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 :)

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 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 Eiffel Tower

Moulin Rouge

Arc de Triomphe

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.