Some pictures . . .

First picture is what we usually do at school . . . translate stuff, and the second picture is of the other RYE's at my school: Nikki, Mariana, and Emily. I love them.

Kayaking

Yesterday the Rotexes of Belgium took us all kayaking. It was great seeing everyone, because this involved all of the exchange students from Belgium, not just from our district. So, we got to see people we had met in Brussels for our official welcome from the Belgian government, and we got to meet new people, too.

There were two people to a kayak, and so I was with Jamie, and I'm so glad I was.

The river was beautiful, and there were some amazing scenes that we were able to see . . . a castle that looked like Hogwarts - we kept making references to Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter the entire ride. It would have been nicer if it wasn't 20 kilometers (almost 12 and a half miles) long. That was a killer. My shoulders and arms hurt so badly.

Then we finished kayaking and then were told our train left in five minutes and the next one didn't come for two hours. Fail.

I woke up at 7, didn't get home until 10:30.

It was just an adventure, that I don't plan to repeat anytime in the near future.

Thanks to Jamie for keeping me distracted by playing "would you rather?" and quoting The Office and Arrested Development the entire second half. It meant a lot.

I'm exhausted.

xx,

Alyce

Dear Glee,

You have successfully managed to get "Single Ladies" by Beyoncé stuck in my head.

Way. To. Go.

If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it,

Alyce

. . .

I opened this with a full intention of having something to say, and now I'm just stuck.

Well, school is going well. I'm starting to pick up random words, and can usually understand what my classmates say, even though my responses don't go very far.

Mom asked me a few questions when I called her on her BIRTHDAY (Bon anniversaire, AGAIN, ha ha) and so I'll answer her questions here for you all to see, too.

1. "Do you have friends?" - Yes. All of my classmates are really friendly . . . Pierre, Carole, Kelly, Sophie, Aurore . . .
2. "What classes are you taking?" - French (which is like English back home), English (which is like French back home), Religion (we're learning about immigration), geography, history, art history, astronomy, and gym. I'm not taking math or science because I'm absolute crap at those classes in the States, and even though I've heard, "ask your teachers, they'll help", my teachers hardly understand English, and my French is about as good as their English, so I'd rather take a math class that was being taught in my first language. Also, my exchange student friend, Emily, is also not taking math or science, and we originally had those together, so a lot of times we both get out after lunch. It's awesome.
3. "Do they talk to you in French or English?" - I don't know if my mom asked this, but I know people have, SO. Anytime someone talks to me in English, another classmate will yell "EN FRANÇAIS!" ("in french") at them. So, they mostly talk to me in French. There's one student who's fluent in English, and so if I'm sitting next to him and he sees I'm super confused, he'll explain something to me. My English teachers talk to me in English, but other than that, no one else except the other exchange students do.
4. "Is the food good?" - AH MON DIEU, YES. My host mom is an excellent cook, and we eat at home every night and so far everything has been amazing. We've only eaten out as a family once, and ordered pizza twice (the pizza here is really good, too). With the Rotary events in my district, we ate cafeteria food three times, it was disgusting, and ate at a restaurant once, in Brussels. That was funny though, because what we ate in Brussels was EXACTLY what I had had for dinner with my host family the night before. So, I was like, " . . . srsly?" Hahah. Everyone brings their own lunch to school and eats outside when the weather is nice. Even if the weather isn't nice, they eat outside anyway. I make a sandwich every morning and take it. White bread (which tastes AMAZING) or a baguette, with cheese, salami and ham, and then a bunch of chocolate stuff for after. My host mom knows how much I love chocolate and buys different chocolate snacks every week for me to try. It's great :)

Well. Last night was Valériane's last night in Belgium, she left this morning for two months to work with people afflicted with HIV/AIDS in Africa, so all of her best friends came over for dinner. We had some kind of fondue which was really good, but it filled me up really fast. So, I'll be an only child for most of the time, with the exceptions being when Jean-Michel's kids come for the weekend. She'll be back in November, and hopefully I'll know a lot more French by then.

I've been listening to a podcast called Smart Mouths to help keep me informed on what's going on in the United States and not look like an uneducated American when I'm asked questions. They discuss a lot of politics and explain issues from the very beginning (such as the Health Insurance Reform) so that it can be understood by their international listeners. It's just a great way to keep up on what's going on back "home" without having to watch CNN, because I feel weird watching CNN when I could be watching some cooler shows dubbed in French. I'm a big fan of the people who produce this podcast, and it's so nice to hear them tell me what's going on in the world, as well as my country while I'm gone, and it's something nice to listen to on my bus rides.

Also, I'm glad to hear that "Glee" has officially been picked up for a full season by FOX! The music on this show is amazing - everyone knows I can never get enough of Lea Michele's voice. The latest song by her character Rachel is now available on iTunes. It's a cover of Celine Dion's song Taking Chances, which I LOVE. Ahhh. I've been listening to it on loop for the entirety of this blog.

On Thursday, Emily (the exchange student from New York who goes to my school) and I are going to go take pictures of the school during our free class hours, so I'll post pictures of my school then!!

I should wrap it up now.

Love you all,

Alyce

Aujourd'hui

I forgot my history book. But it's totally chill, because it was our teacher's birthday and we threw him a surprise party. With cake, wine, those annoying whistle things, champagne, party hats, presents, did I mention that they drank ALCOHOL AT SCHOOL?

DISCLAIMER: This is totally legal here, we were not breaking the law by any means. The drinking age here is sixteen for soft alcohol and eighteen for the hardcore liquor, but everyone usually starts drinking casually at a younger age than that. If this happened in the US we'd all probably be kicked out, but, it's a completely different culture here.

This is so different from the United States, and due to recent events which I have talked about on my facebook, I am so glad about that. Today, watching my classmates get all excited, I got excited about learning French so I can actually interact with them. They're all really nice.

For my English class, we had to bring in our favorite pictures, and I brought in the one of me with my best friends at prom, and I had to explain to them what prom was. It was funny because none of them recognized me in the picture except by my face because of my bright red bobbed hair. That was funny. When my teacher asked if I still kept in touch with them, I showed her the necklace that Stephanie had given all of us, that says "Girlfriends are family we choose for ourselves" and my teacher translated it for the rest of the class, and they were all like "AWWWWH!" Cute moment.

Tomorrow I have a Rotary activity. At 8:15 AM. What the heck man. Not cool.

Alas alack. Must go to bed.

xoxo,

Alyce

Liège

I went to Liège by myself for the first time today! I had so much fun. I met up with two of my exchange student friends, Jamie and Audrey. We went to Jamie's house for a bit, then went to get waffles - YUM - and then met up with some people at le carré, which is just a bunch of bars in shady alleyways.

What was funny is that tonight is the big soccer game of Liège vs. Arsenal, so a bunch of Brits were in town. Some came to the same bar as us, but Eric, an exchange student, gave them directions to a bar in French, and then twenty minutes later found out they spoke English. That was really funny.

They seemed really nice, but we didn't talk for a long time.

I ran into more Brits on the way home, at the bus station. I would've said something to them, but it was nice to be able to eavesdrop on a conversation and actually understand it for once, ha ha.

Mom's been sending me links to pictures of houses in Spokane. I'm so excited about this. I even told one of the Brits we met that my family was moving, and he asked if I was upset about moving, and then I told him that my mom's family was from Washington, so I had spent most of my vacation time there anyway, and he was like "oh so you're really excited". Yes, I am :)

Well. My nose is stopped up thanks to smoke. Lame. Thankfully I brought my neti pot!

Yours,
Alyce

Possibly?

I think I made friends :)

Well. A friend. But a friend is a friend, no matter how small the number.

Today started off with me being very irritated, and ended with me being stuck in the rain. Oh, cruel fate. I walked into French class about five minutes late because I didn't have a schedule. Let's backtrack to last week, when two girls in my class, Pauline and Kelly went and asked him if I could have a school agenda.

P & K: Where's Alyce's agenda so she knows what classes to go to?

HDMSTR: She doesn't need one, we're picking out her official schedule next week and then she'll get one.

P & K: Oh. Okay. (leave office) That's dumb.

Now, on Friday everyone wrote down in their Journal de Classe when they'd have class. I didn't because I didn't have a journal de classe, and because the headmaster said we'd figure out my schedule on Monday.

Now it's Monday. I go to school and find the headmaster.

Me: Hey, I need a schedule.

HDMSTR: Oh, we haven't got them yet. Go find someone in your class and ask them for help.

Me: (looks around) Yeah, I'm not seeing anyone. Where do I go?

HDMSTR: They all wrote the schedule down in their books on Friday. Why didn't you?

Me: I don't have a journal de classe.

HDMSTR: You don't? That's very odd.

Me: . . .

HDMSTR: Well, just go look through the school and find them. - (Our school is five stories high. Yeah. **** no.)

He ends up taking me upstairs to the first floor and points to room 100.

HDMSTR: Well, that's not them.

Me: (inwardly) Ya think?! (outwardly) So, what do I do?

HDMSTR: Just go from class to class and try and find them.

So, eventually I end up in French class, and was greeted with "How are you?" "Lost." I spent that entire class period translating "What class is next" ("Quelle classe à prochain", in case you were wondering.) and then asked Sophie, to which she rambled for a bit, but I caught "no class" and so I went downstairs with them and we sat for two hours, talking, reading and I helped them with their English homework.

This morning was frustrating. But, Sophie let me copy her schedule and I figured out where to go and when to be there, which was nice. (I get out on Wednesday two hours early, and Wednesday is only a half day, so this is very exciting.)

Now. I am tired. Going to watch an episode of Arrested Development and then SLEEP! I'll probably update this next between Wednesday - Sunday. What a great timeline.

Annyong,

Alyce

Bleh.

Negatives: 

I am exhausted, my throat hurts, cough drops here suck, the weather which I once viewed as wonderful I now feel is disgusting, I have gym first thing tomorrow morning (and gym here is running in a circle for two hours) and I just want to curl under my covers and sleep for days.

Or, as in AVPM, I want to curl up in my sock drawer and sleep for days. That's better.

Pluses:

I'm almost done with my first week of school and it's going pretty well, my host granddad bought me amazing chocolate, music is a universal language, Glee was fabulous, and I have successfully gotten a lot of exchange students addicted to Arrested Development.

It hurts to talk. Why, body? WHY. You were doing so well . . .

There's not currently a sunshine, so I can't say that you're mine :(

The thought is what always counts,

Alyce

I can't think of a cute title.

I am tired. My feet hurt. 

Today we went on a "gourmet promenade" which is where you walk around town, eating a five course meal from different restaurants in town. Maybe I should reinforce the word walk.

We WALKED in a huge circle around town. My feet hurt. My head hurts. I'm a little bit sunburnt and very very tired. 

The food was great, the scenery was spectacular, but every part of my body is aching. By the time we got to the third entree, Valeriane and I didn't eat most of it, we were both way too full, and that was the one where we walked to the complete middle of nowhere, only to go to two more middle of nowheres, for cheese and pie.

Exhaustion. 

I start school tomorrow.

My exchange student friends wanted to go to Liege today.

I got up at nine thirty, and we finished at four. 

Well, I start school tomorrow. That will be an adventure within itself. I'm not too scared. It's just the fact that I've NEVER been the "new kid" before. That's the problem with living in the same town all of your life. I've never had to really worry about making friends, I've had the same best friends for six years. So, making friends will be interesting, but I'm not worried about that, really, and then getting lost. That's mainly what I'm scared about - getting lost. That does not sound like fun.

I'll keep you updated.

In more interesting news - I figured out the twist in "Next to Normal", a musical. And the twist freaking . . . wow. I want to see this show so badly now. I'm having a hard time thinking about anything other than this because it seriously just baffles me, yet everything makes so much more sense now. 

Well, I'm off. 

xx,

Alyce

Waiting for school . . .

My school starts on the seventh, and therefore, I am confined to watching American TV shows dubbed in French (One Tree Hill, some soap opera, Ghost Whisperer, Las Vegas, Full House, etc.) while knitting and eating these awesome cookies that are shaped like dinosaurs with chocolate on the bottom. 

It's also been raining a lot lately, the bank magically gave me ten euros - I'm rich! - and I've memorized the entire scene before the song "My Junk" in Spring Awakening, and in my time alone, I perform it for our dog, Zenna. 

I am a dork. I need to go to school before I have the entire freaking libretto memorized. They didn't give me a call back why?

My host mom found me a choir to join. I'm super excited. Now I can sing with other people and not just myself . . . because I've also been singing while I'm home alone. I don't think Zenna likes it very much.

That's all I got for now,

Alyce