Fin des examens. . .

As of last Tuesday, exams are finally finished and school is out for good so my friends from school are finally free again.  I'll start by describing my last couple weeks leading up to the end of the school year.

There's still a lot of cities close by where I live that I haven't been to yet so I'm doing my best to take advantage of every free day I have left.  On Saturday June 8, I got together with some exchange student friends Will, Evan, Madeleine, & Chris and we took the train to Maastricht for the day.

Maastricht is the second city I've been to in the Netherlands after Amsterdam.  Amsterdam is a cool city and it was worth the visit, but I didn't fall in love with it like some people do. Au contraire, while I wasn't expecting much out of Maastricht, I found it to be stunning, at least one of the prettiest cities in this region of Europe.

When we got to Maastricht, we passed through a bunch of streets with all the shopping to get to the main square.  Madeleine, Chris and I got a nice brunch at main square while all the lame people went to Burger King (and payed the same amount).

 Brunch w/ Madeleine & Chris

It was hot too!  It was so hot that we found a park and just laid down for about 4 hours.  I was dying of heat. I took off my shirt and probably bought about ten bottles of water throughout the day.  Generally I adore hot weather, but I've never had to tolerate it without Lake Michigan near by;)

Me, Evan, Chris, Will 

Evan, Chris, Will, Madeleine 

When I was in quatrième (sophomore year) before I changed classes after Christmas, I took all my exams.  This time I only did English, French, Spanish, and History.  That's partially cause the classes are a lot harder in rhéto (senior year), and the teachers are just a lot less strict too.  Some of them wouldn't even hand me the work.  That's anyways fine because I didn't have the energy that I had in December to study my brains out for a school year that doesn't count for a thing.

For my writing test in English, I just wrote it in French.  I actually sat with my English teacher and helped him with almost every oral exam.  It was just like a conversation with him, the student, and myself.  For my oral exam in French class, we did something different.  My French teacher and English teacher are the only ones that I've been with all year (before and after changing classes), so we just sat down and had a conversation about my stay in Beglium, why I chose to do it, challenges, etc.  It was cool for my French teacher because she was there when I could barely even introduce to her, and my English teacher and I had never even really spoken in French before.

Since I wasn't really obligated to be at school during exams, I took last Tuesday off to go Brussels with my host dad.  He's a delivery man for a meat company so he generally drives around Belgium making stops at various butcher shops.  In the beginning of the day, we went out for coffee.  After that, he dropped me off at a well-known basilica, Basilica of the Sacred Heart.  The old gothic atmosphere is incredible and there was almost no one there.  Walking around the huge sanctuary practically alone made me really dizzy, but I thought it was amazing.  I paid to go upstairs where I felt ten times more alone.  I took a staircase up which eventually turned back, probably meaning I wasn't supposed to be there, but I used my cell phone to help guide the way.  I was 100% alone at that point wandering around an old, creepy cathedral.  There was another staircase going even higher, but my host dad called and was waiting for me outside in his car so I had to rush out.  Afterwards, he made a few more stops and then he treated me to lunch at a nice Italian restaurant.  I still had to play tennis at night and I was served more wine than I needed which literally makes me fall asleep, but I took a nap when we got home so everything was fine.  Great day!

For anyone who doesn't already know, my family hosted a Dutch exchange student named Giovanni (no, he's not Italian) from 2010-2011.  He took off from Michigan in June 2011 and now we finally saw each other after two long years!  On Friday, Giovanni drove down from his house near Amsterdam to spend the weekend with me at my host family's house.  Friday night we went to Marche-en-Famenne so I could show him my school, where I hang out, etc.  We went to say hi to my old host family, and he was able to communicate with them because my old host mom speaks Dutch.  After that we just went to the bars in Marche that I usually go to with friends after school on Fridays.  We didn't see anyone I know other than one or two people because everyone was still studying for exams.

Saturday Gio drove us to Namur where we spent the day.  I climbed the citadelle again so I could do it with Giovanni.  Here's the picture I showed you last time I climbed it.

After climbing the citadelle, we hit the stores.  We went around shopping until Jonas (German exchange student in our neighborhood at the same time as Gio) arrived at the train station.  We met up with him, went to the new Starbucks there, and climbed the citadelle once more with Jonas (they were about ready to kill me because of the heat).  Eventually we drove back to my house and played cards in the dining room until we FaceTimed with a few people and went to bed.

Sunday was one of the best days I've had in a long time!  My friend Kayla from home is taking a Euro-trip with her family right now through various parts of the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium so we met up with them while they were in Bruges.  Gio, Jonas and I woke up early, picked up my friend Will from the train station, and made our way.

Kayla and her family were staying in a bed & breakfast just near the heart of Bruges.  Gio, Jonas, Will and I got there a little early so we went into town to get some food and then walked to her bed & breakfast after when she arrived.  Kayla took us inside to show us the room and it was an extremely nice place!  After that, we went into town and grabbed another small bite to eat with Kayla's family.

Kayla came to Europe along with her mom, dad, grandma, and sister and we spent about the first half of the day with them.  One of the first things on their to-do list was go to a really highly rated cholatier called Dumon.  Didn't buy anything, but they had some darn good free samples.  The building is also kinda unique in comparison to other builds in the area.

Next Kayla's family decided to take a boat tour through the canals in Bruges.  We Gio, Jonas, Will, and I had to talk about whether we were all willing to pay for it or not, and then because Kayla's grandma is so nice, she surprised us by buying us all a ticket.  The tour guide was really funny and we got an incredible view of the city.

Un mois de plus

One month from today I'm on a plane back to the Big Apple and all I can think about right now is the beginning.

When I left everyone I had ever known behind to go spend a year with people I've never heard of before.  To go to go spend a year in a new country with a new language across the ocean that I couldn't even place on a map a year before, or probably even find the right continent.  It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life - and at the same time, it wasn't that hard (to be fair, I did choose Belgium, not Africa).

Anyways I'll start with Amsterdam.  When you're a kid in Belgium, you start learning either Dutch or English, and then usually start the other later.  The kids who started learning Dutch first had a school trip to Amsterdam for them and my friend invited me to go with them with permission from their teacher.  I take pretty much any chance I can to travel so voilà!

There were two parts to the trip.  First we toured Amsterdam by bike.  We split into groups of about 10, each of us with a tour guide speaking in Dutch.  My Dutch doesn't go any further than "ja", but when there was something important or interesting, either one of my classmates would explain it to me in French or the tour guide would tell me in English.

Anne Frank house on the left

After the tour, we were separated into groups of 4 or 5 and each group had to go around taking pictures of specific places and present them in class.  I was in a group with my friends Shannon, Marie, Romain, and Audrey.

Marie & Audrey 

Marie & Romain 

(It's not a real gun)

We ended up coming across a pancake restaurant at one point, and Shannon and I really wanted to go so we went there to grab a bite to eat while the other three went around fulfilling more of the photo requirements.  Unfortunately they were really American style pancakes, they were more like giant crêpes, but it was good anyways!

The day was all and all pretty good, running around all day in Amsterdam with friends.  Amsterdam is a nice place too, I definitely liked Venice more (both with a lot of canals), but they're pretty different.  It's not just a stereotype that everyone in Amsterdam bikes, there are bikes EVERYWHERE.  It's also a little shocking when you first get there and people are just sitting in cafés openly smoking joints, but you get used to it pretty quickly.

Tell me that isn't the dopest bike you've ever seen

Finally towards the end of the day, everyone met up again to take a short boat tour through the city.  They treat us well, eh;) After that we boarded the bus and went back to school to get picked up.

The next day was my school's bal de rhéto.  It was a big party for my school organized by the seniors, a nice one too!  Everyone had to sell at least three tickets beforehand (which were a lot cheaper than the tickets sold at the entrance) so the other American Ashley and I decided to invite some exchange students.  I invited my friend Caleb from Vermont and my Canadian friends Will and Evan.  We all went to Ashley's house for dinner before the party where we met up with Ashley and our friends Nicole from California and Emily from Texas.  The weather was great outside so we started off having glasses of beer and wine next to the pool with Ashley's host family, and then we went inside for a nice dinner.

Then we left to the party.  The party was legit!  We rented out a big concert hall and hired a famous French DJ named Quentin Mosimann.  That's probably why it was more expensive than most other soirées here.

The party was from 10 PM to 4 AM and all the seniors were scheduled to work two hour shifts, some at the entrance but most of us at the bars.  There were four different bars that people would order from. I had to work at one from midnight to 2.  There were five girls in front taking the orders and five guys behind that made the drinks (I was in charge of the Vodka Red Bulls ^^).

After I got done working, I went to find the other exchange students for about an hour and then went off with some of my school friends and hung out with them at the bar when things started slowing down.  After a while I wanted to sit down so I sat on top of one of the kegs.  Somehow I managed to break one of the tubes and it sprayed EVERYWHERE behind the bar.  There was a huge fountain of beer shooting up in the air.  Thankfully everyone thought it was hilarious so I just stood there with my hands in the air and let myself get sprayed ^^ Eventually my host mom came to pick us up and Will, Evan, and Caleb slept at my house.  Great night!

Well I finally read my first book in French.  It wasn't exactly a novel because it was the dialogue of a play called Huis clos (performed in English as No Exit).  It was only about a hundred pages, but still kind of tiring because there was a lot of terminology that you don't use in everyday conversation, so I would have to switch back and forth between the book and my dictionary a fair amount.  However I got a good grade on the test, better than some other students in my class so I'm content:)

After the bal de rhéto, we had a three-day school week so I made the most of that.  Thursday I went to Brussels to meet up with Caleb and Nicole.  We went to the Hard Rock Cafe in Brussels.  It was amazing, I had my first real American hamburger for the first time since I got here.  They have hamburgers in Belgium, but there not nearly as good as the place where they came from (which isn't Hamburg incase anyone was wondering).  I always tell people that my ideal meal would be an American burger with Belgian fries.

After Hard Rock Cafe, we walked to the famous Atomium.  We thought about going inside, but we there was a huge line and we didn't really feel like paying anyways.  A little ways away, we found a nice area to hang around for a while in the woods where we sat and talked.  We weren't really sure what to do but I had been dying to see Jurassic Park in 3D so I suggested that and Caleb told us that there was a movie theater two minutes from where we were, so we went.  It's one of my favorite movies already and it was even better in 3D!

The following day my friend Chris from Maryland had a small party at his house so I took the train there and slept over.  Thankfully he lives right outside of Liège because the next day we were having a bunch of family over for my host sister Marine's birthday, so I went into town to buy a CD for her and a bottle of wine for my host mom since Mother's Day was the day after.

My host family's extended family is really nice and I had a good time with them.  Both of my host grandparents came over, and also some host aunts, uncles and cousins.

After the bal de rhéto, the seniors organized another party that was limited strictly to the seniors at our school, probably because everyone had to work at the other party so this way everyone could just have a free night to relax.  My friend Mathieu had Jérémie, Noé, and I over beforehand to eat dinner and practice for the beer pong tournament.

Didn't sleep well the night before ^^

The day after the soirée rhéto, Will slept over at my house and we met up in Namur the next day with Nicole.  We went up to the citadel which has a really pretty view.  Here's a photo taken from the internet:

After that we went to a bar together and talked for a few hours until I took the train to Louvain-la-Neuve to sleep at my Australian friend Tim's house.  We had the following Monday off for Pentecôte (Pentecost) so I was able to sleep somewhere else.  In the morning, I took the train to my host mom's parents' house in Libramont for a family dinner.

The following weekend was the last weekend Ashley had left in Belgium because she had to go home and present a project exam so that she could graduate.  So that Friday, I went to Chris' again only with a different group of people including Ashley and we all spent the night.

I pretty much spent all my time with Ashley for her last week.  Tuesday we skipped school and went to Brussels so she could buy souvenirs, Wednesday we went out to Liège together after school to a place called the carré so we could go out together one last time, and Thursday for her last night I slept at her house so I could say goodbye to her at the airport in the morning.  Some other people stopped by to say goodbye Thursday evening, including a few girls from Rotary (one of whom I knew) and Ashley's Belgian boyfriend Maxime at with us for dinner.  Ashley's host family is extremely welcoming.  By the time everyone left around 10 PM, we went upstairs and talked in her room while she packed until she finally finished at 3 in the morning, giving us a whole 2 1/2 hours to sleep before we left for the airport!

Ashley came with Rotary and not AFS like I did. With Rotary, every student has three host families (each family for a little over three months) so Ashley's current and last family drove us to the airport, and there we met her 1st host mom and 2nd host family.  It was really sad to say goodbye, especially when Ashley's younger host sister started crying:'( But thankfully we might be able to see each other again already this summer!  And hopefully, now that she's gone, I'll be able to improve my French a little more with the short time I have left;)

There was a special sale at my school (kind of like a sweepstakes I think) where if you sold enough tickets, you got tickets to an amusement park famous in Belgium called Walibi.  My friend Simon sold enough tickets so that we could go; it was a birthday present for me back from February.  Both of Ashley's host sisters from her 2nd and 3rd host families were going too, so Ashley's 2nd host family drove us there all together.  When I got there, I waited for Simon to arrive on the bus and when he got there, he introduced me to a couple of his friends that we spent the day with.

Walibi makes the 2nd amusement park I've been to during my stay here, the first being Disneyland Paris.  Even though I'm much more familiar with Disney, I have to say that I probably liked Walibi better because the rides were bigger.

Barbara, Me, Simon, Sawali

It was a pretty fun day, but it's difficult to do an amusement park all day after sleeping for 2.5 hours.  When we boarded the bus to go home, I fell asleep as soon as we sat down and stayed that way until we got back an hour later.

On Saturday, there was a reunion at school for the Croatia/Venice trip that we took in early April where we all got together to eat dinner and look at photos of the trip.  It was really fun!  And what I didn't realize is that there are a select number of people at my school who actually live at school; it's a really old, big building and it's actually partially a boarding school.  Well the same girl who brought her guitar  on the trip happened to be one of the girls who lives at school, so she went to go get her guitar and a group or fifteen or twenty of us finished the night playing guitar and singing outside.

Well yesterday was my last official day of school and from now on there are only exams.  I think I'm going to be taking about half of them.  Today I took my French exam and tomorrow I'm going to take my English exam, which means I'll probably just end up helping out my English teacher instead haha.

Exams are really important here, more so than in the US I would say, so all my Belgian friends are going to be really busy until we finish the on Tuesday the 18th.  After that, I have a whole lot to look forward to with them until I leave.  In the mean time, there are still a lot of places I haven't been able to go to yet so I'm probably going to go to Maastricht on Saturday with Will and maybe some other friends.  Then the weekend after, my old Dutch exchange student Giovanni and my old German exchange student friend Jonas are coming to spend the weekend at my house!  Then we're meeting our friend Kayla in Bruges who's going on vacation with her family.  I'll be sure to blog a couple more times before I leave;)

À la prochaine,

Keaton