23/9/2012

Okay, I haven't updated in a while so brace yourselves this is probablly going to be a long one. So I leftheit off on what I believe was Thursday night. Friday was just a normal day so I'll  skip over that. Saturday I played games with my host brother and made plans to go to La fete de Wallonie t他和he next day. This included my host mom teaching me how to use the train and telling me where I had to switch trains. Not to complicated but a little scary when it's your first time alone. So Sunday before I left we had dinner with the family of my host mom. There I met her brothers and their kids. (host uncles and cousins?) After dinner there was dessert and I had what was called a Brazillian (I have no idea how it got its name) But it was delicious, it was like a mixture of a cream pie and a cheese cake! After dinner my host mom drove me to the train station where I boarded the train to Liege. When I got to Liege I had to find where my next train would stop so I could get on. I very quickly learned what that number my host mom wrote down next to where the train was going. It was the platform the train was on. So after roaming the train station for a bit trying to find out which platform was which I finally found the right one. Oh I forgot, before the train stopped at Liege there were other stops and so when the train got to Liege I decided to talk to the person across from me to make sure I was at Liege and didn't get off in the wrong place. Well it turns out that I appeared to have picked the only person on the train who spoke only Russian! Luckly the girl on the other side of the isle assured me that this was Liege. So fast forward a bit and I am finally getting on the train to Namur. The train ride from Liege to Namur was about an hour so I just kinda hung out and listened to my ipod the whole time. When I arrived at Namur I met up with my friend Henna (who's an exchange student from Ohio) and her host family. Her family took us around the town and showed us the fete. The best way I can describe the fete would be like a mixture of the farmers market and the state fair. There were several smaller concerts and lining both sides of the street were people selling various things. Fries (some of which I bought because I never got supper as a result of the train ride) and clothes and shoes and even intricate wooden carvings. After a while I had to return to the train station and go home. I ended up getting back home around 10 that night. The next day I had a meeting with the teacher who manages the exchange students to discuss my final schedule. (She's the english teacher so it didn't take very long). Afterwards I had my last French class with the kids in my grade because the next day I moved to french with the deuxieme class (I think they are about 12 years old) It is easier for me to understand and they work on vocabulary and grammar instead of philosophy so it's better for me.That day she only had half the class so we all made acrostich poems (did I spell that right?) I discovered quickly tht acrostich poems are much more difficult in other languages. Especially when there is a W in your name. I looked in my dictionary and there were only 7 words that started with W. 3 were parts of trains and one was the french word for Wiskey. I ended up using the word western.  So Wednesday because school ended at noon I went shopping for some warmer clothes (which is good because it is freezing here all the time.) So two sweatshirts one coat and two shirts later I am now much warmer. So the next day before I left for school I checked my schedule to see what I had first. I had English so I went to English first. I later find our that I missed my first day of real French class because me being the genius that I am looked at my old schedule and not my new one. Whoops.   The next day I had french again and there I was given a homework assignment where we were given a short story and had to come up with a title and cover and back page for the story. Me being me ended up spending almost two hours on the front cover. I'm pretty sure the other kids in the class spent about 10 minutes on it at the most. I then had my first real math test which I am pretty sure I passed. Saturday was an awesome day. I started by playing a game with the scouts here where I was a "thief" who had supposedly stolen several things. In reality I was given several objects and told to go and hide them around the whole city, but keep the ring that I was given and wear it. After hiding everything I returned to the little prarie that the scouts use as like a base. When all the groups returned and had found everything they were told that I had the last object. At this point I had to run and try not to get caught by the groups. Whats cool is that I was allowed to run anywhere in the city to avoid being caught. So after about an hour to an hour and a half of running. (or what seemed like it at least.) The groups worked together and cornered me in an allyway and finally caught me. At that point I was exhausted. Later that night was a concert. The singer apparently was friends with Bob Dylan and had actually translated several of his songs into french. Some of which I recognized but not all. I then went home and went to bed. Today I finished the rest of my homework and went and atee dinner with my host moms family again. There I had rabbit (which I'm pretty sure is a first). What's funny is that I didn't know it was rabbit until I had pretty much finished it. I figured the chicken here just taste different than it does at home. I suppose I was a little off. Afterwards we returned to my host dads house and played a board game. After the board game I skyped my little brother while he was at church and said hello to all my friends. I then skyped my parents and now am updating this blog.