Sep 16
I went shopping Liege after school yesterday. I bought a pudding at a grocery store for 17
cents, and I bought 3 items from H&M.
I don’t think I have a good sense of Belgian style yet, so they probably
still look American. But I bought them
in Europe! That has to count for
something. Besides, it’s my birthday
tomorrow. I bought myself a present.
I think I’m going to return the pants for a size
larger. One is allowed 14 days to return
an item at H&M.
My Friday
schedule is the only day I have in the week without a study period. This is common for exchangers, but not for
regular students. And I cleaned my room
last night instead of going to bed on time, so I was pretty tired. But here, when the teacher is absent, you
just don’t have class. So today, the
Morale teacher was absent. So I went to
the sale d’etude and slept. I would have
gone to the rheto room, but they locked it since everyone was writing on the
walls! Hilarious!
The morale
course exists because it is written somewhere in some government document
(along with the gym requirement) that students are to have some sort of
religion course in public school. So you
can take Catholicism, Judaism, Protestantism, and some others I think, but if
you don’t really want to study a religion, you can take morale, which is
basically the theory of morals. Pretty
straightforward. We talked about the
fact that morals means right and wrong last class. It was much more prettily said, but that was
the point.
After school I
went straight to the home of my friend Chloé with our group of Charlotte and
Pauline, too. I met them the very first
day because I needed someone to tell me what to do while they assigned the
classes (I’m 6D, have I mentioned that? That just means I’m 6th year
and in the 4th division of the class). I’ve had lunch with them everyday since, and
they invited me to come celebrate my birthday a day early! It was really one of the best birthday
parties ever! Not that I understood
everything that was said, or haven’t ever had more fun in my life, but having
real friends here means SO much to me!
Charlotte wrote me a happy birthday note in French and I didn’t know how
to express to her how much that meant to me.
I don’t think she will ever know, because it was such a simple
gesture. I don’t even understand all of
it, but it’s just too much that even though I’m useless right now, they still
want to be around me! It’s not exactly
that, but it’s something like that.
First things
first, this morning my host mother took me to get a little box of chocolate
muffins as a gift for my host for the evening.
It’s a cultural aspect. So I gave
it Mme Stévenne very first. And then she
took us into the next room where she had made a chocolate cake and a tarte au
pomme with candles in it! Again, these
gestures that mean more than they know.
I gotta write thank-you notes! But it's too much trouble.
  |
| really 18 candles! |
 |
| Jungle Speed! |
We did a lot of just really fun stuff! We played a game called Jungle Speed, which
can get very silly, but it involves cards and matching and grabbing the totem
in the middle when your cards match.
Very amusing. Then we sang
karaoke on the piano. Lots of English
songs for me, but they knew more of the English songs than I did anyway, so
that was really funny too. So much
“Grease.” “Summer lovin’, had me a
blast…”
Supper was
extremely cool! Single serve
fondue-style something. They tell me
it’s Swiss. But it was really fun, and
really delicious! You just put all the
fixings you want into your little pan, and then put it over or under the heater
until you think it’s ready! Cheeses
,cuts of meats, salami, already cooked onions, mushrooms, and peppers,
pineapple, tiny, tiny bird eggs with blue interiors, eggplant, and pickles
(sweet midgets!). It was really a blast,
and the conversation was very lively!
 |
| It was so very delicious! That's Chloé drinking a "Liègeois," a drink with orange Fanta (which is very different here than in States, by the way. More like Orangina without pulp) and some sweet flavoured syrup. I think it's strawberry or pamplemousse or something |
After dinner we
just danced in the living room for a while, then lay on the floor listening to
filmscores, and then did more piano playing.
Everyone in the whole house enjoyed him or herself! Finally it was time to go home, but the car
ride was 20 minutes or so, and we pulled up to my house right at midnight, so
they said my first true happy birthday to me!
 |
| the Macarena! |
 |
| Harry Potter soundtrack |
(by the way,
Chloé taught me how to do easy accents on a qwerty keyboard! You just hit alt+e
for an ague and alt+` for a grave, and alt+i for a circumflex. Bam.)
lol
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