Nouvelle Ans

In January and a bit of December I got to visit my Lily Mirsepassi in Nimes, France. It was awesome. Nimes is really close to Montpiller, France. Its located in the south of France. Which equals no snow!. When I left there was a a foot of snow on the ground and when I arrived in Nimes it was sunny and 10 degrees celcius vs. -4 celcius. I was happy to see the sun cause at that point it felt like I hadn't seen the sun in weeks possibly months. Lily picked me up at the train station in Nimes (which was about a 5hr train ride from Brussels) and for some reason I couldn't find the stairs really I know it sounds stupid. But they are located in an obscure location. So I wait behind like a billion old people. And finally I made it. I screamed when I saw Lily. Probably scared her host dad. We got in her family's BMW and arrived to the spainish styled maison that she happened to be living at. Nimes looks like Sac but older same climate and trees etc. Her family has an amazing backyard with a huge pool and a bar. She also has a bath room in her room so not fair. Her host mom is goregous and nice. She fed me so well. She is a stay at home mom and her host dad is a doctor and they have 3 children 2 in college and the other in exchange in Sacramento. The first day her mom made something close to mexican food delicous and we walked around her town I took a billion photos. We went on a ferriswheel I thought I was going to die not a fan of the heights. She a has collseum in the center of her town which is still used for concerts and bull fighting. Its like a mini version of the collseum in Rome. It changes colors with the lights at night. So a couple days later my brother and my aunt came to visit me. They stayed hotel in the center of town. We visited Lyon on New Year's Eve. It was great I have lots of photos but the weather was lame. We got lost for a second but, found our way back but we got see lots if back streets. haha The train system is sooo expensive! its so different from Belgium. I think that the french rely less on the belge. But anyways its was 80 euros (there and back) to go somewhere that was 1 and a half hours away and in Belgium its 30 but with a student pass (ages 5-27) its 5 euros. Thank god I live in Belgium. But France is goregous and the mind set is so much different. The teenagers are more outgoing with there feelings which I like but the parties are so much lamer! I can definatly vouch for Belgium on that. They do lots of house parties with 20 or so people in France usually but in Belgium you go to a club, bar, or a dance hall thing with a DJ. Almost every week. (its the culture) If you don't go out in Belgium on the weekend its almost social suicide because kids are so busy with school work and work that its the only time they really hang out besides Wednesdays afterschool. New Years I went out with Lily and her French friends . The party was really fun. It was a house party like the ones previously mentioned. Her brother Kevin was visiting her from Sacramento he came with us and Jamenson from Canada. But it wasn't lame. I gave everyone a bisous (kiss on the cheek)when it was offically new years. It the best way to ring in the New Years. After it was hard to say bye to Lily and my Brother and my aunt I wanted to stay. Btw ate sooo many crepes. I also bought a french book which i am still reading.

decembre

December was a busy month for me. I celebrated my first saint nicholas and my first Christmas away from my family. It was actually easier than I thought. Before it was Christmas my town had its annual fete de noel. What it entailed was walking 8 km and at each kilometer there was a stop to drink hot chocolate or hot wine or peke. The whole town does it; its a tour of the village. It was so much fun. My friends from scouts were there and I went with Sofia. At the end there was hotdogs with sauerkraut, soup, brownies, and other things it was great to see everyone from town.
Christmas was fun with my family. But it was different that what I was used to one thing was that we set up the Christmas decorations the week of Christmas. In Sacramento we set up Dec 1st at the latest. haha Also we opened presents Christmas Eve at 7. I usually open up the morning. I gave my family their gifts in the morning because I had stockings for them which are meant to be opened in the morning. Another thing was that my family only gives one gift per person. I got all of them a gift not knowing this. We didn't go to mass which made me sad because Europe has all of these gorgeous churches and Europeans rarely go except on Christmas.
Christmas eve we went to the house of a relative of my host dad Max. He has a huge family there were 30 plus people there. It was the first time I had met them. When I first got there it was akward but, it got better as the night went on. I ended up having a great time. There were a lot of kids my age. I had a lot of fun with Vinncent and Laurent. And we played in trival persut in French and I answered more questions than the other kids.

The next day I went sledding with William after Christmas lunch. We had gotten a lot of snow that week so it was perfect for sledding. I fell deep into the snow a couple times I had to dig myself out. I was a beautiful day also. The sun was out and I could see for miles we went to the highest hill in the city.

The next day I had dinner with my host mom's family it was boring. But, no worries.

European in the Shower

The title is a joke if you don't get it your weird.

Just my general life now. So, Omg I hate my french teacher and she hates me! Well if anyone ever had french with me at EC would say this is normal. I've never had a french teacher like me. Even people in the class say the same thing. She said something nice to me wednesday and everyone gasped because she actually said something nice to me.

my room looks like gollum from lord of the rings lives in it. I clean it every week but by the end of the week you can't walk in it. Also, i'm becoming a fatty. When did this happen? my clothes still fit but they are tight. one of my pants has a hole in then. I think its just because they're old (at least thats what i hope.)

Oh yeah so, my counsoler invited me and sofia to dinner one night a couple weeks back. We felt like it was a set up because he has been saying for weeks that he is going to give us a french exam to test our progress. It wasn't a set up thank god. But, he didn't tell us that there would be other rotarians there. So two days before it was thursday. Every thurday we have a rotary meeting. But, that week it was cancelled. The school expects us to be gone every thursday. So, me and sofie went shopping. Some how he found out. So he says to me, "oh, what did you do thursday?" I told him nothing because i forgot. were you drinking in the Care?"(a place we are forbidden from going to) I said no I was shopping. then he continued saying that he would cut two of the things off my green card. we have 3 and then we are sent home. I thought he was serious even his daughter did. Anyways I was freaking out. Then the other rotarian showed up and Bruno (my consuleor) said why don't you tell him what you did thursday. uggg

So I learned that in Belgium to be married you have to be baptized! Omg this is crazy. This would never happen in the US.

I'm going to be cooking thanksgiving for my family soon. I hope it goes well. We are going to have a roast chicken becaue it tastes better and its easier to make. I'm gonna make green bean casarole, mash potatos, no biscuts :( they don't have the proper flour here, pumpkin pie from scratch, yams, stuffing. And thats all I can think of. (if you know of food i am missing let me know)

I just at this rice pudding thing. it was good i don't usually like it. Wednesday I am going to the Oprea in Liege. I am going to visit lily in france in december. I'm excited.

Also, I bought some america socks I have a pair for every day of the week its awesome.

I'm afraid to get my hair cut beacause i have to give the instructions in french i'm afraid they will cut it all off.
Lastly I am going to start a photoagraphy class once i figure where one is. So watch out my photos are going to rock. and possibly do a yoga class.

oh!, the places you'll go.

London. I love it. Planning on living there. It was really weird for me speaking english. I kept saying merci and pardon. But what I loved is that I could understand conversations. But, I'm used to people not understanding english so, I had to be careful with what I said.

So we took a ferry on the english channel after the bus ride. Earlier in the week I lost my purse with my carte d'identite (which is my visa) ipod, credit cards etc. I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to go to London without my visa but, I got it sorted out. I thought figuring out the money system was going to be easy to figure out. Boy was I wrong. The penny is the size of a half dollar and the 1 pound is the size of a nickel. What?

The first day we went to Canterbury Cathedral. It was beautiful its more than twice the age of America. And a shout out to anyone who was in honors English 3, remember those mid-evil stories called the Canterbury Tales. Yeah, written about that city. The city was so cute. If you have seen the movie the Holiday that's what the city looks like. So cute, and since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving the Christmas decorations were in full swing. It really was like "walking in a winter wonderland." I had my first Starbucks there. My first one in like 3.5 months. I had the peppermint mocha. yum.

After we drove into London and went to our hotel. We were exhausted because we had been traveling all day but we still stayed up all night. The next day we went to Windsor Castle. The queen sleeps there once or twice a week. I don't know if she was there. It was so gorgeous but we were not allowed to take pictures of the inside. The castle had so many antiques from all over the world ranging from Leonardo da Vinci drawings to Asian artifacts. After I was on the hunt for fish and chips but didn't find any you'd think it'd be easy in England its not an easy task. So failed to find fish and chips in Windsor but I got to check out some cute boutiques. That night we went to the hard rock and had a real hamburger (of course not as good as the ones in America) but decent. And it had mustard! In Belgium the only mustard they have is Spicy Dijon. I've been missing my regular french's yellow mustard. Then we saw a play Blood Brothers. It was great. I almost cried.

The last day we did a walking tour of London. We started at the London Tower which really isn't a tower its more of a fort. We continued to see everything. haha We went to the main square of London and then continued to Buckingham Palace. Rotary gave us $10 for lunch and but, I think they found the only place in London without restaurants. Anyway Sam, Jordan, and I walked everywhere until we found a sushi place. So, You've might have seen in movies sushi bars where the sushi is on a revolving belt and keeps coming around your table with different varieties of sushi (again watch the Holiday) and thought it was cool its not. Its really expensive torture. There is a menu you can order off of but while wait for your meal this sushi keeps passing you buy at 3-5 pounds a plate for one sushi. It was hard to restrain myself I gave in and took one plate. After lunch we went to Madam Tussou's Wax Museum. Which honestly, I was not looking forward to. I thought I was going to be boring wax figure. I was wrong amazing and fun. And guess what I found after! Fish and Chips baby, fish and chips. And they were goooood. Then we went to The British Museum I saw a few mummies, the book of the dead, and the Rosetta Stone. Then we had the rest of the night free in London. I went to China town with some chinese kids. The food was so good! (So I've mushed together two days here Just realized i forgot the order of everything)
Before we got chinese I went to platform 9 and 3/4. We didn't actually know if it was going to be there we asked information and they said there was one but while asking we thought we looked so stupid.
After I went on the London eye with 10 other kids. It was spectacular because it was the same week as the armistice celebration in England so the city was surrounded by fireworks while we were in the ferris wheel. My camera died while I was up there lame but my friends took some photos of me. It was one of the best days of my life.

I just wanna party and party and party!

Sorry! I've been busy. But, thats a good thing. What you've missed:
-Soiree Kitch, Malmendy Soiree, Shelter Box (Save Haiti) Soiree, Cave a Biere, 18+ party... I forgot the rest.
-London, Brussels, Windsor, Canterbury, Liege
-Getting in trouble, my counselor's horrible jokes, forgetting my purse :/ oops, forgetting my speech
- Halloween, PATRO, Package!
-Me waitressing in french (it wasn't as bad as you think)

Soiree Kitch was probably the biggest party I've been to in Charneux. Basically the point of the party is to dress like you don't know what style is. Oh man, I saw some crazy outfits. I saw people in scuba masks with overalls, a borat swimsuit, every color under the rainbow etc. Overall amazing. There was this song though where we all had to sit on the ground and act like we were on a ship (only in Belgium). The floor was disgusting. ew

So last night was the Shelter Box Soiree. It was a bunch of old rotarians dancing. I got to help "set up" which means doing nothing and eating free food. I met the rotar-act people ages 20- 30. they were awesome. Anyways to the party the highlights: Pirate Music, um what? for Haiti? I did some Pirate jigs. A rotarian's drunk wife. Cussing out the pirates and flipping them off. Will never forget that.

Earlier that day, I had to give out pamphlets for Shelter Box in the pouring rain. I forgot to wear a hood and bring an umbrella. The saturday market in Verivers was going on. Anyways, I was trying to give this man a pamphlet. He ran away from me. I mean like booked it lol. He kept say no, no!

Malmendy Soiree: Sam Burns got into a Hip-Hop dance fight with a forty year old man. Well it began as hip hop soon it turned into something i can't really describe. He kept doing this move I call "the oricale." Quickly it turned Irish.

The 18+ party should've been called the 30+ party. I met this Aregentinen girl it was her birthday. We got free drinks out of that. She was so nice I wish I got her name. She did something I call the Argentinen robot. There was a Bachorlette party. We joined that for a while so funny. When my friends got off their shifts at the bar they danced with us. Haha.

The Cave a Biere was to benifit my class in spring. We we're going to Spain! I had a lot of fun because all my school friends were there. I never get to see them at parties because they live in Verviers.

Gone Dutch

Two weeks ago I went to Amsterdam with my third host family and Sofia. It was amazing! The day before was the hypothermic kayaking trip so I was a little sore. So we get up at the crack of dawn but I was ready to go, its AMSTERDAM!

I was surprised by this trip 1 weeks earlier. Sophia who is from Mexico thought that her host parents said that we were biking to Amsterdam. I was a little freaked out by that I didn't want to bike 50+ miles. Thank god she was wrong! What they said is that we would be biking in Amsterdam.

I have always thought of myself as a experienced cyclist. At least I thought that I knew how to ride a bike. I thought wrong. Oh My Word! So basically the bike lanes are really good in the Netherlands there is space on almost every road but, there are more bicyclists than cars and there is only about 2 ft of bike lane. I am sure you can imagine where this is going. We biked 20 kilometers that day. First stop: shopping district with thousands of people who don't move when you are biking towards them. I almost took out a few pedestrians. Then we went on some back roads. That was great because I was getting a ulcer from all the stress of not killing people.

Might I say gorgeous. The clouds parted and it was sunny out! Like real sun. (its rarely sunny this time of year or ever.) Anyways i was enjoying the sun and checking out the houses across the canal when I hit a car. A mini Cooper to be exact oh yeah and it was parked. Anyways to make matters worse and old lady was sitting on a bench across the street laughing at me she saw the whole thing. Next, we continued to a busy street where Sofia falls for no reason as I watch her I almost hit a biker while almost getting hit by a car. I was in shock after that one. We stopped for lunch at an "American style" restaurant. I had calamari. yum. I really want that right now. Across the streets were the canal boats (you know the glass ones for viewing Amsterdam) called the John F. Kennedy Awesome! We biked to this park and it was great. There were so many people soaking up the sun. So many people were smoking weed! haha. By that time I could barely walk cause I was so sore but, we continued towards the hotel. You thought I was done know yet another accident. So there cross walks have 3 parts the sidewalk, the middle of the road, and the other side walk. The light for pedestrians was yellow so Sofia booked it. I was last and I didn't want them to forget me so I followed a few seconds later but then a train was coming towards me so I had no other choice but to ram my bike into Sofia; knocking her over in the street in traffic in front of a outdoors restaurant where everyone laughed at us. I wish I had a photo!

So when we were almost there my host family said "oh yeah by the way, we are doing a night ride." They were kidding but never told me they were kidding. So yes, I believed them. All day! People do this a lot to me they take advantage of my foreign-ness.

Day 2

I awoke sore but psyched for the new day. First we visited the Anne Frank Museum sans bikes. I was amazing you couldn't take pictures I wish I could have. The museum was the house that they hid in. I honestly didn't know that they lived in the Netherlands I assumed it was Germany. But, OH MY GOD its amazing how they lived for so long indoors, never going outside. I almost cried. They preserved it as it was. There is no furniture because the Nazi's took it. Otto Frank (her father, the sole survivor) wanted it to be kept with out furniture to show the Nazi's cruelty. They had videos in every room, journal entries, interviews. There was a recording of Otto Frank talking about his daughter he said(paraphrased), "Parents think they know their children, but they really don't. I knew a different Anne than the one in her journal. I wasn't aware of the extent and deepness of her thoughts." It was really moving. Those were my favorite parts; the interviews.

After we went to the Van Gogh Museum. they pronounce it "Van Gock" which was weird for me. I loved it. It was very extensive, again no photos allowed. I had an audio tour which I have never done before. I was really difficult at first to figure out how it worked. I was just sitting there hitting the machine hoping it will work. Which never helps. Once i figured it out it was great I got so much extra information about his life. There were some "laggers" who would stand for a long period of time at one photo blocking everyone's view. I became good a nudging them. Sorry its survival of the fittest. We ate something I forgot but, I'm sure it was good.

I started pouring. I was wearing cotton once again. You'd think I'd learn. After all day in that I was ready to sleep. We headed out but I had to buy some postcards then we left.

Last thing I saw mutipule people holding a baby, while on a cell phone, in the rain, on a bike, and in traffic.

In a Kayak Built for Two

The Rotary kayaking trip.

It was disaster but hilarious. I don't know who decided to kayak in September which is equal to December in Sacramento but, whoever they were told us to wear bathing suits and shorts and t-shirts. ha. I'd say that 10% of the people didn't know how to kayak. To begin they sent us in our kayaks down this slide thing a couple flipped into the freezing water. I kayak in Sac and my partner Sam Burns is a kayak instructor so, we were good. It was a 20 mile kayak trip which takes 6 hours to complete. About 20 minutes into the trip we hear rotary kids screaming the first group had flipped. Everyone was soaking and slightly hypothermic by lunch time. (we all thought we were done but we actually had another 3 hours) When Sam and I were heading towards the lunch area it was like a kayak graveyard there were kayaks with out people in them everywhere. People bummed rides off other people. haha.

We were eating lunch it started pouring! Like POURING! The older rotarians said, "its time to go." So i put on my pancho without a hood btw. After we were numb it was kind of funny. Then we saw this amazing castle on a cliff. As we were looking at it we realized we hear rushing water. mini waterfall. We were soaked our kayak filled up with water but, we kept paddling anyways. Then we thought we went the wrong way because there was no other kids around. I went into panic mode because it was getting dark (we took the left fork in the river). We ran into a Belgian boyscout group. They were vicious they smaked our kayak with their paddles. So second waterfall. There was a sign in french saying go one way but these little kids were telling us to go another way. We went with our gut and went where the sign told us. When were done with it we realized that these kids wanted us to go on this cliff part so we would flip. They were laughing at us in french. haha little jerks. Apparently 1/2 the people flipped there. We were almost done by then but, there was an old person kayaking tour. On land or in water old people are just slow. I was about to shove them with our kayak when they finally pulled over!

We we got to shore we were shivering. But, there was free food! Oh yeah, I got seconds and 3rds!