Don't Bother Trying to be a Good Samaritan

I'm hoping that being in Belgium gives me a free "opt-out" of the whole being thankful thing today.

I went to Liège last Saturday with a bunch of exchange students (it seems like that's all I do, doesn't it?) to celebrate the birthdays of my Serbian and Californian friends.  The day was going pretty well at first, walking around the city and having fun, until I ran out of money and had to stop at the ATM.

There were two ATM's side by side and a lady was using the one next to me.  I put my card in the machine, entered my PIN, and chose to withdraw some money.  Suddenly the ATM next to me started beeping.  The lady forgot to grab her card.  So I grabbed the card and sprinted after, got it to her, and made it back to the ATM in about 15 seconds - just enough time to have my card swallowed!

I went back to Liège yesterday to see if I could get my card back.  It turned out that because I was only at an ATM, and not a bank with real employees, the card was destroyed as soon it got sucked back into the ATM.  So now I'm without money on the other side of the world until I get a new card mailed to me.

I was raised listening to Bible stories like "The Good Samaritan". I ran the lady her card by instinct.  Can't you see the real problem here?  If it weren't for our Puritanical society trying to force its idea of morality on us left and right, I wouldn't be in this mess!

Now enough of my bad humor.

I felt like I was spending too much time doing nothing during the school week, so I finally started an extra curricular activity.  I walked to the tennis club after school because the instructor wanted to see what group level to put me in.  It was a weird feeling when I realized I hadn't played in three years.  I explained my financial situation to the club too, and they were nice enough to tell me "play now, pay later".

Since I've finished complaining about my life, I guess I have time to mention what I'm thankful for.  I'm extremely thankful for my family that bend over backwards for me, even when I'm all the way across the Atlantic.  I'm thankful for my friends that stay with me through the best and worst times, and that it will only be a matter of time before I'm back screwing around with them.

Obviously I'm thankful that I'm an exchange student.  I have a host family that's happy to have me and have made a lot of good friends within these past few months. I'm thankful that I'm able to spend a year in Europe, to help me learn about the rest of the world while learning more about my life at home at the same time.  Believe me, I never realized how grateful I am for my life at home and the people in it.

Thanksgiving 2012

Now that it's getting close to Thanksgiving, I'm feeling a little homesick.  I'm going to miss going to Aunt Vicki's with the whole family, eating pie, and walking down to Lake Michigan in our coats.  Of course I can never resist taking a dip too.  Going abroad helps you to realize what your true values are.  Normally, my parents would have to pull me out of bed and tell me over and over again to get ready to leave.  Now I'd give just about anything to be there for that one meal.

Maybe I'll even set my alarm for 3 the next morning and pretend that I'm going Black Friday shopping.

This past Friday was my American friend Nicole's birthday. She invited me and our Kiwi friend Cameron to a party with her Scouts.  It was supposed to be a sleep over, but her mom came and took us to Nicole's house around 3 AM so we could sleep more comfortably.  After that, I was exhausted from the long week so I just rested for the remainder of the weekend.

I have more birthday parties this Friday and Saturday, and thankfully I just found out I have a mini vacation next week with no school Monday and Tuesday.

See ya next week
Keaton

Namur

I went to Namur both Saturday and Sunday last weekend.  Saturday was a get-together with AFS exchange students organized my American friend Emma.  We all met at the train station and walked to a Tex-Mex restaurant.  The food was very Tex-Mexian, but best of all, there was a Michigan license plate on the wall.

After that we walked around the city for a while while some people shopped and others just tagged along.

People started to complain that it was too cold outside, so we all went to a bar to warm up.  They took us to a bar with a cave-like basement, and lucky for us, it happened to be empty.  There were about twenty of us.  We had to go down a very narrow staircase to get to the basement, and the top of the staircase was located in the middle of the first floor.  One of my friends fell down the stairs - it was very funny (and that was before anyone had ordered a drink!).

We stayed down in the cave until people started heading home one by one.  When there were about five of us left and a group of other people came downstairs, we headed out too.  We had some time to spare before we caught out trains so we went to a Belgian-style fast food stand.  I ordered a cheeseburger with fries, and when they gave me my food, all I had was a huge paper cup of fries.  I tried to explain that I ordered a cheeseburger too, and the guy kept telling me he already gave it to me.  I thought I had been ripped off, until I looked and realized that my cheeseburger was inside the huge pile of fries.

On Sunday, I went back to Namur, but this was for an event planned by AFS for the Namur Chapter (which I am in).  We started off going to a museum of music, which was really bizarre.  Our tour guide would lead us into different rooms and have us make music with what seemed like a bunch of African style instruments.

Next we went to a cave.  It was some cave found in 1904 by a bunch of workers. I think it was the only cave I've been to other than Mammoth Cave.

After the cave, we went down to the bridge for a while, and some of us ate at a restaurant.  

Finally, we took the train back to the main station.  It was a great vacation!  As for today, school was terrible and my next vacation is in 7 weeks.  Wish me luck!

À plus tard

Keaton

Happy Halloween!

It's hard for me to believe that it's already November, but that must mean I'm having fun.

Fall vacation started last Friday, and other than the first night, I hadn't really done much until yesterday (anyone who isn't a parent/teacher can feel free to ask me what happened the first night of vacation!).


Yesterday I went to Liège to celebrate Halloween with other exchange students.  First I met up with my friend Will in Namur, and from there we took the train to Liège.  We arrived a few hours early and we were both starving so we started off by walking around looking for somewhere to eat.  We were trying to find McDonald's, but we decided we wanted some food that was more substantial, so we ate at Pizza Hut instead (isn't it great that we're branching out and trying new things?).

We didn't know where to find the bar that the exchange students were at, so another Canadian exchange student from Rotary Club came to help us find it.  It's so much fun getting together with other English speakers and making fun of each other's accents!

We walked around Liège for a while longer before we got to the bar.  We met up with some other Americans and a German guy.

When we arrived at the bar, I talked and said hello to a lot of people I hadn't seen for a long time outside of the bar.  Things were somewhat crazy from the get-go, though.  People were already dancing on the tables at 2 PM, so I went with another group of people to a different bar with a calmer setting.

When we got to the second bar, I was going to order something when I reached into my pockets to find out I didn't have my wallet.  That was probably that scariest thing to happen to me in the past few months.  A few good friends walked with me back to the original bar and my wallet was sitting on an empty table.  They don't come more absent minded than me.

After a few more hours of socializing together, we left the bar and went to the fair in Liège.  I was with AFS students at the time, but they weren't interested in doing any of the rides so I met up with some Rotary students that I met earlier in the day.  I can't really describe the ride very well but I got a pretty good view of the city.  After that, the Rotary students helped me find the train station and I went home. I also forgot my camera, but I'll post pictures later if I find any on Facebook.

Tonight I'm going to the movie theater with my host brother and some friends from school. We're seeing some French movie that I've never heard of before - gotta try new things!

For the rest of vacation, I'll be meeting up with other exchange students on Saturday and Sunday, and doing all my homework on Sunday at midnight (or Monday at midnight, whatever floats your boat).

In other news, I've been wanting to see The Sixth Sense for a long time, so I watched it the other night.  First I liked it, then when it was over I hated it, and then the next morning after sleeping on it, I realized that I love it.

David Guetta!

Last Saturday, I took the train to Liège for a David Guetta concert.  For old people who have never heard of David Guetta, he's a famous French DJ, but really popular in the US too.

I went with other exchange students.  I actually didn't know any of them before I went, but I knew of them through other exchange students.

When I got to Liège, I met up with the three other guys I was supposed to share a hostel with, one American, Caleb, and two Canadian, Will and Evan (with apologies to all Canadians who consider themselves Americans).

I can cross "all night concert" off my bucket list now!  It started at 8 PM and ended at 5 AM.  They failed to mention, however, that David Guetta would only be there from midnight to 2.  No problem, though, it was still a lot of fun!

When we first got there, the opening DJ was a friend of the other American's host sister.  Small world in Belgium.

I left the concert with Caleb, Will, and Evan at around 4 AM to walk to our hostel.  Caleb had booked a room for us, so we thought we were all covered.  It turned out that the hostel was completely booked, and we never exactly understood why.  Maybe Caleb accidentally booked it for the next night.  But they let us sleep on the wood floor, and I had some clothes to use for a pillow so it wasn't too bad.

A lady told us we had to get up at about 7:30 AM, but said we could sleep on the couches in the side hallway.  You can imagine how happy we were when it turned out that there were couches available the whole time.  It was a pretty laughable situation though.  We decided to go to the train station a head home.

Yesterday, my English teacher told our class we would be watching a surprise movie in English the next day.  It  turned out to be Mrs. Doubtfire!  I forgot how funny that movie is, and my English teacher was happy that I knew the film.  I told him that my mom used to complain my siblings and I should be better behaved, "like those kids in Mrs. Doubtfire."

Tomorrow, my school is going to see Moonrise Kingdom at the movie theater, and then I have the next week off of school.  Stuff to look forward to!

Bonne nuit,

Keaton

Chinese Restaurant

At my school, I set next to a Chinese girl named Christine in most classes.  She speaks fluent Chinese, plus a fair amount of French and even more English.  Her birthday was on Sunday and she invited my host brother, myself, and a few other friends to her birthday dinner at her family restaurant.

The cook was a show off, but hey, he had something to show off.  It was sweet!

Weekend in Liège!

I've been up to a lot lately! On Saturday, I had an optional AFS trip to Liège for a boat ride, and I brought my host brother with me. We took a train to Liège.  When we got there, we rode a ferry around the Meuse River, which took about an hour.  Afterwards, we all went to a restaurant together for lunch.  It was a pretty crazy day after lunch.

One of the American students in Belgium, Callie's host-parents wanted her to leave Liège shortly after the ferry ride.  She was going to walk to the bus stop and take a bus to the train station.  Because I'm a fantastic person, a girl named and Ana and I went with Callie to keep her company.  It wasn't hard to find the bus stop, but then we couldn't find the right bus.  It started raining so we ran into McDonald's to call a student named Chris who lives in Liège, because he would know how to get to the train station without a bus.

We ran through the rain for about ten minutes until we got to the station and said goodbye to Callie.  Ana said she was sure she knew how to get back to the restaurant, so we trusted her.  It started raining harder and my umbrella flipped inside out every 30 seconds.  After about a half hour of running through the pouring rain, we realized we were back by the train station.  So then we decided to trust Chris, who took us in more big circles (not to say I wouldn't have done the same, but I didn't get cocky;).

After waiting over an hour, my host-brother called me and was freaking out that I wasn't back yet.  He told me to meet him at the train station, and I told Chris just to lead me back to the river, because I was pretty sure I could get to the train station by then.  I crossed the bridge and realized I had no idea how to get to the train station.  I asked several different people for directions, but everyone led me a different way.  I forgot that there were two train stations in Liége : the one that I arrived in, and the one that we took Callie to.

Running around lost and alone in a big city in a foreign country with a foreign language is one of the most frustrating things that can happen to you.  Eventually I made my way to the wrong train station, but figured out how to take the train to the other station, where my host-brother had been waiting for me.  Even if it took a long time to figure out, I did it in French, so I'm all good;)

 I know you're all dying to hear the rest, but I'm tired, so I'll finish later