First Post

Saturday Sept. 8, 2012

Well my arrival in Belgium was yesterday, and I haven’t been slapped in the face with French or faced much of a culture shock yet.  It started Wednesday Sept. 5 when I was dropped off for orientation at the NYC Hilton Hotel in NYC near JFK Airport.

A large majority of the students at orientation were leaving for France or Italy.  There were only six of us headed for Belgium, delayed due to a difficulty finding host families in Belgium.  During orientation, we played typical mixer games to get to know each other, and then we spent the night at the Hilton.  It was a very nice hotel.

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On Thursday Sept. 6, we woke up around 8 A.M. for breakfast and hung out until it was time to head to the airport.  The six of us that were going to Belgium traveled with the French students (which seemed to make up of about 40 students) to Zurich, Switzerland.  The plane took off around 6 P.M. and the ride was about 8.5 hours. Some kids were smart enough to bring sleeping pills. Otherwise, you got a half hour of sleep, like me.

Arriving in Zurich around 8:30 A.M. (2:30 A.M. in NYC/Michigan), the French students and the AFS leader, who guided us around the airports, left us for Paris.  The six of us going to Belgium hopped on the one hour flight to Brussels by ourselves.  When we arrived, there were AFS volunteers who led us onto the train to the Van Belle Hotel in Brussels.

We got to the hotel around noon (6 A.M. in NYC/Michigan).  There we met other students traveling to Belgium through AFS from Denmark, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Finland, Norway, Hong Kong, Latvia, and a few other countries.  We divided ourselves into small groups and did more orientation activities.

Around 3 P.M. (9. A.M. in NYC/Michigan), we walked over to a park. Being awake for 24 hours along with the stress of traveling, many of us fell asleep at the park.  I fell asleep on the grass for about two hours.  Actually, I was so exhausted, I also instantly fell asleep for a short period of time on the train to the hotel and as soon as we went up to our hotel room.  My room mate woke me up so I wouldn’t miss the activities.

After dinner at about 7:30 P.M. (1:30 P.M. in NYC/Michigan), we were supposed to do some more mixer activities, but I snuck upstairs to take a nap instead.  I ended up waking up at 8 A.M. the next morning.

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Today after we ate breakfast, we met with our small groups (classified by language) to discuss social differences between our countries.  It’s much more fun than it sounds.  They also tried to open us up to the traditional European greeting of kissing everyone's cheek.  That still feels weird. 

Because we were supposed to arrive two weeks ago, they made up for it by taking us a for a ride on a double decker bus through Brussels.  It’s a beautiful city!

Now I have to go embarrass myself at the group talent show.  I don’t have wifi at the hotel, but I will post tomorrow when I arrive at my host family’s home (or whenever I get the chance).  I’ll try to update weekly, and I’ll also try to post pictures as much as possible - because I wouldn’t want to read a blog without photos either.

Au revoir

Keaton