Frienddd

This is my friend, Carole. She's adorable and I love her.

Just thought I'd share that with the class :)

xx,
Alyce

:)

When I read status updates from other exchange students who, like me, took a gap year between high school and college and are just now starting the application process, it makes me so happy that I'm already accepted and deferred.

I can't imagine having to write essays on top of having to try and learn a new language. That would just totally suck.

:) Go Shockers!!!

xx,
Alyce

An Adventure

Yesterday I went on an adventure with my fellow exchangers Aislinn and Keely. We went to Maastricht in the Netherlands, which is right next to the border of Belgium.

First off, I'll tell you a kind of freaky story about what happened at the Liège train station. We got to where our train would be, and we noticed that there were two bags underneath us and they weren't ours. We were like, oh well, that's weird, and didn't think anything of it. About seven minutes pass by, and I look over and see the bags on a girl's arm. None of us remember her coming over to get them. They were just not beneath us anymore and we were just so confused. We concluded that she was a wizard.

We arrive in Visé, the border town, and have an hour and a half until the next train because we have to buy tickets. We end up going to a bar and drinking coffee. That's definitely one thing I'm going to miss: just going into a bar. We weren't drinking alcohol, we were just chilling. Here, you always have to have reservations to go to restaurants so no one eats out too much, so usually if you want something casual to eat you go to a street vendor, and if you just want some coffee, you go to a bar. It was just a very casual environment, and since it was early, there were about six other people in there. It was really chill and something I'm definitely going to miss.

When we reach Maastricht, we had no idea what we were going to do, and none of us knew what there *was* to do, so we just decided that as long as we didn't make too many turns we would be okay. We ended up running into a really neat market that sold mostly vintage items, such as tea pots, books, rosaries, and just random nick-nacks. We really lucked out because we didn't know what we were actually going to do there, and there it was, as if the town knew we were coming. After this, we found a Subway and just had to eat there because we all missed Subway. It was amazing.

We then wandered on a bridge and ran into a shopping district of sorts. We putzed around there for the rest of our stay, and I bought a really cute jacket, and oohed and ahhed over an Apple store. Keely has a picture of me looking so excited to see one, and I'll post it when she adds it on her facebook.

Going back to the train station, I made my favorite discovery: Dr. Pepper. I honest to goodness almost cried I was so excited to see it, and yelled at Aislinn across the store to come and check it out with me. It was truly amazing. I just took my first sip of it, and even the smell brought back so many memories that I didn't even know I still had.

The rest will be on Flickr hopefully in the next couple of days.

Love always,

Alyce

Namur pictures.

On the boat. This was taken by Haley, who is also enamored with musical theater :)

We got bored during the parliament presentation. Nicole (New York), Joel (Washington) and me.

Ya know. Just chilling.

Caleb (Canada), Aislinn, Joel, and me in Namur.

:)

It was a good day.

xx,

Alyce

P.S. I don't have school tomorrow. Awesome. I'm watching Zoolander right now on my computer. Loves it.

Skype.

I love Skype.

I just got off the phone with my best friends. I guess they went to lunch together, and Mikka kept saying "let's go to Stephanie's house and call Alyce!" and Jordan and Stephanie were like, "if she's online". I was getting ready for bed, and forgot that I had left Skype on.

Best hour of my weekend.

Went on a boat in Namur today. It was freezing. But it was fun.

Samedi, dix-sept octobre, 2009.

Best day in Belgium so far.

I love it here.

Love Always,

Alyce

Musing.

I have taken the past two days to become enamored with mandarin oranges. I don't know why. My host mom bought them, and then made me ate one and now I'm in love.

They're the best things ever. I'll be so sad when they're out of season.

Today was fun. I painted my nails bright red, spun around in the freezing cold with my dog, Xana and just hung around.

I'm kind of irked about something though, not gonna lie. I feel as though since I don't speak French that some of my classmates think I'm unintelligent.

Above everything else, that's what bothers me the most.

Because I'm not unintelligent. I like to think that I'm pretty dang observant and bright and artistic. And it's just irritating that since I don't speak French, they don't understand this about me. The only classmate I've actually had a conversation with is Peter, only because he speaks fluent English. The other times I talk to my classmates are just the little sentences of French that I can muster.

They may think I'm quiet and stuff like that, but they don't know a lot about me.

I listen to the news on my iPod. Most of my favorite music artists start with the letter "S". I'm reading a book about zombies crashing a Jane Austen novel. I love politics. I prefer to skip than to walk. I love belting my favorite songs when I put food into a microwave.

I dunno. It just bugs me that they could be assuming that I'm an idiot. When I'm not.

Alas. Go eat a mandarin orange and thank Mother Nature for the most wonderful tasting fruit in the world.

xx,

Alyce

Oy Vey.

Alyce in the Netherlands.

If you don't believe me, there's a windmill.

There are a hella lot more pictures on my Flickr account, which you can see here.

Allô :)

I just thought I'd give everyone a run down on my day while I am procrastinating on my homework.

So! I have two alarm clocks set at 6:30 and 7 AM for me to wake up to; six thirty to understand I have to get up, and seven to ACTUALLY get up. Then I get dressed, eat breakfast, make myself lunch and then update my iPod before leaving the house.

Upon leaving, I go to the bus stop down the street and wait with about six other kids for the bus. Although we all take the same bus (there's only one that comes by my house) only two of them, twin boys, go to my school. So, one bus comes, but it doesn't stop for us, as there's another bus stop right down the road with about three times the amount of waiting students, and we know when the other bus is about to get to us when a green car pulls up and drops off a pair of siblings who missed the first bus and now have to catch the second.

So the second bus comes, and then we ride on it for about ten to fifteen minutes, depending on how many people we drop off and pick up along the way. Then to school it's about a ten minute walk. Every morning I walk past a bakery and I'm still able to smell it when I turn the corner.

I go straight to class (either French, Religion, Art History or English start my days), and then from the rest of the day it's all different. The class schedule is kind of like college classes (well, how I'm imagining college is), where we have different classes every day instead of having the same routine like at SHS. Sometimes I have a lot of breaks, namely on Monday, when I only have three classes, but other days I have classes all day. Wednesdays are half days, but even then because I don't take Latin, Engineering or Economics, I get out two hours early like most of my classmates.

Then I wait for about thirty minutes for the bus that takes me home, I go home and just kind of chill. Sometimes I'll take naps. Just whatever.

I just started French school, where me and another exchange student from my school, Emily, have classes twice a week at night in Liège. We both started yesterday and were totally freaked out during the first break, but at the end we both realized how much it's going to help us with our French. I can't speak for her, but I was able to understand a lot of what the teacher was explaining - it's taught all in French, so that made me confident for lessons to come. We were given homework, and I'm actually really excited about this. I'm just so glad that I'm on a path to learning French, which is what I really wanted.

In other "news", I skyped with my mom this past weekend and was able to see all of the renovations that the house is undergoing, and it's so weird to see how different everything looks. I'm excited to come home and see it completely empty, as that's something I've never seen before.

Well, I am tired and need to translate stuff. Tomorrow I have to present news stories to my geography class all in French. This is done every week and is chosen completely randomly. The teacher asks someone to say a number and from that person, he counts to that number to determine who goes next. Everyone in class started laughing when I was chosen, and I had no idea what was going on, but then my teacher said to me in English, "So it's your turn next week."

I'm not usually so nervous about speaking in front of people, and I really just want to get this over with. Bleugh.

Love Always,

Alyce

P.S. I think it'd be fun if college counselors wrote me back telling me orientation dates so I know when to come home. But that's just me.