La Vie Ici

It's been awhile! Obviously that means I have been making the most of my time here in Beligum. Today is a holiday so I am staying at home and taking it easy. I have been busy everyday, and making lots of friend here. Last weekend I went to a giant castle and looked at a flower show with my friends from Rotary. Also, just yesterday I was at the Fête de Thimister, which is a village where one of my friends from school lives. I went there with a few other girls from school, and I had a lot f fun. I am scared of heights so the rides were a challenge, but in the end they were super chouette! School is fine as well. I am not finding many of my courses very hard (except religion and geo) so I hope when it rolls around I will start getting better marks (aha). I am speaking so much french everyday! I am hoping that my french level will continue to get better, it feels so great! I also have a lot of activities coming up. I will be going Kayaking on saturday with Rotary and on wednesday I will be visiting a castle with my district. Everyday is an adventure and I am loving my life here! My family are welcoming, understanding and nice and I can't help but feel like the luckiest girl in the world. I am not that homesick, but I would like to talk to my dad. I have been here for over a month and have only spoken with dad once! I think that is too little. Hopefully he is not worried. I think about my family and Stuart (had to put that in there) everyday and I hope all is going well in Newfoundland cause things are fantastic here!

Bonheure

Things here are just perfect. At first school was hard, making friends wasn't easy even with my french being relatively good, but now I am adusting myself well and I have found myself in a circle of friends. It is still sometimes awkward with people in my class, but I am sure once I get to know everyone better there will be no problems. Everyone is so nice and welcoming, I really feel just so happy at school. The system here is weird, and I could really go on for days how different it is from Canada, but it's not all that interesting. I feel like I am in middle school again though. You're not allowed to leave the school during lunch, you have 30 minutes in the cafeteria and 30 minutes outside and you can't wear caps or use your cell phone. It's so strange. Everyone also stands up when the teacher enters, and cannot sit down until they give the O-K. No drinking water in class, no using the washroom during class, we have recess and there are 13 year olds everywhere! I am still getting used to these little things. It is true that everywhere things are different.

I really like spending time with the exchange students as well. They are all very kind, and obviously when you are going through the same amazing experience it's so nice to share things and hang out. I hope I will get even closer with them in the coming months. I am so thankful for everything I have here, my host family are just so good to me and my club is the best! The food is good and I could NOT be happier. I hope the rest of my time here will be as excellent as my first month.


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WE

It's been a crazy couple of days. On thursday I was off to Brussels for the Rotary weekend. The bus ride was chill, and I made friends with a cool brazilian. We listened to some music and bam! We're in Brussels. There I met all of the exchange students from all over Belgium. In total, there are 285. In my opinion, that is just madness! But it was super fun. The Canadians were all super awesome, and I made some american friends too. I swear, out of 285 there are 150 americans. They were everywhere!!! After a little meeting and a tour around Brussels, our distrinct (1630) went for a camp in Huy. IT was super boring and the food was kinda shitty (ate it anyways, like a boss) but the people were amazing! I met so many people that made me smile (: I think we are a good bunch. Friday night there was a Soirée for us, and it was a lot of fun. Then when I returned Saturday, we went to the Fête à Chaineux to celebrate Ambar's (an exchange student that lives nearby) 18th birthday. It was loads of fun!! There was Katrina, Ambar, Nelson, Dylan, another exchange student from Equador and myself. The music was older so not *everyone* loved it, but it was fun regardless. Most people left at 12, Dylan left at 3 and I left with host bro at 5. Needless to day yesterday I was very tired. Today not much is otg, but tomorrow there will be fireworks and host bro is DJing. Yesterday the fête à chaineux continued, and I watched some volleyball and went to mass. Dylan, from america, lives reallllyyy close so he was there as well. Then we went to Ambar's surprise birthday party chez Habets. It was really enjoyable, but everyone was getting mad that the exchange students were speaking english. Sad times, I wanted to speak french but it seems kind of snobby ): I hate it!! Now today I woke up sick. It's not a big deal though, because I am enjoying every minute of my time here in Belgium (: