August 26 Brxl with the Vanrykels

Lots of these around this area.

            This morning I deduced that my host brother was leaving for Canada!  We drove to Brussels this morning and went to the train station. 

This photo brought to you by the folks at home:
 There it is.  A waffle in a vending machine.

A chateau in Brussels on the way
 to the gare

And while we waited for the train, they had a beer.  At 10:30!  But I didn't drink beer.  It's against Rotary rules.

Belgium equivalent of bud light or something.
But ONLY in terms of price.  Made in Liege!

    Then he finally boarded and EVERYONE cried, even me.  It was just such a beautiful family moment, and as the train pulled away, we walked after it, waving and crying.  Compelling moment, that.

Somebody's hommage to Space Invader.  That's for Madame Casey

Oh hey, Lille!  Sign in the station.  That's for Martin Deron.

Inside the gates of the Royal Palace.
But no photos allowed inside.

The Royal Palace!

            After we had a baguette sandwich at the station, we drove around town to park and then went and toured the Royal Palace!  

A cathedral in Brussels.  And I do so love chathedrals

It turns out that’s what we did yesterday morning, but this time, I was paying attention to the building instead of talking to exchange kids!  It’s really quite exquisite.  Lots of gold and paintings and chandeliers, you know.

La Conservatoire Royale de Musique

Museum of musical instruments!
We shall return someday!

Leopold II, second king of the Belgians.  He is known for
purchasing the Congo.

            We then proceeded on to the Musee Magritte where a large collection of the famed Belgian surrealist artist’s works reside.  I didn’t understand the art as well as I should like to have done, and my feet grew tired, but it was indeed an amazing gallery.

Magritte's painting, Magritte, and me

            These days when I speak English, I'm so used to saying "I don't know how to say that," I just say that in English when I have trouble thinking.  LAZY English speaker.

Brussels is beautiful isn't she

            Well now I’m happy because we got the password to the neighbor’s wifi and I can finally post these blogs.  I skyped my parents today for the first time since arriving, and it was strange, because I forgot how much I missed them.  That’s a good thing I think.  The other thing is, I’m home alone tonight because Francoise and Alain are out at some sort of away party and Fanny is gone for the weekend to climb rocks with her friends.  That sounds so funny!  I just meant rocks as opposed to plastic climbing walls.  And I would feel disrespectful speaking English while they’re around; I don’t even talk on the phone with other exchangers.  So I skyped guilt-free today.

            I’m glad I’m getting closer with Fanny.  It just takes a little more language.  But I continue to get little compliments on how I seem to speak well for how short a time I’ve been here (or at least fool people into thinking I speak well because my accent isn’t terrible), which are of course a MAJOR help to me.  It doesn’t even matter if they are genuinely impressed for the amount of good it does for my temperament!

A last look at the Royal Palace

            Tomorrow I shall get picked up by a host family with another American student at 8 to go to Huy for Rotary weekend, where all the exchange students shall hear the rules and talk about the exchange (Basically re-orientation).  We stay the night and maybe even have a little soiree for the exchange students.  Don’t know if I’ll get to blog about it.

Les SCHTROUMPS! (de Smurfen in Neerlandais) They're everywhere right now!!
(because of the movie)

            I’m too tired to do more than a boring play by play of today, so there it is.

Lol