I've done quite a bit in the past two weeks. I had a nice dinner with all my host families, spent 2 days in Frankfurt, went to the North sea in Belgium with Manon and her mum, went to a few parties, watched a couple tennis matches, went to Namur with a friend, and spent a lot of time in train stations, trains, and buses.
Frankfurt was awesome. I arrived in the afternoon of the 19th, and I stayed until the following afternooon. A friend from Chimay is currently living there. This year he's done a series of short exchanges, and this is his last one. It worked out nicely because I would have wanted to see him at some point during this trip anyway, so I'm glad I was able to go to Frankfurt and visit a new city as well as spend time with an old friend. The perfect combination! We walked a lot and ate at weird hours, but we had a lot of fun! We visited the rooftops of a couple buildings, shared a couple drinks with some other exchange friends of his there, visited a church, walked along the river, visited a museum, and looked around for impossible-to-find souvenir shops. I bought some chocolates as souvenirs though. I ate some of it on the train ride back already and it was delicious!
When I came back from Frankfurt my 2nd host mum picked me up and I spent the night and most of the next day with my 2nd family. But it was so darn hot on Sunday! It's actually been pretty hot here. Just the first couple days I was here weren't super warm...
I think the biggest difference in temperature between here in Belgium doesn't actually have much to do with what it's like outside. The past couple weeks it's been just as hot here as my normal summers back home. The difference is that here people do not have air conditioning. Since it isn't normally this warm, it isn't really needed. They save a lot of money that way and only (usually) suffer a couple really hot days per year. But there's not much relief from the heat in a lot of houses. The windows are open and it's shady inside, but sometimes that can only do so much.
On Monday afternoon I left with the women of my 3rd family and we drove up to Koksijde (Coxyde). My host parents rented a small apartment by the sea for the week. I was there with my host mum and sister until early Wednesday morning. The first evening there I went to the beach a bit with my sister, then we ate dinner (mussels! :) ) and looked around at the shops. The second day, we go up when we felt like it, around 8:30-9ish, ate delicious, fresh, warm croissants/pains au chocolat, went shopping (window shopping for me) in the morning, came back for lunch, then layed out on the beach all afternoon ^^ . I managed to get a bit of tan, but surprisinly I didn't get burned. Manon did, but I'm sure she's darker than me now. I also found a little Wallonia flag and I decided to buy it. I've been looking for one since Wallos 2011! and I found a beautiful blue scarf that wasn't very expensive too.
Early Wednesday morning I left Koksijde and took the train to Namur, where I met up with a friend, exchanged a couple gifts, had sushi for lunch, went to H&M where I bought a little dress, and then had a couple early-celebratory birthday drinks. She gave me a few cute bracelets, and I gave her 1L of maple syrup as well as my old cell phone that she admired so much when I showed it to her on Skype a long time ago. I also finally found a sporting goods store that sells official merchandise of the Belgian soccer team! They only had 3 jerseys left, one of which was my size, and none of which were my brother's. So I have a jersey and I guess he isn't getting one :S Unless I find one in the airport. We took the train back to Charleroi together then I got on a bus for Sivry and she got on a train for Couvin.
Today is my birthday! I'm glad to be celebrating it in Belgium. There's a little party tomorrow night at a friend's house, which is apparently being arranged behind my back. Hahaha. It's not a surprise, but I'm really not in the loop at all. I only know the time and place and I've been told "not to worry, it's being taken care of". Also, there is a facebook event for it that I was not invited to. I know because I saw it in Damien's events in the corner of his facebook home page when we were looking at peoples picture's on facebook last night. I just saw "20 ANS DE LA CANADIENNE..." for tomorrow. I don't even know who's invited xD But I trust my friends to know my friends. I'm pretty excited :) No one's ever really organized a party for me before! The family get-togethers for my birthday when I was younger really don't count though.
Tonight I go to a Rotary meeting with all the rebound and outbound exchange students from the Chimay-Couvin club, then possibly karaoqueen (Karaoke at a bar in Chimay called The Queen Mary) with Alice after?
I can't believe I'll be leaving so soon already :/
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