I woke up this morning around 10am, because I could. See, I have this really cool shade in my room over my window that blocks out all light. Every single smidgin of light is gone. So I wake up at 10 and it feels like 6am. Which I don't mind because I could never seem to sleep late at the other house because of the light that came in the window, whether it was sunny or rainy. Anyways, I woke up and went downstairs and ate the remainder of the Special K in the box, which ended up being about half a bowl, so I also had a half of a sandwich with cheese and jelly. That is really insignificant, but in case you wanted to know my breakfast this morning, that was it. I then left for my first ballet class in three weeks, since I obviously didn't go Thursday. Dance went very very well today actually. I think I did particularly well today, and I felt much stronger. I'm sure that has a lot to do with the working out. Of course, the tights and leotard aren't exactly the best morale booster, but hey, I look at it as more motivation to keep going to the gym!
After dance, I waited about a half hour and caught a bus to the train station at Landen where I met up with Talia to go to Liège. We bought our tickets and checked the train times and were on a train ready to go by 2 35pm. The thing about Landen, though, is that it is just over the border in the Flemish part. So everything there is in Dutch. I had heard the conductor say over the loud speaker something about Aachen, which concerned me, but then looked out the window and realized she had said Alken, so I didn't worry. However, it didn't even cross my mind the fact that I had never seen this train station before in my life. But, after about 20 minutes, I looked out the window and realized that I didn't recognize a thing. Now I've been to Liège and back so many times, I could list off the stops in the correct order if I really wanted to. And I had never seen these stops before in my life. Plus, everything was in Dutch. So it was around this point that Talia and I realized that we were on the wrong train headed in the wrong direction. We even texted Aymeric, who so lovingly confirmed that. So we decided to get off the train.
But knowing us, we got off the train at this little dinky ghetto stop. With no station, no building, nobody to ask what we should do next. There were only two tracks, one for each direction. So we made our way over to the other side and looked at the schedule. Thank goodness that some words are the same in Flemish and English. We found that the next train taking us back to where we came from didn't come for another forty-five minutes. So the next thought was to try to walk back to the last station, since it was a pretty big one and was in the same city. So we started walking, and came across a bus stop, thinking maybe we could catch a bus there. But we were out of luck with that, though there was a map. But that wasn't very helpful either. So in the end, we walked back to the little ghetto stop and waited for the train. It wasn't super cold out, but the wind bit a little. Eventually, though, a train came by. We got on that one and made our way back to Landen, though we had to pay for another ticket.
At Landen, we managed to get a different train to Liège, even though by now we had discussed whether or not it was worth it, now that it was two and half hours later than the first time around. But we did manage to get on the correct train the second time, and we finally got to Liège. We half walked/half sprinted to the Mediacité, because by this time we were starving and all we wanted to do was find the sushi place. Talia had been craving sushi for a while, and I had never had it before, so I was excited to try it. Around 5 45 we got there, and we saw that the restaurant that I knew about for sushi was closed between 3 and 6pm. So for those extra 15 minutes we walked around and took a look in a few stores. We were a little disappointed because we had originally wanted to do some shopping today too, but it wasn't a big deal.
By 6pm, we were back at the restaurant, and we sat down to eat. The concept of the place is really cool. I was impressed. What happens is, you sit down at a sort of bar, and then a conveyer belt that loops around the whole restaurant passes in front of you, carrying all kids of different little plates with food on them. There are pot-stickers and wantons and fried things and little mini eggrolls and sushi and all kinds of different things. And you pay one price and you take as much as you want as it passes by you. We started off our meals with a sort of soup, which had tofu in it. I had never had tofu before, but I have to say it was pretty good. Other things of note that I tried this evening: Seaweed salad. A little spicy, but I liked it. A variety of fried and stuffed crunchy wanton type things. Very good. Typical Chinese. Orange chicken. FINALLY. Sushi. First time of my life trying it, and I have to say I'm a fan. I really do enjoy the textures and flavors and I really like the rice! :) They also had fruits and desserts going around, and Talia and I ate until we were completely stuffed. Of course, this was sometimes difficult as we would see something coming down the conveyer from the other end, anxiously awaiting the point where we could snatch it up. Unless of course, someone else had the same ideas and got it before you did, which happened often. But we still managed to taste everything we wanted to and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. And I tried new foods!
After we finished our dinner, we ran back to the train station to catch our train home. Due to some technical difficulties, we ended up on the wrong platform at first, and when we got to the right platform, the train was just barely beginning to pull away. So, we missed our train home. Which totally went with the theme of the day. But again, it was no big deal. We considered going back to Huy instead of Landen, but after talking with Talia's host mom, we ended up just waiting at Guillemans for another hour until the next train to Landen came through. We sat around just talking and such. We met someone who was very eager to speak English with us, which seems to be typical of Belgians. And eventually, we did make it on a train home. We got back to Landen around 9 20pm. Then Talia's host mom came to get us and she dropped me off at my house, which was only maybe ten minutes away, if that. Then I ate lots of chocolate...
Also, tonight is the Winter Formal dance back at my high school in the States, and my sister is going. So I was lucky enough to be able to Skype a little bit with her before she left and I even got to talk to her date, who is one of my friends too. She looks amazing and she's going to have a great time! And my Christmas package made it home today too. So I got to see Olivia open her gift, which was a turquoise Ice Watch. She loves it! Then she left for her dance and I watched as my parents opened their gifts too. My mom's birthday, as you know if you read regularly, was the 6th of December, so I had a birthday and Christmas gift in there for her. For her birthday, I got her a German scarf with all kinds of browns and maroons and burgundy colors in it, which she loved. And for Christmas, I gave her a bag of little Galler chocolates with all the different flavors. For my dad, I got him a hand made Belgian ceramic house for his Christmas village. I also got them a gold ornament with a little jingle bell inside of it that says Noël on it. I also got gifts for the rest of the family and they should be getting those things tonight as well. After talking to my family, I Skyped with one of my friends for about an hour and now I'm going to get some sleep.
Overall, the day was hectic, but it was an adventure, and it surprisingly did not stress me out at all. I actually had a lot of fun! I like crazy adventures that keep me on my toes here in Belgium. It's stuff like this that makes it fun. Now I just need to find a way to do my shopping... But for now I will focus on sleeping. Bonne nuit!
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