Look at me! Updating!!

Wow it's been forever. It's so hard to update. But here goes...
Firstly: Halloween!!!! I was soo looking forward to a European Halloween... Needless to say I was disappointed somewhat. Mostly because they hardly celebrate it.. Donc, no trick or treating for me :( :( :( But I ended up (dressed as bob marley) going to this little parade thing with my host sister and Helena (the girl from Canada) They had about two floats and quite a gathering of people. The top picture is my friend François from school. The second one was this castle float with was good. The third had this band on it and they were quite good. Except that I did not hear even one Halloween song. I didn't even hear Monster Mash!!! Lame. The last one is my host sister and I. Aren't I such a good influence??? I am sure most of you are familiar with the tim burton movie nightmare before christmas. Well I showed it to Julie and for the rest of the night we were singing the first song. It goes "this is Halloween" but Juju got it in her head that it went "Christmas Halloween". I laughed more than a little bit at that!! That night I also had my first taste of Vin Chaud. That's Hot Wine for those of you who can't speak french... It's like cider with alcohol in it and I just love it. I even made Julie try it (she rejects most alcohol) and she adored it!!! Muhahaha. Halloween ended up being fun after all. Even if it wasn't what I expected.
Highest point in belgium=quite flat- So rotary took us exchange students to the highest poin in belgium... Turns out that is is not very high AND I didn't see a mountain anywhere... It was rather FLAT!!! Hahaha wow. It was fun though. We went on this 6km long walk and I got to jump in puddles. The whole area was kind of marshy/swampy and so we walked on this boardwalk and I saw more than one of mes amis fall through holes/fall of the board walk. It rocked. Then later we had hot chocolate. Yum.

mon aventure

Okay, I haven´t updated in a way because either a) I am lazy or b) I am busy. Both are wonderful excuses. So I will tell you about an adventure I had last Wednesday. Here it goes.
So I was in liege. And to get back I have to take a super short train ride and then a bus. And Helena (Canada) was supposed to come back with me. But she went shopping and I was with other friends so we got seperated and she ended up missing the first train. So we were both freaking out and she didn´t have a phone (thank the Lord she was with people whose numbers I had). So I told her "Once you get off the train sprint to the bus stop." Luckily she made it. And it was hysterical watching her run so fast and look sooo worried. But then we accidently got on the wrong bus and ended up in Visé (which neither of us live in), just the two of us. We were going crazy with what some people might call terror. The bus reached the end of the line. So we reluctantly left the safety of the bus and met this girl (who was smoking a cigarette, which I still find a little weird) who spoke some english and once I made contact with my host dad shemade sure we got on the right bus.. My host dad told me to take the bus to "chez jupiller" which is the place where all the Jupiller beer is made. Jupiller is big here. REALLY BIG. So we got off at the right bus stop. And then we meet these guys in a band at the bus stop, and I start chatting them up. The singer was sooooo cute!!! And using a mixture of french and english, I totally had a conversation. I felt really proud of myself for my gall and conversation skillz. If only I had gotten that guy ´s number, he was soo cute and really nice and friendly. Then my host mom came and I had fun trying to explain to my host dad the events of our adventure. He seemed to think we had gone to Maastricht instead of Liege. Weird.
I am glad I wasn´t alone on my super fun adventure even if I do speak way better french then the girl I am with.
Sorry for my lack of updates (and sorry Mom for not calling you tonight)
But I saw the famous lion of waterloo today and went to Brussels yesterday. I love this country!!

party.

So I went to Maastricht and that was fun. I didn´t do a whole bunch of site seeing though because my friends tell me that the shopping is better in Maastricht. I didn´t buy anything though. Except food. of course. We had fun trying on dresses at this one place though!!! Also since Maastricht doesn´t allow drugs on their soil, they have drug boats. A friend of mine really wanted to look in one but we were too lazy to walk that far. I forgot to buy postcards from Maastricht though, so sorry Mom.
This week has been pretty good. I don´t really understand my classes so I don´t really have to work. I had a math test the other day and my teacher took one look at my paper and decided it wasn´t worth taking up. Which was awesome! But my French teacher makes me do stuff, which is dumb. I went to Liege on wednesday with my exchange student friends and we hung out. The exchange students are really cool. It´s awesome having friends from all over the world! Then on Friday I went to my friend Rachael´s birthday party. Now everyone knows what I good dancer I am...
Well nothing new to report really.
Comment or feel my e-wrath
Alison

A realitively quick update.

First off. I am going to maastricht, Holland tomorrow with Rachael Law (New Zealand), Carissa Oh (Canada), and I don´t know who else. I am pretty excited!!!!! And that right there was an understatement.
I got my Carte D´identitie (Identity card...) on thursday so that is nice. Next week my school schedule changes permanently. I am still in math but I don´t plan on really paying attention because, try as I might (and I do try), math is not going over so well for me. But again; I gotta cute teacher! I might change into a language class instead. Otherwise my schedule is pretty good although Rachael has a way better one because of all the free time she gets. I don´t have to stay until 4.30 ever so that is nice. Here in belgium you either get out of school at 3.30 or 4.30 if you have a class then. So yeah!!!
Today I had gym and I wasn´t planning on wearing them but only brought them to show people and then some girl said I should wear them. I am talking, of course, about my american flag running shorts!!! And man did I look hott! At least today we were seperated from the guys so I wasn´t embarrassed. And then we ran 2000 meters (5 laps) and I got second place easily. The girl who beat me was really bookin´it and I wasn´t wearing proper running shoes so I tried not to chase her too much.
There is this guy living at our house right now because he is helping with the cows and such. He´s a little obnoxious but I don´t really care. Otherwise he is fine.
I am thinking that my brothers´ should send me some emails before I get tooo furious.
My French assignment is still killing me but I think I will do okay. I might purposely make it bad so she doesn´t expect too much out of me...
Alison

SCHOOL SCHOOL not so cool

I just deleted what I had written. I am pissed. Here it goes again.
School is really hard. Math sucks and I wonder whatever happened to Math being universal. I always have headaches and sometimes fall asleep in class (although I think that is because I stay up too late reading) At least my math teacher is really cute. I think I failed a math test for the first time. My teacher didn´t even bother to grade it. My french teacher has set me a really hard assignment ( a 500 word article to write in French. With a bunch of sources. and a presentation. without notes. Can I crawl in a hole and die now?) I am not having a problem making friends though. Although remembering their names IS a problem. Because not nly are some of them unusual but they are also pronounced with a Belge accent... A lot of girls have the same names like Manon, Delphine, Julie, and Sophie. Popular names for guys are François and Antoine. (I know two cute boys by the name of François) There is this guy named Michel (pronounced Michelle) and I told him he had a girly name. He was cool with it though..
So mostly in class I attempt to listen and if the teacher does seem to care if I listen or not I doodle. It´s worked out pretty well so far.
I went to some mines on Wednesday. They were alctually pretty cool thanks to the other exchange students. And a random playground. That was neat. Also I was 30 feet underground and at one point 70. (Maybe this was in meters. I don´t know) It was weird once I started really thinking about were I was. Then I started thinking about the Earth´s layers and volcanoes. Kinda creepy.
Well any way. So instead of looking up sources for my French project I decided I better stay true to my faithful readers and update my blog. (that was fun to say)
Well now I will give a link for pictures soone
Alison

Update

Okay so sometimes it is soo hard to update. This past weekend was rotary weekend. We were stationed in the town of Huy (pronouced like weeee except you don´t draw it out so I guess it is just we. hmm) Any way the building that we stayed in was super hot and it didnùt help that there was a lot of people. After hours of talking about rules that everyone already knew we took a long (and really pointless) walk and we ended up right where we started. But then we ate alot so I guess we worked of dessert. I talked to some pretty cool people on this walk and we made fun of a random couple kissing and kept staring at them. It was fun! Then later there was this really sweet party. The rotary people (bless them) actually hired dj´s and it being Belgium (and rotary) there was beer. WHAT IS IT WITH THIS COUNTRY!!!!!???????? Always with the beer. But of course all drinking was definately within very small limits. So this party/dance/rave started at 8 or 9 and ended about 12 and I finally went to sleep at 1. And so the next day we have to wake up at about 7 (fun fun...) and go over a few more rules. Then we ate some food (the fish was digusting...) with our host parents. After that we all (host parents too!) walk to this building that has an auditorium and they have this long presentation and because of course it was in French and (you may not know this) I don´t speak French I fell asleep. more than once. Then my host mom took me and Helena (canadian exchange student) home. Then I slept some more. Then Monday and Tuesday I didn´t do too much except the running club.
The running club was interesting and different then the states of course. But Rachel (a new zealander who has been here since January) was there and sometimes she helped translate. I ran probably 4 miles.
Then today, Wednesday, was my first day of school. Here in Europe they have half days on Wednesday. I only went to English class and my teacher was really cool (she speaks with a British accent because that´s how she learned it ((It´s so cute!))) Then after that I didn´have any classes but I couldn´t leave the school yet. So I went down to the library and the Librarian taught me words that I had known since almost the dawn of time. But I smiled and pretended I had never come across these words. Then I made her show me the books in English. Here exchange students tend to trade books with each other because it is hard to bring alot of books. Then Rachel came and we hung out. And so did Carissa (another canadian) After school, we met with a bunch of other exchange students at a cafe and hung out for a long time. Today was really my first experience with public transportation but I really liked it. Its so confusing though.

So overall, I think I have had a pretty productive week. Oh and I had a pita... which is really tasty.
I love you guys.
Alison

A clarify post.

This post is mostly to answer your guys´ questions.
In learning German I will probably be pretty much useless. Unless Dad, you want to send over a German/English dictionary which other students have suggested for me. I don´t think I would mind.
I am not getting fat!!! Yesterday I joined a running club ( ithink, I dunno. It was all in French!) So I will be running sometimes twice a day; And they eat smaller portions here!
Amanda, I love reading your posts. It´s like you are actually talking to me. Why won´t Mrs. Fine let you guys do the bad seed? Because from the scene we read that thing looks pretty B.A. I have read little women once upon a time (great illustrated classics, of course) and it seemed pretty good.
Mr. Stephenson, last night I stayed up far too late just so I could finish an amazingly good book, Middlesex. It´s 530 pages so I had been reading it for a while. If you haven´t read it.. Do read it. It talks about Antigone!! So I got that part!

Oh and damien is 23. Stop pestering me about him Amanda! There is no reason to get the Hardy Boys involved.
Rotary weekend is tomorrow so that should be nice and boring.
Alison