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

In Bruges

Yesterday I went to Bruges with Cameron and Callie. I met up with Cameron in Namur and took the train to Brussels, where we met Callie. 

It was raining all day, but Bruges is a beautiful city. 

They had horse drawn carriage rides throughout the city.

After walking around for a while, we went and saw the swans. They were beautiful (and huge!!!). 

Then we went to the main square and ate at Quick and admired the architecture. 

With nothing else to do, we walked through a pretty park and then back to the square for a few beers. We ran into an Italian, Antonio, and hung out with him for a while until we had to go.

On our way back, we ended up forgetting how we got to the big square, so we took a few wrong turns. It was raining pretty heavily, and we were running out of time. We decided to do a little bit of light jogging to catch the train, but we got stuck waiting to be able to cross a street and ended up missing our train by thirty seconds. We ran all that way for nothing. 

Today I went to Namur (thankfully I live close so I didn't have to use my GoPass) and met up with a lot of other exchange students. We went to ChiChi's for some Tex Mex and then went to Havana for a few drinks. It was a good day, and much better weather than yesterday. Tomorrow I have an AFS activity in Dinant, so I'll update you soon!

Nicole 

Two Months, Brussels, and Halloween!

Hi everyone. Sorry it's been so long since I've written, but really there hasn't been much going on besides school.

My kidney stone passed (without any pain, lucky me) and I've been on vacances de toussaint for the past few days. I tried catching up on sleep for the past few days, because I've been so exhausted. Last weekend my host family and I had lunch with my host aunt, uncle, and cousin. We talked about Thanksgiving and are finalizing the plans for that.

Yesterday I went to Brussels with Cameron. We first went to the Magritte Museum. He's a famous surrealist painter who is well known for painting the man in a suit and bowler hat with an apple covering his face, as well as a pipe and the phrase "ceci n'est pas une pipe", or "this is not a pipe".


After, we went to Manneken Pis (he wasn't costumed this time) and took a touristy picture with Cameron's host brother. We also got waffles, and I got one with nutella on it and it was amazing.

We walked over to Grand Place and took pictures and just stood there for a while, admiring the beauty. I can't describe how amazing it feels to be there. To have looked at pictures of Grand Place for three years, to imagine what it'd be like to visit one day, and to finally be there.... it's incredible.

I've been here for two months now, and it's a little unreal. I can't believe my experience is going by so quickly. It's the best decision I've ever made, and as much as I miss home, I absolutely love it here. It's getting colder though, which is really making me miss Californian weather.

Tomorrow I'm going to Bruges with a few exchange students. Then on Saturday we're all meeting up in Namur (my wallet is grateful I don't have to travel far) and on Sunday AFS has an activity planned for us at a museum of sound and a cave. I have a busy weekend ahead, so I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures!




Nicole

Turn of Events

I had fully intended on writing yesterday. I had some of it written out already....

"This past week was pretty boring, but the end of the week was full of events.

On Friday, I had gym and we had to run for 30 minutes straight. Of course, my gym teacher wanted us to run outside, and it was 50 degrees and raining. Maybe Belgians are used to the weather, but I thought it was crazy for us to be running outside!!! Saturday was my host sister Louise's 20th birthday, so we all went out to dinner and had tapas and pasta.

Sunday, we had a big family party for Louise. It was a lot of fun, and I really felt like part of the family. It was a great way to exercise my French, and I totally felt accepted by everyone. I even invited my host aunt and her family over for Thanksgiving dinner... I think they're making the turkey which is great, because turkeys are very hard to make...."


So I had that written out, and I was going to write more and then post it. Then I started feeling weird. I woke up with a bit of back pain on my left side, so I figured I just slept a little weirdly. My school had Conseils de Classe, so I didn't have to go to school. After an hour or so, the pain got worse. It was excruciating, and I finally decided to call my host mom. I waited earlier because I didn't want to get my dictionary out and I didn't know what the word for "pain" was (it's douleur). She called a doctor, and the doctor gave me a shot, but it didn't do anything really. I was writhing in pain, and then I threw up because it hurt so much. Then we decided to go to the emergency room....

I was hooked up to an IV and given fluids and pain medication. I waited for a few hours and had an ultrasound. The doctor said one of my kidneys was definitely "under pressure" from something. Of course, I started asking him all kinds of questions until I realized that he actually hadn't found anything yet.... So I waited. He finally found a 3mm stone already out of my kidney on its way to my bladder. Which really sucks........

I got more pain medication and ended up staying the night. I slept pretty well, was really comfortable, and the hospital did a great job making sure I wasn't in any pain. I'm at home now, drinking 2L of water and waiting for it to pass. One moment I'm writing about how boring the past week was, and the next I'm in the ER! It was my first time ever having to be admitted into a hospital, and I had to stay overnight! Oh well, c'est la chance!

My host mom took a picture of me in the full getup: the patient robe, laying in bed, the fluids next to me, but I don't have her camera so I'll upload it when I can!

AFS Adventures in Antwerp

So much has happened since I've last written, and that's partly the reason why it's taken a week to get some free time to write.

Last Friday, I went to the FIFF with Skyler. She had an extra pass and it was the last day, so after walking all over Namur in the rain, we found a movie we could watch. It was really confusing. It's called Dans la Maison, and from what I understood, it was about a student who wrote about his friend with a perfect family. It started off as a writing prompt assigned by the teacher, and the student wrote it exceptionally well. As the student continued the story, the teacher reads about his attempts to seduce his friend's mother (he succeeds) and the teacher gets more enthralled with the story. It has a lot of different sequences that are imaginary, so it was probably confusing even for a born francophone. It was a good movie though.

Saturday the committee of Namur had their welcome party. I made cookies.... out of a box. I went to the store but I couldn't find any unsalted butter - I looked for about fifteen minutes, it was very awkward - added some nutella to make them taste sweeter. (Speaking of grocery stores, I've noticed some really weird flavors of chips here. For example: Paprika, bolognese, pickles, ketchup, etc.) I didn't try the cookies, but everyone said they were good and they were all gone. Someone from Mexico made guacamole and it was amazing. There were also spring rolls made by a girl from Thailand that were great too.

Skyler spent that night at my house, which was convenient because we were invited on a whim to go to Antwerp the next day. We left for the train station at 8:30 but ended up leaving at 9:20 because Cameron couldn't get to the bus stop on time. Long story short, he had to go through a forest, cross a creek, a manure filled cow field, two barbed wire fences, and a busy highway all while it was foggy. But he ended up missing his bus anyway, so we waited for him to show up. We met up with Caleb in Brussels when we switched trains (and got Starbucks.... what can I say, we're American) and then we were on our way!

Antwerp is really beautiful. Even the train station is gorgeous.

After we arrived, we met up with some of the Latin American exchange students and went to a few museums. First was a chocolate museum.

Then we went to Rubenshuis ("Ruben's house" in Dutch), which is the museum of famous painter Peter Paul Rubens. 

After, we went to Grote Markt for some sightseeing.

After, we went to the river and then went for some drinks. 

It was a long day of walking, so Caleb, Cameron, and I left a little earlier than others. After a nap on the way to Brussels, Cameron and I were finally on our way home. 

It was a great weekend. I was really tired on Monday but it was so worth it! I'm starting to understand more in school and during conversations, which is great. Now when I pause during a conversation, it's mostly not because I don't understand, but because I don't know how to respond. I'm also forgetting some English words (I forgot how to say assertive) and sometimes I'll read something or type something using different pronunciation. For example, the other day I was typing and while trying to write "look", I wrote "luck" instead. I don't know where that came from...... 

Anyway, that's a "quick" recap of my week. Today marks one month until I turn eighteen. I can't wait.