La Fin / The End
Now Playing: When Your Heart Stops Beating - +44

Je vais écrire en français. Pourquoi? Aucune idée. Je vais faire des fautes, mais franchement, je m'en fous. Et la plupart de vous ne comprendriez pas, alors ça n'a même pas d'importance.

Donc... c'est la fin de mon séjour en Belgique. Oui, c'est vrai que je suis contente de rentrer chez moi. Pourtant, c'est aussi super triste. C'est à la fin quand on commence à apprendre des choses, quand on se sent bien, quand tout va bien. Un an, ce n’est pas si longtemps que ca. Au début de l'année je n'aurais jamais dit ça.

 Alors, pendant ma dernière semaine en Belgique, j'étais très occupée. Mon dernier jour de l'école était lundi, le 2 juin. Mardi, je suis allée à Luxembourg. Cette ville est très sympa et j'aime bien. C'est trop joli! Mercredi et jeudi j'étais à Nivelles avec ma copine Kelli pour dire au revoir. C'était un peu triste, mais comme elle habite au Michigan, je pense qu'on se verra bientôt. Jeudi soir, vendredi, et samedi matin j'étais à Bruxelles avec Aurore, ma sœur d'accueil. On a regardé le film "Sex and the City" au cinéma vendredi soir, et puis on a fait la boite (qui veut dire que nous sommes allées au club). On est rentré vers trois heures le matin. Samedi je suis rentrée, puis Françoise et moi sommes parties pour un barbecue. Il y avait beaucoup de monde là bas, mais je connaissais presque personne. Et j'étais si fatiguée que j'ai dormi sur un fauteuil dans le salon jusqu'à trois heures le matin. Maintenant, il est 4h00 samedi soir/dimanche matin, et je vais me coucher bientôt. Demain je dois faire mes valises. J'ai pas envie de le faire, mais bon, il faut le faire même si c'est pas amusant.

 

I’m going to write in French. Why? No idea. I’m going to make mistakes, but frankly I don’t care. And the majority of you won’t understand, so it doesn’t even matter.

So… it’s the end of my stay in Belgium. Yes, it’s true that I’m happy to go home. But it’s also really sad. It’s at the end when we start to learn things, when we feel well, when all goes well. One year, it’s not that long. At the beginning of the year I never would have said that.

So, during my last week in Belgium, I was really busy. My last day of school was Monday, June 2^nd. Tuesday, I went to Luxembourg. That city is so nice and I love it. It’s too pretty! Wednesday and Thursday I was in Nivelles with my friend Kelli so I could say goodbye. It was a little sad, but as she lives in Michigan, I think we’ll see each other again soon. Thursday evening, Friday, and Saturday morning I was in Brussels with Aurore, my host sister. We watched the movie “Sex and the City” at the movie theater, and then we “did the box” (which means that we went to a club). We got in at around three in the morning. Saturday I went home, and then Françoise and I left for a barbecue. There were a lot of people there, but I knew almost nobody. And I was so tired that I slept on a couch until three in the morning. Now, it’s 4:00 on Saturday night/Sunday morning, and I’m going to bed soon. Tomorrow I have to pack my suitcases. I don’t feel like doing it, but I have to even if it’s not fun.

Pixy Stix
Now Playing: Boys and Girls - Good Charlotte

It's been a while since I've blogged, so this is going to take a long time. In order to get through all this, I'm eating Pixy Stix, which is why this blog has the title that it has.

And now that the random introduction is done, let's move on to what I've been up to for the past two months.

The end of February and beginning of March were busy times. Along with school, I had theater practices on afternoons and days off. The senior play, called "Histoires à lire debout", took place in the middle of the month. We had two shows for students during school and three night performances for the general public. It was a play about books in a library, an old librarian, and a power-hungry dictatorship. I know it sounds lame, but I thought it was cool enough.

About a week after the theater presentations, the seniors and I left for our trip to Tunisia. It was amazing! Tunisia is in northern Africa, but is also a part of the Middle East. The main languages are Arabic and French. We started and finished in the north by the Mediterranean Sea in a city called Sousse. I spent most of my time there either at the beach or in the club by the hotel. For the time in the middle, we traveled around the country by bus. We visited modern cities, a salt lake, the Sahara Desert, Bedouin villages, and ancient Roman cities. I got to ride a camel! That had to have been my favorite part. And no, mine didn't spit on me and he wasn't temperamental. He was cute! And the guy who was leading my group of camels let us run! The only problem was that my camera was filled with sand by the end. One night we got to sleep in tents in the dessert and eat couscous and have a huge bonfire. Nobody slept much that night though because of the wind storm that hit. It was a lot of fun though.

I was back in Belgium for about two days before heading to Paris with my mom. It was so good to see her again! We did so much the week we were in France, such as:

Luxembourg Gardens
Saint-Sulpice
La Sorbonne
Père-Lachaise Cemetery
Places des Vosges
Sacré Coeur
Place du Tertre
Moulin Rouge
Cruise on the Seine River
Palace of Versailles
Arc de Triomphe
Panthéon
Notre Dame
Conciergerie
Les Invalides
Louvre
Tuileries Garden
Place de la Concorde
Opéra Garnier
Trocadero
Eiffel Tower
and Disneyland Paris.

After our week in Paris, my mom came back to stay with me and my host family for a few days. Then she re-packed her suitcases and had to say goodbye.

About two or three days after that, I changed host families. I love it here, but I do really miss my second host family! I still see the kids sometimes though, because their school is right across the street from mine. My host mom's name is Françoise. She's the one I see the most often. She has three kids. Aurore is the oldest, and she lives in Brussels. I've only met her once so far. Antoine is about 23 and stays here about 3 nights a week with his girlfriend, Sandy. They're both teachers in the same city. Then there's Joseph, who is 18 and goes to college in Namur. He's only around on weekends for the most part, and when he's here he studies. He wants to be a doctor later in life if I understood correctly. His girlfriend's name is Capucine. She seems nice, though I've only met her once. There are two cats, and I can't spell or pronounce their names. One's a girl and the other is her son. The boy kitty has AIDS. I didn't know cats could get AIDS. You learn something new everyday, I guess. Anyways, I now have tango classes every Thursday and salsa every other Wednesday with my host mom. I go to tae bo classes the other Wednesdays with Sandy. This Friday I'm going to the North Sea with my friend Aïda and I'm going to Bruges with my host mom on May 12th. I think I might be visiting Amsterdam my last week here.

Tunisia and Paris photos can be seen here: http://picasaweb.google.com/samantha.h.will07 

Beer Fest
Now Playing: Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana

    My village here has an annual festival of beer, which just happened to be this weekend. Since it was less than half a mile from my house, I walked there both Friday night and Sunday afternoon with my friend Clémence. There, we met up with other people like her ex, Florian, his brother, Sylvain (in the picture with me below), and their friend, Charline (who is in my theater class at school) and her boyfriend (who are both in the second picture). I don't remember his name though. It was pretty fun Friday night, but Saturday afternoon was boring, so I left earlier than I had planned.

   

And since I don't feel like being creative, I'll tell you about my past month by typing out excerpts from my journal. Enjoy!

    "I went to a church service type thingy in Namur with the host family the other day. It's run by these Canadian sisters (the Catholic kind of sisters). I love to go there just because I think their accent is the most hilarious thing ever. I don't understand a thing they say! Other Belgians there have to translate it to European French for me. I guess I'm allowed to go stay there for a week or so if I want to though, just to see how they live when they're in Belgium. I might do it, just so I can hear their accent again."

    "I heard that Michigan just got more snow than they've had since the 60s. I went outside without a coat on for the past week."

    "This weekend was the meeting at Aqualibi. I met some of the newbies and exchanged some pins and cards, which was all good, but then I lost my cell phone. I couldn't find it, so finally I gave up and went into the water park. I guess it was ok (and more dangerous than the average American water park) but I was thinking about my phone the entire time. So, I borrowed the phone of a friend and called my phone about 20 times, then finally someone answers and says she's on a train to Charlerois (which is in the opposite direction from where I needed to go). Fast forward three hours. I'm in the Charlerois train station asking them for a phone that was lost, and they handed it right to me. So, that was interesting."

    "I lost my voice yesterday, so I stayed in bed and watched Harry Potter 5 and part of the Super Bowl that my dad taped for me, while drinking Mountain Dew that he sent me. What a wonderful day. I think I'll be sick more often."

    "I have an overwhelming urge to go to Switzerland."

    "I've been thinking of possible careers I could have later in life. I'm having problems with it though. Maybe I want to work for the Travel Channel. But I'm not exactly a tv personality kind of person, and I have no idea how to run the equipment needed to tape those shows. Maybe I can work in marketing. Or I could be an accoutant. Or something in business. Except I did really bad in my junior year economics class, so maybe business isn't the best thing. Maybe a hotel manager. Maybe a cruise ship captain. Maybe a pilot."

    "I just got out of theater practice. I'm tired. I'll be happy when this play is over with!"

    "I went to Brussels with Kelli yesterday to see Sweeney Todd. It was so amazing! It's definitely my new favorite movie. I mean, it was disgusting and twisted and so totally wrong, but somehow I found it hilarious. I want the soundtrack! Before that, we went to Pizza Hut. On the little ticket thing on the table, it said we spoke Dutch. Every time I go to Pizza Hut they put that on there. I don't speak Dutch. They'd have better luck with French than they would Dutch. You say much more than, 'Spreekt u nederlands?' and I won't understand a thing."

January
Now Playing: Worst Hangover Ever - The Offspring

Not a lot of super-exciting stuff has happened in the last month, but I guess I can find a few things to write about. My mom is bugging me because it's been so long since I've blogged. So, here's some of the little things about life here.

School is going alright I suppose. The most exciting parts of that are the 15 minutes breaks after second period and the hour lunch break. Mostly I sit on a bench in the front of the school with some friends during those times. Clémence, Doïna, Adrienne, Charlotte, and Elise are the people I talk to the most, though I talk to Aïda a lot too. The first five girls are in 11th grade and the last is in 12th.

I love my host family here! The kids are cool enough, even if they are young. They usually leave me alone if I'm tired and cranky (probably more for themselves than for me lol). I visit the grandparents on occasion too, which is always fun. Once, there was a 20 year old Mexican named Jorge staying with them. I talked to him a bit, but he really wasn't much of a talker. However, the Belorussian who visited them a week later looooved to talk. His name is Pavel. He's been studying French for 12 years, and I've only studied it for 5, so he did most of the talking. That's ok though, because I love his Russian accent!

A few weeks ago I spent a couple of days with Aïda. We went to a ska concert on a Friday night, then I stayed at her house. The next day we went to Namur. I tend to go there a lot, because it's really the closest city worth going to. I found out that they finally put a Subway in the Namur train station, which I've wanted them to do for ages! I used to have to go to Brussels for Subway sandwiches. I suppose I really shouldn't be eating American food while I'm here anyways, buuuuut once in a while doesn't hurt, does it?

There was a Rotary gathering last weekend for the students who arrived five months ago. We all talked about problems we might have had so far or really good things that've happened. It was mostly an opportunity for Rotary to see how the individual clubs were doing when it came to taking care of us. My friends Dawn and Kelli had met a girl from Cyprus named Meltem. She's here with WEP, another organisation, but she came to our Rotary meeting. I liked her the second I met her! I guess Dawn and Kelli have known her for months. The four of us ended up hanging out that night. We went to a Turkish restaurant with some other exchange students, then back to Mel's host family's house. I missed having girls' nights like that!

I get all of next week off of school for Carnaval! Though I have to spend all day Monday at the school for theater practice. Oh well. I really don't know why I'm in the school play anyways. I have three tiny parts, which are: Ombre 5 (Shadow 5), Alain Prost (a famous French pilot), and La Joconde (more commonly known in English as the Mona Lisa).

I think that's about it... unless there's anything else you want to know? Feel free to ask questions in the comment section of my blog if you want to. I should go do homework now. Or maybe I'll just go watch a movie. The movie really sounds more tempting.

Part Deux
Now Playing: Hot in Herre - Nelly

    I moved in with my second host family over a week ago. So far, it’s going really well and I love it here! Vincent, my host dad, works for a bank. Mireille, my host mom, is an independent nurse. I have two host sisters and three host brothers. Thérèse is 13 years old, Pauline is 11, Louis is 9, Martin is 5, and Henri is 4. They all love to talk all the time and never seem to get tired! We have two cats here, Charlatan and Lancelot. The dog is names Moustache. There are three horses which they keep in a field about three kilometers away. Their names are Almeria, Primus, and Manon. The house is totally huge, but very old and only a small portion of it is inhabitable. All the houses around here are made of stone, which means they’re all old and quite expensive. Most houses in Belgium are built with brick now because it’s so much cheaper and easier.

    New Year’s Eve was a great holiday! The family had some friends over for dinner, and we all did karaoke, told jokes, had fireworks that would definitely be illegal in Michigan, and shot little paper balls at each other. We also pulled out the Playstation and played a karate game and a racing game. I’m apparently a little rusty when it comes to video games. On New Year’s Day, we drove around and visited family members. I don’t actually remember anyone’s name or how exactly they’re related to my host family.

    Since I’ve been here, we’ve gone somewhere almost everyday. Sometimes it’s just shopping or riding bikes to see the horses. Once, we went to a little shop/museum called “La Ferme des Fées” (The Farm of the Fairies). The people who owned it had made all sorts of little elves, fairies, witches, dragons, and people from the old days in Belgium. Some were statues, others dolls, and there were also fountains, key chains, necklaces, paintings, and so many other things. Since it was all handmade, even the smallest things were a little out of my budget. I did get a small necklace as a souvenir though. Later, we took a walk through the town. At one point, you can look straight at the river and see the hills on either side of it. Hundreds of years ago, it was said that the people lived on the right hill, and the fairies lived on the left. A few days later, we went to a small waterpark just across the French border. I had so much fun! I did, however, cringe at the lack of rules and the amount of misbehaving people. That would be the lifeguard in me coming out.

    Life in general here is really nice. There’s always something to do or someone to talk to, and yet I can be on my own if I want. Once, Pauline had a friend over and those two, Thérèse, Louis, and I were in the girls’ room and were doing basically nothing. I had gotten the fifth Harry Potter movie for my birthday from my mom, and that DVD hasn’t come out here yet. Since mine was the North American version, it was in English, French, and Spanish. So, I put the DVD into my laptop, set it to French, and grabbed a bag of American candy (a Skittle and Starburst mix). I know; we’re easily amused. The three girls liked that almost as much as they liked going through my suitcases. They’re just so fascinated with everything that was in there, including random things like my shampoo and school supplies.

Christmas in Belgium
Now Playing: Luxurious - Gwen Stefani

    Here in Belgium, Christmas Eve is the big holiday. Christmas day is just a day to sleep off the hangover. My host family had a few relatives over for fondue, champagne, and presents. Presents can’t be opened until after midnight on Christmas Eve. Then, people just stay up until bizarre hours of the morning drinking coffee and enjoying each other’s company. Thankfully, I was allowed to go to bed by about 3 a.m. Christmas day, my host mom made a turkey (which I’ve never even seen in Belgium before). I guess it’s not a meal they eat often. After more champagne and wine, I started packing my suitcase a bit, since I switch host families soon. That night, I got on a train and headed to Tubize (near Brussels) to visit my Virginian friend, Dawn. I stayed with her that night, the next day, and half of the day after (or today if you’re reading this on the 27^th). We went to Brussels with some of her Belgian friends and shopped at the Christmas markets there one day, and today Dawn and I went by ourselves.

    Tomorrow I change host families. Here’s my new address:

 Rue Haute, 23

6920 Sohier

Belgium

    I hope you all have a happy New Year! I’ll let you know how I celebrated mine as soon as I can.

Ich Bin Ein Berliner!
Now Playing: Christmas Eve Sarajevo - Trans Siberian Orchestra

    I'm not actually a Berliner like the title says, but I did eat one for breakfast on my birthday. For those of you who don't know, a berliner is a German jelly-filled donut.

    But yeah, I went to Cologne, Germany for a day to go to the Christmas markets with my host mom and host sister. First, we went to a town outside of the city where my host family used to live. It was a Belgian military area built by the Americans after the war, so everybody who lived there were Belgians and spoke French and basically lived how they normally would in Belgium. Then we went to about five bakeries looking for berliners.

    Then, we drove to the city and spent about an hour looking for a free parking place. We didn't find one, so eventually we ended up on the top floor of a parking garage. We went to some stores and shopped there for a few hours. I saw so many American places, like Toys "R" Us, KFC,  Burger King, Starbucks, Subway, McDonald's, and Pizza Hut. I didn't get to stop at any of them though.
 
     In Cologne, there's a really old and famous cathedral. I got to walk inside of it for a bit, but we didn't have time to go up to the top. I guess that just means I'll have to go back someday!
 

    After that, we went to the Christmas markets. It's hard to describe it. There are massive amounts of little wooden hut things, and each one sells different things. Most sold German foods and crafts, but there were some that specialized in foreign things. I picked up some presents for people back home and a few things for myself as well. I got to eat bratwurst there too!

    So, overall, not a bad 19th birthday.

Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hau'oli Makahiki Hou
Now Playing: Mele Kalikimaka - Bing Crosby

The title means "Merry Christmas and happy New Year" in Hawaiian for anyone who didn't already know. I'm not sure if I'll be blogging again before the holidays really get going, so I thought I'd share my holiday greetings now, just to be safe.

I've gone to Brussels twice in the past month, and I finally put up the pictures. Here's the site:  http://picasaweb.google.com/samantha.h.will07

The first time I was with my friend Dawn from Virginia. We just walked around a bit and saw the Grande Place at night. There aren't a lot of pictures in that one, but there are some of the famous Manneken Pis, which is a fountain/statue of a peeing boy.

The next time was with my host mom, my host aunt, and host cousin. We saw the Atomium, which is like Belgium's Eiffel Tower. It was built for the same reason, has a restaurant and other things to do inside it, and it lights up and glitters at night. We went up inside it for a while after we went to Mini Europe. What's that? Well, it's exactly what it sounds like. There are mini statues of the most famous buildings, landscapes, and structures from all around the continent. I took pictures of most of them and I'll try to label as many as I can. However, I don't know what a lot of them are and I'm not sure if I can find them all or not. I'll do what I can though!

Well, exams are here and there's studying to do. Have a great day! 

My Schedule
Now Playing: Jaded - Mest

This is my schedule for school, with all of my classes and the grade of each class. The first class each day starts at about 8:30, give or take. I'm not actually a student in the two English classes. I help teach. And on Fridays during my second study hall period, I go to an 11th grade English class, because study hall is boring. Wednesday afternoons we have free, but then again school doesn't get out until 4:20 the other days, so it really doesn't even make up for those later afternoons.

 

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
1	Dutch, 7th	French, 12th	French, 8th	French, 8th	French, 8th
2	Study Hall	French, 12th	Belgian Geography, 8th	Dutch, 7th	Dutch, 9th
3	French, 12th	French, 12th	English, 7th	Study Hall	Study Hall
4	Study Hall	Dutch, 7th	French, 8th	French, 8th	Geography, 10th
5	German, 11th	French, 9th		Study Hall	Study Hall
6	Geography, 10th	French, 9th		French, 12th	Dutch, 7th
7	Dutch, 9th	Belgian Geography, 8th		French, 9th	Study Hall
8	German, 11th	Belgian Geography, 8th		English, 8th	French, 9th

Fish and Chips
Now Playing: London Bridge - Fergie

I was in three countries today, which makes it three times that I’ve been in three countries in one day. Hat trick! 

England is the coolest country in the entire world. As soon as I arrived, I just felt so excited! It was like the first time I flew to France three summers ago, yet somehow even better. Going to France or Belgium felt like going on an adventure. Going to England felt like going home. And I don’t mean to say it was better than Belgium. It’s just that Belgium seems so very European, while England seemed like the perfect mixture of Europe and America. It was a relief to see things like Starbucks and Subway again!

After riding on a bus across Belgium and France, we took a ferry over to England. Our first stop was Canterbury to see the cathedral. We didn’t get to stay long though. London was waiting! 

That evening we went to Waterloo Place, near the Piccadilly Circus. We had about an hour or two to walk around, shop, and eat dinner. Where did most of the Americans end up? McDonald’s, of course. Unfortunately, most of us felt sick afterwards too. After two months of eating non-processed foods, our stomachs couldn’t handle fast food! However, that didn’t stop us from eating there the next night too. 

Our hotel was comfortable, but we weren’t actually there a lot. The first night was awesome though! We were all really tired and didn’t get to bed until 12 or 1, but because of the time difference and the end of Daylight Savings Time, we got two extra hours of sleep! That’s what I call luck! 

Our first stop the next morning (after a huge continental breakfast) was Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. I saw hundreds of life-sized celebrity-shaped crayons. The scary part is, most of them looked real! It was absolutely amazing though and I think I’m going to make my mom take me there again if she comes to visit me later. 

After that, we had more free time to shop and eat lunch. I had Subway. I think I like English Subways better than American ones! Then I stopped at Starbucks for dessert. 

That afternoon was spent at Windsor Castle. Talk about amazing! It looks exactly how most people would think a castle should look. I’d want to live there, but then everything around me would lose its beauty because I’d be living in the most beautiful place ever! 

We headed back to Waterloo Place that night for dinner and free time. Before heading back to the hotel, our bus drivers took us for a tour of London by night. The best part was that the commentary was in French, and I understood! It actually surprised me how much French I used in England. I also ended up speaking German a bit and I said two whole sentences in Dutch as well. 

The next morning we visited the Tower of London. Again, amazing! After living in a new country almost my entire life, it’s wonderful to see so much history and culture… and cute English boys. From the Tower of London, we got a good view of the Tower Bridge. After walking through the place for over an hour, it was time for lunch. Well, you can’t go to London and not eat fish and chips! So I headed for the nearest place and ate exactly that. For dessert I stopped by Ben and Jerry’s. 

That afternoon is where things got really fun. We could either stay at the Tower of London, or we could take the bus back to Waterloo Place. Whatever we did, we had to be back to the bus at Waterloo by 9:30 that night. My friend Mariah and I chose to stay. Remember that London is a very large city, and those two locations are not all that close to each other. If I can find a decent map, I’ll show you just how much I walked that day. Here’s what all I saw and did that afternoon though. 

We crossed London Bridge (which I didn’t even know existed… as far as I knew, it had fallen down) and headed for the London Eye and the London Aquarium. The Eye is a Ferris wheel for those of you who didn’t know. It was expensive and there was a long line, so we didn’t go on it. We just took pictures and headed for another bridge to see Big Ben and parliament. After taking more than enough pictures of those, we walked by the side of Westminster Abbey while trying to get to Buckingham Palace. That’s where I was a bit disappointed. The only guards there were wearing gray and were way behind the fence. Pft. The building looked just as cool as you’d expect though. Close to Buckingham Palace was a park, so we walked through there to get to another park farther away, and then we walked even farther to a third park. By the time we got there, we had walked almost the entire way across the city of London. It was worth it though! We saw a monument to Canada in the first park, and in the second (which was called Hyde Park) we saw the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain and in the third (which was called Kensington Gardens) we saw a statue of Peter Pan. And we just happened to be strolling through Hyde Park at tea time, so what did we do? Stopped at a café for tea! I wanted crumpets with my tea, but they didn’t have any. I settled for a scone. 

The sun set just as Mariah and I were ready to head back towards the bus. We still had about four hours though, and it was only a one hour walk from where we were. We wanted to go to a cinema and see Saw IV (which we didn’t even know was out). We didn’t recognize any of the other movies though! Belgium doesn’t get movies until months after they come out in England and the US, so we’d never seen advertisements for these! Unfortunately, we missed the Saw IV showing by about 20 minutes, so we kept walking. We found some places to shop, like the Virgin Megastore and souvenir shops. After spending too much money, we went to TGI Friday’s for dinner. I went all out since I hadn’t really eaten at a decent restaurant more than once since I’d been in Belgium. I got a French steak with a German beer and even some fancy mashed potatoes instead of fries. 

Then it was time to return to the buses and say a last good bye to London and England. We traveled all night by bus and boat and arrived at the train station in Namur at about 7:00 this morning. From there, I took two trains to get back to Houyet and my host dad picked me up and took me back to Finnevaux. After that, I took a seven hour nap. 

For pictures, go to this site: http://picasaweb.google.com/samantha.h.will07

I haven’t uploaded them yet, but I’m going to right now. So if they aren’t up by the time you look, wait a bit and check later. They’ll be there eventually. And keep in mind that a couple of these are a bit gruesome or offensive and should not be seen by younger people. Just check to see who is around before viewing them.

I’m sorry this is so long! There was a lot to talk about though. Be thankful I kept out all of the history I learned!