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