful. I like playing badminton, riding my horse and reading..

I go to school in . It’s a secondary school, and I’m in the 12th grade. On our school we have timetables from 8:30 until 16:15, but most of the time your day is to 14:45. On our school, they don’t serve lunch. You have to take your own lunch with you. We have in the SE’s (school-exams) and CE’s (central exams). In the 12th grade (pre-graduation class) you only have SE’s. In the graduation class we also get CE’s.

Typical for our culture is the food. In the winter we eat a lot of ‘stamppot’. We also eat a lot of ‘broccoli’, ‘boerenkool’ en ‘witlof’. On the fifth of December we celebrate ‘Sinterklaas’. I don’t know if Americans do, but Dutch like flowers and shopping.. We also have a lot of music.

The drug- and alcohol problem in the Netherlands is, in my opinion, being overestimated. Not all Dutch are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol. I your child makes the right decisions, I’m sure he’ll be okay if he comes back. Getting alcohol is much easier in the Netherlands as getting drugs. Most of the people only drink a bit alcohol in the weekends.

Yours sincerely,
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