Bruges

Hey guys,

So on the 2 of January, my rotary district took a trip to Bruges. It's way in the North so it was a very long train ride. However, I have grown to love train rides, especially when with other exchange students.

When we got there we walked to a small café and we all ate lunch. After that we split up into three groups and started our tour, by foot. Of course the tour was in French, so everyone had to really concentrate to understand everything. Bruges is one of the most "mid evil" looking towns in Belgium. All, if not, most of the houses have a similar type of roof: they're built like staircases. It gives the town a unique type of atmosphere. There are many canals for which the town is given the nick name "Venice of the North". Usually one can take a boat tour on the canal, but since this has been the coldest winter in Belgium for the past 15 or so years, they were all frozen over. Nevertheless, they were still very pretty to look at. There were a lot of bridges and each building seemed to give off its own personality. To quote from the movie In Bruges, the town did seem a bit "like a fairy tale".

We went into one of the churches where the was a statue created by Michelangelo in Italy. It was removed form the church two times. When Napolean was doing his thing and when the Nazis had come through. Unfortunately I was appreciating the church for too long and my tour group left without me. I was with two others so we managed to find our way back to the grande place where we finally met up with everyone else just in time for out two hours to wander around.

When we all got back to the café we ate "le gateau de roi" which translates into the king's cake. In each cake A small plastic Jesus was cooked in. The cake is cut up and everyone starts to eat. The person whose piece contains the Jesus is crowned king or queen, (there is a paper crown given out). After that, each king or queen is supposed to pick someone of the opposite sex to share the glory. But because there were so many of us we didn't do that. 

On the train ride home, we ended up sitting next to a very peculiar man. At first wew weren't talking to him, but he found an oppurtunity to introduce himself as our mexican friend Memo was talking. Memo speaks spanish, obviously, but was talking to us in English using spanish slang. For example, (mom stop reading for a second, i'm going to swear) the translation for "that's the shit" in spansh, is "that's the dick". So he kept saying to us, "Mexican spanish, it is the dick". And then he would say something in Spanish. So this guy on the train al of a sudden started speaking Spanish to Memo. We were all stunned by his sudden fluency, but even more surprised when he started to speak to us in perfect English. Apparently he is half Irish and half Belge. So he speaks flemish, french, english, and spanish. We were causing a big commotion so some more of the exchange students came over to see what was up. o the man started to speak with the brazilians... in portuguese. So then, guessing on a whim, we asked if he spoke Japanese. HE DID! So we ran down the train and got our japanese exchange student, Miyoku, and so they started speaking. So then, we asked if he knew Russian. Once again, he said yes, so we got our Russian and then they started to speak together. All in all, he spoke 12 languages, daily. He was a translator and traveled between belgium and Ireland almost every week. And, in his spare time taught Irish Step Dancing. We talked to him for the next hour and we shared our outlooks and perspectives on a lot of different topics. Morale of the story, you always meet the best people on the train ;)

New Years

For New Years i went into Bruxelles with some exchange students. We walked around outside for a while and looked at the decorations at the Grande Place and then went to a bar until 11:30. The Grande Place is on of my favorite spots in Belgium. It seems that every time i go it is decorated differently. And even without decorations it is absolutely breathtaking. Then we went out to la bibliotheque royale to watch the fireworks. At midnight, it is not customary for Belgians to kiss someone. And so as i was explaining this tradition of ors they yelled out in excitement, "Oh! Like they do in the films?!!" 

Anyways, we stayed all night in bruxelles celebrating at the cafés and we took the first train home in the morning. When i got home i took a three hour nap and then once again made the rounds to the grandparent's houses. We were out for seven hours visiting the family and by the time i got home i was absolutely dead.

Bon Papa

This is out of order, but after talking about my first host family, i feel as if i need to say this. Just this past week, the father of Evelyne, my host mom, died. He had alzheimers and wasn't very well. So they knew it was coming. But I went to his house very often and i got to know him decently well. He was really a great person. He was very nice and always had a smile on his face. He loved to make jokes and constantly made me laugh. Friday evening i went to the wake. I didn't really know what it was i was exactly going to because i didn't completely understand the explanation. But i went to his house in Aubel where the wake was taken place. It was closed casket with flowers and pictures everywhere. As soon as i stepped into he room i started to cry. As people left, there was a fern that was dipped in water and you were supposed to splash water over the casket in the sign of the cross.

And so i just wanted to say RIP bonpapa and that i will always remember him even though i didn't know him for a very long time.

Christmas Belgium Style

Christmas, in Belgium is more or less the same as in the US, but with some slight differences. In the Us, most families open presents in the morning on christmas day. It's a little but different here. Everyone opens up the presents christmas eve. So as a family, we spent a coupe hours opening presents. We would go around in a circle and each person would pick a present and give it to someone else. 

And everyone stays up until midnight. When the clock strikes 12:00 the champagne is opened and most people go out to "faire des fêtes" = to party. My family however just drank some champagne and went to bed. However for the next few hours i got text messages and phone calls from friends and family (host family). 

The next day we went to my grandparents house (parents of my host mom). She is one of nine kids, so as you can imagine has a fairly large family. A lot like my family actually, so it didn't faze me too much, it was just hard to remember who everyone was. However, there is another exchange student n one of my "cousins" houses. And she and i are good friends so luckily we got to spend time with each other.  The family is really nice so it was good. 

The next weekend, we had another christmas diner with my host dad's family. He has a much smaller family so it wasn't as overwhelming. Just very long. We had raclette for dinner which is really hard to explain but i'll do my best. You have a grill type thing, and you can put al types f meat on it. And then under the grill you have little trays that you put cheese onto. The cheese melts and then you put everything onto your plate and eat it with whatever you want. Meat, potatoes, pickles.. And you can even make small omletes with it. 

St. Nicolas

Hey everyone. 

Ok, so i haven't reall been the best at keeping this thing updated, but i'll do my best to try better.

I think the next thing that happened after the marché de noël was St. Nicholas, Christmas, and New Years Eve. 

Dec. 6th is the day of St. Nicolas ad i didn't really understand what exactly happens, but pretty much it's just another day for children to get toys and sweets. In my family we were all upstairs, and we went down to the foyer together. Bth dorrs into the main part of the house was locked and the key was hidden. So Anne-Laure, Adrien, and i searched around the foyer for it. When we found it we unlocked the door and all of the kights in the house were out. Except for some candles. On the coach and chairs, and table there were huge plates just filled with Candy. All sorts of candy, excellent. We each had our own plate and it was ours to eat :-) We then all got together for dinner which was cheese fondu, and drank some champagne. It wasn't too big of a celebration, but was still very nice. 

Marché de Noël

So this past Wednesday we had a rotary trip to Aachen, Germany where there was the Marché de Noël. It had snowed all day and since there are a lot of exchange students who have never seen snow before, everyone was pretty excited. So of course we all jumper off he train and started a massive snowball fight. I got tackled a few times, and by the end couldn't feel my hands because of the snow, but it was still a lot of fun. 

When we got to Aachen, we were free to roam around by ourselves. Kelsi, Emily, Alba and I roamed around the shops, bought a few things, and just enjoyed the atmosphere. We all wore christmas hats and most people got into the spirit of things. All of the shops are small wooden stalls that are lined up in a square. You have to wind your way through the shops and there are some that sell small toys and things like that, while others sell German or holiday food. 

When we went to the designated spot to meet up, we were all given boot shaped cups of hot wine. It really warmed you up, and afterwards we got to keep the boots. :-)

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! I hope everyone stuffed their faces with awesome food.

In case you didn't know, Belgium does not celebrate thanksgiving. So I spent Thursday at both regular school and my french class. And afterwards, i skyped with friends and family back home and saw everyone enjoying a huge thanksgiving meal, which i did not have the pleasure of participating in. However, i was determined to bring a bit of the states over here. So i attempted to cook Thanksgiving dinner by myself...

I invited my friend Isabelle over too and she said that she would help me with he cooking. But she's Australian so she doesn't know much about Thanksgiving either. We couldn't get a turkey, so we made a roasted chicken instead. Green beans, carrots, and mashed potatoes. I was wicked nervous since i've never really cooked before, except for pancakes and mac and cheese. But everything turned out really well. It was definately a first for me, and i've decided that my future husband is doing all the cooking, but it was still a lot of fun. Except for all the stress :)

Oh, i forgot about the pie. It was pretty horrible. We burnt the pudding so it tasted like, if you can believe it, burnt pudding. But it's all good, we all laughed it off, and ate it anyways.