Allez Standard!

Today I had the day off because Madame Gallo was not there, and as you all know by now, I only have class with Madame Gallo on Wednesdays. So I took the opportunity to go visit my host brother in Namur. We spent the day together and it was pretty rockin. We took a walk through a park there that reminds me kind of a really small scaled down version of Central Park, listened to music, watched a movie, etc. It was really nice out today, so that was a plus. The only downside is that getting to Namur sucks because whether I take two trains or a bus and a train, it still takes a good hour and a half to get there from Hannut. Blech. But, plus side, I did run into Karine and Damien on my way to catch my train home. We got all caught up. It was cool to Damien after so many months of living in different houses.

I was unable to post yesterday because I got home too late. I stayed home from school yesterday because I was just exhausted and woke up not feeling well at all. So I spent the entire morning sleeping and by the time everyone got home from school, I was doing much better and by dinner time, I was able to eat with the family. At dinner, we started talking about the recent soccer matches and our team in Liège, the Standard. Turned out that there was a match that night and even though there were no tickets left for the stadium, we could go to Liège at the Place St. Lambert (where I spend most of my Liège time anyways) and there would be a screen set up for people to watch the game. So in the spirit of spontaneity, my host dad and Manon and I decided to join my host uncle and cousin for the game. We headed out around 8 15pm and got to Liège by 8 45, all clad in red to support the Standard. It was really cool actually. There were TONS of people there (we heard later on the radio something about 45,000 whaaaaat) all dressed in red, screaming, yelling and drinking beer (of course, Belgium). It wasn't easy to see the screen because of the crowd, but we eventually managed to battle our way through it and find a spot to stand. Once we scored, it was absolutely nuts. There were firecrackers going off and red lights everywhere and people jumping all over the place. But, I'm sorry to say, by the end of the hour and a half match and the three-minute overtime, the other team from Genk had managed to score and beat the Standard. Everyone was pretty disappointed. But it was, nonetheless, cool to see and I'm so glad I got to go!

I must bid everyone good night now, as I actually have to go to school tomorrow. Bonne nuit !