as my 16th birthday looms swiftly ahead

• going to the German Opera Theatre in Berlin and seeing Samson and Dalila by Camille Saint-Saëns with Elka and Maartje after spending a lovely and informative day at the Reichstag museum.
• spending time with some of the English and Scottish exchange students in the winter; I really can't understand how people from the island of Great Britain are so relentlessly charming and friendly!
• learning to really appreciate life, despite its hefty list of flaws.
• taking up weekly astronomy classes at the De Biesbosch National Park and peering at the rings of Saturn with a professional telescope.
• the hours I have spent wandering through cemeteries and old, almost deserted church graveyards.
• meeting the queen.
• going to Bruges in Belgium and sampling all the wonderful different chocolates and bumping into Cornelis, the most amusing and simply brilliant old man I've ever met.
• dropping my course in Frisian as it really depressed me and brought my days down, due to my lack of interest and the quality of my teacher.
• having a small, relaxing gathering with a few close friends on Queen's Night - lovely weather, a little cider, a mellow cycle through town and eating dinner on a canal boat rounded off my year of being 15 perfectly.