Well mid-stay orientation was three weekends ago already (February 2-3). I was expecting it to be boring and maybe a little awkward, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought!
First thing at arrival, we were split into our groups that we spent the day with, except for at meals when everyone ate together. It was funny: back at arrival orientation back in September, I was constantly struggling to keep my eyes open and stay awake. That was understandable because traveling is exhausting and I hadn't slept for 24 hours. But to some extent, I had the same problem at mid-stay orientation. I have a theory that they separate us into small groups to do boring activities so that we can bond over how useless they are. To some extent however, that works:)
Things got better after dinner when the all the group reflecting crap was done. We all came together to play some game (not capture the flag, but that's the closest thing I can think of), and we hopped from room to room, sitting, talking, going out on the roof, and doing Gangnam Style.
I didn't take my camera so here are some photos I stole from my friends:
I finally turned 18 on February 8 and I couldn't ask for better classmates. When I first walked in in the morning, everyone starting singing "Joyeux Anniversaire" and my friend Shannon walked up to me holding a cake.
Later on at lunch hour, I went down to a different room where I usually go to play cards with people and it turned out my friend Simon had made me a cake too. Well, I wasn't going to complain.
My mom sent me some food for my birthday including a box of Oreo's, Cheez-its, and three boxes of mac & cheese, so I made a box of cheese when I got home and then went out for some complimentary birthday drinks, grâce à mes amis.
My friend Will's birthday is two days before mine, so on the Saturday the 9th we got exchange students together in Brussels. We stayed there for the whole day - too long actually, a couple of my friends were supposed to sleep over, but we missed the last train so we took the train to Namur and slept at Cameron's host family's house (or estate, to be a little more accurate).
Unfortunately, Cameron was part of the minority that was only staying for a semester instead of a year, so I spent my last day with him in Namur because he would be leaving back to New Zealand while I was in Paris. We went to some battle of the bands thing, and then stayed at a bar across the street from the train station for about 45 minutes until my next train left. He was one of my closest friends of the exchange students, so it won't be quite the same without him there:(
After I got home from Namur, I packed up my things and left for my German friend Nil's house. Will, Evan and I spent the night there. Then the next morning, Nil's host dad drove us to the train station so we could take the train to Brussels and board our bus. The bus ride to Paris was about 4 to 5 hours long.
After we arrived in Paris at la Gare d'Austerlitz, we found a map, and then wandered around for several hours trying to find our hostel. It's called the Plug-Inn Hostel and located in northern Paris. After a long time of walking around and when we finally realized that we were getting closer to our hostel, we started seeing a lot of sex shops and strip clubs (in the Moulin Rouge neighborhood) so I was a little bit afraid that our hostel was going to be super sketchy, but we kept walking a little further and we ended up being in a really nice area. The hostel was fairly nice too with free breakfast everyday.
We also bought weeklong passes for the metro train for 25€. It was extremely helpful for getting around, and you never had to wait longer than about 5 minutes for the next train.
Hostel Location
We were all pretty tired the first night so we just hung out in the hostel.
The next morning we woke up to start hitting all the touristy stuff. First we went to the well known Arc de Striomphe.
L'Arc de Striomphe is found on Les Champs-Élysées, which is often considered the most famous street in the world.
Next off, Eiffel Tower. I had assumed that we would make it there, but I hadn't imagined that we would climb it too (nor did I know that you could). It was incredible! You can take the stairs for a long ways, but eventually you have to take an elevator if you want to get to the top. You bet we did!
Of course, we spent some time messing around too.
After the Eiffel Tower, we got some food, went back to Les Champs-Élysées, and went back to the hostel for the night.
The next day we were off for more touristy stuff. First we hit up the Notre-Dame Cathedral. There was actually a mass service going on while we were inside, so you had to be really quiet.
We went to a different part of Paris to look for something to eat. Then we found a music store nearby where we stayed for about an hour and I got to play guitar for the first time in over 5 months! I didn't bring my guitar to Belgium because AFS told me you can never know if your luggage will get damaged or not while traveling by plane.
And of course, you can't skip the Musée du Louvre and the Mona Lisa.
We all decided that as long as we were in Paris, we had to go out for at least one nice Parisian meal. We ate at a small restaurant by our hostel called La Villa des Abbesses.
For our last full day in Paris, trying to cram in all the important stuff, we woke up to go visit La Tour Montparnasse, one of the more modern buildings in an ancient city.
It was kinda rainy outside and we were tired of walking around, so we went to Les Champs-Élysées to find a movie theater. Will, Evan, and Nils went to Django Unchained, but my A.D.D. doesn't let me watch movies that long so being somewhat of an Alfred Hitchcock fan, I went to see Hitchcock. This was only my first time going to the movies in Europe since I went with my school back in October. It felt a little incomplete as they had popcorn, but no butter, and pop, but no slushies. Oh well, still a good movie. Also, when you watch an English movie outside of an English speaking country, sometimes the voices are dubbed, but this one just came with French subtitles.
Anyone who knows me well knows that sometimes I just need time to myself after being with people for a long time, so after the movie I didn't mind checking out Les Champs-Élysées by myself for a couple hours. It's loaded with everything, from the big stores you would find in the U.S., such as Abercrombie, Nike, The Gap, etc., to small souvenir shops for visitors. As sung in a famous French song named after the street, "Il y a tout ce que vous voulez aux Champs-Élysées" (There is everything that you want at Les Champs-Élysées).
Because Paris is a big tourist destination, most of the people you come across will speak English. Generally I would start by speaking in French if I was talking to an employee or asking someone for directions, and then some would respond in French while others would recognize my accent and answer in English. What I thought was really funny was a couple of times when I would go up to ask someone a question in French and they would walk away from me saying in English, "I don't speak French, sorry!"
There were some other AFS students staying in Paris at the same time as us, so we met up with them for the last night. First we went to their hostel for a while, then came back to ours to hang out for a while and play Truth or Dare. We knew it was time to go to bed when the dares were getting as stupid as "I dare you to put your shirt on bottom and pants on top."
I was planning on resting at home for the rest of the break after Paris until my friend Californian friend Nicole invited me last minute to celebrate the Chinese New Year with her and her host family on the last day of vacation. She was celebrating it a week late because she was busy the week before. I don't really know the name of anything we cooked, but we made a soup and some fried rice with egg, pork, carrots, etc. It wasn't bad!
After my first week back at school, I went to a dance party with some friends from school in a small town called Erezée, just outside of my town. I'm pretty sure that almost everyone there went to my school. Belgians like to party late! We got there around 9 PM and it ended 3 AM when my friend's dad came to take us home. There was a photographer running the party around taking pictures, here are a couple that I found.
So meanwhile after the big hype about Carnival, I'll be busy at school for the next several weeks and going out with friends weekends until les vacances de Pâques (Easter break) when I'll have my class trip to Croatia and Venice! I can hardly wait.
À la prochaine,
Keaton
