Allie in Belgium

It's true, my year abroad as an exchange student is finished, and logically this blog should also be finished. I'm not going to close the blog altogether, though, because I plan on returning in the near future and eventually relocating there... So I might post Belgium-related things later on. (Epilogue posts, if you will.)

I got home on July 29th. That was a hard day, indeed. But I am happy to be home and to see my family and to eat all my favourite foods that I've missed so much. (Oh, macaroni and cheese, my greatest love!!)

It's very difficult to be away from the friends that I've made and the places I've come to love. Semi-frequent visits will make it easier, but not until April.


I've enrolled in community college for Liberal Arts and I've got some job interviews lined up. I'm not quite sure exactly what I want to do with my life except that I want to end up back in Belgium. My heart lies in two countries, now, and I'll be spending the rest of my life splitting myself between the two. That's what I signed up for, I guess.

I wanted to thank everyone here at home who helped give me this opportunity. It was the best year of my life, and it changed me in ways I probably haven't even fully realized yet.

I've been spending my hours slaving away over a tiny little notebook that I'm filling with English words and phrases that are useful for travel... Damien's mom is going to the US Open in August and she speaks no English. I'm making the book for her as a surprise, so SHHHHHH don't go spreading that around.

Today was the English exam. It was REALLY TOUGH. I'm not being sarcastic- even if it wasn't tough for me, it was for everyone else. Too tough, in my opinion. And REALLY LONG. Listening section, vocab section, reading section, oral section, writing section. It just never ends!
While I was finishing the last part of the test I realized that that would be the very last schoolwork I ever did in Belgium. My very last 'not real work' work. Next year I'll have to actually do homework and make an effort and stuff like that. ...I wrote my last sentence very slowly, to capture the moment.


I can't stop listening to this song... It's by this guy (Christophe Willem) who won the French version of American Idol (Nouvelle Star!!!) a couple years ago. I didn't really know him until I heard this song, but I know Nouvelle Star pretty well by now! I watched this season with my host sisters and host mom... My favourites were Damien and Soan, but Damien was eliminated near the end and I was sooooo sad. But Soan won the finale, so that's good. But I loved Damien more... (and not because of his name, so don't even think about it).
when he sang this song on the show I was mesmerized!



Well, back to my book project and I nice healthy dose of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome!

Look, it's only been two weeks and I'm already updating again! (Love ya, Dad!)

Exams have been going by pretty smoothly. The science exams were alright, I quasi-answered a couple questions but I mostly just wrote silly comments to the teachers. I heard my chemistry teacher got quite a kick out of it. History was... embarrassing, seeing as it's WWII which I SHOULD know. But I learned it from the American side! Also I learned it two years ago. Also it didn't really interest me. I'm more into the American Revolution up to the Civil War.
French turned out to be a written exam instead of oral. SCORE!!! Writing is so much easier for me than speaking. And I'm sure I did awesome, even though of course I made mistakes.
Today was Geography and all I can say is: LOL. (Laugh out loud for all you old-timers out there. It's a dumb internet thing that kids in Belgium actually say aloud so I've gotten into the habit- it's going to get me made fun of so bad when I get back to the States). During the test he came over to ask how I was doing and I was like, "Great, I understand all the questions!" And on the test itself I basically just wrote, "It's true that I understand the questions but unfortunately I don't know any of the answers. Have a good summer!" Seriously how am I supposed to be able to look at a picture of fields and trees and analyse it, telling him which region in Belgium it belongs to?
Tomorrow is English! Damien is going to have fun with that one, mister "my girlfriend is English so there's no way I'm going to study this stuff in the rest of my free time!", and who did not open his book ONCE this year except in class when the teacher forced him to.
Then Economic Science and then it's FINISHED. FINITO. FIN. DONE. OVER. BYE BYE, SCHOOL.

I don't actually want to leave the school, of course I'm attached to it seeing as it was my "exchange school" and everything, but man it's boring. And dumb. School in Belgium is really dumb. No sports or music or anything anything anything interesting at all. Just do this work until 4 in the afternoon, then go home, study for hours, go to bed, do it all again the next day. People I know used to say that PHS sucked, and I didn't even agree with them then, but now I know how totally wrong they were. The academic level is technically higher in Belgium, but at PHS we at least had a real library. Computers. Labs. Actual resources so that kids who wanted to learn, could learn. Plus after-school activities, which I think are really important.

But don't worry, Belgium, you still win by miles on transportation. In the US if I want to go anywhere I need a car. In Belgium you can just walk to the nearest bus or train station, even in the smallest of towns. (Okay, admittedly not in MY current town, but it doesn't actually count as a town, being only like THIRTY HOUSES. But Thuin, which is roughly the same size as Plainfield, has a train station and tons of bus stops).




Last Wednesday I went to Liège for the last "unoffical" exchange-student gathering. (As in, not organized by Rotary). Almost every Wednesday during the year the students met up in Liège but I'd never gone because I always had something else to do. (Wednesdays are half-days at school so they're hot for plan-making, like the weekend). But I decided to go last week because it was the last one. It was pretty cool, although I realized I didn't KNOW anyone. I never really hung out with exchange students at all this year, besides the ones who live in my town. Some exchangers stick with other exchangers, but I wasn't one of them I guess. I preferred being with my Belgian friends and host families.

I've been in my third host family since April 11th, which hasn't really been very conducive to blog writing considering I've got no internet on my laptop. But here I am at my friend's house and so I'll take the opportunity to write a little update.

Let's see... In the beginning of April I had my class trip to CROATIA! (And Venice). It was sooooooo awesome. Croatia is beautiful, but unfortunately the one day we were at a national park, it rained buckets the entire day. But oh no, after that it was all sunshine and puppies! The one day we were supposed to admire nature we get the crappiest weather ever... I was seriously soaked to the bone for like five hours. But other than that, as well as one night in a rather unfortunate hotel, the trip was amazing. The last two days of the trip were in VENICE. We took a boat from Split to... somewhere in Italy and then drove up to Venice. It was really beautiful but also really touristy. I loved it. The entire two days I kept saying, 'I'm going to buy a mask! I want a mask! They're so beautiful! I will buy one.' But to finish I didn't buy one because I said to myself, 'where will I wear it??' ......Turns out that our end of the year ball is a Venice-themed masquerade. You can imagine my reaction having learned that like a month after I got home- 'WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!' Yeah. Anyone who has facebook can see my pictures of the trip... I'm not on my computer now otherwise I'd upload them here. Actually I think my facebook profile is public so just search for me I guess.

Like two days after I got home from the trip I switched families. My new family lives in the middle of farmland field town or something. It's actually a really tiny village that's literally made up of two streets, like thirty houses all together, and surrounded by endless fields. It's pretty far away from town compared to my first two families who were directly 'en ville'. But I like the peace and quiet and also my new family is SUPER NICE and awesome. I have three host sisters- 19, 16, and 10. My host mother works at the library in town and she also teaches painting classes and goes to a night class for English, which she's actually almost finished with. My host father works at the Belgian bank Fortis.

The third weekend of May was the Saint Roch festival/parade in Thuin... There are different 'companies' of townspeople who dress up in old military costumes and march all around the town while everyone else has a huge party around them. Trust me, the marchers are having fun too... By the last day you see them walking arm in arm to hold each other up otherwise they walk in zigzags.
The parade is for Saint Roch who delivered the town from the plague, apparently. It was originally religious I guess but now it's more just part of these people's blood, I think. It's essential to people who live in town. Don't try to tell any of them that another festival somewhere else is better or they'll argue with you for hours on end.


Next week I start exams which should be fun... And by fun I mean pretty boring but I figure I'll 'try' to pass all of them. The only ones I'm really planning on putting any effort into are English, French, Biology, and Physics. Chemistry will be impossible, and History and Geography will both be way over my head. The reason I stand a chance to answer some questions correctly for Bio and Physics is because it's the lower level science class anyway, plus it's stuff I remember from school in the US. History MIGHT be okay, since I learned that stuff too. Geography is all European and Belgian, so that won't go so well.
For French I have to read a book and do an oral exam. I've already read the book, it took me only like three days. I've also read all of the Harry Potter books in French over the last month. Plus the novel that my host mother got me for my birthday. I can read an entire book in French now, I'm really impressed. Before I left for Belgium I bought the first Harry Potter book in French and it all looked like Chinese, but now I have absolutely no problem with it. That proves to me how much vocabulary and grammar I really have learned!


Hopefully I'll be able to write again soon! Next time I come here I'll make a point of it.
I hope everyone's doing well and enjoying (or about to enjoy) their summer!

How I love this, the best season of the year. I always say I love every season when it comes though. Except winter. I don't know how many of you know this or if I've even mentioned it on this God forsaken blog, but I detest winter with every fiber of my being. Honestly.

I recently had a week-long vacation from school, which was awesome. It was for CARNAVAL WOOOO, which I of course attended, in the town of Binche. Which is pretty much THE Carnaval festival of Belgium. The best of most of the world, too, except like Brazil and New Orleans I suppose. But wait no, Binche is better than those in a different way. It's more... delightfully European. And definitely more chaste. But no less fun, I promise. I see those skeptical eyes.
Here's some pictures from Carnaval, including a couple of me. I shamelessly stole this from the guy I went to the festival with. He is Etienne Bailly, my Rotary club president, and he and his wife are totally fantastic.

Suffice it to say, I had an amazing time. I went with M Bailly for all of Tuesday, but I went with Damien for Sunday night and that was cool too. But nothing compares to Tuesday oh my gooood. It's just crazy.
I sincerely hope that will not be the last Carnaval de Binche that I see in my life.



In other news, I'd like to note how awesome I am at recognizing my fricken surroundings now. Like I'm starting to actually KNOW WHERE I AM at any given point in time! I can be driven in a certain direction and pretty much know which surrounding town I'll end up in. Like I know if I go that way, I'll end up in Lobbes, whereas if I go that way I'll be in Gozée. I love it! And of course I definitely know my way around Thuin by now.
I remember when I first arrived and all the roads and buildings seemed so strange and unfamiliar. It seems like now the entire town looks completely different from how it appeared to me back then.


I'd like to invite you all to follow my Twitter page, because perhaps I'll be better at updating shit little by little, rather than being daunted by a big update. I already constantly post random stuff on my AIM away messages and my stupid Facebook page, but I think the Twitter page will be more useful for actually being, you know, read by other people.

BUT OF COURSE I'm not abandoning this blog by any means. Just offering a fresh alternative for those who are fed up with my lameness here. "J'EN AI MARRE DE CE BORDEEEEEL"


Love y'all.

This is my schoooool: http://ind-thuin.be/
If you search real hard you can find pictures of me! Okay just go to "Galeries photos" and then "Rheto Ypres", gosh. It's not THAT difficult.

This weekend I have ~*~*~stuff~*~*~ to do, which should turn out pretty exciting. So we'll see!

Yesterday I worked a bit at a car wash to raise money for our class trip. Yeah... A car wash, with water and everything. And yes, it is very wintry here in Belgium. I guess we're just crazy.

Forgot to mention: I have no idea why that picture of a random dude is showing up instead of my usual default userpic, but I've sent in a report to the LJ staff and hopefully it'll be fixed soon. Or eventually. For now just ignore it I guess?

Sorry to be so scarce, but here are my excuses: (take them or leave them, and if you do take them, a grain of salt would go along splendidly):
Beginning of December I got bronchitis. That was fun! Spent some time recovering from that, then I had exams. After exams was the holidays. And right after the holidays was... Family changing time!
So there you go. I've been "busy". But let's not talk about me. Let's talk about, uh, something else about me! Such as the fact that I recently changed families! Yes, very sad. I totally cried. But here I am two and a half weeks later (oh my goodness) and things are better. My host mother and father are named Patricia and Gaston, and I have two older brothers in university named Quentin and Adrien. They have a daughter my age named Margot who is in Chile this year.

Here is a picture of my new room. Like the day after I moved in, so obviously it's a mess. (It's not STILL like that, of course. It's actually worse. Good grief!)


Here is a picture of the area where my computer is!


I'll need to take more pictures of the rest of the house, as well as the bakery downstairs. Because yeah my new host parents own a bakery! How cool is that? It's pretty cool. If I haven't gained weight already (I have), I certainly will! (*groan of agony*)

I'm on a parentheses spree today! Also exclamation points, which a certain SOMEONE will be quick to point out to me. I won't mention any names, but that Mackenzie is a real nitpicker!

And for those who want to laugh at my weight gain, here's a picture of my dumb face:

I guess it's not so evident here but that's okay I'd rather you not see it anyway.


Today I went with my new host dad and older brother and my friend Adeliiiiina (their previous exchange student) to see a really big tree.
Here is the name of the tree.


Here is me and Adelina and the tree.


Here is me and Gaston and Quentin and the tree.


Gaston says the tree is sick. He's like a major plant expert from what I can tell. The house is full of plants. Like literally. You can probably tell from my second picture in this entry. There's a whole lot more where that came from, man. He's also, you know, a baking expert. But I'll save THAT for another entry, because I ate way too much pasta for dinner and I can't be thinking of food right now.


In other news, school is... still happening. We're getting ready for our big class trip to Croatia. (Raising money and such). We leave the 31st of March and return April 8th. I am very very very very very excited for this.

Well I'll be off for now. Update again soon, I promise. (I even know exactly what it'll be about.)

Because I know that "over a month without an update" is a Very Bad Thing, and I use capital letters because I am a Serious Person and this is Serious Business. There are a million excuses I could give, such as "I've got too much homework" (HA!) or "I've been too busy" (more probable but also not 100 percent true). Thus I will give you the true, and lame, reasons:
I knew that I wanted to include pictures in my next entry, and I can only upload pictures on the family computer; which happens to be located in the coldest room in the house AND MAYBE THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Seriously it's an icebox in here. Oh, winter... How I despise you!
Why couldn't I just post an entry without pictures? For this I have an excuse which is much lamer than the first- the idea of filling up an entry with just words is a harrowing thought and I am a lazy, lazy girl.
But here I am, ready to give you not only pictures but LOTS OF TEXT. I figure I owe you, like, a month's worth.

...Pics first. (Haha I'm procrastinating in my own journal! How pathetic can you get?!)
Okay first a couple pictures from the field trip I took with my school like a million years ago to Ypres. Flanders. Is. Beautiful. Sorry to say it, (not really), but Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, is SO much more beautiful than Wallonia. You know, the French-speaking part. Where I live. Sure I adore Wallonia, and it's really beautiful and stuff but man, driving through the countryside in Flanders is like... Wow.

Also every time I've been to Flanders it's been a non-rainy Belgium day, which is pretty much a miracle. So that might have something to do with it- blind luck. ...No, Flanders really is beautiful rain or shine.

Here's a not-so-flattering picture of me at the trenches in Ypres, which is why we went to Ypres in the first place. It was for history class. But yeah, the guy talking to us is my friend Cyril, and the guy next to me is my friend Damien.

Look at my expression. I have no recollection of what Cyril was talking about but it looks like I was really trying hard to understand or I thought it was the stupidest thing anyone's every said. Look at me! I'm all like, "Say what?"


Okay now I'll get to some pictures of London. London was awesome, as you already know from my last post way back in the 19th century. Here's a picture of me with a bunch of exchange student friends in Canterbury, our first stop, posing with some cool Kent cops. Don't ask me why they were having a photoshoot in the middle of the street. I have no idea. I was just along for the ride.

In this picture the outstanding officers are surrounded by Canadians, Americans, Mexicans, and South Africans. Actually they're mostly Canadians, with a couple of Americans and a Mexican and a South African. CAN YOU GUESS WHICH IS WHICH?? Hint: the girl in the brown coat is one of the three Americans!

Okay so in London they had awesome food, the awesomest being KFC. Like I said before I didn't eat any fish and chips. Whatever, man! KFC 4ever!!

This group of amazingly crazy people and I totally rocked that KFC.

We went to the Tower of London and ended up waiting around outside for a ridiculously long amount of time so we used the opportunity to take a big group photo. Can you find me?

Having all the students together in one place is just asking for trouble... At one point someone started singing the exchange student song, and all the ROTEX were like, "NOOOO NOT HERE! STOP!!" and they stopped it just in time. Once the song really gets going, it's like impossible to stop. (The entire purpose of the song is to be sung in public places very loudly by as many exchange students as possible, preferably at an inappropriate moment. But apparently that moment was just a bit too inappropriate.)

Oh look, a bridge!

It was suuuuuch a beautiful weekend. We were SO LUCKY to be in London on a non-rainy day. Because apparently London is like Belgium in the "always raining" department.

Amazing.


I was with a couple of other students during our free time during daylight to roam around London, and the first thing we did was find King's Cross station... We're dweebs.

YEAH, THAT'S PLATFORM NINE AND THREE QUARTERS, ALL RIGHT. JEALOUS? YOU SHOULD BE.


And this is the obligatory picture of Big Ben, which was the third thing we decided to visit after King's Cross and Buckingham Palace.

We walked in the same circle like a hundred blocks wide THREE TIMES to find Big fricken Ben. It turns out it was so much simpler to find than we thought. Of course.
But NOTHING beats the navigational stupidity of our attempt to find the London Eye:

After Big Ben we went back in the direction we came from (AKA: BACK TO BUCKINGHAM FRICKEN PALACE) because we figured it would be easier to figure out which way to go. Did we have a map? Yes. Are we complete idiots? Yes. Because the bridge leading to the London Eye, and therefore a full sight of the London Eye, is directly down the street from Big Ben. YEAH. OKAY. GO AHEAD AND LAUGH. Like seriously fifty steps down the street in the direction we DIDN'T go in, there it was.
Oh, how lovely.
But then we actually went UP on the London Eye, by which time it was night and it was AMAZING! None of the pictures came out at all so I have none to show you, but I took a couple videos to preserve the memory for myself.
And that's all the photos I have for right now!


Life since the London trip has been cool, as always, though the arrival of winter has affected my mood a bit. Unlike what I've been told, so far it's not the holidays which have got me depressed- it's just my usual winter blah, which I get every blah winter. The holiday season has actually made me even HAPPIER, if you can believe that.
My host mother helped me host a Thanksgiving dinner at the house, and it was absolutely wonderful. I still have cans of cranberry sauce leftover, which is nice. So I guess I didn't really mourn over the loss of a Thanksgiving, since I did have one. I even got an extra holiday- St. Nicolas, which I guess is like a mini Christmas in the beginning of December when little kids get gifts and candy. ...We got candy. And speculoos. Speculoos is like gingerbread cookies but, um, different. Somehow. They're like my favourite thing to eat here. (Besides, uh, the fries and the chocolate and the waffles. And the Brasil sauce that I get with my fries. Yeah).
Next holiday is Christmas! I'm getting all excited about it like a little kid. I'm not sure exactly how it'll all play out but I'm gonna love it, I know.
After that I've got New Years and then... it'll be January. Sometime in January I'll be switching host families. I'm not exactly looking forward to it. And I don't want to use the word "dread" even though that's pretty much what I'm feeling, because that's just pessimistic, now, isn't it? I know I'll have a great time no matter where I go, but I'm really, really, really going to miss my first host family. They've been so wonderful to me, and I don't think I could ever thank them enough.
But like I said, I'll be fine. Anyone who knows me knows that nothing can keep me down for long!

Okay it is really, really, really cold in here. My toes are starting to freeze off, I think.
(I'm exaggerating a little bit. Okay maybe a lotta bit. But it's still chilly.)

I'm gonna head off. Hopefully I won't wait another month to update this thing, but I can't make promises anymore because apparently I fail at life and updating journals.
It might be, you know, helpful, if people would leave comments with maybe questions they wanna ask me about life in Belgium or whatever. If I have questions to answer it's a whole lot easier to start writing.

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




PS: hey guess who won the presidential election?

((SPOILER ALERT!!))


BARACK OBAMA! WOOOOOOOOOOO! yeah i was pretty happy about that. and by "pretty" i mean "substantially".
also, Barack chose Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. BARACK + "RAHMBO" = UNSTOPPABLE.

I'm too tired/lazy to write a bunch right now, but I promise that sometime this week I'll have pictures from London up. But for now I'll just give a little update.

So I went to London with Rotary and about 100 other students. And I have this to say about it-
LONDON WAS AMAZINGLY COOL AND AWESOME AND STUFF WOOOOO!
Here are some major points on London that I loved-
1. They have almost all the same foods as in America. KFC! Normal McDonald's! Salt and vinegar chips! Oreos!!
2. It's SO BEAUTIFUL! Like, everywhere you turn there's something beautiful to look at.
3. English people! Some English dude gave us wrong directions. Gotta love that British sense of humor. Everyone is nice, though. And if not "nice", at least mildly amusing.
4. English!! I know I use English way too much here in Belgium, but it was so nice to be among NATIVE English.
6. English food! Fish and chips! I didn't actually have any fish and chips, unfortunately, because I spent all of my food-time with the Colonel or Ronald McDonald, but to know that I COULD have had fish and chips was comforting. Plus I plan on going back there like a million more times in my life, so I figure someday I'll try real English fish and chips. (Although, come on, can it be any better than New England fish and chips? I doubt it!)
7. IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL!

Okay so now I've been home from London since Tuesday... and today is the last day of vacation. Boo-hoo... But it's been a nice vacation. Relaxing! I went shopping last week with my sister and Adelina and I bought new boots. Because it's almost winter, dontcha know.

I think it's not quite as cold here as it is in Connecticut, but I'm not sure. It seems cold but not TOO cold- yet I complain about being cold anyway because that's what I do in the US, too. I complain when it's cold and I complain when it's hot. Love that varying New England climate!!


Okay so that's enough for now I think...
OH except today I (okay, well, me and my mum and my brother) made a pumpinskinking pie! AKA a pumpkin pie. I don't know if the pumpkin was the right kind, and it tastes kind of off, but it's still DELICIOUS. It's definitely close enough. Mmmm.
Now I just need Thanksgiving to come so I can eat that cranberry sauce. Thanks to everyone who has sent/is sending those cans! You rock my socks.

Also: WOOOO OBAMA, AM I RIGHT?!?! My host mum and I are going to stay up all night Tuesday to watch the results. No school Wednesday for me! Maybe...

Today was picture day at school. All of the students brought something funny to wear for the goofy group photo, but me and Adelina were out of the loop on that one so we had to improvise... She ended up borrowing somebody's cowboy hat. I rummaged around in my school bag and found a metal spoon that I had once used for some snack or something. And I was like, "YES! GENIUS!!" People around here are always amazed at my spoon-on-nose proficiency, which is demonstrated in this photo: http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/crazy023.jpg.
So I'm pretty excited about the group pictures. And there were individual pictures, too, which I took sans spoon. I'm not looking forward to that one quite as much. I'm 80% positive that it's terrible.
But at least my hair looked good, because I got it trimmed yesterday and it looks pretty snazzy if I do say so myself!

And that's basically all that's new for now. I might think of more stuff later, but I figured I should get SOMETHING posted!

Also: To everyone who has not yet sent me cranberry sauce: PLEASE SEND CRANBERRY SAUCE!!! (I've gotten one package from my wonderful dad, with stuffing too! And Mac and Cheese! Haha I love packages.)
Seriously my Thanksgiving party will not be a Thanksgiving party without enough cranberry sauce for everyone! :D

(I hate entry titles. Everyone just pretend that they don't exist, please.)

In school I have this class called science economique, which is... An economics class. I chose the economics option because Latin would be too difficult and I didn't want to take the science option because I hate science.
I don't understand everything in the class yet, but from time to time I catch the drift of it, which is "The economy in the US is doing very bad! Oh look, Belgium banks are starting to fail too!"

I think it's really interesting that I have this class like at the exact moment that the world's economy starts to sink into oblivion. Coincidence?
Not that it really matters all that much seeing as I don't understand much of what's going on. But someday soon I will!!


Which reminds me, I'm starting to dream in French. Now don't get all excited, like "WOO that's a good sign!" because I'm not so sure. I mean, yeah it's probably a good sign I guess but I'm like 90% positive that all of the French in my dream is incorrect. It's like, during the dream I somehow know that it's French being spoken and I understand it, but for all I know it could be gibberish that my mind is actually producing. Dreams are weird.
But a good sign for sure is that I'm starting to think in French while I'm awake! Just little things like "je ne peux pas faire ça" and weird phrases like "CE N'EST PAS POSSIBLE" or "n'importe quoi..." And sometimes, SOMETIMES, I even say these things out loud! *gasp* A shock, I know. Don't worry, I'm still resisting the learning just like any respectable lazy person should!

Kidding. Obviously. Y'all should know that I do try! You know, occasionally. Hahaha.
Okay seriously now- I really do say more and more in French every day. I think I am improving, although it's pretty slow so it's difficult for me to tell. I'm determined not to be worried about it. If I worry so much that I'm not learning fast enough I'll just put extra pressure on myself.
And everyone knows that Allison never puts extra pressure on herself... Ever. :D

Tomorrow I'm going bowling in Charleroi after school with my friends. Should be fun. Whenever I've gone bowling in the past I always end up having an amazing time because I'm just so ridiculously bad at it. It's such a fun thing to do with a group of friends.

People need to start telling me who they are in their comments pleeeaaaase. Anonymous LJ comments are kinda creepy. =) But even so- thank you everyone! Creepy or not, I love comments. Keep 'em coming, and I'll keep up with the blog. Hehe.

Good night!!

There was school today, (LE SIGH), but just as I was gearing up to face the horror that is gym class, I joyfully discovered that for reasons unbeknownst to self that there would be, ever so unfortunately, no gym class for the girls today. It was quite a bit of random luck.

I'm hoping that said R. L. will chance upon me next week, but I doubt it greatly...

(Don't be fooled by my hatred for gym class and think that it's some terrible thing- anyone who knows me can tell you that I detest American gym class as well! Typical.)

Okay, turns out that a marron is NOT a chestnut? Apparently they are very similar but "not the same".
So what the heck is the English equivalent of a "marron"?! I'm sitting here staring at this thing like, "helllloooo brown-painted rock, what are you??" but it's not answering.

(This entry has used up it's quota for quotation marks, so that's it. No more.)

Today I went to Parc Astérix (in France!) with Bruno, my cousin Julien, and his girlfriend. It was pretty much awesome and later I'll get a couple pictures up along with more written words and other pictures of stuff.

I think there will be no school on Monday because like the entire country is going on strike or something, I don't know. All I know is there might be no school on Monday, and since Monday is gym day, I say

(Okay I was about to use quotation marks, let me try again:)

And since Monday is gym day, WOOOOOOOOOOO!


It is a bit late. I spent all day at the amusement park and plus it takes two hours to get there. Left this morning at 7:45 and got back to my house at like 9PM. Oh yes.
Also my laptop battery is slowly draining and I am too lazy to get my power cord....

SO until I get the pictures? Or until I feel like posting randomly again? See ya.

(That's Living Vicariously Through You... A lot of people, including some dude I don't even know, told me I need to update my blog, so here I am.)

I'm really bad at writing blogs, apparently, so I'll just list random things as they come to mind and that will count as an entry! Woo!

On Tuesday I went with my friend Damien and his mother to a tennis match in Mons. It was AWESOME. They're like these champion players and you can just go up to them and be like "Yo what's up". I saw Kristof Vliegen and Xavier Malisse, both Belgian players. And Malisse lost to Jonathan Marray, a British dude. I think I could come to really really love watching tennis. The way the players move is beautiful!
Also, while at the tennis match I ate the most delicious thing I have ever eaten (except for pumpkin pie). It was a warm gaufre with Nutella... That's a Belgian waffle, people. A warm Belgian sugar waffle with chocolatey sauce spread on top. Oh. My. God. I almost died.

Right now I'm in the sitting room and it's freezing in here. My host dad is in the process of making a fire, but it's not quite... warmth-giving, just yet. That's what fires should be. Warmth-giving. This is just a baby fire though, so I suppose it will get there eventually. Hopefull before my toes freeze off.

Yesterday I went to eat at a frittery after school with Damien, Maxime, and Adelina. Maxime and Adelina were waiting for a train to Charleroi, and Damien and I waited to make sure that they got on the train, because we both had a suspiscion that they had the wrong time. And so we waited in the car across the tracks from them, and it was pouring rain and really windy. It was hilarious... The train didn't come, so they came back to us and we waited for another twenty minutes for the next train. This train came, thank goodness.
And then later on that night I got a text message from Maxime saying that they'd missed their train in Charleroi to return to Thuin. I LOL'd, seriously.

Apparently there are no chipmunks in Belgium. Trufax.

Here is an interesting conversation that I had with my host dad the other day... We went for a walk down to the river through the woods, and he picked up something from the ground that had fallen from a tree. It was brown and looked like some sort of nut, but not one that I'd ever seen. He told me it was called a marron, and I was like "uhh I don't know what that is. I've never seen one before, so I don't know if we have them in the US." And I literally had no idea what the heck it was:
Me: "What do I do with it?"
Papa: "Nothing, it's just to keep." (he was speaking in French, obviously)
Me: "So it's like a rock."
Papa: "No, this is vegetal. Rocks are mineral."
Me: "But it might as well be a rock. I could paint a rock brown and it would be just as useful, is that what you're telling me?"
Papa: "I suppose."
Then like a half hour later I ask my host mother about it:
Me: "Is it like a seed??"
Maman: "Yes, if you put it in the ground a tree will grow."
Me: "SO IT'S NOT LIKE A ROCK AT ALL."
........yeah.

I have since learned that a marron is a CHESTNUT. A CHESTNUT, OKAY??? Don't ask me how I didn't know it was a chestnut! It's not my fault I'd never seen a chestnut before!!!!!

Ahem. I'll wrap this up now...

For Thanksgiving my host mother suggested we have a party with all American foods, and I was like "YEEEES GOOD IDEA LET'S DO IT". I think I've got the turkey, gravy, potatoes, various vegetables, and bread under control. I think I can even handle the pumpkin pie. But the sad truth is that I lack cranberry sauce. CAN YOU ALL HELP ME? This is of the utmost importance, I swear! If each of you send just one can of cranberry sauce, I will be totally set! If you don't already have my mailing address, reply here and I'll send it to you. JUST ONE CAN!

A week-long wait is unforgivable, but nevertheless- I'M SORRY!

I have now been in school for one week. At worst it can be boring and exhausting, and at best it's a lot of fun. It's never extremely difficult or miserable or anything like that. After a week I have a group of classmates who I associate with most, so that's really cool. Today me and Adelina went out with them to the café after school. Very fun.
Adelina has most of the same courses as me... She chose the science option, so she has a lot of math and science where I have French, English, or study hall.
Here are some pictures of my school...
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school009.jpg This is everyone going back into school after break. Only a small part of the school, obviously.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school013.jpg Part of the courtyard.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school016.jpg More courtyard.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school011.jpg My classroom!

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school002.jpg Adelina talking to our friend Maxime.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school008.jpg Me and Mariana, the Colombian exchange student in the other class.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school012-1.jpg Aaand me.

And now some pictures of Thuin! WOOO!
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school018.jpg This is my walk to school. Down this road a ways and then some more.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school017.jpg And this is same street, but turned around back towards home. My house is at the very end and across the road.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school019.jpg My dad's work.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school020.jpg That next right is the way to school.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school021.jpg The belfy!
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school023-1.jpg The belfry up close. The most distinguishing feature of the town.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school024.jpg Part of the square near the belfry.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school026.jpg Typical Thuin street. I love iiiiit.

And another picture of the lower part of town because it's always such a beautiful view that I have to stop and take a picture every time I walk by: http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/school022.jpg

I think that's enough for tonight!
I still love Belgium. I love Thuin and I even love school. I hope everything is going well in the United States and you all don't miss me tooooo much! :D
Good night!

My first day of school in Belgium... Very interesting. And by interesting I mean the people are interesting, the language is interesting, but of the course the classes are NOT interesting. I think that even if the classes were taught in English they would still be boring. Nevertheless, all of my teachers that I've had so far are very nice, and so are my classmates. There are only a couple who have made an effort to talk to me and Adelina, but that's more than I expected for the first day so I'm content.
The walk to school was very nerve-wracking. My host mother walked with me and we met Adelina and her host mother in front of the school. My school is only a couple minutes walk away from my house. Pretty awesome. Before school starts all the students stand around the courtyard and wait for the bell to ring. One of the first things I noticed when I saw all of the students is that they're all very well dressed... Unlike in the United States, NO ONE just wears a t-shirt and sweatpants to school. Everyone dresses up for school. Stylish jeans, blouses, belts, sweaters, jackets, the whole nine yards.
After our host mothers left (much stress for me when this moment came- my host mother is very much a safe haven) we waited with the other cinquième and sixième students for our classes to be called. (Cinquième is the grade level under mine- like a junior in high school. My grade, sixième, is the highest). Once the classes were called we went inside. Adelina and I are in 6A... There are only two sixième classes- 6A and 6B. Mariana, the exchange student from Colombia, is in 6B I believe. Our classrooms are on the top (third) floor. After a while I'll take some pictures and post them...
My first class was religion. I didn't understand a thing, but that's okay because I can tell that after a couple months I'll be fine. Going to school has really put my mind at ease as far as worrying about learning the language. I spend all day listening and writing things down and talking to other people in broken French... And talking to Adelina and Mariana of course. But yeah, I can practically feel my brain growing. It's weird.
After religion was étude, which is study hall. Adelina chose the Science option so she went to physics while I was in étude... (I chose the Sciences Economic option, so when I'm in sciences eco, she's in étude). During my study hall a couple of students talked to me about America and about my host family. It was very nice... It's fun to try to talk to them- a little bit in French, a little in English.
After that was math. Ugh. Yeah all I could tell was that they were doing statistics... Averages. And actually, that's more than I understood in any of my OTHER classes!! Haha so I guess it's not SO bad. But man, even in English I hate math. So yeah. We'll see. For math class, we moved to a different room. For all of my other classes today, I stayed in the same room. The teachers come to the students... Very different from the United States. I thought it would be unbearably boring, but I moved around a lot more than I expected what with the breaks and the study hall and math and lunch etc.
And then lunch, if I remember correctly. Adelina and I followed another girl to the lunch area... And I think tomorrow we'll be allowed to eat outside? I have no idea. It was a very confusing portion of my day! hahaha. For lunch I brought two little sandwiches... One with ham and cheese and one with just cheese. I think tomorrow I will bring THREE little sandwiches. I was still hungry. >_>
After lunch we had French class. The teacher told me and Adelina that we wouldn't have to do the same things the other students are doing since it's way too complicated. So Adelina and I spent the period (the periods are 50 minutes) working on translating our handbooks. After class the teacher told us that she would be giving us some French exercises to do so that she can figure out what level we're on, that way she can give us readings that are appropriate for our skill levels. I thought it was very nice of her. Although she also asked us to say a little speech in French about our home countries in front of the class- today! We said no thanks, and she said we could do it next Thursday. hehe.
The next class was science economic, so Adelina left for étude. Mariana, the Colombian, is in my sciences eco class, so we sit together. It's a double class, so 100 minutes. Blah! But it's not so bad because sitting next to Mariana is a lot of fun. She's hilarious. We wrote notes back and forth, introducing ourselves and whatnot. She's relatively new at French so I helped her with a few verbs.
Also, 100 minutes is only ten more minutes than what I was used to at PHS in the United States. So no big deal I suppose.
My last class of the day was French. Again. Adelina and I spent the class writing out what we're going to say to the class next Thursday. She's got a lot more written down than me; I think it's because she had a headstart AND because she's not as afraid of making mistakes as I am. On the first day I saw her, we were speaking in English about how difficult French is, and I told her that I was afraid of making mistakes in French, and she said that if she was afraid to make mistakes in English she would never be able to communicate with anyone. (No one here speaks Portuguese, obviously.) I thought about it, and she has a great point. So I try very hard to be more like Adelina... =)
And after school I was ready to walk home by myself, but I walked into my host sister and her friends so I walked home with them. Running into people isn't very difficult at my school, I believe. There are only 500 students.
I'm going to have other classes on different days of the week, such as geography, history, chemistry, biology, English, and P.E. When I find out my schedule for sure, I'll post it. (I have a basic idea but I don't know if it's all correct haha).
When I got home my host mother helped me sort out my papers and signed the ones that needed to be signed, and my host father looked over what I had written for my presentation.
Then I played a card game with my host father and brother. And had dinner... And here I am!

I'll post again tomorrow with my SECOND day of school. I'm positive it won't be as long as this entry though... Geez. Took me almost an hour to write. :D

And after tomorrow, my posts will start to actually be interesting! Heh.

Yesterday my host dad dropped me, Laura, and Laura's friend off at H&M in Charleroi so I could do some school shopping. While we were in the store he went to return some CDs to the mediatheque.


The mediatheque is like a library, only with CDs and DVDs instead of books. And a bibliotheque is a library with books, of course.
The librairie is not a library- it's a bookstore. But the one in town is more of a papeterie, which sells paper and pens and envelopes and such.


The next time it's a nice-weather day (good luck with that one, Allison) I'm going to take more pictures of Thuin because I think it's the nicest town in Belgium that I've seen so far. (Besides the cities like Brussels and Bruges, obviously).

Not much has happened in the past few days... So I thought I'd make a collection of random facts about my host family.
Today my host dad went back to work, so naturally today's been a bit on the boring side. But on the way home from the bank and the library my host mum and I went to visit him at work so that's cool. He works at a home for old people just down the street, which apparently has just been renovated. Very bright, beautiful colours.
My host mother stays home and cooks and cleans. She's a very good cook and the house is very clean, too. (It's not her fault that there are GIANT SPIDERS. Uggh... In winter they will all sleep, so that's good.)
My sister Laura is entering the Belgian equivalent of her junior year of high school. Bastien will be a freshman. (And I will be in senior year, of course.)
Laura loves to throw peace signs with her fingers while saying 'YO' in a crazy voice. We've all taken to doing it, too. I'm pretty sure that I will be saying 'yo' in pictures and at passing cars for the rest of my life. She is also what my host parents call a 'fashion victim'. Very stylish and lots of makeup, hair straightener, etc. Hehe.
Bastien likes to play World of Warcraft. Not unlike my lovely parents in the United States, yes? Haha. He also likes to chat with his friends on MSN, laughing very loudly at who knows what while my host dad and I are trying to listen to music.
That's something about my host dad- he adores classical music. He has a huge CD collection and an awesome stereo system and he spends many evenings just sitting in the salon and listening. (With Bastien guffawing behind him all the while, alas!) I like to join him because I'm often pretty tired at the end of the day and I like to just sit and relax...
My host mother usually spends her evenings in front of the television in the living rool/dining room. On Mondays, I believe, she watches Grey's Anatomy, which she loves. It's all in French so I don't watch TV often unless it's something I already know well in English.

We eat all of our meals together. For breakast we have... bread! On the table there is butter, different kinds of cheese, peanut butter, Nutella, and jam for us to choose for our bread. And there's coffee, Nesquik powder, milk, and orange juice usually set out as well. The milk tastes very very different and I can't stand to drink it straight. I'm just barely getting used to the taste with Nesquik mixed in. The bread is usually fresh from being bought that morning or from being made by my host mother... Mmmm.
We have a garden outside where many of the vegetables we eat come from... For example, the amazing purée (mashed potatoes) that we've had recently. And the omelettes are with eggs from our chickens! Pretty fantastic, I think.

And I think that's enough for now... If anyone has any questions, feel free!

Today we went to see the ocean, in the north. We had a picnic and then we went... to Bruges!! My host dad says it's the most beautiful city in Belgium... But not Europe, because that title would belong to somewhere in Italy. ('You MUST go to Italy!' he says to me almost every day).
Today was the first time I ever spent any great amount of time in Flanders, where they speak Dutch. It's a really cool language, and I get the feeling that I would have had an easier time with the pronunciation than with French, but oh well.

Bruges is GORGEOUS!! If you are ever in Belgium, that is the city to see. I highly recommend taking a boat tour. Bruges is called the 'Venice of the North'.

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/aug4001.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/aug4002.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/aug4005.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/aug4006.jpg

Me and Bastien... Yeeaaah.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/bruges018.jpg

Me and Laura! Today was Laura's sixteenth birthday.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/bruges007.jpg

In Bruges... Looking up a word in my dictionaire, as always.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/bruges013.jpg


And I just want to include this photo so I can disturb you all with the terrible distortion of my neck...
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h251/lilallisun/bruges001.jpg
Just look at that. How does that even HAPPEN??? Why does this photo EXIST?? It's just not right. But now here it is, on the internet... Enjoy.
Also both me and my host dad are crazy. (Everyone is crazy. It's like our motto.)


I don't know what we're doing tomorrow... But Saturday is the Rotary inbound orientation. So I'll see all of my exchange students friends once again.

It's pretty late so I'll wrap this up.

Once more I shall say: I LOVE BELGIUM!!! A YEAR ISN'T LONG ENOUGH!

Until next time!