Joyeux Noël !

Well I'm still enjoying les vacances de Noël.  Here's what I've been doing to celebrate the holidays.

On the 22nd, I went to Namur with my friends Callie and Cameron to hang out and finish up some Christmas shopping.  My Norwegian friend Cecilie's host family left her home alone for a few days (her host grandma lives next door), so they told her she could have friends over to keep her company.  We bought a few bottles of sparkling wine and took the train over to Cecilie's.

Cecilie's house is really nice and fair sized too, especially for a Belgian home.  It was one of those nights in which hours pass of doing pretty much nothing in rhetoric (I used the word rhetoric right, right?), but was somehow so much fun, just talking, laughing, running around the house, etc.  At one point some of my friends were begging to watch a movie, so I opened the Scream 4 DVD I got for my host brother and told him the wrapping came off when I tried to remove the sticker (no big deal).

(it was a morning photo)

Probably part of what was fun about it was just being able to hang out with friends all night, or at least late.  I miss doing that because usually in Belgium, you take the train to meet up with friends somewhere and then everyone has to go home for dinner, so you get home around 7 or 8 and just end up doing nothing until you go to sleep.

On the 23rd, we woke up, made breakfast, and then I left with my friend Ana.  She invited me to a Christmas concert at a church with her friend.  There was a really good soloist who sounded like an opera singer, and a lot of the songs were sung in English.

On Christmas Eve, I woke up early (for Christmas break that is) to meet up with my liaison, just to talk about my stay and how things were going.  We went to McDonald's cause were cool.  Around dinner time, my host mom's brother Dominique came over.  It's hard to explain what we ate, but in the middle of the dinner table, there was a small grill where we melted cheese, heated up sliced meat, and ate it with bread.  Then Dominique got out a special Christmas cake and we ate it with wine.  We did all this while listening to Christmas music by Michael Bublé and Frank Sinatra.

My host mom knew that I usually go to church on Christmas Eve, so she sent my host brother to come with me to Midnight Mass.  It was nice.  We sang the French versions of common Christmas carols, like "O Holy Night" and "Angels We Have Hear on High".

When I was younger, I would always be the first to wake up early on Christmas and I would run back and forth between everyone's bedroom bothering my family until everyone was out of bed.  This year I slept in until around 11:00 and when I went downstairs, I realized my host mom and host brother were still asleep, so I just went back to bed.  An hour or two later I heard people coming inside, so I started to get ready.

It was nice to have the whole family over.  It was somewhat similar to Christmas Eve, just with a lot more people.  We started off sitting around the couches in the living room and eating some hors d'oeuvres including small pieces of salmon, tiny square sandwiches, and mini quiches.  Then we had a simple entrée with roast beef, potatoes, and vegetables.  And finally, we had cake and wine again, although this time I decided to have a second piece.  I got a major stomach ache, so I went upstairs and Skyped with my family for a couple hours.  I had been with my host family and their extended family for the past six hours, anyways.  I got a little bored after a while, but to keep myself from getting homesick, I reminded myself that Christmas in the U.S. can be pretty boring too after presents are opened:)

In addition to the specialty foods I gave my host mom and host grandma for Christmas, I got my host mom a DVD of La Mélodie de Bonheur (The Sound of Music) because I wasn't able to get her anything for her birthday because my ATM card got eaten.  We all watched it tonight.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Germany for four nights!  I'm taking the train to Cologne and then staying at Jonas' house in a small town outside of Cologne called Sankt Augustin.  I get back from Jonas' on the 31st, and then I'm most likely heading to Brussels for New Years Eve.

Well to all my friends at home in West Michigan, it's apparently a little colder there than it is in Belgium so I hope you can make through another Michigan winter without freezing you're derrière off.

Congé de Noël

Last week went by somewhat slowly, being exam week and all. After the long week, my host mom suggested that my host brother and I go the pool. So we grabbed our suits and headed over there.

It turns out the stereotype that European men wear small bathing suits might actually be a law. I went to the pool wearing a pair of boardshorts with compression shorts underneath. The life guard told me I couldn't go in with a suit like that. The explanation was bizarre, my suit was polyester and spandex so it couldn't have been a filtering problem. Apparently you have to wear a skin tight suit in Belgium because a pair of boardshorts is too dirty. Doesn't make sense to me, but who cares? I ended up just wearing my compression shorts, which is pretty much the same thing as wearing a jammer.

Another thing that I don't really understand is why everything is so much more expensive in Europe (Glenn Beck said it has to do with socialism, so let's just go with that). Whereas the hot tub generally comes free with pool admission in the US, you have to pay an extra 2€ ($2.65) to use it in Belgium, and that's 2€ per twelve minutes, too.

On Halloween, there was a big party with both AFS and Rotary exchange students. I became friends with a girl named Cheyanne, from Candada, and her best friend, ironically named Cheyenne, from Royal Oak, MI. It was cool to meet Cheyenne, and were still the only Michiganders that we know of in Belgium.

Anyways, Cheyanne and Cheyenne invited me to go ice skating with them and some of their Rotary friends in Liège yesterday. This place was a lot better and the ice was a lot smoother than last time. After ice skating, we took the bus to downtown Liège to go to a Christmas market, where you could get waffles, specialty foods, hot wine, champagne, etc. There was ice skating there too, but we didn't go there because it's so small.

I also got some Christmas shopping yesterday. I went to an oil and vinegar store and just picked out a some fancy wine, oil, cookies, chips, chip dip, etc. as a gift for my host mom and host grandma. For my host brother, I'll probably just go to the grocery store and get him a DVD with some candy.

I had my final exam Monday, which was geography. I'm almost positive that I bombed it, but I think I passed all my exams other than that and math. Today all students have to go back to school for 10 minutes for a brief meeting and to collect their bulletins (report cards). I'll tell you how I did!

I'm still waiting for AFS to let me know if I can go to Germany or not. It would be nice if they would let me know, since I would be leaving in six days and have to reserve my train ticket ahead of time...

And last but not least, today is "La Fin du Monde". So far, it seems as if the Mayans were wrong.

Enjoy your vacation!
Keaton

Neige

Snow has fallen in Belgium!  It has melted too, but it looks like we'll get more on Christmas.

Exams started last week Thursday, so I've been doing a fair amount of studying lately.  Religion was Thursday, history Friday, math Monday, English Tuesday, and French today.  That leaves me with science Friday, geography Monday, followed by three weeks of freedom!

So far I'm pretty sure I passed all my exams except for math, but this year doesn't count for anything in the U.S. anyways.  Everyone in my English class had to take both a written exam and an oral exam, and my English teacher asked me to sit with him and help while the students gave their oral exams.  He's a good guy and apparently I've helped him learn a lot too.  Surprisingly he even asked me to meet up with him over Christmas break, making him an exception to the stereotype that teachers in Europe are a lot less personal.

My host family isn't religious, but I missed going to church during Advent so I went by myself to mass at the local church.  It seemed pretty much the same as Catholic mass in America other than the fact that there was no kneeling.

Between Christmas and New Years, I'm hoping to spend a few nights at my friend Jonas' house in Germany, close to Cologne. I'm not exactly sure if it will work, being it takes a lot more documentation and contacting than it should, but I'm really hoping I can pull it off.

Also today, I met up with friends in Namur after my French exam and bought my first Christmas sweater!

Until later,

Keaton

Saint Nicolas

Even though Saint Nicolas day is December 6, I'm guessing we celebrated it at school today because Wednesdays are half days.  Half way through the last hour on Saint Nicolas day, the students in sixième (the seniors) come to the younger classes to terrorize the younger kids, sort of like what seniors do in America at the end of the school year.  Technically I'm the same age as the sixième students, but they put me in a younger class.

So half-way through French class, there was a knock on the door and about seven seniors ran in wearing costumes to begin the fun.  They started by making some kids eat marshmallows covered with mustard.  Then some kids had to drink something that looked like Coke, but by the looks of their faces, I'm going to assume that it wasn't.  Next some students were forced to bite into chocolate covered apples (onions).

After all that fun, another senior ran in the room with a jar of hair gel and everyone got gelled.  Next they brought in a can of red hair spray, which I was lucky enough to get!

Then I got called up to eat an entire jar of pudding using only your mouth in one bite.  I did it!  Then I got to follow that up with a marshmallow dipped in hot sauce.  And last but not least, my friend and I got to use our cheeks to clean the chalkboard.

If you're wondering what happened to the teacher, she was just standing in the corner laughing.

I talked to another friend after school who told me it was a lot more restricted this year, and that last year was a lot better.  The seniors surrounded everyone outside in a park and did things like smear Nutella into peoples' hair and onto their faces.

After school I walked outside and there were about thirty seniors blasting and dancing to Gangnam Style.

I'm not sure if I should be proud of all this, but hey, anything other than a regular day of school is something to be happy about.  I actually might change classes into sixième after Christmas.  It's too bad I couldn't have done it already because I could've joined in on the recklessness too.  At least I still have senior year next year.

I'm going to take a shower now.

Patin à glace

Saturday, my AFS chapter organized an event for ice skating in Charleroi followed by a "cheese party" in Namur.

Everyone was specifically told ahead of time to bring a cheese beginning with the first letter of your name.  I went out on Friday night to buy a cheese, and I found one called "Augustijn Kloosterkaas".  I figured that was the closest I could get to a cheese that started with a "K".  Of course I ended up forgetting it the next morning, so maybe I'll try some this weekend.

On Saturday morning, first I took the train to Namur to meet up with my chapter.  Then we took to train to Charleroi where we met up with from other AFSers that weren't in our chapter, and walked to the skating rink from there.  It was the first time I had gone in about three years, so I had a good time.

After that, we went to a fancy bar to socialize and the volunteers bought everyone one drink.  We said goodbye to some of the exchange students there who were only staying for three months.

We took the train back to Namur for the cheese party.  They still let me eat cheese even though I forgot to bring one!  Although I did get the cheese confused with the butter.  I put two different "cheeses" on my plate and ended up eating two spoonfuls of butter.

Afterwards, Saint Nicolas came to wish us a Joyeux Noël and to give us candy.  We were all getting called up individually and he was trying to make us do something embarrassing like sing or dance, so I decided to sit on his lap when he called me up to embarrass him.

In other news, I still haven't gotten my new ATM card yet, but my parents mailed it to me a while ago so it should be here later this week.

I also had my first official tennis lesson today.  Last time was just to see my skills and what group to place me in.

I'm sort of rushing this post because writing on your blog is like writing a paper.  You avoid doing it, but you know you have to do it sooner or later.  And it's 2 AM.

GOOOD NIGHTHGIGHIEHIEHGIEHTIEHTIEHTEFJIOEWIGH

Don't Bother Trying to be a Good Samaritan

I'm hoping that being in Belgium gives me a free "opt-out" of the whole being thankful thing today.

I went to Liège last Saturday with a bunch of exchange students (it seems like that's all I do, doesn't it?) to celebrate the birthdays of my Serbian and Californian friends.  The day was going pretty well at first, walking around the city and having fun, until I ran out of money and had to stop at the ATM.

There were two ATM's side by side and a lady was using the one next to me.  I put my card in the machine, entered my PIN, and chose to withdraw some money.  Suddenly the ATM next to me started beeping.  The lady forgot to grab her card.  So I grabbed the card and sprinted after, got it to her, and made it back to the ATM in about 15 seconds - just enough time to have my card swallowed!

I went back to Liège yesterday to see if I could get my card back.  It turned out that because I was only at an ATM, and not a bank with real employees, the card was destroyed as soon it got sucked back into the ATM.  So now I'm without money on the other side of the world until I get a new card mailed to me.

I was raised listening to Bible stories like "The Good Samaritan". I ran the lady her card by instinct.  Can't you see the real problem here?  If it weren't for our Puritanical society trying to force its idea of morality on us left and right, I wouldn't be in this mess!

Now enough of my bad humor.

I felt like I was spending too much time doing nothing during the school week, so I finally started an extra curricular activity.  I walked to the tennis club after school because the instructor wanted to see what group level to put me in.  It was a weird feeling when I realized I hadn't played in three years.  I explained my financial situation to the club too, and they were nice enough to tell me "play now, pay later".

Since I've finished complaining about my life, I guess I have time to mention what I'm thankful for.  I'm extremely thankful for my family that bend over backwards for me, even when I'm all the way across the Atlantic.  I'm thankful for my friends that stay with me through the best and worst times, and that it will only be a matter of time before I'm back screwing around with them.

Obviously I'm thankful that I'm an exchange student.  I have a host family that's happy to have me and have made a lot of good friends within these past few months. I'm thankful that I'm able to spend a year in Europe, to help me learn about the rest of the world while learning more about my life at home at the same time.  Believe me, I never realized how grateful I am for my life at home and the people in it.

Thanksgiving 2012

Now that it's getting close to Thanksgiving, I'm feeling a little homesick.  I'm going to miss going to Aunt Vicki's with the whole family, eating pie, and walking down to Lake Michigan in our coats.  Of course I can never resist taking a dip too.  Going abroad helps you to realize what your true values are.  Normally, my parents would have to pull me out of bed and tell me over and over again to get ready to leave.  Now I'd give just about anything to be there for that one meal.

Maybe I'll even set my alarm for 3 the next morning and pretend that I'm going Black Friday shopping.

This past Friday was my American friend Nicole's birthday. She invited me and our Kiwi friend Cameron to a party with her Scouts.  It was supposed to be a sleep over, but her mom came and took us to Nicole's house around 3 AM so we could sleep more comfortably.  After that, I was exhausted from the long week so I just rested for the remainder of the weekend.

I have more birthday parties this Friday and Saturday, and thankfully I just found out I have a mini vacation next week with no school Monday and Tuesday.

See ya next week
Keaton

Namur

I went to Namur both Saturday and Sunday last weekend.  Saturday was a get-together with AFS exchange students organized my American friend Emma.  We all met at the train station and walked to a Tex-Mex restaurant.  The food was very Tex-Mexian, but best of all, there was a Michigan license plate on the wall.

After that we walked around the city for a while while some people shopped and others just tagged along.

People started to complain that it was too cold outside, so we all went to a bar to warm up.  They took us to a bar with a cave-like basement, and lucky for us, it happened to be empty.  There were about twenty of us.  We had to go down a very narrow staircase to get to the basement, and the top of the staircase was located in the middle of the first floor.  One of my friends fell down the stairs - it was very funny (and that was before anyone had ordered a drink!).

We stayed down in the cave until people started heading home one by one.  When there were about five of us left and a group of other people came downstairs, we headed out too.  We had some time to spare before we caught out trains so we went to a Belgian-style fast food stand.  I ordered a cheeseburger with fries, and when they gave me my food, all I had was a huge paper cup of fries.  I tried to explain that I ordered a cheeseburger too, and the guy kept telling me he already gave it to me.  I thought I had been ripped off, until I looked and realized that my cheeseburger was inside the huge pile of fries.

On Sunday, I went back to Namur, but this was for an event planned by AFS for the Namur Chapter (which I am in).  We started off going to a museum of music, which was really bizarre.  Our tour guide would lead us into different rooms and have us make music with what seemed like a bunch of African style instruments.

Next we went to a cave.  It was some cave found in 1904 by a bunch of workers. I think it was the only cave I've been to other than Mammoth Cave.

After the cave, we went down to the bridge for a while, and some of us ate at a restaurant.  

Finally, we took the train back to the main station.  It was a great vacation!  As for today, school was terrible and my next vacation is in 7 weeks.  Wish me luck!

À plus tard

Keaton

Happy Halloween!

It's hard for me to believe that it's already November, but that must mean I'm having fun.

Fall vacation started last Friday, and other than the first night, I hadn't really done much until yesterday (anyone who isn't a parent/teacher can feel free to ask me what happened the first night of vacation!).


Yesterday I went to Liège to celebrate Halloween with other exchange students.  First I met up with my friend Will in Namur, and from there we took the train to Liège.  We arrived a few hours early and we were both starving so we started off by walking around looking for somewhere to eat.  We were trying to find McDonald's, but we decided we wanted some food that was more substantial, so we ate at Pizza Hut instead (isn't it great that we're branching out and trying new things?).

We didn't know where to find the bar that the exchange students were at, so another Canadian exchange student from Rotary Club came to help us find it.  It's so much fun getting together with other English speakers and making fun of each other's accents!

We walked around Liège for a while longer before we got to the bar.  We met up with some other Americans and a German guy.

When we arrived at the bar, I talked and said hello to a lot of people I hadn't seen for a long time outside of the bar.  Things were somewhat crazy from the get-go, though.  People were already dancing on the tables at 2 PM, so I went with another group of people to a different bar with a calmer setting.

When we got to the second bar, I was going to order something when I reached into my pockets to find out I didn't have my wallet.  That was probably that scariest thing to happen to me in the past few months.  A few good friends walked with me back to the original bar and my wallet was sitting on an empty table.  They don't come more absent minded than me.

After a few more hours of socializing together, we left the bar and went to the fair in Liège.  I was with AFS students at the time, but they weren't interested in doing any of the rides so I met up with some Rotary students that I met earlier in the day.  I can't really describe the ride very well but I got a pretty good view of the city.  After that, the Rotary students helped me find the train station and I went home. I also forgot my camera, but I'll post pictures later if I find any on Facebook.

Tonight I'm going to the movie theater with my host brother and some friends from school. We're seeing some French movie that I've never heard of before - gotta try new things!

For the rest of vacation, I'll be meeting up with other exchange students on Saturday and Sunday, and doing all my homework on Sunday at midnight (or Monday at midnight, whatever floats your boat).

In other news, I've been wanting to see The Sixth Sense for a long time, so I watched it the other night.  First I liked it, then when it was over I hated it, and then the next morning after sleeping on it, I realized that I love it.

David Guetta!

Last Saturday, I took the train to Liège for a David Guetta concert.  For old people who have never heard of David Guetta, he's a famous French DJ, but really popular in the US too.

I went with other exchange students.  I actually didn't know any of them before I went, but I knew of them through other exchange students.

When I got to Liège, I met up with the three other guys I was supposed to share a hostel with, one American, Caleb, and two Canadian, Will and Evan (with apologies to all Canadians who consider themselves Americans).

I can cross "all night concert" off my bucket list now!  It started at 8 PM and ended at 5 AM.  They failed to mention, however, that David Guetta would only be there from midnight to 2.  No problem, though, it was still a lot of fun!

When we first got there, the opening DJ was a friend of the other American's host sister.  Small world in Belgium.

I left the concert with Caleb, Will, and Evan at around 4 AM to walk to our hostel.  Caleb had booked a room for us, so we thought we were all covered.  It turned out that the hostel was completely booked, and we never exactly understood why.  Maybe Caleb accidentally booked it for the next night.  But they let us sleep on the wood floor, and I had some clothes to use for a pillow so it wasn't too bad.

A lady told us we had to get up at about 7:30 AM, but said we could sleep on the couches in the side hallway.  You can imagine how happy we were when it turned out that there were couches available the whole time.  It was a pretty laughable situation though.  We decided to go to the train station a head home.

Yesterday, my English teacher told our class we would be watching a surprise movie in English the next day.  It  turned out to be Mrs. Doubtfire!  I forgot how funny that movie is, and my English teacher was happy that I knew the film.  I told him that my mom used to complain my siblings and I should be better behaved, "like those kids in Mrs. Doubtfire."

Tomorrow, my school is going to see Moonrise Kingdom at the movie theater, and then I have the next week off of school.  Stuff to look forward to!

Bonne nuit,

Keaton

Chinese Restaurant

At my school, I set next to a Chinese girl named Christine in most classes.  She speaks fluent Chinese, plus a fair amount of French and even more English.  Her birthday was on Sunday and she invited my host brother, myself, and a few other friends to her birthday dinner at her family restaurant.

The cook was a show off, but hey, he had something to show off.  It was sweet!

Weekend in Liège!

I've been up to a lot lately! On Saturday, I had an optional AFS trip to Liège for a boat ride, and I brought my host brother with me. We took a train to Liège.  When we got there, we rode a ferry around the Meuse River, which took about an hour.  Afterwards, we all went to a restaurant together for lunch.  It was a pretty crazy day after lunch.

One of the American students in Belgium, Callie's host-parents wanted her to leave Liège shortly after the ferry ride.  She was going to walk to the bus stop and take a bus to the train station.  Because I'm a fantastic person, a girl named and Ana and I went with Callie to keep her company.  It wasn't hard to find the bus stop, but then we couldn't find the right bus.  It started raining so we ran into McDonald's to call a student named Chris who lives in Liège, because he would know how to get to the train station without a bus.

We ran through the rain for about ten minutes until we got to the station and said goodbye to Callie.  Ana said she was sure she knew how to get back to the restaurant, so we trusted her.  It started raining harder and my umbrella flipped inside out every 30 seconds.  After about a half hour of running through the pouring rain, we realized we were back by the train station.  So then we decided to trust Chris, who took us in more big circles (not to say I wouldn't have done the same, but I didn't get cocky;).

After waiting over an hour, my host-brother called me and was freaking out that I wasn't back yet.  He told me to meet him at the train station, and I told Chris just to lead me back to the river, because I was pretty sure I could get to the train station by then.  I crossed the bridge and realized I had no idea how to get to the train station.  I asked several different people for directions, but everyone led me a different way.  I forgot that there were two train stations in Liége : the one that I arrived in, and the one that we took Callie to.

Running around lost and alone in a big city in a foreign country with a foreign language is one of the most frustrating things that can happen to you.  Eventually I made my way to the wrong train station, but figured out how to take the train to the other station, where my host-brother had been waiting for me.  Even if it took a long time to figure out, I did it in French, so I'm all good;)

 I know you're all dying to hear the rest, but I'm tired, so I'll finish later