There is a lot of good news in this update post. First off, I am not nearly as "homesick" or reverse culture-shocked as I seemed in my last post. I have come to terms with the fact that I am not in Belgium, and I have moved on and am living my life here. I am pretty happy with the way things are going. It is almost 2013, and it feels like I've been away from Belgium for so long. But much has changed in my life since I left.
I started university, and even though it's the same routine as in my last post, it's not so bad. I've made friends in my Spanish class. They are not yet people I feel close to or comfortable just asking to hang out, but maybe by the end of second semester we will be there. I am doing really well in school. I got straight A's in this first semester. I have the results for 3/4 classes already, and I'll find out the fourth in January.
I have friends outside of school too. None of them are really the same age as me, all a bit older, but I like that I can still feel a part of a group. More and more I feel accepted, appreciated, and loved by this group of people that is outside my family or my friends who are thousands of miles away. I am really glad and thankful that they are a part of my life. It's nice having some people to talk to and just having friends and people I can trust who are near by.
Last week I went to visit some friends from high school and grade school up in Toronto, which was a lot of fun. I really miss them too. It was almost weird to hang out with people my own age, since it's something I don't do much of anymore these days. I was only there for a few days, but it was nice to catch up.
Christmas has just passed. It was a little weird being here and having that normal Christmas I am used to. I kept thinking back to what last year was like in my second host family. But I had a wonderful Christmas and spent time with family I haven't seen in a while. I ate a lot. So much for losing all my exchange weight. Haven't lost more than a kilo since I left Belgium. And I probably gained another three this past week alone.
I am thinking about going on another exchange, but with university, for a semester or two in my third year. My choices are in the UK, Australia, India, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Jamaica, and France. I am really leaning towards going to India or Australia. I think it would be soo cool. And even in just considering my options, for some reason I am way more nervous than I ever was to do this than I was to go on my Rotary exchange. I'm sure I will be less nervous as plans become more official. Right now I'm just in the "what if I make the wrong choice/what is the right choice?" state of mind. Meanwhile I won't even have to choose for quite a while. But I am telling myself that there IS no wrong choice. Just like with the Rotary Youth Exchange, there aren't any places that are that much better than others. Everything is an experience and I am happy to embrace it. It's just that somewhere like India, Japan, or South Korea would be SO much more different than Canada or Belgium. But they are also places I REALLY want to go. I guess I'll just see how it unfolds and go the best place possible for my education in psychology, because right now, that's what comes first.
I've been holding out on the most important piece of big news. I guess I'll just spill it. I've booked my flight and I will be returning to Belgium in July 2013!!! I have been browsing flights and prices ever since I've been home, and I have never ever seen a price as low as one I saw with "Icelandair" one day, so I decided to go for it. I have to go back. I promised everyone, including myself, that I would, and I don't much like breaking promises. I bought it on my credit card and it's already paid for and everything. It's gonna feel like it's free by the time July actually rolls around!
I got my old job back at Metro, so I'm making a little money. Though I did spend a lot doing Boxing Day shopping. I spent over $250, but I saved over $550, so I'm not exactly disappointed. The best thing I bought was a leather jacket. Originally it was $500, but I spent $150 on it. Definitely worth it. I love this jacket. But when I spend money and buy things, it tends to be in bursts. Big bursts, far apart. After this week, I probably won't spend more than $20 until February or March. I bought a bunch of things I know I'll need while they are on sale, so instead of spending 50 bucks over a year, I spend 35 now, and don't have to buy any of it again until next year. I stocked up on things like make-up and body wash and moisturizer, things I know I need and use. So my wallet is sad right now, but it will be better in the long run.
So this year is now ending, and a new one will begin. In the year 2013 I hope to do more travelling. When I go back to Belgium I want to see a little more of Germany, and I intend on going to Peru in December of 2013, and hopefully bring in 2014!
I'll probably continue to update in this blog every once and a while. I was thinking of just letting it go, since it is supposed to be just about my exchange, but the truth is that exchange has changed my life in so many ways. It has made me the person I am today and I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing and pursuing the goals that I am if it wasn't for exchange! It never really ends.
Once an exchange student, always an exchange student!
Monday, December 31, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
How could I forget?
In the morning I wake up to my blasting alarm. I crawl out of bed and move on to the bathroom
where I wash my face. A new day has
begun. I look in the mirror and a sad,
tired face looks back at me. Slightly
different than it was a year and a half ago. In this past year, I’ve changed quite a lot. For the better, I’d say, for the most
part. I begin my day, I get dressed… its
cold out, and I don’t need to impress anyone at the university. I put on a big yellow sweater with my name on
the sleeve. I say “santé” to the rooster
and lion printed on the front, each holding a beer. “Tous les enfants de ma cite et meme d’ailleurs”
is printed on the back under “Rotary Youth Exchange 2011-2012”. I think of all of my friends with the same
sweater who are all over the world. Some
are lucky enough to still be in Belgium.
Others in Peru, California, Florida, Mexico, New York, Argentina, New
Zealand, India, Japan, Finland, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Austria,
Colombia… the list goes on. I struggle
into my jeans, as I have refused to accept the 20 pounds I gained. I put some makeup on my pale face that didn’t
see much sun under grey Belgian skies, and then I make my way to the kitchen to
settle my growling stomach. I try to
stay away from the nutella I used to eat every morning, but something tastier
than a little margarine has to go on my English muffins. I put my books in my bag, which is so “a la
mode” in Europe. For the longest time I
wanted one, because it was like the bags all my girlfriends had. Just in case of rain, I stick my umbrella in
it too. I didn’t even have it until a
few months ago… my first time in Paris it was pretty rainy, so I was forced to
buy a cheap umbrella there. I put on my
shoes, which I happened to buy in Spain.
I bought them in a little mall outside of our hotel in Madrid. I liked the black ones, and a friend from New
York bought the same in navy blue. They
were very much needed. The original
colours of the converse I had before became indistinguishable from all the mud
and beer from the “ducasses”. Before I
leave, I put on a hat. I decide between
the one from Peru that was such a nice gift, and the one I bought in Brussels,
convinced of its awesomeness by my best Arizonian friend. I unlock the door to leave my house,
remembering where that keychain came from.
It’s a little green lizard bottle opener I got in Bruges when I was
there for a weekend in May.
I rush to the bus stop, listening to music on
the way. I might listen to some French music,
but probably house or electronic, most of which I was introduced to during the past
year. I get on the bus, and swipe my bus
pass, considering the differences between Transit Windsor and TEC. I smile to myself as I remember all the times
I got away with cheating to get on the bus by flashing a bus pass that had been
expired for 3 months.
I get to the university and sit in Spanish
class. I wouldn’t even be taking this
class and learning this language if some of my best friends weren’t Spanish speaking. I want to travel more in the future, visit my
friends, and experience their culture and language. So I’m learning Spanish. It’s so much easier now that I speak
French. Ah merde ! J’ai fait une
erreur devant tout la classe… ah oops. I
totally just started thinking in French again.
Move on to my next lecture… finally something that doesn’t remind me of
Belgium!! Oh wait, my
professor just mentioned a French philosopher… so of course I think of my
religion class back au college a Chimay.
By the
time this lecture is done, it’s about time for lunch, so I head over to a café on
campus. I order a tea and a Panini. Not too expensive – I have enough change for that. I pull out my change purse, and have to smile.
Its big yellow button eyes look up at me
as I unzip its red mouth and take out some money, dollars and quarters still
looking weird… 25 cent pieces don’t even exist “where I’m from”. The change purse is very important to me, so
I take care to make sure it doesn’t get crushed by books in my bag. It was generously given to me by a friend I
made on a school trip to Normandy near the end of the school year.
I eat alone. It’s so hard to make friends at university. It was so much easier in Belgium. I was an exchange student. I was interesting. People wanted to be my friend. But Belgians are friendlier anyway. To be honest, I barely even mind that I don’t have many friends
here. But then again, sometimes it would
be nice to let loose and go to a party now and then. “I don’t have time,” I tell myself. “I have to focus on my school work.”
When I arrive back at my house, I check the
mail, hoping something came for me from a faraway place… but no such luck
today. Just some ads and a bill
addressed to my mother. I get into the
house. Off with the Spanish kicks and on
with the slippers, shaped like clogs, from Amsterdam. That brings back fond memories of my Iowan
friend, who invited me to Amsterdam with her and her host family. I relax for just a moment before starting on
my tedious homework. I never had to do
homework all last year. I put my face in
my hands … and I see on my wrist a bracelet of black, yellow, and red
thread. One of my best friends hand made
that for me. I’m not allowed to take it
off until I go visit him in Peru. I go
the fridge to look for a little snack before starting my homework. I see on it the postcards I brought back from
Barcelona, Paris, Bruges, and Chimay… But
most importantly, a couple magnets, given to me by yet another one of my best
friends. He’s such a sweetheart. Not finding anything I want in the fridge, I
make my way to my room to work on my homework.
On the bulletin board above my workspace, many pictures are pinned: my
class, my best friends, my favourite pictures, a postcard featuring Carnaval at
Binche. Every time I look up from my
work, they’re all smiling at me. I just
wish I could be there again.
I study until the evening, when I shower. I get my towel off a hook behind my
door. I see on the hook next to it and
apron given to me by my second host family.
It has a little rooster on it and says “Erpion”. After my shower, I watch a little TV with my
mom. That’s one thing I didn’t do much
of in Belgium – watch television. I
always had better things to do. I have
to get up very early again tomorrow, so I go to bed. Before dozing off to sleep, I look around my
room. I look at the pictures on my
walls, the flag hanging, and I cuddle with a sweater of a boy I had loved. I try to think positively and look forward to
next summer, when I plan on going back, but for now it just seems so far
away. Three months have passed
already. Better than most, I know how
time can just fly by. Three months have
passed, so only 9 months left, until I can be home again.
Friday, September 7, 2012
The End
It was Monday morning. How was it that in 24 hours I would be leaving everything behind? I had made a life in Belgium that I wasn't ready to leave. I had family and friends and the best social life I've ever had. Sometimes I still think that I am not ready even now to let it all go, but, 2 months later, I have made peace that I have another life in Canada that I had to return to.
So it was the day before I had to leave and I still had a few things to do. That afternoon my host brother drove me to Couvin so I could close my bank account, then to Chimay so I could mail of a 9.7kg package to Canada. In it was a bunch of heavier stuff I didn't want to take back in my suitcases (books, papers, winter coat, etc). I was done those errands at about 4pm. At 5, a couple friends, Mathieu and Pauline, I'd invited over to say goodbye came to the house. Mathieu only stayed 20 or 30 minutes because he came on his break at work, but Pauline stayed until around 10pm. At 7, all of my previous host families came over for dinner. And Damien came just as we were about to eat, around 9pm. He was to sleep at the house that night because he had no other way of getting to the airport in the morning to say goodbye.
It was a really nice evening. The weather was perfect and we sat around and talked. My second host family brought me a little gift. It was an apron with "Erpion" and a rooster on it. It's from the village Christmas party that I went to the first weekend or so that I was living with them. And Pauline had brought me a little package of chocolate that I wasn't allowed to open until I was in Canada or on the plane. I didn't even know what it was going on the plane because it was supposed to be a surprise.
We ate a nice barbecue and had a good time. Then it was getting pretty late so everyone left. Martine and Jean-Paul took my two big suitcases home with them, because they too would be going to the airport that morning to pick up Laura. So we would just get them from them there in the morning. We didn't know if we would have had enough room in the car with 4 of us and 3 suitcases.
It wasn't until after 1am that we all went to bed, but Damien and I didn't go to sleep until 2:30. We were both pretty upset during the night. I only got about an hour of sleep, though I don't know about him. I got up at 5 and got ready. The only things left in my room were the things I was leaving behind and the things I was wearing that day. And my carry-on bag.
Around 6am I learned that we would have to stop by Jean-Paul and Martine's on the way to Zaventem because Laura missed her connecting flight, and would be arriving that afternoon, not in the morning. So They wouldn't be going to the airport. By the time we left the house, went by Cerfontaine, got my luggage, and got to the airport, it was already 9am.
I finally got through all the stress of being late and having my passport and luggage checked. And I finally had a moment to breathe. But I still had to say goodbye to everyone that was there for me. Of course my host mom, Manon, and Damien were there. But also Paloma, Andre, Alejandro, Loïc, Emilie, Mel, and Aymeric. We stood around and chatted for 15 minutes or so, but then I really had to go. I was going to start going around the circle with Alejandro, but he pushed me back and said "No, me last", so I nodded and moved on to Emilie. The second I put my arms around her I burst into tears I went around and gave my final hugs and kisses to everyone. I got in line to have my passport stamped that I was leaving the country, and my "team" couldn't follow me... I passed to the other side of the glass and gave them one last wave, blew kisses goodbye and finally, and painfully, turned my back and walked away. The crushing sadness didn't stay for long as panic set in. My flight was already boarding and I still had to get through security! All went all right at security, the line wasn't long and things were going smoothly. But they did have to open and go through my carry on suitcase. They couldn't get a clear image of what was inside (because I had things in a the metal Chimay box) so they had to take a look themselves. Once I got all my stuff put together again and my shoes, belt, watch, sweater, and blazer were back on, I sped walked down the moving walkway. The 33rd gate never seemed so far away. I finally got down to my gate and got in line to board. Once I was in line I felt sick. I felt like getting on that plane would be a mistake. I could stay. I could turn back. I didn't have to go. But despite what my gut told me to do, I got on the plane. I found my seat and a place in the overhead storage for my little suitcase. No one was next to me. I sat down, took a deep breath and just cried. I kept receiving text messages from my friends and as much as I appreciated it, it just made things worse. The worst moment was take-off. As I felt the plane lift off the ground, I felt like I was actually breaking as I became a mess of tears. My glasses were dirty and I could barely even see through them from the salt from all the tears that had dried on them. I might have slept for a half hour the whole flight. I listened to some music and watched a couple movies. Not long into the flight, I became realy hungry and was already quite thirsty. Eventually they came around with water. I probably had 10 cups.
I decided to open the little package from Pauline. In it were chocolates and a note. After not having cried for maybe 15 minutes (probably a new record for that day) that sent me over the edge again. Soon after, we got our meal... eventually, after nearly 8 hours in the air, we landed in Toronto. It took me a while to find my luggage and I had to exchange some money to pay for a trolley. I went through and my family found me. I was so tired I barely knew what was going on, but my mom hugged me and I just cried and told her that I missed her and that this was the worst day of my life.
I hugged my brother, dad, and my friend Alex who was there a well (which was a surprise to me). I was still crying a lot as I met Francisco, our Brazilian exchange student. It was nice to see my family again, but the bad outweighed the good in this situation and I just wasn't truly happy.
It took me a long while to get back into the swing of things. Just now, at the beginning of September, I feel like I'm really adjusted to life back here. Though I'm still not truly happy, it's getting better. My heart is still in Belgium and I can't wait to go back next summer. But now I've accepted that I have responsabilities here. I have just started university. I'm studying psychology and Spanish. Soon I have to go back to work. My former employer seems cool about giving me my job back, but they just finished hiring a while ago so there aren't too many hours.
But even though my year as an outbound exchange student is over it never really ends. I am continuing my involvement in Rotary. I have spoken to 3 clubs in my district about my exchange. I am going to be more involed with Rotex, and I try to be involved in the lives of the inbound exchange students. There is a guy from Belgium in the district here and I'm really happy about that. Just the other night I had him come to Windsor and we went to an Avicii concert here together. It was so awesome. I felt like I was in Belgium again. I haven't been to a big concert since Rock Werchter and I haven't been in an environment like that surrounded by hundreds of people dancing to electronic music in a while. Plus I was with Felix (the exchange student) and we were speaking french the whole night. We had a lot of fun.
As the other exchange students arrive I should be meeting them. In Windsor is a girl from Japan who I should be meeting next Wednesday night.
So it was the day before I had to leave and I still had a few things to do. That afternoon my host brother drove me to Couvin so I could close my bank account, then to Chimay so I could mail of a 9.7kg package to Canada. In it was a bunch of heavier stuff I didn't want to take back in my suitcases (books, papers, winter coat, etc). I was done those errands at about 4pm. At 5, a couple friends, Mathieu and Pauline, I'd invited over to say goodbye came to the house. Mathieu only stayed 20 or 30 minutes because he came on his break at work, but Pauline stayed until around 10pm. At 7, all of my previous host families came over for dinner. And Damien came just as we were about to eat, around 9pm. He was to sleep at the house that night because he had no other way of getting to the airport in the morning to say goodbye.
It was a really nice evening. The weather was perfect and we sat around and talked. My second host family brought me a little gift. It was an apron with "Erpion" and a rooster on it. It's from the village Christmas party that I went to the first weekend or so that I was living with them. And Pauline had brought me a little package of chocolate that I wasn't allowed to open until I was in Canada or on the plane. I didn't even know what it was going on the plane because it was supposed to be a surprise.
We ate a nice barbecue and had a good time. Then it was getting pretty late so everyone left. Martine and Jean-Paul took my two big suitcases home with them, because they too would be going to the airport that morning to pick up Laura. So we would just get them from them there in the morning. We didn't know if we would have had enough room in the car with 4 of us and 3 suitcases.
It wasn't until after 1am that we all went to bed, but Damien and I didn't go to sleep until 2:30. We were both pretty upset during the night. I only got about an hour of sleep, though I don't know about him. I got up at 5 and got ready. The only things left in my room were the things I was leaving behind and the things I was wearing that day. And my carry-on bag.
Around 6am I learned that we would have to stop by Jean-Paul and Martine's on the way to Zaventem because Laura missed her connecting flight, and would be arriving that afternoon, not in the morning. So They wouldn't be going to the airport. By the time we left the house, went by Cerfontaine, got my luggage, and got to the airport, it was already 9am.
I finally got through all the stress of being late and having my passport and luggage checked. And I finally had a moment to breathe. But I still had to say goodbye to everyone that was there for me. Of course my host mom, Manon, and Damien were there. But also Paloma, Andre, Alejandro, Loïc, Emilie, Mel, and Aymeric. We stood around and chatted for 15 minutes or so, but then I really had to go. I was going to start going around the circle with Alejandro, but he pushed me back and said "No, me last", so I nodded and moved on to Emilie. The second I put my arms around her I burst into tears I went around and gave my final hugs and kisses to everyone. I got in line to have my passport stamped that I was leaving the country, and my "team" couldn't follow me... I passed to the other side of the glass and gave them one last wave, blew kisses goodbye and finally, and painfully, turned my back and walked away. The crushing sadness didn't stay for long as panic set in. My flight was already boarding and I still had to get through security! All went all right at security, the line wasn't long and things were going smoothly. But they did have to open and go through my carry on suitcase. They couldn't get a clear image of what was inside (because I had things in a the metal Chimay box) so they had to take a look themselves. Once I got all my stuff put together again and my shoes, belt, watch, sweater, and blazer were back on, I sped walked down the moving walkway. The 33rd gate never seemed so far away. I finally got down to my gate and got in line to board. Once I was in line I felt sick. I felt like getting on that plane would be a mistake. I could stay. I could turn back. I didn't have to go. But despite what my gut told me to do, I got on the plane. I found my seat and a place in the overhead storage for my little suitcase. No one was next to me. I sat down, took a deep breath and just cried. I kept receiving text messages from my friends and as much as I appreciated it, it just made things worse. The worst moment was take-off. As I felt the plane lift off the ground, I felt like I was actually breaking as I became a mess of tears. My glasses were dirty and I could barely even see through them from the salt from all the tears that had dried on them. I might have slept for a half hour the whole flight. I listened to some music and watched a couple movies. Not long into the flight, I became realy hungry and was already quite thirsty. Eventually they came around with water. I probably had 10 cups.
I decided to open the little package from Pauline. In it were chocolates and a note. After not having cried for maybe 15 minutes (probably a new record for that day) that sent me over the edge again. Soon after, we got our meal... eventually, after nearly 8 hours in the air, we landed in Toronto. It took me a while to find my luggage and I had to exchange some money to pay for a trolley. I went through and my family found me. I was so tired I barely knew what was going on, but my mom hugged me and I just cried and told her that I missed her and that this was the worst day of my life.
I hugged my brother, dad, and my friend Alex who was there a well (which was a surprise to me). I was still crying a lot as I met Francisco, our Brazilian exchange student. It was nice to see my family again, but the bad outweighed the good in this situation and I just wasn't truly happy.
It took me a long while to get back into the swing of things. Just now, at the beginning of September, I feel like I'm really adjusted to life back here. Though I'm still not truly happy, it's getting better. My heart is still in Belgium and I can't wait to go back next summer. But now I've accepted that I have responsabilities here. I have just started university. I'm studying psychology and Spanish. Soon I have to go back to work. My former employer seems cool about giving me my job back, but they just finished hiring a while ago so there aren't too many hours.
But even though my year as an outbound exchange student is over it never really ends. I am continuing my involvement in Rotary. I have spoken to 3 clubs in my district about my exchange. I am going to be more involed with Rotex, and I try to be involved in the lives of the inbound exchange students. There is a guy from Belgium in the district here and I'm really happy about that. Just the other night I had him come to Windsor and we went to an Avicii concert here together. It was so awesome. I felt like I was in Belgium again. I haven't been to a big concert since Rock Werchter and I haven't been in an environment like that surrounded by hundreds of people dancing to electronic music in a while. Plus I was with Felix (the exchange student) and we were speaking french the whole night. We had a lot of fun.
As the other exchange students arrive I should be meeting them. In Windsor is a girl from Japan who I should be meeting next Wednesday night.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
The End Continues
The next two days was the Ducasse de Vaulx! Yet another great weekend. The first night we went really early. Manon and Valentin (my host siblings) are part of the youth who organize it, and there was some stuff for them going on earlier, like local bands playing, so I had just tagged along. It was really fun, and it's easy to get free drinks and food if you're there with them before the party actually starts ;) Eventually all my friends showed up and we had a great time, as per usual. We were there dancing until sunrise. I remember someone had a pen and just as the sky was turning from pink to yellow in that first hour of dawn, a few of us were writing and drawing on each other's arms, faces, necks, chests, basically any skin that was showing. I think we were all glad to find out in the morning that it washed off very easily!
The next night was a little different. I had one full weekend after that in Belgium and that was it. I had been brought to that realization when three of us had gone out to go to the bathroom. I was with Nico and Sarah Mahy, and they start talking about how it's so unfair and how much it sucks that I have to leave... and I just broke down right there. Sarah was crying too, and I could see that Nico was almost at that point too. We cried and hugged and Nico was holding me to try and make me feel better, but he was begging me to stop. After a little while, I sat down and tried to just calm down, breathe, and think of the good things I still have left to experience in my last 10 days. I composed myself, put a smile on my face, started dancing, and skipped back into the party.
I enjoyed myself for a while, but then they put on some sad Adele song and somehow Paloma found me, and I don't know if she was fake crying and singing at me to be funny or realy crying, but then I started real crying and it was terrible. They continued with another sad song or two after that, so we were inconsolable crying to each other, and we made a few other people cry too, like Sarah again... Eventually we managed to find our motivation and then people who had seen us crying earlier would come up to us and ask if we were ok.
The nights all run together sometimes, (try going out almost every night as much as I did and you will know what I mean) but I'm quite sure that it was the second night of Vaulx that Julie came home with us and slept over because she couldn't get home at that time and she lived in the same village as us. Again, we were out until after sunrise, though I can't be sure of the time.
I still had to wake up early the next morning because my train was leaving at 10am to go to ROCK WERCHTER!!!
In the morning I woke up, showered, and woke up Julie to offer her breakfast. She left soon after and then I was out of the house to pick up Ish from Chimay so we could catch the train at Couvin. We made it to Werchter at maybe 2 or 3pm.
We saw The Vaccine, Die Antwoord, Mac Miller, Florence and the Machine, Snow Patrol, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. RHCP was unbelievaly amazing. I've definitely never been to a festival like that in my life. It was quite the experience. I meet a cool Dutch guy and we hung out and saw a couple bands perform together (including RHCP). The hour and a half that the Red Hot Chili Peppers were on stage felt like the shortest hour and a half of my life. They were so good and it just didn't feel like enough. They played some of their great older songs, thankfully, and only a little bit of what was on their newer album. I couldn't believe how quickly it was over. I managed to capture a few decent pictures and videos.
So once the Chili Peppers finished after 1am, we were getting ready to leave. Ish and I didn't have a pass for the camping ground and there were no trains or busses leaving until the morning. Our other Aussie friends snuck us into the camping site (because they were there all four days) and we hung out there until 5:30 a.m. That was actually a horrible night. It was fun at first because we sat there and talked and joked around, but it was hell because it was FREEZING. I don't know what the actual temperature was, (my guess is 6 degrees) but I've never been that cold for so long in my life. I'm convinced I would have had hypothermia had I been out another hour. It was that bad. I just had a tank top, button up shirt, and little jacket. My feet were soaked because the grass on the camp site was so long, and just walking through it (because of dew) my shoes were soaked through. Did I mention that I didn't sleep for a second? I had never been happier to get on a bus at 5:45 a.m. The bus was pretty warm, but by the time I actually was able to stop shivering, I had to get off again because we had arrived at the train station. We just missed the first train that was leaving, so we had to take the next one 20 mintues later. We transferred at Brussels to go to Charleroi, where we took the bus to Chimay. In total I might have slept a very broken hour between the trains and busses we had to take to Chimay.
When we arrived to Chimay, we went to Croc Midi for lunch. We arrived at around 10:30 and Andre, Paloma, Alejandro, and Damien arrived after 11. We had a sandwhich and sat around and talked for a while, then we made our way over to Le Galion, a bar in Chimay. On our way there, we ran into Cyril, so we invited him along. We had drinks and/or ice cream then Ish and Cyril both had to leave. This was the last time I'd be seeing either of them, so I had to say another two real goodbyes. The rest of us went inside and played a couple games of billiards. It was fun. Then at 3 p.m. my host mom brought me home when she was done work. I went up to my room and slept.
Just before 7 p.m., I was woken up by my host mom because we'd be going out to dinner for my host brother's birthday. I quickly showered and changed and then we left for Lompret. This was actually the first time I ate at L'Eau Blanche, a good and well-known restauraunt in the region. We had a really nice meal together. Paloma's host mom is actually the owner of the restauraunt, and Loïc works there as a bartender. They were both there that night. After we had finished eating, Paloma calls me into the restauraunt by the bar, and Loic invites me to dinner with them the following night.
When we left the restauraunt we stopped by my host brother and his girlfriend's house. She had been pregnant and the baby was actually due for that day. She wasn't quite near ready to give birth yet. But we stopped by and chatted a little to see how things were going. As soon as we got home I went straight to bed again as I was still extremely tired.
The next evening I went out to dinner again with Loïc and Paloma. It was really nice. After we ate, we went up for a walk on the escarpment. While we were there, we decided to come back again the next day for a picnic since it was such a nice little place. We came back down, and Paloma and I ran into someone we know at the restauraunt. Since they were just there for drinks, they invited us to sit down with them and we had a drink together. It had already been dark for a little while by the time I had my host mom come pick me up.
The next day I was alone at home for the morning since everyone was working. Even my host sister was out because she gave tennis lessons to younger kids during the day. I prepared my bag for the day, but also for the next two days after, because I would be going to Paris!!! SO my bag was very very full and there wasn't room for very many things for the picnic. I had just managed to slip in the three Chimays that the school had given me as a gift. I wasn't about to take them with me back home because I didn't want the glass bottles to break inside my luggage, and they are kind of heavy and I didn't want any unnecessary weight either.
Loïc came by around 1 p.m. to pick me up to head back to Lompret for the third day in a row. He has a little motorcycle and it was really cool to ride on the back :)
We arrived up on the escarpment and waited for Paloma. Just before she showed up, Loic gets a call from the restauraunt. Another worker had hurt herself on the job and wasn't able to continue working for the day, so he had to go in and work. We were all pretty disappointed, but at least I wasn't alone. He had to go and Paloma arrived about a minute after he left. Paloma and I ate a bit and had a beer. Then not long after we had to go since we had plans to go to Damien's house in Sivry for 4 p.m.
We met Andre down at the restauraunt since he was already there with his host parents. He too was going to Damien's so we arranged to go with him. But Paloma and I had to clean up from our little picnic first. We had left Loic's motorcycle there since neither of us could drive it down but I took his sweater and backpack. To make carrying two bags easier, I put on his sweater. Too lazy to take it off a few minutes later, I let him know I was taking it with me and he was cool with it.
Before we went to Sivry, Andre had to go home first and get ready, so they dropped Paloma and I off in Chimay and we stopped by the Casino to say hi to a friend of ours who worked there. We had a drink and were there for about 45 minutes when Andre came back to get us and then we made our way to Damien's.
The three of us were the last to arrive as Sarah, Aurelien, Alejandro, and of course Damien were already there. Shortly after we arrived, we went to a little lake in France where they have a bunch of activites. They have a lake and pools for water sports and they even have mini golf. We thought we were going to go swimming, but the place closed in an hour and it still would've cost 6 euros, so we decided against paying and just walked around instead.
A couple hours later we were picked up and we went back to Damien's house. We ate barbecue and chatted. Since I was going to Paris the next day, I had to leave a bit early. I also had to say goodbye to Sarah, since she would be leaving to go on vacation with her family. That was also hard but I managed, again, not to cry. Martine picked me up and I slept at her house that night.
The next morning we went to Paris by train. We were only there for two days and one night, but we saw a lot. Sacré Cœur, Moulin Rouge, Le Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Gallerie Lafayette, The Opera House, Saint-Germain-des-Près, Notre Dame, Champs Elysées, Tour Eiffel. We did a lot of walking and we used the metro quite often. At the end of both days my feet were killing me. At Sacré Cœur we walked up all the stairs (it's a lot of stairs) to go to the very top to have a nice view of Paris. I didn't get to do this at the Eiffel Tower because I would have been in line for 3 hours and the train was leaving in 1. But I was there and I saw it, and I will go up when I visit Paris again. Paris is a beautiful city and I can't decide which is my favourite city (after Chimay, of course) Rome or Paris! I guess I'll just have to keep going back until I can figure it out ;)
Even though I saw so many amazing things, one of the best things I did in Paris was something called "La Boule". Basically I was shot into the air in this metal cage ball by these huge eslatics and was high above Paris before I could say "OH P****N". It was awesome!! and what's better (or worse, depending on how you look at it) is that after you're thrown up in the air, you keep bouncing and spinning wildly for a few minutes.
The next night was a little different. I had one full weekend after that in Belgium and that was it. I had been brought to that realization when three of us had gone out to go to the bathroom. I was with Nico and Sarah Mahy, and they start talking about how it's so unfair and how much it sucks that I have to leave... and I just broke down right there. Sarah was crying too, and I could see that Nico was almost at that point too. We cried and hugged and Nico was holding me to try and make me feel better, but he was begging me to stop. After a little while, I sat down and tried to just calm down, breathe, and think of the good things I still have left to experience in my last 10 days. I composed myself, put a smile on my face, started dancing, and skipped back into the party.
I enjoyed myself for a while, but then they put on some sad Adele song and somehow Paloma found me, and I don't know if she was fake crying and singing at me to be funny or realy crying, but then I started real crying and it was terrible. They continued with another sad song or two after that, so we were inconsolable crying to each other, and we made a few other people cry too, like Sarah again... Eventually we managed to find our motivation and then people who had seen us crying earlier would come up to us and ask if we were ok.
The nights all run together sometimes, (try going out almost every night as much as I did and you will know what I mean) but I'm quite sure that it was the second night of Vaulx that Julie came home with us and slept over because she couldn't get home at that time and she lived in the same village as us. Again, we were out until after sunrise, though I can't be sure of the time.
I still had to wake up early the next morning because my train was leaving at 10am to go to ROCK WERCHTER!!!
In the morning I woke up, showered, and woke up Julie to offer her breakfast. She left soon after and then I was out of the house to pick up Ish from Chimay so we could catch the train at Couvin. We made it to Werchter at maybe 2 or 3pm.
We saw The Vaccine, Die Antwoord, Mac Miller, Florence and the Machine, Snow Patrol, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. RHCP was unbelievaly amazing. I've definitely never been to a festival like that in my life. It was quite the experience. I meet a cool Dutch guy and we hung out and saw a couple bands perform together (including RHCP). The hour and a half that the Red Hot Chili Peppers were on stage felt like the shortest hour and a half of my life. They were so good and it just didn't feel like enough. They played some of their great older songs, thankfully, and only a little bit of what was on their newer album. I couldn't believe how quickly it was over. I managed to capture a few decent pictures and videos.
So once the Chili Peppers finished after 1am, we were getting ready to leave. Ish and I didn't have a pass for the camping ground and there were no trains or busses leaving until the morning. Our other Aussie friends snuck us into the camping site (because they were there all four days) and we hung out there until 5:30 a.m. That was actually a horrible night. It was fun at first because we sat there and talked and joked around, but it was hell because it was FREEZING. I don't know what the actual temperature was, (my guess is 6 degrees) but I've never been that cold for so long in my life. I'm convinced I would have had hypothermia had I been out another hour. It was that bad. I just had a tank top, button up shirt, and little jacket. My feet were soaked because the grass on the camp site was so long, and just walking through it (because of dew) my shoes were soaked through. Did I mention that I didn't sleep for a second? I had never been happier to get on a bus at 5:45 a.m. The bus was pretty warm, but by the time I actually was able to stop shivering, I had to get off again because we had arrived at the train station. We just missed the first train that was leaving, so we had to take the next one 20 mintues later. We transferred at Brussels to go to Charleroi, where we took the bus to Chimay. In total I might have slept a very broken hour between the trains and busses we had to take to Chimay.
When we arrived to Chimay, we went to Croc Midi for lunch. We arrived at around 10:30 and Andre, Paloma, Alejandro, and Damien arrived after 11. We had a sandwhich and sat around and talked for a while, then we made our way over to Le Galion, a bar in Chimay. On our way there, we ran into Cyril, so we invited him along. We had drinks and/or ice cream then Ish and Cyril both had to leave. This was the last time I'd be seeing either of them, so I had to say another two real goodbyes. The rest of us went inside and played a couple games of billiards. It was fun. Then at 3 p.m. my host mom brought me home when she was done work. I went up to my room and slept.
Just before 7 p.m., I was woken up by my host mom because we'd be going out to dinner for my host brother's birthday. I quickly showered and changed and then we left for Lompret. This was actually the first time I ate at L'Eau Blanche, a good and well-known restauraunt in the region. We had a really nice meal together. Paloma's host mom is actually the owner of the restauraunt, and Loïc works there as a bartender. They were both there that night. After we had finished eating, Paloma calls me into the restauraunt by the bar, and Loic invites me to dinner with them the following night.
When we left the restauraunt we stopped by my host brother and his girlfriend's house. She had been pregnant and the baby was actually due for that day. She wasn't quite near ready to give birth yet. But we stopped by and chatted a little to see how things were going. As soon as we got home I went straight to bed again as I was still extremely tired.
The next evening I went out to dinner again with Loïc and Paloma. It was really nice. After we ate, we went up for a walk on the escarpment. While we were there, we decided to come back again the next day for a picnic since it was such a nice little place. We came back down, and Paloma and I ran into someone we know at the restauraunt. Since they were just there for drinks, they invited us to sit down with them and we had a drink together. It had already been dark for a little while by the time I had my host mom come pick me up.
The next day I was alone at home for the morning since everyone was working. Even my host sister was out because she gave tennis lessons to younger kids during the day. I prepared my bag for the day, but also for the next two days after, because I would be going to Paris!!! SO my bag was very very full and there wasn't room for very many things for the picnic. I had just managed to slip in the three Chimays that the school had given me as a gift. I wasn't about to take them with me back home because I didn't want the glass bottles to break inside my luggage, and they are kind of heavy and I didn't want any unnecessary weight either.
Loïc came by around 1 p.m. to pick me up to head back to Lompret for the third day in a row. He has a little motorcycle and it was really cool to ride on the back :)
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| The Village of Lompret from the escarpment. This was the view we had for our picnic. The building on the right is the restauraunt "L'Eau Blance" |
We met Andre down at the restauraunt since he was already there with his host parents. He too was going to Damien's so we arranged to go with him. But Paloma and I had to clean up from our little picnic first. We had left Loic's motorcycle there since neither of us could drive it down but I took his sweater and backpack. To make carrying two bags easier, I put on his sweater. Too lazy to take it off a few minutes later, I let him know I was taking it with me and he was cool with it.
Before we went to Sivry, Andre had to go home first and get ready, so they dropped Paloma and I off in Chimay and we stopped by the Casino to say hi to a friend of ours who worked there. We had a drink and were there for about 45 minutes when Andre came back to get us and then we made our way to Damien's.
The three of us were the last to arrive as Sarah, Aurelien, Alejandro, and of course Damien were already there. Shortly after we arrived, we went to a little lake in France where they have a bunch of activites. They have a lake and pools for water sports and they even have mini golf. We thought we were going to go swimming, but the place closed in an hour and it still would've cost 6 euros, so we decided against paying and just walked around instead.
A couple hours later we were picked up and we went back to Damien's house. We ate barbecue and chatted. Since I was going to Paris the next day, I had to leave a bit early. I also had to say goodbye to Sarah, since she would be leaving to go on vacation with her family. That was also hard but I managed, again, not to cry. Martine picked me up and I slept at her house that night.
The next morning we went to Paris by train. We were only there for two days and one night, but we saw a lot. Sacré Cœur, Moulin Rouge, Le Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Gallerie Lafayette, The Opera House, Saint-Germain-des-Près, Notre Dame, Champs Elysées, Tour Eiffel. We did a lot of walking and we used the metro quite often. At the end of both days my feet were killing me. At Sacré Cœur we walked up all the stairs (it's a lot of stairs) to go to the very top to have a nice view of Paris. I didn't get to do this at the Eiffel Tower because I would have been in line for 3 hours and the train was leaving in 1. But I was there and I saw it, and I will go up when I visit Paris again. Paris is a beautiful city and I can't decide which is my favourite city (after Chimay, of course) Rome or Paris! I guess I'll just have to keep going back until I can figure it out ;)
Even though I saw so many amazing things, one of the best things I did in Paris was something called "La Boule". Basically I was shot into the air in this metal cage ball by these huge eslatics and was high above Paris before I could say "OH P****N". It was awesome!! and what's better (or worse, depending on how you look at it) is that after you're thrown up in the air, you keep bouncing and spinning wildly for a few minutes.
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| The Eiffel Tower |
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| Moulin Rouge |
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| Arc de Triomphe |
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| La Boule |
I got home from Paris at about 11:30 on Friday night, and Manon, Valentin, and Louise (Valentin's girlfriend) were all at home waiting for me so we could go out. This weekend the party was at Virelles. I went out all three days of the weekend, and had a great time each time. This was my last real Belgian party. I was giving out the last of my little Canada pins to my friends and one of my friends had me sit on his shoulders on the platform, and on Saturday night he even had the DJ announce that it was my last party and that everyone was invited to come give me a kiss. Hahaa. On Saturday, Nico did a before party at his house, since he lives very close by in the same village. And most of us who were there before also slept over after. That night it rained. A lot. So by the time we got back to Nico's at 5 or 7 in the morning or whenever it was, we were all soaked through. At the end of the party, I knew it was the last time I would be seeing a lot of my friends and that I was leaving Belgium in just a few short days... so naturally I was weeping. I was an inconsolable mess, but I managed to stop crying by the time we got back to Nico's. But because we were so soaked, I had to borrow a t-shirt and shorts from Nico to sleep in. There were 6 of us sleeping in one small bedroom. I got picked up just before lunch on Sunday morning. I got home, washed up, changed, and then in talking to my host sister, we decided to go out again that night since it was 80's & 90's music. We had so much fun even though it was really just Manon, Louise, and I for most of the night. Some of Louise's friends were there later, and Valentin showed up too. We didn't stay out too late that night after having already been out the past two nights.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
The Beginning of the End
I've been home now for a month. I went through reverse culture shock, but now I've adjusted a little more and am a lot less thrown off by weird aspects of North American culture. I guess I should talk about the last few weeks of my exchange that I haven't written about yet here in this blog. I've only just been catching up in my journal writing. I've been really busy and distracted by other things, or I just haven't been in the mood to do it.
So last you read, I was going to go out another two nights in a row before going off to Disneyland Paris. So that I did and I had an insane amount of fun both nights. Both nights I spent hours dancing on the platform with my friends. I managed to come out of the party one night with a Belgian-coloured beer hat, which is a really cool souvenir I now have placed on a shelf in my room. On the Saturday night, I got back around 4am and didn't even bother going to sleep. I had to leave just after 6am to go to Disney, and I thought that if I went to sleep for an hour that I wouldn't be able to wake up and be ready to go. So I slowly started getting ready after I got in. Shower, change of clothes, making sure I had everything I needed, etc.
Andre, his host sister, host brother, and their little cousin came by to pick me up and off we went! Unfortunately, it didn't stop raining all day long. I wasn't as happy as I should have been for someone going to Disney. My shoes and socks were soaked through, my hair was dripping - I was drenched! Not to mention exhausted! I had only had a couple good nights of sleep since the end of exams. We still did a lot of fun rides and attractions though. We had a cabin for the night and I slept like a stone. It still wasn't enough and I woke up feeling tired, but it was much better than nothing. I had a way better time on Monday. The sun was out most of the day, not a drop of rain, my clothes were dry, and I had a little energy. Overall it was a lot of fun. I even got a really nice pin for my blazer.
I expected a little more from the meal, which was just a cold buffet - salads, lunch meats, bread, potatoes, that type of stuff. It was good, but some of us found that it wasn't quite enough. The guys at my table decided to take a whole pineapple that was on the main buffet table for decoration and we cut it up with dull knives at the table and ate the slices amongst ourselves.
After the meal was a dance, but before the dance, the King and Queen had to be chosen. This was determined through a small series of competitions - one for boys and the other for girls. The boys started off. They had to partner up. One was blindfolded. The blindfolded one was not allowed to speak to his partner. He was then told something by a 5th year, and he had to draw it. The partner had to guess what he was drawing and the first group to guess this won. They also did something else involving blindfolds where the blindfolded one had to run across the room and find his partner, who couldn't move, but was calling out to the blindfolded one. I don't know how they determined two finalists from that but they did.
Then it was the girls' turn. We did musical chairs, but with a little twist. We started out with our shoes off and on the other side of the gym, then, when a special music was played, we had to run to our shoes, grab ONE, and come back to find a chair. The next time the special music was played, we had to go and find one of someone else's shoes then come back to find a seat. The next time, we had to go put their shoe back, and the time after that, we had to go find our other shoe. Despite my best efforts, I could not find my other shoe and was promptly eliminated. But I lasted a few rounds. The four finalists, 2 boys and 2 girls, then had to do a little race with a book on their heads and an egg on a spoon in their mouths. It ended up being Jerome and Alice who were King and Queen. Then the party started! :)
After dark, we were all called outside, because the president of the 5th years had s surprise for us. We were to light and set of paper lanterns into the night sky. It was such a beautiful moment.
Because it was a school event, it was supposed to end around 1-2am, but because it was our last school event all together, there were no problems, we were on our best behaviour, and even the teachers were still having fun, we were able to keep it going until 2-2:30am!
After it was over, most people left right away, but there was a small group of us who stayed behind either waiting for our rides home or trying to figure out what else we could do because we didn't want to go home yet. At this time on a Tuesday night there was nothing left open, so most people went home. So there were three of us left. We walked through town a little and one guy walked home, since he lived really close by. Then we were just two, and we walked to a nearby park. We sat and talked for a while and then called my friend's mom to have her come pick us up.
The next night there was a party for all the graduated high school students of the region (so grads from 5 different schools). Not as many people were there as I expected, so it was rather quiet, but I managed to have a good time. That night, one of the best moments of my exchange happened. I was with one of my girlfriends and we wanted to join in on a game that some other people were playing. I didn't know any of the people in that group, but it was a pretty small party so it's normal to talk to some strangers. Anyway, the two of us join this group, and soon enough after, my friend leaves to go talk to someone and I was left alone with the other people. It was cool, I was welcomed into the game. I'm sitting there and talking and playing with them for about half and hour and we decide to play another game. It was a "telephone" type of deal. The first time someone tells you the message or phrase, you have to say "what?" and then it goes all the way back along the chain of people, and comes all the way back, and they repeat it to you. The second time you hear it, you are supposed to understand and then pass it along to the next person. Because the guy next to me was purposefully talking weird, I didn't actually understand what he said, so I had to say "no, seriously, what?" again. I was told "noo you only say that the first time!" and I replied, "I know how to play, but I actually have no idea what he just said!" he repeated it again, still in a backwards manner, so I just looked at him. Someone jokingly asked, "what, you don't speak french?" I said "not really", to which some people laughed, thinking that I was joking too, so I said "no seriously, I'm an exchange student from Canada, I speak English and I learned most of my French here" And then people looked really surprised! A couple didn't even believe me at first. I was so happy to have been taken for a Belgian. That was the best moment I think I had as an exchange student. I had the success of total integration that some exchangers only dream of. It was truly an awesome moment.
I also nearly lost my phone that night. Just as I was about to leave, I go to chekc my phone, but then realize I don't have it. My friend Nico called it and another friend, Guillaume, picks it up as he's walking over towards us. Thankfully it was found so fast, because I was being waited on to leave! I also remembered, in that moment, that it would be the last time I would be seeing one of my friends, so I had to say my first real goodbye. I hugged him and I didn't want to let go. It was awful because I knew I was really in a rush to leave. I silently and awkwardly cried in the car on the way home. Then spent a little more time crying before getting to sleep.
That was at 4-4h30. I went to bed at around 5. I then had to wake up at 6am to be in Chimay for 7, where Autumn's second host mom would be picking up all of us exchange students and take us to the airport to see off Autumn. Once again I was exhausted. Saying goodbye to my best friend that day didn't even seem real. It was really hard, but for some reason I wasn't able to cry. I really wanted to, but I just couldn't. I had done it before, and I did again later, but I didn't shed a tear in front of her.
In the afternoon, her host mom dropped us off again in Chimay and I went out for lunch and the Grand Café at the Grand Place with Paloma, Ish, and Alejandro. Andre had to go back home early, so he didn't stay with us. After we ate, we loitered a little bit at our table then we all made our ways home. I ended up walking the 3 or 4 km to my home in Bourlers since my host parents were unavailable. I was glad though. It was nice out, I had my iPod, and I had just eaten a huge amount of pasta. I got to bed at a normal time that night.
So last you read, I was going to go out another two nights in a row before going off to Disneyland Paris. So that I did and I had an insane amount of fun both nights. Both nights I spent hours dancing on the platform with my friends. I managed to come out of the party one night with a Belgian-coloured beer hat, which is a really cool souvenir I now have placed on a shelf in my room. On the Saturday night, I got back around 4am and didn't even bother going to sleep. I had to leave just after 6am to go to Disney, and I thought that if I went to sleep for an hour that I wouldn't be able to wake up and be ready to go. So I slowly started getting ready after I got in. Shower, change of clothes, making sure I had everything I needed, etc.
Andre, his host sister, host brother, and their little cousin came by to pick me up and off we went! Unfortunately, it didn't stop raining all day long. I wasn't as happy as I should have been for someone going to Disney. My shoes and socks were soaked through, my hair was dripping - I was drenched! Not to mention exhausted! I had only had a couple good nights of sleep since the end of exams. We still did a lot of fun rides and attractions though. We had a cabin for the night and I slept like a stone. It still wasn't enough and I woke up feeling tired, but it was much better than nothing. I had a way better time on Monday. The sun was out most of the day, not a drop of rain, my clothes were dry, and I had a little energy. Overall it was a lot of fun. I even got a really nice pin for my blazer.
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| Disneyland Paris |
Late on Monday night, we got back from Disney. And I slept in a little Tuesday morning. All of Tuesday afternoon was spent getting ready for the Graduation and Bal du Rhétos in the evening. That turned out to be a wonderful night. We took a lot of pictures outside - the 5th years (who were the ones organizing the whole night) had even set up a red carpet for us, which was a really nice touch. The principal and other school people gave their little speeches, some students got awards, everyone's name was read off, etc. Us exchange students were given a gift. It was such a nice gesture I wasn't expecting. We got a beautiful metal box with "Chimay" on it. Inside the box were 4 postcards, one Chimay beer glass, and one 33cl bottle of each beer - Bleu, Rouge, and Blanche. After that, they served champagne, and people stood around to talk and take pictures.
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| The gift from school |
I expected a little more from the meal, which was just a cold buffet - salads, lunch meats, bread, potatoes, that type of stuff. It was good, but some of us found that it wasn't quite enough. The guys at my table decided to take a whole pineapple that was on the main buffet table for decoration and we cut it up with dull knives at the table and ate the slices amongst ourselves.
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| Aurélien cutting the pineapple |
After the meal was a dance, but before the dance, the King and Queen had to be chosen. This was determined through a small series of competitions - one for boys and the other for girls. The boys started off. They had to partner up. One was blindfolded. The blindfolded one was not allowed to speak to his partner. He was then told something by a 5th year, and he had to draw it. The partner had to guess what he was drawing and the first group to guess this won. They also did something else involving blindfolds where the blindfolded one had to run across the room and find his partner, who couldn't move, but was calling out to the blindfolded one. I don't know how they determined two finalists from that but they did.
Then it was the girls' turn. We did musical chairs, but with a little twist. We started out with our shoes off and on the other side of the gym, then, when a special music was played, we had to run to our shoes, grab ONE, and come back to find a chair. The next time the special music was played, we had to go and find one of someone else's shoes then come back to find a seat. The next time, we had to go put their shoe back, and the time after that, we had to go find our other shoe. Despite my best efforts, I could not find my other shoe and was promptly eliminated. But I lasted a few rounds. The four finalists, 2 boys and 2 girls, then had to do a little race with a book on their heads and an egg on a spoon in their mouths. It ended up being Jerome and Alice who were King and Queen. Then the party started! :)
After dark, we were all called outside, because the president of the 5th years had s surprise for us. We were to light and set of paper lanterns into the night sky. It was such a beautiful moment.
Because it was a school event, it was supposed to end around 1-2am, but because it was our last school event all together, there were no problems, we were on our best behaviour, and even the teachers were still having fun, we were able to keep it going until 2-2:30am!
After it was over, most people left right away, but there was a small group of us who stayed behind either waiting for our rides home or trying to figure out what else we could do because we didn't want to go home yet. At this time on a Tuesday night there was nothing left open, so most people went home. So there were three of us left. We walked through town a little and one guy walked home, since he lived really close by. Then we were just two, and we walked to a nearby park. We sat and talked for a while and then called my friend's mom to have her come pick us up.
The next night there was a party for all the graduated high school students of the region (so grads from 5 different schools). Not as many people were there as I expected, so it was rather quiet, but I managed to have a good time. That night, one of the best moments of my exchange happened. I was with one of my girlfriends and we wanted to join in on a game that some other people were playing. I didn't know any of the people in that group, but it was a pretty small party so it's normal to talk to some strangers. Anyway, the two of us join this group, and soon enough after, my friend leaves to go talk to someone and I was left alone with the other people. It was cool, I was welcomed into the game. I'm sitting there and talking and playing with them for about half and hour and we decide to play another game. It was a "telephone" type of deal. The first time someone tells you the message or phrase, you have to say "what?" and then it goes all the way back along the chain of people, and comes all the way back, and they repeat it to you. The second time you hear it, you are supposed to understand and then pass it along to the next person. Because the guy next to me was purposefully talking weird, I didn't actually understand what he said, so I had to say "no, seriously, what?" again. I was told "noo you only say that the first time!" and I replied, "I know how to play, but I actually have no idea what he just said!" he repeated it again, still in a backwards manner, so I just looked at him. Someone jokingly asked, "what, you don't speak french?" I said "not really", to which some people laughed, thinking that I was joking too, so I said "no seriously, I'm an exchange student from Canada, I speak English and I learned most of my French here" And then people looked really surprised! A couple didn't even believe me at first. I was so happy to have been taken for a Belgian. That was the best moment I think I had as an exchange student. I had the success of total integration that some exchangers only dream of. It was truly an awesome moment.
I also nearly lost my phone that night. Just as I was about to leave, I go to chekc my phone, but then realize I don't have it. My friend Nico called it and another friend, Guillaume, picks it up as he's walking over towards us. Thankfully it was found so fast, because I was being waited on to leave! I also remembered, in that moment, that it would be the last time I would be seeing one of my friends, so I had to say my first real goodbye. I hugged him and I didn't want to let go. It was awful because I knew I was really in a rush to leave. I silently and awkwardly cried in the car on the way home. Then spent a little more time crying before getting to sleep.
That was at 4-4h30. I went to bed at around 5. I then had to wake up at 6am to be in Chimay for 7, where Autumn's second host mom would be picking up all of us exchange students and take us to the airport to see off Autumn. Once again I was exhausted. Saying goodbye to my best friend that day didn't even seem real. It was really hard, but for some reason I wasn't able to cry. I really wanted to, but I just couldn't. I had done it before, and I did again later, but I didn't shed a tear in front of her.
In the afternoon, her host mom dropped us off again in Chimay and I went out for lunch and the Grand Café at the Grand Place with Paloma, Ish, and Alejandro. Andre had to go back home early, so he didn't stay with us. After we ate, we loitered a little bit at our table then we all made our ways home. I ended up walking the 3 or 4 km to my home in Bourlers since my host parents were unavailable. I was glad though. It was nice out, I had my iPod, and I had just eaten a huge amount of pasta. I got to bed at a normal time that night.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Enjoying the little time I have left
Wow I haven't made a single post in about a month. So much has happened I don't know that I can catch up at this point! But I'll try my best to briefly go over most things.
At the beginning of June, I found my dress for the "prom" after a good day of shopping with Autumn and Paloma. All of us had luck in finding something, and we even had a little time at the end of our excursion to grab a drink with some other exchange students who were in Brussels that day. It was nice.
I also did my presentation for my Rotary club about my year here. I managed to do it without crying. I am actually quite happy with my presentation. I think I did a really good job. It's weird because I wasn't at all nervous to be speaking in front of a group of about 40 people in my second language. I actually felt quite at ease. I used to hate public speaking, now I don't mind it at all.
The day after my presentation, I went to Tournai for the last time during my exchange year. I went to say goodbye to my friend Greta, who was going home a bit earlier than expected. I hadn't planned on spending the night there, but I ended up doing so. It's weird not knowing when I'll see her again. Next year, she'll be going to school in Ohio, which is closer to me than Iowa, so we'll likely arrange to see each other during the year a couple of times.
The next Monday I started my exams. Everyone else had already started the Thursday before. Anyway, on Monday I had my biology exam and my geography exam. I am certain that I passed the biology exam, and I am just as certain that I failed geography. I'm not worried about it - not like my grades matter. Then on Tuesday I had two more exams: history and religion. Religion I know that I passed (because I saw my teacher yesterday and he told me so), and history I'm not sure. It could have gone either way. But the teacher isn't very generous, so I probably failed. Then I had almost a whole week of rest until my English and French exams the following Monday. English was easy, of course. I finished in under an hour. There was a bunch of vocabulary, grammar, and then we had to write an article. Easy as pie :) I wasn't at all stressed for French until the last minute. It wasn't even a written exam. It was more like a presentation/interview than an exam. My first ever oral exam, and I just might have passed? I can't really tell because the teacher gives away nothing. I should be finding out my grades on the 26th at the graduation and prom.
On the Wednesday during exams, Autumn and I took our first little day trip of the week to Liège. We did a little more shopping than we had planned, but I got a lot of little things and didn't pay much for any one thing. I ended up finding jewelry for the bal, so now my outfit is complete. We also got some hair dye. Just a natural medium-dark brown colour. We used it on Friday, a couple days later, and it turned out pretty well! I'm happy with it. Before my hair had a lot of blonde in it, but I like it better this one natural-looking colour.
On Friday, when we did my hair, Autumn slept over so we could leave earlier in the morning to catch our train for our second day-trip of the week : Antwerp. It is a beautiful city. I absolutely love the central train station! There I bought a cute little dress and a longchamp bag. Those kinds of bags are super popular here and I think they look really good. It will also be the PERFECT bag to bring as a carry on bag on the plane.
The last day of exams for most people was this Tuesday, the 19th. By 10am, most of us were out by the track celebrating. It was a big organized thing and there was even a DJ. We met a couple English guys who were passing through Chimay on their way to Croatia on bicycle! They told me that they had been in the store, where they met the DJ, who told them that they had to come and check out the end of exams party, so they did. They ended up meeting us english-speaking exchange students and our friends. We invited them to the party we were going to after at a friend's house. It was a really good day. Everyone was in a good mood because the exams are over and summer is here. Even if it rained a little, no one really cared. I barely even noticed it was raining. I camped out in a friend's tent in the host's back yard and walked home the next morning around 11. I didn't get much sleep but it was a good night nonetheless.
The next day I went to a pool party, where, unfortunatley, I didn't have a lot of fun. I lost my voice because of the after exams festivities the day before and couldn't really participate in any conversation. And then I got thrown in the pool with all my clothes on so I was cold for the rest of the evening. On top of all that I was pretty tired from not having gotten much sleep the night before. I ended up going home early, but at least I got a good night's sleep.
I was able to recuperate my voice for the next day, which was a very good thing. I was able to talk with my friends at a birthday party I had to go to for two of my good friends, Alice and Elena. There I had a very good time. But just after midnight two of my friends had an argument outside. I spent a good hour trying to comfort one of them. When we went back inside, the party was coming to it's end. Everyone seemed pretty tired. A group of 7 of us went to the Queen Mary for karaoke night. Unfortunately, karaoke ends at 1:00, and we got in after 2:00. I got home at around 3, and only got one hour of sleep. But I slept a little after 10 this morning until earlier this afternoon, so it's made up for.
In a couple hours I'll be going out again for the night, and then again the next night. On Sunday morning I'll be going to EuroDisney with Andre and two of his host siblings. We'll be coming back on Monday. I'm so excited! And then on Tuesday is graduation and the bal du Rhétos!! :)
Time is going by so fast! I have something planned almost every day that is left for me here in Belgium. I only have 18 days left!! :'( At least I'm taking advantage of the time I have left - I don't want to waste a moment.
I probably won't be posting again until I get back home.
At the beginning of June, I found my dress for the "prom" after a good day of shopping with Autumn and Paloma. All of us had luck in finding something, and we even had a little time at the end of our excursion to grab a drink with some other exchange students who were in Brussels that day. It was nice.
I also did my presentation for my Rotary club about my year here. I managed to do it without crying. I am actually quite happy with my presentation. I think I did a really good job. It's weird because I wasn't at all nervous to be speaking in front of a group of about 40 people in my second language. I actually felt quite at ease. I used to hate public speaking, now I don't mind it at all.
The day after my presentation, I went to Tournai for the last time during my exchange year. I went to say goodbye to my friend Greta, who was going home a bit earlier than expected. I hadn't planned on spending the night there, but I ended up doing so. It's weird not knowing when I'll see her again. Next year, she'll be going to school in Ohio, which is closer to me than Iowa, so we'll likely arrange to see each other during the year a couple of times.
The next Monday I started my exams. Everyone else had already started the Thursday before. Anyway, on Monday I had my biology exam and my geography exam. I am certain that I passed the biology exam, and I am just as certain that I failed geography. I'm not worried about it - not like my grades matter. Then on Tuesday I had two more exams: history and religion. Religion I know that I passed (because I saw my teacher yesterday and he told me so), and history I'm not sure. It could have gone either way. But the teacher isn't very generous, so I probably failed. Then I had almost a whole week of rest until my English and French exams the following Monday. English was easy, of course. I finished in under an hour. There was a bunch of vocabulary, grammar, and then we had to write an article. Easy as pie :) I wasn't at all stressed for French until the last minute. It wasn't even a written exam. It was more like a presentation/interview than an exam. My first ever oral exam, and I just might have passed? I can't really tell because the teacher gives away nothing. I should be finding out my grades on the 26th at the graduation and prom.
On the Wednesday during exams, Autumn and I took our first little day trip of the week to Liège. We did a little more shopping than we had planned, but I got a lot of little things and didn't pay much for any one thing. I ended up finding jewelry for the bal, so now my outfit is complete. We also got some hair dye. Just a natural medium-dark brown colour. We used it on Friday, a couple days later, and it turned out pretty well! I'm happy with it. Before my hair had a lot of blonde in it, but I like it better this one natural-looking colour.
On Friday, when we did my hair, Autumn slept over so we could leave earlier in the morning to catch our train for our second day-trip of the week : Antwerp. It is a beautiful city. I absolutely love the central train station! There I bought a cute little dress and a longchamp bag. Those kinds of bags are super popular here and I think they look really good. It will also be the PERFECT bag to bring as a carry on bag on the plane.
The last day of exams for most people was this Tuesday, the 19th. By 10am, most of us were out by the track celebrating. It was a big organized thing and there was even a DJ. We met a couple English guys who were passing through Chimay on their way to Croatia on bicycle! They told me that they had been in the store, where they met the DJ, who told them that they had to come and check out the end of exams party, so they did. They ended up meeting us english-speaking exchange students and our friends. We invited them to the party we were going to after at a friend's house. It was a really good day. Everyone was in a good mood because the exams are over and summer is here. Even if it rained a little, no one really cared. I barely even noticed it was raining. I camped out in a friend's tent in the host's back yard and walked home the next morning around 11. I didn't get much sleep but it was a good night nonetheless.
The next day I went to a pool party, where, unfortunatley, I didn't have a lot of fun. I lost my voice because of the after exams festivities the day before and couldn't really participate in any conversation. And then I got thrown in the pool with all my clothes on so I was cold for the rest of the evening. On top of all that I was pretty tired from not having gotten much sleep the night before. I ended up going home early, but at least I got a good night's sleep.
I was able to recuperate my voice for the next day, which was a very good thing. I was able to talk with my friends at a birthday party I had to go to for two of my good friends, Alice and Elena. There I had a very good time. But just after midnight two of my friends had an argument outside. I spent a good hour trying to comfort one of them. When we went back inside, the party was coming to it's end. Everyone seemed pretty tired. A group of 7 of us went to the Queen Mary for karaoke night. Unfortunately, karaoke ends at 1:00, and we got in after 2:00. I got home at around 3, and only got one hour of sleep. But I slept a little after 10 this morning until earlier this afternoon, so it's made up for.
In a couple hours I'll be going out again for the night, and then again the next night. On Sunday morning I'll be going to EuroDisney with Andre and two of his host siblings. We'll be coming back on Monday. I'm so excited! And then on Tuesday is graduation and the bal du Rhétos!! :)
Time is going by so fast! I have something planned almost every day that is left for me here in Belgium. I only have 18 days left!! :'( At least I'm taking advantage of the time I have left - I don't want to waste a moment.
I probably won't be posting again until I get back home.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Une journée a Sivry :)
Yesterday was a great day. I ended up doing a few things I didn't wake up thinking I'd be doing. I went over to Autumn's house at noon. We hadn't seen each other in over a week and we needed to see each other before school started again on Tuesday. Autumn lives in Sivry with her third host family. It's about 25km from Chimay and considered to pretty well be the country. Damien lives in Sivry too, very close to Autumn's house, so just after one o'clock we rode bikes over to Damien's. He gave us a tour of his farm and the house. We got to see some cute calves, one of which was just born yesterday! Damien had actually helped with the operation! I guess that's some good experience for a future doctor! Anyway, after we did a little tour we went on a walk in the woods, and when we came back, Damien offered us some milk - real milk! So for the first time in my life I drank whole milk. I actually really like it. It's better than the milk that comes in cartons and containers that most people get from the grocery store here. I tried the milk by itself, but I also had some with grenadine, as well as Nesquick powder - all wonderful. We then moved to the living room and started watching Mulan (in french, of course. But Autumn and I were singing the songs with the english lyrics) which we didn't finish because at five we went out to get the cows. Damien changed into his funny shorts for working on the farm, and we all put on a big pair of rubber boots. We got some sticks and went out into the feild to assemble the cows. We were running and yelling making the cows go back towards the farm from the feild. Once you get them all in the same spot (which was pretty easy, actually) they kind of just go by themselves, so we didn't have to use the sticks on them. We led them inside so they could be milked. 16 cows can be milked at once with the machines that they have. It's pretty cool. I was able to put some of the milk-sucking machines on the cows by myself :) Unfortunately I had to go before all of the cows were milked. So I washed my hands, arms, and legs, which had some milk, sweat, and a little bit of cow turd on them (cows aren't always the cleanest animals). Even though I was already clean, when we got back into the house I washed my hands and arms again before going home. It was a fantastic day. We just had so much fun! :D
A little while after I got home, my host family and I went out to dinner at Chimay. We took a short walk just after and I saw Chimay's castle and then we took the long way around to the car. Chimay is such a pretty little town. I love it. My host parents dropped Manon and I off at the house at quarter to ten, and Manon and I changed and then immediately went out for a run/bike ride for 40 minutes. It was really enjoyable. I hope we do it again and more often.
A little while after I got home, my host family and I went out to dinner at Chimay. We took a short walk just after and I saw Chimay's castle and then we took the long way around to the car. Chimay is such a pretty little town. I love it. My host parents dropped Manon and I off at the house at quarter to ten, and Manon and I changed and then immediately went out for a run/bike ride for 40 minutes. It was really enjoyable. I hope we do it again and more often.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
The past few weeks
Time's flown by since my Rhéto trip, and I cant believe I only have two short months left in this amazing country. I'm really sad to have to leave, but right now I am starting to look forward to university in the fall. Though I'm sure that new found excitement will fade just quickly as the two months diminish. For now I'm excited because it's no longer a source of stress since I've finally figured out what I need to do to select my courses. I will be registering for my courses on Monday and hopefully I'll be able to get into all the courses I am planning on taking. I have to take an online course entitled Foundations of Academic Writing, which is a two part course, so I need to take it in both semesters. I also be required to take Introduction to Psychology as a Behavioural Science, as I am in the Psychology program. My electives will be Positive Psychology, Intensive Spanish for Beginners, and Biology of organisms. I'm super excited to learn Spanish. But I'll have Spanish courses 6 hours per week! At least I'm motivated to learn, already have a small base, and plenty of Spanish-speaking friends ready to help me out who are only a skype call away.
Since Croatia, I've been on a day trip to Germany, went to a surprise birthday party, went to Walibi, visited Brussels again, spent a weekend in Brugge, got a perfect score on a history test, and I went with the 5th years to Normandy.
Tuesday, April 24th was the date of our Germany trip. The languages options of both the 5th and 6th years took a bus to Monschau for the day. We first visited a mustard mill, where we learned how mustard was made and got to taste some. We took at tour (in English!! :O) of the town on foot, but that sucked a little because the tour guide didn't speak loud and it was raining fairly heavily. We also saw a glass-blower, which was very cool to see. Just by looking at some of the glass objects, it's hard to try and figure out how they're made, and to actually see them being created before your own eyes is really something. Our last visit of the day was of a brewery. There was a collection of beer bottles and some cans from all over the world, including a few from Canada :) It was a fun day.
That Friday night, I went to a surprise birthday party for Aurélien at a café in Virelles. I didn't stay out late that night, but it was still a great time. Since his birthday actually passed when we were in Croatia, he wasn't expecting everyone to get together for him a couple weeks later. I love surprise parties.
On Sunday, I went to Walibi with a bunch of other exchange students for our last Rotex-organized activity. I was expecting the rides not to be as fun because none of them are as big as my favouritre roller coasters back home, but they were amazing! There I also picked up the costomized sweater I had ordered. Most of us exchangers in Belgium have the same one. Our names or nicknames are on the sleeve, and they are a yellow-gold colour. We have the Rotary wheel on the back with Belgium 2011-2012 on it as well as a quote in French from a song, and on the front there is both the symbol of Wallonie (the rooster) and the symbol of Flanders (the lion). It's super comfortable.
May 1st is Belgium's Labour Day, so we didn't have any school. They had also given us the day off on Monday. So that was a nice little four-day weekend. My host family decided that it would be a good day to go to Brussels. So we drove there and visited the Atomium and the Serres de Laeken. We also went to the grand place and visited the Manneken Pis. We hit up the biggest tourist stuff.
Then the following weekend, the exchange students of district 1620 had all been invited by the 5 Rotary clubs of Brugge to spend the weekend in their city and get a little tour. We stayed there Saturday night and were free on Sunday to do what we liked. I think that was a really cool thing of the clubs of Brugge to do. And everything was free for us as well! They payed for everything: the meals, the tours, the hotel! Even when we went out at night they bought us a round. On Sunday morning Paloma, Andre, Alejandro and I walked around the city and did some tourist shopping before leaving.
On Wednesday, the fifth year french option and I set off to go to Normandy for three days. We left at 6 in the morning and got to Ry later that same morning. We visited the gallery of Bovary, and took a little walk around the town, then went to Rouen where we visited the Museum of Medicine, which is also the birthplace of Gustave Flaubert. We then went to our little... "inn" I guess it could be called. It wasn't really a hotel or motel... I guess it might have been like a youth hostel? Anyway we ate dinner there. We weren't too impressed with the food we were served. But we ate breakfast and dinner there for two days, and even the lunch packets we had were prepared by them. So my tummy wasn't exactly happy. But we had fun there anyway. After dinner, we would play games outside, and then we'd come inside and do other activities and games. It was a lot of fun, and this way I got to know the kids I was on the trip with, because I didn't really know any of them at all when we left on Wednesday morning.
On the second day we visited Fécamp and the Benedictine palace. In the afternoon we went to Etretat and walked along the beach and climbed (well half climbed, half walked. There were stairs. Lots and lots of stairs) to the top of one of the cliffs. We had a little bit of free time from there before visiting the "Clos Lupin." Then we had some more free time until we had to go back to the hostel for dinner.
Our last day was spent at Honfleur, where we visited the Satie House, the Navy museum, the Museum of ethnology, and the Boudin museum. We did most of the museums in the morning so we had a lot of free time in the afternoon. We had to be back to the bus by 6 to return to Chimay. We struggled to find things to do in our free time. We were all quite tired, but we didn't want to really stop in cafes all the time because everything was so expensive. We mostly just walked around and then had an early dinner in a pizzeria by the water.
So I've been keeping pretty busy lately. But unless I plan more things to do it seems like it's slowing down pretty quickly. I don't have any new trips set in stone, and there are less outings and parties on the weekends since everyone is going into exams.
Every day life here is good and normal. I am taking advantage of the nice weather, the rare times we have it, to go outside on a bike ride or something like that. School work is a pain in the neck, so I barely study. I am supposed to be doing some work for my french class, but I'm not at all motivated to do it. I have to read a book for the final exam, and I've started it, but I'm really not enjoying it at all. I haven't touched it in two or three weeks at least. I also have to write little summaries about a few people for the yearbook. I don't have much motivation for that either. I've already done one, but I have another three to do and I haven't even started. I'll try to work on that tomorrow.
Since Croatia, I've been on a day trip to Germany, went to a surprise birthday party, went to Walibi, visited Brussels again, spent a weekend in Brugge, got a perfect score on a history test, and I went with the 5th years to Normandy.
Tuesday, April 24th was the date of our Germany trip. The languages options of both the 5th and 6th years took a bus to Monschau for the day. We first visited a mustard mill, where we learned how mustard was made and got to taste some. We took at tour (in English!! :O) of the town on foot, but that sucked a little because the tour guide didn't speak loud and it was raining fairly heavily. We also saw a glass-blower, which was very cool to see. Just by looking at some of the glass objects, it's hard to try and figure out how they're made, and to actually see them being created before your own eyes is really something. Our last visit of the day was of a brewery. There was a collection of beer bottles and some cans from all over the world, including a few from Canada :) It was a fun day.
That Friday night, I went to a surprise birthday party for Aurélien at a café in Virelles. I didn't stay out late that night, but it was still a great time. Since his birthday actually passed when we were in Croatia, he wasn't expecting everyone to get together for him a couple weeks later. I love surprise parties.
On Sunday, I went to Walibi with a bunch of other exchange students for our last Rotex-organized activity. I was expecting the rides not to be as fun because none of them are as big as my favouritre roller coasters back home, but they were amazing! There I also picked up the costomized sweater I had ordered. Most of us exchangers in Belgium have the same one. Our names or nicknames are on the sleeve, and they are a yellow-gold colour. We have the Rotary wheel on the back with Belgium 2011-2012 on it as well as a quote in French from a song, and on the front there is both the symbol of Wallonie (the rooster) and the symbol of Flanders (the lion). It's super comfortable.
May 1st is Belgium's Labour Day, so we didn't have any school. They had also given us the day off on Monday. So that was a nice little four-day weekend. My host family decided that it would be a good day to go to Brussels. So we drove there and visited the Atomium and the Serres de Laeken. We also went to the grand place and visited the Manneken Pis. We hit up the biggest tourist stuff.
Then the following weekend, the exchange students of district 1620 had all been invited by the 5 Rotary clubs of Brugge to spend the weekend in their city and get a little tour. We stayed there Saturday night and were free on Sunday to do what we liked. I think that was a really cool thing of the clubs of Brugge to do. And everything was free for us as well! They payed for everything: the meals, the tours, the hotel! Even when we went out at night they bought us a round. On Sunday morning Paloma, Andre, Alejandro and I walked around the city and did some tourist shopping before leaving.
On Wednesday, the fifth year french option and I set off to go to Normandy for three days. We left at 6 in the morning and got to Ry later that same morning. We visited the gallery of Bovary, and took a little walk around the town, then went to Rouen where we visited the Museum of Medicine, which is also the birthplace of Gustave Flaubert. We then went to our little... "inn" I guess it could be called. It wasn't really a hotel or motel... I guess it might have been like a youth hostel? Anyway we ate dinner there. We weren't too impressed with the food we were served. But we ate breakfast and dinner there for two days, and even the lunch packets we had were prepared by them. So my tummy wasn't exactly happy. But we had fun there anyway. After dinner, we would play games outside, and then we'd come inside and do other activities and games. It was a lot of fun, and this way I got to know the kids I was on the trip with, because I didn't really know any of them at all when we left on Wednesday morning.
On the second day we visited Fécamp and the Benedictine palace. In the afternoon we went to Etretat and walked along the beach and climbed (well half climbed, half walked. There were stairs. Lots and lots of stairs) to the top of one of the cliffs. We had a little bit of free time from there before visiting the "Clos Lupin." Then we had some more free time until we had to go back to the hostel for dinner.
Our last day was spent at Honfleur, where we visited the Satie House, the Navy museum, the Museum of ethnology, and the Boudin museum. We did most of the museums in the morning so we had a lot of free time in the afternoon. We had to be back to the bus by 6 to return to Chimay. We struggled to find things to do in our free time. We were all quite tired, but we didn't want to really stop in cafes all the time because everything was so expensive. We mostly just walked around and then had an early dinner in a pizzeria by the water.
So I've been keeping pretty busy lately. But unless I plan more things to do it seems like it's slowing down pretty quickly. I don't have any new trips set in stone, and there are less outings and parties on the weekends since everyone is going into exams.
Every day life here is good and normal. I am taking advantage of the nice weather, the rare times we have it, to go outside on a bike ride or something like that. School work is a pain in the neck, so I barely study. I am supposed to be doing some work for my french class, but I'm not at all motivated to do it. I have to read a book for the final exam, and I've started it, but I'm really not enjoying it at all. I haven't touched it in two or three weeks at least. I also have to write little summaries about a few people for the yearbook. I don't have much motivation for that either. I've already done one, but I have another three to do and I haven't even started. I'll try to work on that tomorrow.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Voyage du Rhéto : Croatia !
I began my trip to Croatia already quite tired from the Spain trip. I had only gotten back from Spain on the afternoon of the 11th, and I left for Croatia less than 24 hours later. On the bus that night (because it took about 20 hours to get there), I didn't manage to sleep any more than maybe 2 broken and light hours. About the same amount of sleep that I had on the bus ride back from Spain. So out of three nights, I only had one decent night's sleep. But I also realised that I was going through 8 countries in 72 hours. That's just so unreal to me. It started off April 10th in Spain, and finished the 13th in Croatia. I was in Spain, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia. Who says that the Belgian exchange students don't get a real "EuroTour" ? :P
We stayed in a hotel in Rabac. It was really nice and in a wonderful location. We had a five minute walk to the beach and not far from a bunch of touristy shops and cafés. The hotel had a gym, 2 pools (indoor and outdoor) and everything was clean and tidy. There were also various sport terrains. Tennis, soccer, etc. We were three people to a room. I shared my room with Pauline and Polina. They are fantastic roommates. When we first arrived, we spent the afternoon around the hotel. Each evening we had a meeting at 20:30 to go over the day, our options for the night, curfews, and the next day's events. The options for the night ended up always being the same. 1) go to your room or hang out quietly in the common areas they had on each floor (our group was on floors 6 and 7), 2) go downstairs where the hotel had a dance organized. 3) go out to a café or the beach. But no matter what we did, we had to be back in our rooms by 23:30. I usually went out to a café because the dance wasn't much fun for me. Aside from our group, everyone else in the hotel (or at least who were at the dance) were old german people. So it wasn't really a young ambiance and I knew none of the songs.
The first full day we had in Croatia (Saturday, April 14th), we went to visit the city of Pula. Pula has an amphitheatre which is one of the sixth largest surviving Roman amphitheatres in the world. There are a few other well-preserved ancient Roman structures like the Arch of the Sergii, the Temple of Roma and Augustus, and the Gate of Hercules. We saw those important sites and then in the afternoon we had a lot of free time. It was actually more free time than originally planned because I guess we were supposed to have another guided visit of something that ended up getting cancelled. I went with a small group of girls who were out to do a little shopping. I didn't end up buying anything until a couple of us split off from the other girls and met up with a group of the guys and I got an ice cream cone. We just hung out with ice cream in a square for a while, but then we decided to walk down another street to see what they had there, and we met up with some other people and stopped at a café where free wi-fi was advertised. The wi-fi ended up not working, but we spent some time just chatting together and it was nice. Eventually we slowly worked our way back to the bus to go back to Rabac. On the way we stopped and had caricatures done. I had mine done with Autumn and Polina. For the most part, they weren't actually that well done. There were some people you could tell the guy tried to draw, but for the most part it wasn't extremely accurate. By the time everyone was finished with their caricatures, we were all basically together in the same place and we walked back to the bus together. But in a small park near the bus we came across a large picture frame with a bench in the middle, so of course we stopped to take tons of pictures in it.
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| The amphitheatre known as the "Arena" |
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| Arch of the Sergii |
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| The Temple of Roma and Augustus |
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| Unfortunately, not all of us are in this picture, but I think it's a good one anyway :) <3 |
On Sunday we went to the city of Poreč. The rain we had to endure all day cancelled the plans we had to do a little tour on bike, so we did everything on foot instead. Once again, the afternoon was free time, and a big group of 13 or so of us went out to have lunch together. Most people got a pizza or pasta, and I had four cheese gnocchi. It was very good, but it made me miss my Nonna's gnocchi, which is so much better. After lunch, we walked around a little more and ended up finding a café where they claimed to have Belgian beer. We got all psyched and went in, only to find out that they were out of stock. We settled for Croatian beer and milkshakes.
On Monday, our last full day, we were lucky enough to have very nice weather. We visited the islands of Cres and Krk. We had to go by ferry. It's always a bit more windy on the water, so we were all thankful for the sun. That day we had and organized lunch all together at a restaurant. The appetizer was tuna, the main plate was squid and spinach with potatoes, and the dessert was tiramisu.
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| Voila the squid. It was actually surprisingly good for how it looks! |
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| The ferry |
That night, our curfew was extended from 23:30 until 02:00! It was a great night. There was a lot of laughing and fun and games down at the café. In fact, I learned a new game called ding-ding, bottle. It's a counting game. Naturally, the game starts with 1, and you go around in a circle counting, everyone saying one number at a time. But in the place of 5 and every multiple of 5, you have to say ding-ding. If you say 5, 10 or what have you, you lose and then you have to start all over again from the beginning. And in place of every 7, multiple of 7, or number ending in 7, you have to say bottle. And every time bottle is said, a change of direction takes place. So if you were originally playing in a clockwise order, you then switch and it goes counter-clockwise. So if you say the number or fail to change direction, you have to start over again at 1. When playing with more than 3 people it's actually so hard to get to 20. I managed to get up to 40 with two other people. But for the longest time when we were playing just three of us, we were always saying the same numbers because it was the same guy messing up every time at 27! But it was great fun.
The next day we had to be out of the rooms by 10am, and we had free time in Rabac until we left at 3pm. I spent most of my time on the beach. On the bus on the way back I actually managed to sleep at night! But the only way that was even possible was because I slept on the floor. I shared a pillow with a friend and I stretched out on the floor and actually got some sleep.
I had an amazing time, and I'm quite sad that this is the last and only trip I am taking with this group of awesome people <3
Friday, April 20, 2012
España
My ten day trip to Spain was so awesome. It rained nearly every single day. But it was the things we saw and the people I was with that made the trip for me. We went to Salamanca, Avila, Segovia, Madrid, Toledo, Zaragoza, and Barcelona.
On the afternoon of Sunday April 1st,
we all boarded up the bus at Brussels and Liege, and then we headed off to
Spain. It took over 24 hours of straight
driving to get to Salamanca. But we also
made very many stops along the way. I
found it very difficult to sleep in the bus.
The seats didn’t recline far back and weren’t very comfortable for
sleeping. Already on the bus ride there
I met a few new people and I went up and down the isle of the bus
and handed out my business cards to everyone.
I still have so many left even though I think I’ve given one to every
exchange student I met, some Rotarians, my host families, and some of my
Belgian friends. I guess I’ll still be
handing them out at Central States.
The trip was fairly unorganized, and the
Rotarians with us never seemed to know exactly where we were going or how to
get there, none spoke Spanish, and I feel like we could have done so much more
instead of having as much free time. I
love having free time, don’t get me wrong, but we just had so much of it. I feel like we could have seen much more in
Madrid and Barcelona. In other places
like Avila, Salamanca, and Toledo, we had really cool guided visits, but in the
big cities we just seemed to have walked around not knowing what we were really
looking at. But it was the first time
that they were organizing this particular trip, so I was never expecting it to be
perfect. Hopefully things can be better for
the future exchange students in the following years. The chaperones were all nice as well. But it was kind of annoying and felt super patronizing
when the one guy who spoke in English did so.
Even in French it was annoying when he explained things to us or gave us
instruction because he would speak super slowly and just hold onto his words
and never let them go. We only had a few
kids on the trip who didn’t understand French because they were living in the
Dutch part. And the rest of us who are
fluent would have been happy to translate for them. Oh well.
The little things like that are going to be the things I barely
remember. I’ll remember the friendships
I made, the places I went, the things I saw, the jokes we made, and all the
good times. Even looking back on my
life, I only remember all the silly high school drama when I really think hard
about it. It’s the good memories that
come out first. The bad ones weren’t
important enough to leave much of an impression on me.
Overall, I really loved it, because how else
would I be able to easily visit Spain? I
got to taste some wonderful new foods, like paella and tapas. I met a couple exchange students with whom I
became instant friends. We created so
many memories and inside jokes. I also
only came out with about 430 pictures because my memory card was full. There were a few files that I had
accidentally saved in there before, and couldn’t delete with my camera. I didn’t have my computer with me either, so
I couldn’t get rid of them. I ended up
going back and deleting a few pictures that were blurry or unnecessary. I also ended up talking some pictures using
someone else’s memory card. He’ll be
putting all his pictures on facebook, so I’ll be getting them off of
there.
In Salamanca, we saw most of the important
things: the university, the new cathedral, la maison de coquilles, the roman
bridge, and the main square. The hotel
was pretty close to everything, so we walked anywhere we needed to go. To get to the main square from the hotel, we
had to take a street with a ton of stores, so it was impossible not to shop. This was the beginning of me spending all of
the money I’d brought with me, and then the rest of what I got from the ATM
visit. It wasn’t extreme amounts of
money (because I don’t have that) but it was definitely way more than I should
have spent.
In Segovia, there was a big roman bridge. That’s the one big thing I remember about that city. We had a tour in the morning, but it was unfortunate because it was raining pretty hard all day, and with the sound of the rain, and the fact that we needed to stand further apart with all our umbrella’s I wasn’t always able to hear the tour guide. I was also very tired and not in much of a listening mood. So I didn’t profit as much from that day’s tour. Luckily I have brochures and such and the internet is available, so I can look things up later. We tried to do some more shopping here, but we couldn’t do anything during our free time because the only things open were bars, cafés, restaurants, and taverns. In Spain they do “siesta”! Most places are closed from 13h – 16 or 17h. We basically just walked around in the rain
Avila was one of the most fun places we stayed. Once again we had a lot of free time, a lot of which occurred during “siesta”. But the most interesting thing in Avila was the Holy Week (the week leading up to Easter) processions. I’d never seen anything like it before. Everyone was dressed up really weirdly. There were women dressed up in all black with black lace veils; others that looked like members of the Klu Klux Klan, but with colours, were carrying awesome staffs and torch-like lights… it was so weird! It was actually really creepy and I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. All of the other exchange students were sort of creeped out by it too. But it is really a must-see.
In Madrid, we stayed in a hotel right by a subway station and a little mall. I bought myself a much needed new pair of shoes. My converse that I had brought with me are disgusting. The backs are sort of breaking, they let in water, and they smell awful. It’s actually repulsive. One of the nights in Madrid we went on a “3 km” walk to the Hard Rock Café. Normally, I walk 3 km in half an hour, but this little walk took a good hour and a half. So we arrived there just to have a look around and then leave. All our feet were pretty sore because this was also at the end of a long day. We ended up convincing the Rotary guys to take the subway back, thank heavens.
Avila was one of the most fun places we stayed. Once again we had a lot of free time, a lot of which occurred during “siesta”. But the most interesting thing in Avila was the Holy Week (the week leading up to Easter) processions. I’d never seen anything like it before. Everyone was dressed up really weirdly. There were women dressed up in all black with black lace veils; others that looked like members of the Klu Klux Klan, but with colours, were carrying awesome staffs and torch-like lights… it was so weird! It was actually really creepy and I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. All of the other exchange students were sort of creeped out by it too. But it is really a must-see.
In Madrid, we stayed in a hotel right by a subway station and a little mall. I bought myself a much needed new pair of shoes. My converse that I had brought with me are disgusting. The backs are sort of breaking, they let in water, and they smell awful. It’s actually repulsive. One of the nights in Madrid we went on a “3 km” walk to the Hard Rock Café. Normally, I walk 3 km in half an hour, but this little walk took a good hour and a half. So we arrived there just to have a look around and then leave. All our feet were pretty sore because this was also at the end of a long day. We ended up convincing the Rotary guys to take the subway back, thank heavens.
In Barcelona I set foot in the Mediterranean for the first time in my life, but my feet were all that went in – it was so cold! Some people actually went in all the way and went swimming. It was barely even sunny out and no more than 20 degrees Celsius!
Barcelona is an amazing city. There I wish I could have done much more, but I really did enjoy the things I did see. Most of the things we saw there were related to Gaudi. The first thing we saw was some of the Park Guell. It was gorgeous. In some parts of it you can get a nice glimpse over most of Barcelona towards the Mediterranean Sea. We also visited The Sagrada Familia Cathedral and it was completely mind-blowing. On the outside it looks so different than any other church I’d ever seen, and then the inside was even more unexpected! There are some people who don’t like it much, but I personally love it. Just after that, we went to “La Pedrera”, which was also very unique. I ended up buying a little book on Gaudi there because I find his works to be so interesting. On our last day in Barcelona, we had a lot of free time. There was a huge market that we walked around in. There are so many fruit stands where they sell inexpensive delicious smoothies. They also had a lot of butchers with some sort of thing I was told was intestines in the windows? It looked more to me like huge amounts of spongecloth. A small group of us went and got Asian food and then we did a little bit of shopping.
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| Pictures from the Sagrada Familia Cathedral |
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