I've been so busy (in a good way) here that when I finally stopped to figure out how long I'd been living in Belgium, I was shocked to realize that this coming Friday will indeed mark 8 weeks from when I took off from Denver. Wow! And in these 8 weeks I've been so lucky to do so much and experience so many things! Since I can't possibly talk about it all I'll include some highlights!
Kayaking: Two Saturdays ago Rotex put on this Kayaking activity available to all exchange students in Belgium. (There are three different districts in total) Early that morning I took the train from Brussels to Dinant (a small town in southern Belgium) and spent a wonderful, beautiful sunny (sunny? Belgium? YES!) day kayaking down a river with 200 other exchange students from around the world!
Liege: My current host dad works as a lawyer in Liege (a town in eastern Belgium about 1 hr. away from Brussels) so I was lucky enough to be invited to the VIP section of the inauguration of the Gare de Liege (train station in Liege) to see the spectacle at the beautiful train station designed by the famous architect Santiago Calatrava.
Rotary Meeting: My Rotary club here in Brussels is pretty intense which is why I was terrified when I had to make an impromptu speech (in french!) about my life in Steamboat, and in Belgium so far. It went surprisingly well though!
School: School has by far been the toughest obstacle I've encountered here so far. I'm in 9 rigorous courses where the teachers (though very involved) treat me like one of the Belgians. Learning about the economic crisis in French has proven nearly impossible, memorizing french poems weekly isn't easy, and the different methods in math have proved very difficult to master. I keep on working though as I know in a few months I'll understand nearly everything!
Friends: Being an exchange student from America is exhausting really. Everyone here is absolutely obsessed with America and I'm constantly being bombarded with questions about California, New York, Abercrombie Clothes, Yellow school buses, "pom-pom girls"(cheerleaders) and colgate ("the colgate american smile") toothpaste all of the time. I don't mind it though! I laugh and say "c'est pas comme les films!" (It's not like the movies)....and that always comes with a little bit of disappointment. As friends go however some of my best friends so far are my three AMAZING host siblings! At school it takes a little bit longer to move past being just acquaintances, though I know I'm getting there! It's also nice to compare how many kisses I get at the beginning of school everyday now compared to when school first started! (When greeting and saying goodbye to someone one kiss on the cheek is used!)
I'm absolutely loving living here, and having an amazing new cultural experience every single day. I'm so incredibly lucky!
I hope everything is well in Steamboat!
à bientôt!
Claire
