Retraite

Hello everyone!


Sorry this is sort of a late update, but I've been sick... that's totally not an excuse because I've been watching reruns of Suits, but oh well.


I went on my retreat for all the rhétos last week from Wednesday until Friday. It was a lot of fun!!! I didn't take any pictures because I didn't bring my camera (didn't want it to get stolen) but I've got a few from friends. I wasn't looking forward to it before I left but I ended up having a great time.

Lucie, Lucas, Ben, Emilie, Emilie (again), Adéle, Odile, and Cristina

Elysa, Jodie, & Cristina

Amélie & Lauriane

Alicia & Camille

We did tons of activities, including a walk with another person. I went with my friend Jodie. We ended up getting really lost with 6 other people and it took us two hours to get back, but it was still very fun! It was really hard to walk (not for the others, but for us) because we had to walk through two fields to catch up with the rest of the other people, but we kept our spirits up.

Odile, Jodie, and I were a trio sticking together while all the guys walked super far ahead

The teachers kept us busy the entire time, so I ended up being really exhausted after all of it. Not to mention my suitcase handle was broken as well as the zipper for my sleeping bag!!! I was roughing it for sure, but I had a lot of fun and the place was beautiful. We stayed at Domaine de Mozet. They have a website if you're interested in checking it out. It was snowy (icy is more like it actually) while we were there, but it was still really beautiful. 

Also, today is January 31st so I'd like to say Happy Birthday to the most supportive woman in my life, my mother! If you know her, give her a call and wish her a great day. Or take her out for sushi or something :) 

I'm off to my Mid-Stay Orientation this weekend so I'll write about that when I come back! Time really flies.... 

À tantôt

Nicole

Quick Update, Month #5

School is pretty much all I've been doing lately! My teachers still have very high expectations (too high in my opinion. I had to write a 20-40 line poem in French and it took me 3 1/2 hours because it had to rhyme...) but I'm trying to work through it.

It's been ridiculously cold lately, and my heart aches for Californian winters. It was -10ºC when I got into the car the other day (14ºF) which is just ridiculous. But it's been snowing!!!! This is the first time I've ever had to go school in the snow, and it has been both good and bad. Good because walking on snow is more satisfying than walking on crunchy leaves, bad because I slipped walking up the stairs, and now I have a fat bruise on my knee.

snow day selfies 

Tomorrow I'm going on my retreat with my grade from Wednesday-Friday. I hope it's going to be fun! I already know it's going to be cold so I've been staring at all my clothes deciding what I should pack. I'll update you about the retreat when I come back.

My host sister and I might try to make sushi, and my host mom and I want to have a dinner party for Chinese New Year, so I've been emailing my mom back and forth to get some recipes from her! Apart from that, I have my Mid Stay Orientation on the 2nd and 3rd, as well as my mini camp for Scouts that same weekend. I hope I can try to go to both, but I doubt it. After that, I have a little bit of school and then another vacation!

I miss California and everything/everyone in it so much! But my French is improving so much, and no matter how much I miss everyone, Belgium has always been my dream and I love it here so much. My time is almost halfway gone here, and I don't know how I'm going to leave this life behind!



Bonne semaine et à bientôt!

Nicole

Bruges v3 and Back to School Blues

Hi everyone!

A couple days before winter break ended I went to Bruges with a few other exchange students. It was a lot of fun but typical Belgian weather. The best part was seeing swans super up close! Way closer than before. I forgot my camera but I had my iPhone with me so I'll share some pictures from there.

Panorama of an old church

I'm officially back in school. I have the same schedule as before, only now it's much harder because the teachers suddenly expect me to do just about everything the other students do, as if I would have suddenly become fluent over break. It's incredibly frustrating, especially because I'm trying my hardest. In my opinion, I'm trying harder than all the other students, because it's in their natural language. I feel as if I never get allowed a break. Oh well, I'll stop complaining now.

Friday I'm having a few people over at my house, and in a few weeks I'm going to a "retreat" with my grade. For now though, it's just school and scouts (exciting, right??). I hope you guys had a great return to school/work!

À plus tard!

Nicole

Bonne année et bonne santé!

Happy New Year everyone!
Not many things have happened since I last updated, which is good because I have to go to sleep really soon.

Mary Kate, an American who was hosted by my family in 1999-2000 came over to visit for a day with her husband. It was great! She brought over dishtowels with the days of the week on them. It's kind of a running joke to bring up the dishes because there's no dishwasher in the house, and the days of the week are in English to help my host mom improve her English (another joke, my host mom swears she's terrible with languages)! They were very nice and it was great to see that she could still speak French very well after so many years.

For New Year's Eve, I went to Brussels with Julia from Australia and Caleb, who lives in Brussels with his host family. We first went shopping (SUCH a disaster, all the stores closed super early and I couldn't find any shoes. I had snow boots with me.... finally we found a store that agreed to stay open for five minutes so I could buy flats) and then back to Caleb's for dinner. Then we got ready and went out. Almost EVERY bar was carding that night, and while that isn't a problem for me because I'm 18 now, it was a problem for my friends because they aren't. I wasn't just going to leave my friends so we searched and finally found some places that weren't carding. For the countdown to midnight, we were in a pretty nice bar drinking my favorite beer, I can't complain about that! It rained all day and night, but the next morning, it was beautiful and sunny, a great way to start the year.

(This isn't my favorite, my favorite is Lindemans Framboise, but close enough!) 

Tonight I went to visit another AFS host family, because they also had one of their students come back to visit, and she's from Boston. We had Chinese food for dinner (first time having it in four months..... let's just say it did not satisfy my craving, I miss my mom's cooking!) and stayed until 11 talking about Belgium vs the US, other exchange students, and more. I'm going to Bruges tomorrow with her and Skyler, so that should be fun! I'll end this now because I have to wake up early, but I'll tell you about Bruges later! It's my favorite city in Belgium so far.


À tantôt

Mon Bulletin, Quatre Mois, Noël, et plus!

Hi guys..... it's been a while! Totally my fault but my weeks have been booked up and it's hard finding time to just sit down and write.


Last Tuesday I met up with some exchange students and then we went to Namur for a drink. I had to leave early because I met up with Kaari, the Finnish girl who goes to the same school as me. I went to her house because there was a party to celebrate the end of exams (appropriately named Examend) and then I slept over at her house. The next day, I went to Liège and got some Christmas shopping done.

Last Thursday a few exchange students came over to my house and we watched A Christmas Story, my favorite Christmas movie ever! It took a while for everything to get going, but it ended up being great! My two friends, Julia from Australia and Claire from Oregon, spent the night and we stayed up super late talking about Belgian/exchange student life.

Friday I went to school to pick up my bulletin. It was actually better than I thought, but I did fail one of them. In my defense, I thought I would have the same exam as the other students, so I studied for it. It turns out I had something completely different, so I failed by about 6 points or so. No big deal. I did great in my English exam (obviously) and the other exam that was English but I took it in French. I also did "well" on my French exam (38/60). My teacher is notorious for giving out low grades, I think I got one of the highest grades in the class which is just really sad. Before you're amazed at my amazing intelligence, I had a different exam than the others (you should still be amazed though, I did a really great job and it was all in French).

After, I went to Namur and we met up with exchange students and got some shopping done. It was finally the start of vacances de Noël! After, Claire and I went to my scouts meeting and I tried vin chaud (hot wine) for the first time. I was actually kind of surprised because it was really good until it got lukewarm. I got asked what Scouts was earlier, and I figured I'd just explain it here. It's kind of like summer camp, but it happens during the school year rather than the summer. It's for really young kids all the way to adults, and every Sunday we all meet up. I'm Staff Baladin, so I'm partly in charge of the youngest kids (around 6 or so). We keep them busy and play games, and there's also a retreat for a few days. I'm not really sure what the older members do on Sundays because I'm not with them, but outside of that we all hang out, organize fundraiser dinners, have more retreats, and just talk with one another. It's like a club in school. The members of the club (the staff) hang out, but they also organize events to keep people busy and socialized, and in my case it's for the Baladins.

Just a few days after that, it was Christmas Eve! My host family celebrated Christmas Eve with my extended family rather than Christmas day, so that was a little weird for me. Most of the family was there and we had a lot of food! It was my first time eating foie gras too. That's definitely an acquired taste. The dinner was a little bizarre actually, because it was food I'm used to eating for Thanksgiving. We had turkey, gravy, stuffing, and cranberry sauce! It was great though and I love giving gifts so I was glad I be apart of it. I got the softest blanket ever from my host family, as well as perfume and a ring. The ring opens beer bottles, and my host sister told me it was "un cadeau très Belge" after I was done laughing.

Our pretty Christmas (eve) dinner table

I helped decorate that 

Still haven't gotten used to drinking SO MUCH champagne! Oh well, not complaining! 

Christmas day was very relaxing and we had dinner with my host cousin who couldn't be there the day before. From then until now I've been relaxing, so not much to talk about there. Tomorrow I'm going to Namur to meet up with some friends, and then an American is coming over to the house! She was hosted by my family 10+ years ago, and is now visiting them with her husband. I hope I can do the same in ten years!

I miss home a lot, but I love my life here. It's completely different and I get so happy thinking that I stuck with this idea, my dream, for three years, and now it's finally being realized. I'm so much better at French than I was before and I think I'm way more mature and grateful than I have ever been. I've been here for four months, and while sometimes it feels like I've been here forever, it also feels like I just got here. I don't want to give up my life year, I wish I could have both.


I promise I'll update more...... (really, I'm serious, believe me.....!!!)

À bientôt,

Nicole

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!