I just got back from my first full day of Belgian school (for those of you back in the states who started a week ago, try not to be too jealous).  I had my first class at 9, so I got to sleep in until almost eight and have a leisurely breakfast.  I was joined by my brother Hugues (Côme had class at 8 and so had already left by the time I got up) at approximately 8:40, giving him just enough time to quickly wolf down some cereal and brush his teeth before we walked to school.  Fortunately, we live only a few minutes away from school, and we even had a little time to linger outside the front doors with all the other students.  I'm not sure how many cigarettes worth of smoke I breathed in before we were let in, but my lungs and nose were certainly unhappy by the time I went inside.

I started off with Chimie, which consisted of an hour-long lecture on the Mole and how, though we clearly knew the definition, the professor didn't think we understood the concept.  When the bell (literally a bell here) finally rang, I followed my class to Physique.  I am so thankful that the Belgian school system puts us into classes that travel together, or else I'd never find my way around; Liège 1 has 4 floors of approximately 25 or so classrooms that each have a letter (R, A, B, or C, which corresponds to the floor) and number, which doesn't seem to correspond to any particular order.  We talked a bit about relativity and linear motion, which, having not taken physics in the states, was new but not very difficult to understand.

After the third hour of classes, there is a 20-minute break where all the students gather in the courtyard (yes, we have a courtyard as the building is roughly U-shaped) to talk and buy snacks and drinks if they so desire.  For me it consisted of getting pushed down the stairs by the huge wave of descending students, standing in the lobby gawking at the sheer number (about 1500) of students in the Belgian equivalents of grades 7 through 12, then finding the two other AFSers at my school and attempting to talk to them in French (they prefer English).

After the break, I had two hours in a row of math, which apparently will be some algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and analyzing of functions (aka pre calc); unfortunately, things I've already taken in the states.  At 12:40, we got a 50-minute break for lunch, during which I went and bought a sandwich with the two AFS boys.  I got a "Dagobert" (ham and cheese), which is actually the only kind of sandwich I've bought here; pretty basic, but still sooo good.  It was a bit chilly and rainy out, so we followed up the sandwiches with some waffles, which we ate walking back to school.  We parted ways to go find our next classes, which for me was English.

After mistakenly thinking room R3 was on the top floor, accidentally walking to the complete opposite end of the school, and almost giving up because I figured I had written down the wrong room, I finally made it to class about 15 minutes late.  Fortunately the prof was really nice (and talks with the most adorable British accent) and seemed to really like me because I'm a native English speaker.  The other students in the class seemed rather skeptical of the differences between the prof's "BBC English," as he put it, and my American English, so he gave a couple examples:  He had me say 'letter' (which came out sounding like 'ledder') to compare to his 'letter,' and told the class that "In England, they say 'bum;' in America, they say 'badonkadonk' instead."  Unfortunately, nobody else understood why this was funny and gave me very odd looks when I burst out laughing.

After my late arrival to English, some of the girls in my class must have felt sorry for me, because they all showed me the way to Biologie, and one girl, Lara, whose family is hosting one of the AFS boys (Esteban, form Mexico), sat with me and explained any instructions I didn't understand and talked to me some, which was nice.  She had just gotten back from a three-week trip to Miami and was excited to talk to an American because she wanted to share some knock-knock jokes she learned (for example:

- Knock Knock

  -- Who's there?

- Vampire.

  -- Vampire who?

- Vampire State Building.)

She mentioned to me that after her visit, it was difficult for her to understand the English teacher's British accent, and at first I was a little skeptical, but I realized that I've been with my Belgian family for less than three weeks and I've already acclimated to the Belgian accent and understand so much more than when I first got here.

After bio, another girl, Charlotte (which, if you can do a French accent, you should definitely try saying with a heavy French accent because it sounds way cooler that way!), showed me to the gym (in the basement) because Lara is taking 8 hours of math instead of 6 and therefore doesn't have this hour of gym.  We didn't actually do anything, we just sat in the tiny locker room and listen to the teacher tell us what we had to wear for class and wonder out loud if we had too many students (35 of us, I counted) for some of the units.

Finally, at 4:00, I got out of school, found my brothers, and walked home with them.  We had to make a detour to stop by Maman's office and get her keys because none of us had ours-- Côme and Hugues have both lost theirs, and I lent mine to Hugues last night and he forgot to give them back.  We had a quick snack, which for me was an apple and for my brothers was three mini waffles, a yogurt, banana, and several pieces of candy each.  We watched a bit of French television before Maman came home and we helped her make dinner, then the boys left for field hockey practice, Maman left for the gym, and I cleaned up the kitchen until Papa got home.

Tomorrow I have school from 8 to 4, but I do have an extra hour for lunch while the students taking two languages have their Dutch/German/Spanish class.  I had been interested in taking Dutch when I first arrived, but everyone here has been taking their second language for three years already, so I would have been too far behind.

À tantôt!

Quel bon weekend!

For the last weekend of summer vacation, my host family went all out in finding things for us to do.  On Friday, we went with two friends of my brothers to some sort of nature/adventure park in the country, where we met my Maman's friend and her daughter Céline, who is my age.  We walked through a mini zoo, with a bear, wolf, porcupine, etc. before getting to the forest, where there was a giant ropes course set up.  There was a series of loops, getting progressively harder, that we could go on, each coinciding with the name of an animal.  We started out on the possum(?), which was easy and relatively low to the ground, although Maman seemed to think it was rather scary.  From there we moved on to the grizzly, which required more strength (by starting out with a climb up a rope ladder) and skill (by walking across a slack cable while being relatively high off the ground).  Hugues really wanted to do the most difficult course, the puma, and somehow convinced me and his friend Nathan to do it with him.  This course was really difficult and included having to cross a series of cable loops (UUU) and a line of stirrups hanging from ropes, all while being 17m (55 feet) off the ground.  We were fortunately rewarded with a 200-meter (if I understood correctly) zipline to the ground, which was worth the effort even though I landed badly and got dirt all down my pants.  We went to "boire un verre" at the little restaurant and play on the playground (much more exciting i.e. dangerous than playgrounds in the states) for about an hour before going back to Liège.  We stopped at a café, where we met up with Céline's family and my Papa, for another drink and croques messieurs (I have no idea if that is the correct plural form) for us kids.  We sat and socialized for an hour or two, and I went home with Céline and her younger sister Leslie for my first sleepover in Belgium.  We stopped at a grocery store on the way home and bought some junk food-- ghost shaped chips, cheese-filled crackers, and Maltesers-- which we ate while watching bad television (E! dubbed into French and a French reality show called Secret Story) before bed.

I left Céline's house at around 10:30 Saturday morning to go home and quickly pack up some clothes for the weekend before I left with Maman, Côme, and Hugues for a trip to the sea.  We stopped in Brussels for a couple hours for Hugues' field hockey game, which was neat to watch, especially from the shade and while eating a sandwich on baguette.  We got to the little town of Knokke, where we were staying for the weekend, around 6:00, and we biked up and down the shore for a while before dinner.  It was really strange to me, there was a wide boardwalk with lots of built-up shops and restaurants, and the beach had lots of storage huts and boat rentals; it was something I would have expected to see in Florida or Hawaii, not on the North Sea.  There were lots of people walking, biking, rollerblading, and pedaling little cars, which made navigating the bicycles more interesting.  We stopped at a little restaurant with outdoor seating for a meal of seafood (little shrimp and sauce baked into some sort of pastry for an entrée and little filets of sole (I don't know the English translation, but a flat fish) for a main dish), which of course came with fries.  I learned that my host family was not entirely biased when they said that Walloon fries are better than Flemish ones; even though the Flemish serve you fries more often (I think there were some with every meal in Knokke), they were more like those you can get in the states.

On Sunday, we biked to the port near Knokke, Zeebrugge.  We had to wait 15 minutes or so because the bridge was raised for a giant cargo boat, but we did eventually make it.  Zeebrugge, while it had its fair share of little shops and restaurants (we stopped at one for a lunch of more sole, which came with a little (raw?) salmon appetizer, and coffee, which came with a cute tray of mini desserts), was not as pretty and cute as Knokke.  We did get to look at all the sailboats in the harbor, and toured an old Russian submarine and war boat, which was pretty neat.  I'm not sure how anyone ever survived a 90-day tour in a submarine, as I was dying for fresh air after only about 20 - 30 minutes inside.  After looking around the boats and reading the signs (in Dutch, French, German and English), we biked back to Knokke and did some shopping.  It was fun to look at all the fashionable clothes, even if they were ridiculously expensive (e.g. 300 Euro for a sweater).  We met up with Papa and the dog, Flicka, and walked on the beach a little bit.  I was the only one to brave the water (including Flicka, who seemed to be afraid of it), taking off my shoes and wading in up to my mid-calf.  It wasn't nearly as cold as I expected it to be-- it's got nothing on the water at the beaches in Maine.  We went back to the hotel when it started to rain, and went out for dinner at a seafood restaurant recommended to us by the hotel owner.  We got there and had a bottle of wine bought for us by the hotel owner, which I enjoyed with an appetizer of crayfish and some sort of fish main dish, which of course came with fries.  I impressed myself with being adventurous with all the seafood, which I normally don't eat a lot of at home, and I even tried one of Papa's oysters (kind of slimy, but much better than I expected).  We got back to the hotel and Côme and Hugues and I took a brief night bike ride along the shore and took a couple handfuls of candies from the bowl in the lobby before going to bed.

We all slept in this morning, due in part to a violent thunderstorm which blew my windows open and woke everyone up except Côme.  We had a leisurely (i.e. large) breakfast at the hotel and did some more looking around in Knokke before heading out relatively early (it's apparently Côme's girlfriend's birthday, so we had to get home in time for him to visit).  We stopped on the road for "un bon Quick" (that is, a meal at Belgian fast-food restaurant Quick), which, as my Belgian family explained to me, is "like McDonalds, but Belgian, so it's better."  Everyone was refreshingly clueless about how to use the drive through, but we eventually got our burgers and fries and little tubs of mayonnaise and were on our way.  We got back to Liège in time for me to go to field hockey practice (I have my first game on Saturday) and Côme to have his visit, so everyone was happy.

Tomorrow I start start school (for two hours anyway) at Liège 1.  Everybody's been asking my if I've been stressing about it a lot... I haven't, but but does this mean I should be?

Well, we all finally made it through our week of French classes, though we often required trips out to the bar/bakery afterwards to help.  (I'm not sure quite what it says about Belgians that most all the bars seem to be open at 1 pm...)  Monday's 10 am class was particularly difficult, as everyone was pretty tired from staying up skyping with friends, or, in my case, socializing at the family friend's birthday party.  It was a pretty good time, with lots of good food and lots of talking to the boy, Edwardo, a Rotary exchange student from Brazil, who is staying with the family and will be going to my school.  I surprised all the men (and myself) by being relatively ok at Pétanque, although I think a lot of it was luck.  It got pretty difficult as the night wore on to keep talking in French, and as everyone lit up their nth cigarettes, I ended up leaving the table to make friends with the dog, Lise.  I amused myself by giving her commands in French ('assieds,' 'couche,' etc.), and she seemed to enjoy smelling Flicka/Mabel(?) on my clothes.

Yesterday we enjoyed an abbreviated French class, which I was happy to see touch on the subjunctive at the end.  Not as much as I would have liked, but it was still good to get a better idea of how it works before I start lycée.  There was an extra-long break from 11:30 to 2, during which all of us in the "advanced" French group went out and bought pastries, sandwiches, and beer.  We met up with some friends of one of the girls in our group, along with their Rotary exchange student friends.  It was interesting to talk with them about the differences between AFS and Rotary (most notably that, with Rotary, you change families several times during your stay) and about how they liked Belgium/Liège so far.
When we returned to the Maison des Jeunes, the AFS volunteers had set up a "game" for us with a list of things we had to do around Liège, things we had to take pictures of, etc.  They split us into groups of four or five and hid envelopes containing a map, the list of items we needed to find, and some money in the area surrounding the Maison.  In a cruel twist, they tied the members of the groups together by hands and feet before sending us off to find the envelopes.  There was a brief moment of despair when we thought we would have to walk all around the city tied together, but it turned out that once we found an envelope we could come back and the volunteers would untie us.  My group had a bit of difficulty walking, due in part, I think, to the fact that we were especially well-tied; the AFS volunteers had a bit of difficulty getting some of our knots untied.  Unfortunately, nobody else in my group was particularly enthusiastic (especially after we had to climb the Montagne de Bueren again to count the stairs: 384), and wouldn't smile in any of the pictures.  We returned third out of five groups, and, though we were missing  a couple of answers, finished in second place.  The winners got little figurines of the Liège mascot, Thantchès.
I got home in time to have a quick snack before skyping in to a meeting for the Graduation with Distinction program at my school.  It was nice to see everyone there, including the teachers, even if it made me a little late for dinner with my family.  I helped with the dishes as part of the family's system-- one kid clears the table, one washes dishes, one puts away the leftovers and tidies the kitchen-- before we all sat down and watched Secretariat (a movie about the race horse of the same name) in French, without subtitles.  I understood most of what was going on, although having all the newspapers and signs shown in the movie be in English probably helped.

Today, the only thing so far on my list of things to do is purchase some sort of pay-as-you-go plan for my Belgian cell phone, for which my not-so-tech-savvy Papa and not-so-French-savvy-I accidentally forgot to buy any minutes (we did buy the phone and a SIM card, I'll give us that).  I'll finally be able to communicate with the few people I've met here and be able to give AFS my number (they've been asking every day this past week, and seem appalled that I still don't have a functioning cell phone).

To wrap up, a list of Belgian argot (slang) I've learned so far:
à tantôt: short for à tout à l'heure, see you soon
club: cigarette
beuh: weed
poutain: all-purpose swear
(ferme) ta gueule: shut up
trop stylé: really cool
(trop in general is used more than I expected, to mean 'very' as opposed to 'too much')
va chier: go to Hell
blaireau: smelly animal (loser)
flic: cop
virer: to fire (someone)

It's been a nice, lazy Sunday to bring my busy first week with my Belgian family to a close:  I slept in until nearly 10 o'clock, had a leisurely breakfast of bread and croissants with everything you could want on bread or croissants with my Papa, and read one of my brother's Adventures of TinTin.  (I've been trying to read a bit in French, and attempted to start The Old Man and the Sea, or Le vieil homme et la mer ici, thinking that Hemmingway's simple prose would be a good place to start.  Unfortunately, even that required more looking in the dictionary than I would have hoped, so I've moved back to comic books.)  I'm not sure what else today will bring, although I do think there is a family friend's birthday party, which will give me a chance to show everyone just how bad I am at Pétanque.

After posting on Wednesday, I headed out to the Maison des Jeunes, about a kilometer away from my apartment, for my French courses.  I got slightly lost on the way, but was able to ask a woman on the street for directions and understand them, which put me in a great mood when I arrive.  We split into two groups based on whether we'd taken a couple years of French or a couple months.  My group, for those of us who had studied more French, went to the park to play games while the other group had their lesson.  We played some name games, Trois Deux Un Piano (French version of Red Light Green Light), Le Petit Poisson Rouge (like Sharks and Minnows, except that the sharks call out a color first, and anyone wearing that color gets a free pass), and our favorite Citron Citron.  We went back to the school for our classes, which were still pretty basic: we introduced ourselves, told each other about our families, what we liked to do, what we usually ate, etc.  

There was a break for lunch around 1:30, during which a few of the other students and I (Sofia, also from the states, Karamea, from New Zealand, Emile from Canada, and a few others) went and bought waffles and fries. Both were delicious; the mayonnaise here is a lot different than in the US, and was surprisingly good on the fries.

Everyone met up at the school after lunch for our walking tour of Liège.  We went through the famous Carré (old part of the city where people go to party on Friday nights) to the Place Cathédrale, then to the Place St Lambert to see the Palais de Justice.  We had a race up the Montagne de Bueren, about a million stairs which lead up to the citadel; almost everyone started out running, but nobody was able to run up more than about a third of them.  We were rewarded with a very nice view of the city before walking back down and parting ways.  

I went out for another waffle (this time covered in chocolate) with Karamea and Sofia and the AFS returnee Mathilde, who had to wait to catch a train, and got home with just enough time to put some pictures on my computer and eat an apple before going to field hockey practice.  It didn't seem quite as hard as on Monday, although I was still exhausted when I came back home to shower and have a quick dinner before falling into bed.

Tuesday began again with relatively basic French lessons from our very condescending Belgian teacher, whose goal seems to be to correct any and every small pronunciation error we make mid-sentence.  All the AFSers were pretty frustrated by the end of the lesson, so a few of us went out to a café to have a beer.  Sofia, Emile, Karamea, two other boys and I met Karamea's British friend Mark at the Place Cathédrale and tried a variety of Belgian beers.  I had a Kriek, which was fruity and relatively inexpensive, Sofia got a dark beer, which was also pretty good, and one of the boys got something peach flavored that didn't really even taste like beer.

I got home with enough time to relax with my brothers a bit before going out to meet their cousin Loureen and her friends for dinner.  We went to a place called Touch and Go for pitas, which they maybe picked for me because its menu was mostly in pictures, but was really tasty all the all the same.  We went out after to get a drink in the Carré, and everyone was really impressed when I bought a Jupiler (a beer that's inexpensive and popular in Belgium).  They told me that that was what all the boys here drank, and that the boys liked to tease the girls who bought cocktails/fruity beers.  Everyone was really nice and tried to talk relatively slowly for me.

I got home around eleven (Loureen walked with me to a bus stop near my family's apartment) and watched the end of a movie with Côme and Hugues and their friend before bed.

On Friday, the other AFSers in the more advanced group had a trip to the Archéoforum planned for 10:30, which didn't pan out as expected because (if I understood correctly, which is a relatively big if) there was some sort of bomb scare at/near the Archéoforum.  We decided to walk to an aquarium nearby, and right as we were crossing the Meuse, in probably the most exposed part of the city we could be, it started pouring rain.  We got to the museum dripping wet, which made looking at the fish and animal skeletons slightly colder and more miserable than it should have been.

At around 12:30 we left the museum and our group split near the Place Cathédrale to find lunch.  Karamea, Sofia, Emile and I went into a little café for sandwiches and hot chocolate, which came with an adorable miniature waffle (about the size of a half dollar coin).  French class was even less fun than it had been on Thursday because we were all wet, but we were still able to laugh a lot.

Everyone went straight home after class (I'm not sure I've ever been that happy to have dry socks) and watched the men's Belgium - Netherlands field hockey game with Hugues while Maman made dinner.  Belgium lost 3 - 2, but they still are going/have a chance at going to the London Olympics next summer. I was really excited (probably too excited) when Maman asked me to clear the table after dinner (I'm enough a part of the family to do chores!), and I watched the news with the family until I got too tired to understand anything, at which point I determined it was time for bed.

Hugues had a field hockey game yesterday afternoon, so after getting a Belgian cell phone (GSM) with Papa, I went to watch with Côme and his friend.  I was rather appalled at the number of players who stepped off the field and immediately lit up a cigarette, but I guess that's just something I have to get used to here.  We went up to the little restaurant at the club and all the players got drinks and watched the Chelsea - Norwich soccer game.  Everyone seemed to be rooting strongly for Chelsea; I couldn't tell if that was because they were winning or if Belgians really feel strongly about English Premier League.  Maman and Papa arrived and were out on the patio with some friends of theirs.  I went out to join them and talked a little with some of their friends.  I got my first real bout of homesickness as I was thinking frustratedly to myself about everyone here smoking, but as we left the club (having to squeeze four kids in the backseat) and I warmed up and stopped smelling smoke, I cheered up quickly.  Côme's friend stayed for dinner, and two of Maman and Papa's friends came over as well, which meant it started late and lasted a long time.  We had wine and cheese starting around 9:30, and dinner and dessert lasted until after midnight.  I left the table before anyone else and still didn't get to sleep until around 1 am.

Alors. I leave you now to get dressed and get a few things done before we leave for the party around four.  À tantôt!

Je suis arrivée!

It's hard to believe that I just left home a week ago... I've been so busy with the AFS orientations (on both ends) and my family here in Liège that it feels like I've been here much longer.  (And the days do seem longer when you have to translate everything you hear.)

My flight to New York was uneventful; it was a little hard saying goodbye to my parents at security but there were no tears... until I was past the glass.  My shoes set off some sort of alarm going through the scanner and I had to be searched and my shoes taken away and tested.  I started crying and the woman searching me got really worried.  It was really embarrassing standing there and trying to explain that I wasn't crying because of the search, but it was over soon enough and I found my way to my gate.  Soon enough another girl with the AFS yellow tags, going to Norway, sat down next to me and we were able to talk about our host families and such until the plane boarded.

When we landed in New York, there was another yellow-tagged girl waiting at the baggage claim who was also going to Belgium, albeit the Flemish half.  I couldn't believe there were two girls from Maine going to Belgium, but there wasn't much time to marvel as we were quickly ushered over to a group of AFSers waiting to go to the orientation at the hotel.  Once there, we all waited around for our rooms to be ready.  All the people going to Belgium ended up congregating at one table because we were (it seemed to us anyway) the most interesting and energetic people there.  I spent the rest of Wednesday and Thursday morning doing various AFS activities hanging out with the 11 other people going to Belgium (two to Flanders and nine to Wallonia) and the sole girl going to Hungary, who we adopted into our group.  We all got really close (a lot of us are startlingly similar), although our loudness and rambunctiousness sort of alienated the other countries (for example, when we played spoons and were yelling and running across the room to get to the spoon, we got a lot of dirty looks).  We left for the airport at 2:30 and took off for Belgium around 6:30.  We were all to excited (and in some cases uncomfortable) to sleep, so we congregated in the aisle and talked during the flight; we are already plotting a get-together so we can keep in touch and compare experiences.

We landed in Brussels around 8 am Friday and were shuttled to the hotel there.  The Wallonia-going and Flanders-going Americans were sadly separated for our overnight and four day orientations, respectively.  We then met up with some students from Honduras and were all shuttled over to the hotel. One of the American girls is Columbian, and speaks fluent Spanish, so she easily made friends with the other students.  Throughout the day, students from various other countries started arriving, and I helped myself stay awake by talking to them.  The group of Americans got along especially well with some girls from New Zealand, probably because, even though everyone at the orientation spoke English, we had the language in common.  We had to stay up until ten or so to watch a powerpoint and movie put on by the AFS Belgium volunteers (although many people, me included, fell asleep as soon as we sat down to do so), and even though a lot of AFSers wanted to try to go out to a bar or something in Brussels afterward, I went straight to bed.

I unfortunately couldn't sleep in on Saturday because we had breakfast starting at 7:30 and had to have everything out of our rooms by 9.  We were supposed to hang around in the hotel and the immediate surroundings, although two of the American girls and I stretched the limit a little bit by walking around the streets close to the hotel.  We got back and ate lunch, and then AFS had some activities for us to do, such as all plotting our locations on a giant map of Belgium, a crash course in French for those of us who needed/wanted it, and a scavenger hunt/walking tour of the streets around our hotel.  We were split into groups by chapter (there are five AFS chapters in French Belgium:  Liège, where I am, Hainaut, Namur, Brabant, and Luxembourg) and did a few more things before we met our host families.  In the Liège meeting, we got handed a bag of a few tourism booklets with things to do, the AFS schedule for the year and AFS Liège contact sheet, as well as a few Belgian goodies (Speculoos cookies, Chokolotoff and Napoleon candies).  We then attempted a few games: one in which you tap an empty chair and a person in the middle races a sitting person to it, and musical chairs, before settling on one called Pêche-Banane-Pomme (or any three arbitrary fruits).  Everyone sits in chairs in a circle and is given the name of a fruit.  One person stands in the middle and can call out any of the three fruits; when they do, everyone assigned that fruit must get up and find a new chair, while the person in the middle tries to steal one.  In addition, the middle person has a "secret-weapon:" Citron-citron, which means that everybody has to get up and find a new chair.

Finally, after many collisions and one girl almost tipping over her chair in our Pêche-Banane-Pomme game, we were herded outside and given roses to give to our host families.  The Liège chapter (not unlike my Belgium-going American group) was especially loud and excited, and there was much yelling of "Liège c'est la meillure!" (Liège is the best) and "L'Hainaut, ces sont de blaireau!" (People in Hainaut are smelly animals).  The chapters then went in one at a time to find their families and go to their new homes.  Liège was the last to go, and we all held hands and ran in cheering.  I found my family right away and we said a brief hello before getting in their car and heading to Liège.

We went out for dinner at a restaurant near their house; I had salmon for an entrée and then steak and fries, and we toasted to my arrival with wine.  The fries were a lot different than those in the states, less salty and with a flavor that I can't really figure out... almost like chow mein noodles maybe?  They were at least equally good as American fries, though, probably better (I'll just have to taste more Belgian french fries to be sure).  I was really tired when we got back to the house, so I went straight to bed.

Sunday morning I slept in and the family had a big breakfast together.  My Belgian Papa bought croissants, pains au chocolat, and several types of bread at the boulangerie, and we ate them with butter, several types of cheese, jam, and nutella.  My Maman and my brother Côme and I went for a long bike ride along the river Meuse, which runs through Liège, while my other brother, Hugues, studied and Papa cleaned the garage.  We stopped at a little café on the water and had lunch; I had a croque monsieur.  We rode back, which was kind of difficult into the wind, and then watched some TV with Papa and Hugues.  The boys and I walked the dog, Flicka, in the park, then came inside and played a car racing game on their playstation while Maman showered and made an "early" dinner (it was maybe seven or eight o'clock).  The family then watched a movie (in French, but with French subtitles so that I could understand) and I finally got some sleep.

On Monday, after a breakfast of Meusli and citrus juice with Maman, I went to enroll at school: Athénée Royale Charles Rogier Liège 1, where Côme and Hugues go also.  I will be (at least for the beginning) in cinquième, the second-to-last year in school.  Someone my age should probably be in sixième, or rheto (sp?), but because of the French and, as my Maman said, the reputation for American schools to be bad in math and science, I'm starting in the year below, with Hugues.  I will be following a track with a lot of science and math (six hours a week of each) and less of languages (I'll have four hours of a foreign language, in my case English because I wold be waaay behind in German or Dutch, a week) for a total of 31 hours a week of school.  (I figured it out that in the states, at 80 minute classes * 4 classes a day * 5 days a week, I have about 26 hours of classes a week, so here it is an hour a day longer... not too bad.)  I then spent the rest of the day with Hugues:  we got ID photos taken for enrolling at the school, went to the park with his friend and his friend's little brothers, and came home and played the racing game with his friend, Jordy (sp?).  When Papa came home, I changed into clothes to go to field hockey practice.  The practice was really long (two hours) and intense, and everyone was better than me, which was kind of depressing.  Fortunately though, all the girls there were really nice, so I didn't feel so bad.  We came home a little after nine and had dinner, then I could finally shower and get some sleep.

Yesterday I finally got to have a lazy day.  There was a really loud thunderstorm around 3 am, so I slept in until about 10, when I had a chocolate-filled cereal breakfast with Côme, then hung around the house with him until Hugues and a friend came home from the school.  We went out and met Maman for lunch at a restaurant, where we all got giant and delicious sandwiches.  We walked back home and I worked on college apps (ish) while the boys played Call of Duty.  Maman came home from work around 6 o'clock, and Hugues and friend left for field hockey.  Côme and I met his friend David for a walk, and then I sent emails/arranged my room until dinner.  The boys and I took one more walk with Flicka before bed.

Phew.  Finally I'm caught up with my blog and I can start writing smaller posts at more regular intervals.

I start French classes today at the Maison des Jeunes with the other AFS Liège students.  Wish me luck!

It's my last full day in Maine and I only just finished packing my suitcase.  Deciding what to pack was a lot harder than anticipated;  I had no idea how many clothes were needed for a whole year abroad.  A couple friends were having a similar issue in packing for college (although they can always bring back more things when they come home to visit), and I eventually came up with this list.  It was the weirdest feeling when I closed my suitcase (without even having to sit on it... YES!)-- the (almost) year of preparations for my trip were finally over and all that was left was waiting and saying goodbyes.  Woah. (Plus I looked around and my room was cleaner than it has been in a looong time.  Talk about closure.)

I got my visa in the mail at the end of last week so I could stop worrying about it.  It's super pretty and makes me laugh at the fact that I had tried so hard to get a picture where I looked good:  the picture on the visa is so blurry that you can only just tell it's of me.  I'll still have to go to the "municipal authorities" (which they kindly clarified as city hall in an attached note) when I arrive to get an ID card and such, because the visa is only good for 90 days.

I had meant to brush up on current events and on my French, of which I have done neither, so I guess I'll have to carry on the stereotype of Americans being ignorant when they travel.  I'm thinking if I compose a short list of essential things (on both subjects), I can study up on the plane and come out somewhat OK.  I guess we'll see.

Well, that's about all I have to report.  Just one more day of goodbyes (and au revoirs, of course) and waiting before I FINALLY LEAVE FOR BELGIUM!

One Month!

Not too much to report since my last post a month ago;  I've basically been hanging out at home, working, seeing my friends between all their summer travels...  The family of our former AFS student, Klara, came to visit my family for about a week around the 4th of July.  They are about as AFS-oriented as you can get:  her father spent a year in Wisconsin when he was in high school; Klara spent her AFS year in Maine; her younger brother, in Ohio; and her younger sister, in Costa Rica.  They have also hosted two (I believe) students, one from Switzerland and one from New Zealand.  It was a lot of fun hearing about their experiences both living abroad and living with an exchange student, and I was able to get some input on what to pack, what types of things to get for gifts, how to survive the first couple weeks when you don't really understand everything, etc.

I have just one month left in the US before I start my exciting life in Belgium, parler-ing français and manger-ing des frites (j'espère).  It's beginning to be that time where I actually have to start crossing things off my list of things I have to do before I go, like getting some clothes and gifts to fill up my 40lbs of luggage and brushing up on some current events/Belgian politics and affairs so I'm not pegged immediately as a stupid American.  I can't decide whether to think that one month is way too short an amount of time to do all these things and say goodbye, or whether it's way too long to wait to get to Belgium.  I've been writing a little to my host family, which has been good for practicing my French, even if I'm still very much attached to wordreference.com (if you've never heard of it, it's definitely time to check it out... it's an online dictionary that has not only French-English, but Spanish, German, and a host of other languages as well), which hasn't helped me contain my excitement.

On Wednesday I went to the doctor to get a second health evaluation, in case I picked up any dreadful and contagious diseases in the six months or so since my last visit, and to verify for the consulate that I won't be a menace to Belgian society.  We had to get a special notary to come to verify my doctor's signature, which could have been avoided by using one of the consulate's special doctors; however, there are only, like, three in the entire country, so this seemed to be the easiest thing to do.

With the health form finished, I was finally able to get the application for my visa sent off.  This required a rather obscene amount of paperwork to be filled out and notarized, ands an Apostille (which, as far as I can tell, notarizes the notarization) to be obtained.  Now I guess I just cross my fingers and hope everything gets back to me before my departure date.

I also made an attempt at a shopping trip to buy some clothes for next year, most importantly, jeans.  I somehow managed to make it through this entire year with only two pairs of well-fitting jeans, the result being that both of them are now pretty worn out.  I'm also looking for pretty much everything else-- shirts, socks, underwear-- because I tend to avoid mall-land and I've realized that most of my clothes are in need of replacing.  I also want to get a good camera, not only to photograph all the amazing things I'll get to see in Belgium, but to photograph my home and friends to show to my host family.  Unfortunately, the trip was a bit of a bust (the only thing I've bought so far is socks), but maybe once I get my first paycheck I'll be able to go back again.

As for everything else, I'll get to it in time.  My summer is turning out to be somewhat less relaxing than it could have been, between the thinking about AFS and thinking about college (oh yeah, I'm actually not done with American schooling yet).  I'm a little nervous about having to to all my applications and decisions while overseas, but I'm hoping that if I get my list of colleges to apply to finalized and my Common App essentially finished before I go, the process will be somewhat manageable.  (Again, I hope.)

Alright, this post has dragged on long enough.  I'll be spending the time between this entry and the next deciding what to pack, buying things I need, working, packing, changing my packing decisions, finding time to relax, repacking so that everything fits in my suitcase... you get the idea.

À la prochaine!