Vacation started after school on Friday, the 29th of March. It started off like a normal Friday in Marche, just at the bars with friends from school, except it was the start of vacation so there were more people than usual.
These are just crappy photos taken on a cell phone (I promise were much prettier in person), but just to give you an idea of the atmosphere. There were way more people too that weren't pictured.
Thibaud, Simon, Nicolas, Me, Antoine
Thibaud, Simon, Nicolas, Ashley, Me, Antoine
Maxime, Ashley, Me
Goosebumps
Marine, Me, Thibaud, Laurence, Patrick, Sacha
Xavier, Marine, Me (don't ask)
After a couple hours, Ashley met up at a different bar across the street with her friends Floriane and Romane while Maxime and I went to grab dinner with Dik-Dik and Valérian. After we finished eating, we met up with the girls again at a different bar and stayed there for a while until Maxime's dad came to pick us up.
Maxime has a big room in his backyard with an indoor pool and nice ping-pong table so we slept in there. (It was one of the first ping-pong tables I've seen in a long time that actually had all four rackets and that weren't broken either.) More of Maxime's friends showed up later. For the most part we just swam, played music, played beer pong, and did whatever until we got too exhausted and crashed. Not a bad night!
The next day I mostly just slept all day and finally finished the Jurassic Park series.
Easter Sunday we took a trip to Bastogne, which is a Belgian city about an hour from my house and a must-know for WWII history-buffs (look up the Siege of Bastogne). I can't find the exact number, but I know a lot of Americans died there. The way my host family described it to me, if it weren't for the help of the US troops, we would've been speaking German by now.
First we dropped off my host mom and host sister who wanted to go shopping instead, while my host dad drove my host brothers, host sister's boyfriend Xavier, and I to a war museum just outside of Bastogne.
The museum was ok. There is supposedly a really cool museum next to the monument we went to after, but it's being remodelled at the moment and won't be finished until 2014. Oh well, the monument was cool anyways. It's in the shape of a giant star with the names of all 50 states (which confuses me because there were only 48 states during WWII).
Couldn't forget my other favorite state;)
Afterwards we went to grab a small bite to eat together at a café in town. The Marine and Laurence walked over after they finished shopping.
Random tank in Bastogne
And to finish off Easter, we went back to the house and rented "Je suis une légende" (I Am Legend) through the cable company and watched it together.
My host parents also bought bought me a t-shirt for Easter with a quote that says, "A day without laughter is a day wasted" in a silhouette of Charlie Chaplin. Nice huh?
The next day I just hung out at home. Marine and Thibaud were gone so I went to play soccer with Sacha after. We kicked the ball into a creek and it was starting to get dark. You could say I couldn't see where I was jumping. At least the creek isn't too far from my house.
Tuesday Thibaud and Marine were still gone. My host mom took me to Marche so I could get a haircut before the vacation and at night I went with Sacha to play badminton in our village.
Wednesday I finally finished up with all the postcards I had bought a month and a half before in Paris. Lately I've been trying to watch a lot of movies that are well-known but that I haven't actually seen, so I watched Father of the Bride. Next on my list are Forrest Gump, Star Wars, and anything else you might wanna suggest.
Thursday my host mom took my host siblings, Xavier, and I to an indoor water park. We all agreed that it was pretty small, but I hadn't gone swimming for a long time so it was fun. We stayed there for a couple hours and then grabbed and drink and went home. After dinner Marine, Xavier, and I went into Marche to meet up with Marine's friend Nicolas (pictured earlier) and one of his friends. We were at the same bar that I was at the previous Friday. That was pretty fun, and some of our friends from school dropped in and out too. After a few hours we all got hungry so we walked to McDonald's. The inside had just closed when we got there, but that doesn't mean we're not persistent enough to walk through the drive-thru. Then we walked over to the grocery store parking lot and I ate my food inside of shopping car while people pushed me around. Again, don't ask questions.
Friday I met up with Nicole and Callie from AFS who I hadn't seen for a couple months in Louvain-la-Neuve. They ended up going with another exchange student named Mie from Denmark who I had just met at mid-stay orientation.
Louvain-la-Neuve is the university town of Belgium, a really nice place to visit.
Me & Mie, pronounced "me & me"
Callie bought strawberries cause none of us had tasted them yet in Belgium
There is a store in the mall at Louvain-la-Neuve called "America Today". It's a clothing store, but they also sell American food and beverages that are either difficult to find in Belgium or can't be found at all such as Reece's Peanut Butter Cups, Wrigley's Gum, and Mountain Dew. I got a box of chocolate covered Oreo's, which is no surprise to anyone who knows me well.
And finally I had one more day before I left for Croatia. I spent the day running and packing my suitcase until we left for dinner at Laurence's parents house. Her family is very friendly. At one point during dinner, my host sister handed me a slice of fruit and asked me if I wanted some orange. I said sure so I grabbed it and realized it was hard. I figured it must've been some kind of candy so I took a bite into it and snapped it. My host siblings immediately burst into laughter and then I realized that I had just bitten into an artificial orange meant for decoration. My host parents and grandparents didn't see it happen so my host siblings explained it to them and then they all burst out laughing. Maybe that whole AFS idea of being a youth ambassador to represent the American people was a bad idea.
After dinner at their house, I went to a party with Marine and Xavier. Xavier goes out a lot with some of my friends from school so I stayed with them and Marine went off with her friends. We were going to stay until around 3, but I was feeling kinda sick (just a stomach ache, not due to alcohol) and I was tired so my host mom came to pick me up around 1. The next day, I woke up, finished packing, and headed off to school to board the bus en route to Croatia!
Stay tuned
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