Soirée Des Rhétos, etc...
Okie, so I've had an AMAZING week!! yay, I was soo busy!
Alright, soo, on Monday Nath (my host sister) picked me up from school and we we're supposed to meet some people at the café by my school for a beer, but they never showed, so we just had a drink and talked. It was so great to have someone that acually kind of understands, because she knows what its like to be an exchange student, and what its like to have her paretns, who are a bit...strict-ish. But we've convinced them to let me go to Liege on some Wednesdays with the other exchange students. yesssss.
Tuesday, we acually met up with the people after school and yeah, it was goood. I love Nath's friends from Uni! They're the best, seriously.
Wednesday I went to Liege, and Nath went to get her wisdom teeth taken out! Ahhh! Poor thing. Liege was good though, I hadn't seen Natalie & Danielle in forever!! And it was good to see everyone before all the Aussies start coming. Natalie and I went to McDonalds afterwards, and got happy meals! My toy was a dosco ball type thing, its purple and lights up, and I'm putting it on my Rotary Blazer!!!!!
Thursday, I had dance, and we finished the choreography for the show!! yessss!!! I'm so psyched, because I'm acually caught up now!
FRIDAY!!!! Soirée Des Rhetos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every year the Rhétos (umm, grade 12's) organize a party to raise money for our Grad Trip. I thought it wetn really well, I heard we had over 1000 people, which is really really good, becaues there was another soirée that night organised by the radio station that most people our age listen to. Oh, and someone broke the Emergency Exit door...so we have to pay for that. But, all my new friends from Nath's university were there, beucase they were in im school, so I got to hang out with them all!
The soirée finished around 3h30, and then we had to clean up, so i got home around 6h30!!! Which means...I was awake for 24 hours! I nearly died. Thank goodness Scouts was cancelled yesterday, I slept till 14h.
So thats about it, I dodnt have pics from the Soirée beccause last year there were some things that got stolen, so I didnt take my camera.
Thursday I'm going to spend the night at Uni with Nath! I can't wait!!!
Sugar?
OMG, on Saturday I went to the movies (in FRENCH, and I understood, go me) with some girls from school (we saw The Holiday) and we got snacks and whatevre, and in the middle of the movie they passed me the popcorn...I put it in my mouth...and it had SUGAR on it!! I turned to the girl next to me and said 'It's SUGARED...' and she was like 'Yeah...whats it like in Canada?' 'Uhh...Salted' 'Eww...'
I was highly dissapointed. I proceeded to buy a biiiig bad of doritos during intermission (another thing that thourally confused me)to make up for the lack of salt.
And thats my story of the day. Well, that and I have 4 massive mosqito bites on my hand, because yes, its January, its Europe, and its warm enough to have MOSQUITOES!!! Of course the wind storms are getting annoying....
Love
A months worth of rambling
Wooow, I'm sorry I havenn't updated in....A month. My bad. I guess this means this wil be a long one, cause I'll have to prove how busy I've been right?
Oh just a note first, if you comment, and please do, leave your name!! I love knowing who's reading this!
Okay, sooo, I switched to Blogger Beta, which acually lets me upload photo when I want so as soon as we get our good computer back from out computer techie, I'll post photos of what I am going to talk about!!
Soo, I don't think I acually did anything worth mentioning between last post and Christmas. Well, I decorated my 1st h-family's entire house, which included assembling and decorating the tree by.my.self. if I hadn't done it, I doubt it would have gotten done. It was a bit odd, I didn't really know where to put stuff, I can't wait to do Christmas in Canada next year.
On the 23rd I had a Christmas par-tay at my friend Natalie's (U.S.A) house. We baked chocolate chip cookies (with REAL chocolte chips her Mom sent her, you can't buy chocolte chips here, unless you go to a bakery, like Bailey's h-parents did, and in that case it cost them 6€25 for 500g...which lasted us...2 batches, but more about that later) and a Gingerbread house!!!! We exchanged presents and just generally had a good ole time.
The 24th I went with my h-family to their best friend's house for dinner. There were about 20 people I didn't know there, but it was alright. We had fondue (yum) and I was given a comic book (Comic books are originally from Belgium, and most people are slightly obsessed. Did you know The Smurfs are Belgian?). I tried this stuff called 'Eau De Ville,' I'm not sure what it was EXACTLY, but it's a specialty alcohol, and its pretty strong and sweet and lemon-y. We got home around 2.30am and I called my Mom, so that was good.
The 25th, we got up and went to my h-grandparents house. They do presents there later in the day, and they only do stockings for little kids, so Christmas morning was a let down, I made up for it bu calling my Mom at 7am her time to wake her up like I woud have if I was there!!!!
When we got in the car, we all realised that the car and our jacckets reeked of FONDUE. Ick.
We started eating 'Dinner' at, oh, 1.30. First we had Champagne and appetizers. A in we sat around eating the things every Belgian serves for appetizers...little sausages I'm convinced contain no acual meat product, individually wrapped cheese squares, odd chip things that arnt accually chips, and special for Christmas...Foie Gras, this white sausage thing I'm told has milk and herbs in it, and blood sausage. Ick. That was breakfast for us as well.....
Then we sat around for a bit. Then we had cold salmon and deviled eggs. Then sat around for a bit. Then we had pear sorbet with pear flavored alcohol poured on it. Then we at around for a bit. Then we had soup. Then we opened presents. And sat around for a bit. Then we had Turkey, salad and oversized tater-tots (the MOST typical Belgian dinner : Bifstek [read: Beef-Steak], Salad, and fries, I half expected that). Then we sat around for a bit. Then we had the dessert I made (Chocolate Toffee Squares) and the 'Christmas Log' which is a kind of icky cake with icing that had no flavour, but it's tradition. Everyone said they liked mine better. Then we sat around for a bit. Then we got offered more sorbet, but honestly, it was 8.30...which means we had been eating for like, 7 hours. So that was it.
I got a scarf, purfume, slippers, a bracelet and a t-shirt from the host family. And Slippers, socks, and LOADS of candy from the real family.
After we went home I gave my host family their joint-gift (I gave them individual gifts too earlier) which was a box I painted and I put photos of my time in Belgium with them in it and a letter I wrote them. They LOVED it and my h-mom bawled her eyes out.
The 26th, I moved.
My new family is really great. I have 2 h-brothers (Pierre : 13yrs and Guillaume : 17 yrs....pronounced geeeeee-aume) and a h-sister (Nathalie : 19 but she's at Uni during the week. She was also on exchange in brasil last year)
they're really nice, but I still miss my 1st family.
School is better, I have real friends that I do stuff with outside of school now!! And its cconfirmed that I can go on the Grad Trip to Croatia the first week in April (spring break.)!!!!!!
Rotary is being stupid!!! They have issues with the company that organies the trips for us, so the rest of the trips this year are canccelled unless they can find another company. This inclues a Trip to Berlin, Normandy and EURO TOUR! I am soooo upset about Euro Tour.
Australian exchange students come and go in january, so this week the last of them are leaving, its been sooo sad saying goodbye to them. I went to a surprise going away party for Kerry, who recently adopted me as her newbie (an aussi in your club is an oldie when you get here and is supposed to show you around and be your inta-friend, but I didnt have an oldie, so she adopted me. Now that we're getting new Ausies Im suppoed to be an Oldie and have a newbie, but my club isnt hosting one, so I think I'll find one to adopt). Kerry left today.
Oh right, for New Years, Bailey's (U.S.A) h-mom organised a party in a kind of community hall, and it was either go there for free and hang out with my best friend here, or go with the girls from school and pay 60€ for 1 night. I went with Bailey. We took 4 hours to get ready, because her h-parents wanted us to bake chocolate chip cookies for 100 (hense, we made 2 batches and used all the expensive chocolate chips) so we had to run down to the kitchen every few minutes to make sure they didnt burn or anything.
Today I went to Bruxelles with school to a museum. Boring. We learned about ROCKS. We sat around and some guy spoke really fast french and talked about ROCKS. I can't believe I paid 15€ for that. I've got to remember to give Rotary the form to rembourse me.
Ummm. Right. Thats all I can remember right now. I promise to update more!!!!!!!!!
Love youuuuuuuu!
