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.
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