What's up friends from around the world and our beloved family???

We hope each every one of you is doing well or hopefully even better. We are doing great actually! We are here for about two weeks now and we really got the hang of it. We are used to the place we live in and our lifestyle so far of being a student to the University of Memphis or better said an exchange student doing all the things in Memphis that probably only tourists would do…haha…is going great!

Last blog was basically some inside information about the University and classes we are taking. Now, let's get a little bit more back to the FUN STUFF! We did some great things during our long weekend due to Labor Day on Monday. Just so you know, new pictures will be up in a new photo album 'Memphis (TN) - September' and videos will be put on YouTube TOMORROW with many short videos and maybe some compilations during our time across the sea!

LENA: Time for another update!!! Wow, time flies when you're having fun. And we're having fun alright! But don't get me wrong…we definitely miss you all and wish you were here with us!!!

A quick recap of the past week…Saturday was a day of doing anything and everything. I went into cleaning mode and that must've rubbed off on Jesper too. Haha! I've never see him clean that way, as if his life depended on it! Later that night, there was a Dinner & Discussion night at Ayana's house. She is from an organization called VISA, which I'm sure I mentioned in an earlier blog. About Ayana's house…picture MTV Cribs, she lives in that kind of neighborhood and in that kind of house! It was exactly how we pictured an "American" house would look like. I know, I know, of course not all houses in the States look like that. But still, it was funny to see it.

Sunday was a bittersweet day. We started nice and early at church at 9.15am. Caroline, who is also from VISA, goes to the First Evangelical church here in Memphis, TN and we were invited to come and so we did! We attended the Newsong worship service, which is not quite your average church service. A very cool band led worship, they were a kind of rock band, I would say…I liked it. After that there were several things you could do, so we went to a discussion class, where they would pick out a chapter of the Bible and discuss it. I really liked how they went deeper into certain subjects and applying what was said during the sermon to this Bible study. Very interesting to see and definitely a church I would go back to.

After church, we met up with a couple of international students who were planning on taking this boat trip on the Mississippi river. Except…we missed the bus…….and because of that…….we missed the boat! Picture this: you hurry to catch the bus, but see the bus pass you by on the way to the busstop. And then you catch the next bus, get off downtown and hurry the catch the boat. With 5 minutes to spare, you see the boat in the distance and hurry so that they might see you coming and wait for a little while, but when you arrive at the dock, the captain leaves at 2.30pm sharp and says "Sorry guys! Can't do anything for ya!" True story…and so we ended up on Beale Street. Good ol' Beale Street! We decided to grab some lunch/early dinner at the famous B.B. King Café and then go to the Rock 'N Soul Museum. The food was VERY nice. The starters are pretty much as big as the main courses. And it wasn't even that expensive. The Rock 'N Soul Museum was interesting, it took you through the history of rock & roll and blues music. So, armed with a headset on and a device that takes you through the most important events, people could give themselves a tour of the museum. Unfortunately, we were unable to finish the tour, but will do so soon.

Monday we went to Nashville! More about this day in our next blog!

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were regular class days, nothing very exciting to tell you about, except that we ate lunch at the University's cafeteria for the first time. All fast food, from Taco Bell to Burger King. They did have some healthy foods, but woah they were expensive! I guess I won't be going there very often :P

And oh yes, I've noticed how sweet the bread tastes here…I don't know if they put sugar in the bread or…? Just a minor observation :)

So, all is well…classes have been going well and we're still enjoying ourselves here in Memphis, TN. But as I said, we miss you and can't wait to see you again!

Big hug from me,

-Lena-

JESPER: Saturday I had my first great activity planned: CLEAN MY BATHROOM INSIDE OUT! My second great activity: CLEAN MY KITCHEN! I just had the feeling I needed to change some things and get away some of the dirt that has been developed in who knows for how many years??? This sounds kinda gross, but I felt I needed to clean all the walls, bathtub and toilet in my bathroom with many Clorox wipes and whatever was necessary to get this clean!!! To finish it off, I bought a new shower curtain to make it look all fresh and beautiful (see pictures and tour around my apartment on our YouTube channel from tomorrow on…the link will be posted in the blog to Nashville). In the meantime, I took some time to talk with Dina and my lovely parents. Later on that night, we went to a VISA party: 'Dinner and Discussion'. The International students went to this occasion to get some free, but good Italian food (mainly pizza, what else?) and to get to know each other a little bit better. Later on, they wanted to take a moment and split the group in three smaller groups and discuss about religions in your own country and thoughts about it. I thought it was interesting to see all the different cultures come together and share their own opinions. However, a few in my group were really quiet!;-P I had a blast and we had some fun times with the Americans as well. We love our new friends Anna, Caroline and Ayana who are part of the VISA organization created by a great lady called Amy.

Sunday was a beautiful day and a long day. We went to church with Anna and Caroline for the first time in the USA. It was a good experience and it was really interesting. The service was good, but the bible study afterwards was more interesting as they thought it was fun to havepeople over from Holland!;-) Basically, this was just a try out, but it was more fun and interesting than I first thought it would be. When Caroline drove us back home, we saw some of our European friends standing in front of the Carpenter Complex. They were going down to the Mississippi river and take a boat trip, of course, we changed in more comfortable clothing and joined them to take the bus to the river. Even though, we were late taking a bus earlier (bus ticket only $1.50), we arrived exactly at 2.30PM at the boat. Unfortunately, after a good run, they decided to leave 10 people behind as we were the 10 people who just arrived. I think they didn't wanted to wait 5 more minutes and it cost them over $170.- BIG SHAME! However, we decided to not let it spoil our day so we went to Beale Street and ate at the B.B. King Club. There is always a live band playing in this beautiful club and the food was great (see pictures). Lena and I decided to buy B.B. King tickets as he will play in his own club on the 27th of September…I AM FORTUNED ENOUGH TO GO TO THAT CONCERT…WHAT A LEGEND!:-) After that, we went to the 'Rock 'N' Soul' museum and it was sooooo educational of what happened down in Memphis for the last 100 years or so…beautiful! Many pictures can be found on our blog…even though, we were already there for 1,5 hour…we still need to finish the tour, but they were closing so we received a stamp to come back some other time to finish the tour. We will come back FOR SURE! Probably the following Saturday!:-) We wanted to take a bus to go back home, but it was too dark and weird people coming outta the streets so we decided to take a cab that only cost us $5.- each.

Monday was LABOR DAY and we went to Nashville with our good friend Anna. More about this day in our next blog only focused on Nashville as we have a lot of things to say about this day!:-)

Tuesday was back to school day while we were still tired from our Nashville trip and got totally back into the mood of the blues as we had our blues class that day. I think it is interesting as blues is basically a whole different culture and has much more things into it than any other music genre. Anyway, we didn't do much that day just trying to take a rest and talk a bit with our families again. Oh, and it was good to see the summaries of the Dutch soccer team winning two games again, even though, they didn't played that well, but no worries Dutchies…I will keep following soccer!!! YAY!;-P

Wednesday was another laid back day was we followed class and created another home cooked meal. I was really focused on sorting out some financial matters for Lena and myself, because we spent a lot more money than we expected. Simply due to unforeseen costs that we didn't count on as we needed to buy EVERYTHING over here and some basic things were missing in our apartments. That is okay, but we do need to see how we can fit this into our budget and see what we need to do to follow a secure and healthy financial plan (for the people who don't know this yet, we are playing to go to New York, Nashville and Miami after our semester so that's why a good plan should be created to make all of this possible coz we don't have money growing on our backs as I say this in a real Dutch way, haha!:D).

Anyway, this is already our third blog and our fourth blog about Nashville coming within 24-hours as well so keep yourself updated, don't be afraid to make any comments and let us feel the love from HOLLAND or any other country you might be in or from!;-P ENJOY YOUR WEEK PEOPLE!

-Jesper-