In Bruges (again!)

I went to Bruges again last Wednesday. It was MUCH better than before, it was actually sunny!

First we went to an ice sculpture museum that was Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings themed. It was -6º C in there! For those of you in the states, that means it was 21 degrees. I was freezing.

Saw this and HAD to take a picture for my dad.... 

Basilisk and an ice bar

After, we walked around the city and just enjoyed how absolutely beautiful it was. My favorite part of Belgium (so far) is seeing the swans. 

 The speculoos cupcake we all tried to resist

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Hi everyone!

I would've updated earlier but nothing really has been going on that was worth creating an entire blog post for. I've been busy pretty much everyday, but it's not very interesting.

This past week, my school has been taking their finals. I have to take four, so I took geography, French, English, and another English test. So far I've taken three, and I think they've gone okay. I probably failed my geography one (I studied for the wrong thing, turns out I was getting a different exam than everyone else) but the others were fine. My last exam is on Friday, and then I have vacation!

This is my view walking into school everyday, except now it's a little bit darker because the days are so short. It's freezing every day (literally. I can't stand it....) and even though it hasn't snowed in like a week, there's still snow on the ground because it won't melt and it's just not natural to me.

My family also put up Christmas decorations, including a "sapin de Noël", or a Christmas tree. And it's real too! That might not mean much to you if you get real trees every year, but if my family even puts up a tree, we use a fake one. This one smells sooo good, but (and I know this is a little blasphemous) I kind of prefer fake trees because they're way less messy!

I spontaneously went to Brussels today for the Marché de Noël. We ended up not being able to find it (exchange student problems) and it was really cold so we went and got some frites and then stopped by Delirium after some window shopping.

Tomorrow I'm going to Bruges, using the last of my 10 spaces on my go pass. We might go to an ice sculpture museum, but I'm not sure. The next day, I'm going to sleep in for sooooo long. After that I have my final exam, and then it's vacances de Noël! I promise I'll update this blog more, I know I've been slacking on that. Maybe that'll be my new year's resolution.

Hope everything is going great stateside, and that you're staying a little bit more warm than I am...




Bonne nuit et à la prochaine!

A Neglected Blog = A Tired Exchange Student

At least one good thing about not updating for over a week means I have tons to talk about. Also, I have a very good reason why... so many things have been happening over here! Every year I forget that this time of year is always extremely busy, and this year is no exception.

The Scouts camp was very fun, but extremely exhausting. I had gym that day at school, and after getting home, I was told by my host mom that we were leaving in thirty minutes and I still had to pack. I also had to dress up as a patient or doctor in a psych ward, because that was the theme this year. It was also raining, but this is Belgium so I expected that. After scrambling to get all of my stuff together for the weekend, we were off to meet everyone else.

We were told to split up into two teams, because we were going to have to walk to our destination using a few clues. We were told it'd take about an hour and that spaghetti would be waiting for us when we arrived. The walk ended up taking two and a half hours. We walked through different towns, a forest, up and down hills, and through absolutely massive puddles and heaps of mud. We kept our spirits up by stopping for fries (of course) and laughing at someone whenever they stepped in a particularly big puddle. We ended up running into the rest of the group and decided we didn't want to walk anymore and so we called for help and were taken to a building where our retreat would be held.

After dinner at 11pm, the parents left and it was just the staff or "chefs" of Scouts. We drank beer, played games, and just hung out with each other. It was a lot of fun, but I was dead tired. I held out until 3am, but I was still the first one to go to sleep. Everyone started waking up at 8am the next day as well. I don't know how Belgians do it....

The next day there was a competition between the two teams that had to do with Scouts. Then we had dinner and repeated the party all over again, except this time I went to bed at 11pm. The next day we cleaned up and left, and I have never appreciated a hot shower more in my entire life.

On Wednesday I went to le carré in Liège for the first time for Titles. It's a big tradition for Rotary students, and occasionally AFS students will go. It was pretty crazy and not something I could do every week, but it was a lot of fun and meeting up with exchange students I hadn't seen since orientation was great.

On Saturday there was an AFS activity with Namur. We went to Charleroi to go ice skating, and after we went to grab a drink and then there was a cheese party in Namur. It was fun but I am absolutely terrible and terrified of ice skating. The cheese party was a little unusual, but it was also pretty good. I was lucky and only had one bad piece of cheese. While I was there, I looked out side the window and I saw snow!!! It was the first of December and the first snow of the year.

Also, St. Nicolas made an appearance. St. Nicolas is a man sort of like our Santa Claus, except from what I understood from the story, he saved children from being cut up by a butcher. We were called up one by one and most of us had to do something embarrassing to get the bag of treats he was giving out. I had to do the chicken dance. I thought it was absolutely hilarious watching everyone go up there, although the St. Nicolas costume kind of scares me!

Today I woke up to more snow! This time it actually stuck. There was probably one or two inches of it, which is crazy to me!!! I think it's going to be a very cold winter... 

I went to Scouts again this weekend, and St. Nicolas made another appearance for the Baladins, the group I'm a staff member of. The kids seemed to enjoy it, and loved getting candy after having a moment with St. Nicolas. We also had a snowball fight (I decided to retreat to the radiator after a short while) and then I had to leave to go to my host aunt's house to celebrate St. Nicolas with everyone.

This was a really fun weekend (with lots of great food) but I am SO ready for it to be over. That sounds backwards - me wanting to go to school?? - but exams start this week and I'm only taking four, per the AFS requirement. Tomorrow is math, and I'm definitely not taking that one, so I get to sleep in! I'm going to go now though, I'm so ready to sleep. Now that vacances de Noël is starting soon, I will update with more pictures and places I'm going to visit.


À plus tard,


Nicole

Soirée des Rhétos and Thanksgiving!

Hi everyone! I'm just going to write a quick update about what's been going on.

Last weekend was my school's soirée des rhétos and it was so much fun! My principal gave me a free pass to get in and I didn't even have to work, which saved me ten euro! I also got about five free beers from people. Perks of being an exchange student. We ended up raising 3,800 euro for our Bal des Rhétos at the end of the year, and we have another soirée in March to raise even more money.

If you are unaware (maybe I have more international readers than I think I do?), yesterday was Thanksgiving. Belgians don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but my host family was nice enough to invite some family over and allow me to invite some friends over, and we had a real Thanksgiving dinner! It was super sweet.

I'm about to go to my Scouts camp, but I'll update when I come back!

A Birthday Abroad

I am officially an adult. I turned 18 years old on November 9th! I don't feel any different, but I'm so lucky I can spend my 18th birthday here!

I had school that Friday. I woke up 40 minutes late in a panic (I carpool with a neighbor) but my host mom offered to drive me. When I walked into my English class with 2ème, all of the students started singing me Happy Birthday in English. They made a card for me and they all signed that and the blackboard. The teacher also gave me a present. She knitted an ear warmer headband for me the night before which was super sweet of her!

I can hear my sister saying "teacher's pet" as I'm typing this so I'll move on...


That afternoon, I met up with some exchange students in Namur and went and got fries. After, another exchange student came. I dropped off my school stuff at home and then we went out for pasta. After that, I went to a party my local Scouts club held in Champion. I invited Keaton and Cameron to come along with me. It was a lot of fun and there were a lot of people from my school there. I got free drinks because it was my birthday, which is always a plus!

On Saturday there was a Scouts dinner for the Baladins (ages 3-6 I think?) and their parents. I'm in Staff Baladins, which means I am part of the group in charge of them. We had a dinner/fundraiser for the Baladins for our camping trip in February (which means snow......) amongst other things. It was a lot of fun but a lot of work! Preparing and serving food and drinks for 75+ people is a lot of work! I started at around 5pm and didn't get home until around 1am. After the dinner I got a chance to eat and then when everyone left, the staff played beer pong. Well, sort of. It was a longer table and you were allowed to bounce it. My team won (of course). Then I went home and went to sleep.

Today I went out to lunch with my host family and their two close friends who basically act as grandparents. We went out to an Italian place in my town. I ordered a pepperoni pizza, but it didn't even have pepperoni on it. There was ham and yellow bell peppers... it was still good, but it was enormous. I even got a few birthday gifts! My "grandparents" got me a card with an American flag on it saying "En route pour la liberté!" and inside was some money! They also got me some candy. I got flowers and two books (easy enough for me to read) from my host aunts and uncles. My host sisters got me a card, a Birdy CD, and slippers. My feet are cold no matter which country I'm in. My host mom got me a beautiful necklace. It's engraved and says "Nicole" on the front and "Belgique 11-09-2012 18 ans" on the back.

After that we had cake (I blew out all of the candles. I'm so talented, I know...) and coffee. Overall, I think it was a great birthday weekend. Next weekend there's a soirée de rhétos that I think I'll go to, and I might go to Brussels to celebrate my birthday again.




Also, I was in the newspaper! Here's a picture of what it looked like. It was about the elections and how I think of them as a student living abroad. I was interviewed the night before the elections. It's a good thing I know how the electoral college works (and I researched using Nate Silver's 538 prediction, turns out he was exactly right) or else this would've been a very embarrassing headline.

Well I'm off to go thank my host aunt and uncle for the books and the flowers. I'll write soon! 

Nicole