I Think I May Die...

Ok a word to the wise: When you're full, STOP EATING.

I'm so full of food I can't stand it. I don't even know how my little tummy is holding it all. It's been like five hours and I still feel as if I'm going to burst. Let me back up and explain. Today, we went to my host dad's sister's house for the Christmas dinner that we were supposed to have yesterday. I met my host dad's brother and sister and their families, and his parents were there too. I really like his family! His sister is very nice, and she told me about the American store that is nearby, and his brother was nice too and we had some good conversation. P.S. My host dad is definitely the crazy in the family. But he did wear normal pants today.

The dinner was four courses. We started off with a salmon and something that resembled deviled eggs with a different taste. But the salmon had a weird gelatin on the bottom of it, and that really bothered me. I tried to ignore it and it was good overall. Next came the soup. I think it was a pumpkin soup, but I couldn't tell you for sure. After that was the main course. We had stuffed duck with oranges, green beans wrapped in bacon, potatoes, a celery purée, and these little fruits that I've never seen in the States with a name that I don't know how to spell. It was a good meal, but everything had this weird taste behind it that I didn't much care for. The thing about European cooking is that there is always fatty meats involved, which I really don't like. Green beans are great! But why must they be wrapped in bacon???? The duck was good, but it had a layer of fat across the top, and I think I was the only one who took that part off. I just can't handle the texture of fat in my mouth. I just can't chew on it. But after that was the dessert, and that was my poison. I intended on trying maybe two of the six cakes and tarts that were out on the table. But no, everyone was piling my plate until I had a piece of every single one. There were two ice cream logs, one with vanilla and raspberry and one with mocha. There was another log with mocha and chocolate, but it was more of a cake. There was a fruit tart, a rice cream tart, and an almond tart. And I had a piece of each. I really did think I was going to die. But after a half hour, I somehow managed to finish it all. They were all very good. I especially like the almond and the raspberry. The fruit tart was good, but it had a layer of that weird gelatin on it, and I didn't like that. I'm surprised I didn't burst. And I'm still feeling very full. My host brothers and dad ate dinner when we got home, but my host mom and I couldn't. I still feel like my stomach could burst any second. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep it off.

They did get me presents though! I received more Galler chocolates and a jar of Skippy crunchy peanut butter. YUM. Thank you American store in Antwerp.

Ok this wasn't the best post ever, but I'm tired and full and I want to go to sleep. I need to work out for like 5 hours tomorrow. Goodnight!

NOËL

Joyeux Noël tout le monde !

It's Christmas. December 25th. The day that Jesus was born.

Well let's start with yesterday. So yesterday was Christmas Eve. Obviously. The day started off pretty much like any other. I was supposed to go to school in the morning to pick up my report card, and I woke up late so I ran around getting ready really quickly so that we could get to school before 10 30am. But the snow was really bad so my host mom said no let's wait a bit and see if they come by to plow the roads. So I sat down to eat and then went upstairs to finish the present for my host parents. My host mom then came upstairs. She had gotten a text from school saying that they were going to postpone the report cards until January 10th. So no worries. I finished up my host family's gift and went down to lunch. It was a nice lunch. We had salad with little fancy meat thingys and big heaping portions of delicious wonderful melted cheese resting on top. It was so delicious. I love cheese so much. Then Benoit came home. He actually had class on Christmas Eve. So he ate lunch too with us and then I went to work wrapping all my gifts for my family and putting together the Christmas package to send home. It took me a while, but I did finish. And then I cleaned my room and got ready to go to my host mom's parents' house for Christmas dinner.

Around 5 30pm, we all got in the car and put on a Christmas cd as we drove to pick up Damien from school. Cue the beginning of Emma's homesickness. Although I sang along to the songs anyway since they were mostly in English. But after the first half hour I just stared out the window and listened to the music and thought about home. We got Damien from school and then eventually made it to my host grandparents' house. We walked in to a warm welcome from them and my host mom's brother and his wife and kids. They have four children, three boys and a girl. The oldest is seven, the next is five, and then there are two three year old twins, one boy and one girl. They are all so adorable too. We said our hellos and Joyeux Noëls and took off our coats and such. And I learned that mistletoe here is a New Years tradition, not a Christmas one. You kiss someone under mistletoe at midnight on New Years. Interesting.

Everything was warm and sweet and pretty. That house is so full of warmth and love, I can't take it. It reminds me so much of my grandparents' house in the States. And my host grandparents remind me of my own grandparents. It's nuts. We all sat down in the living room and talked and such. And then out came the appetizers. All kinds of little things stacked up on mini crackers. The specialty of grandma. There were some with crab, anchovies, salmon, egg, ham, all kinds of things. I tried anchovies for the first time in my life. I didn't like it much. But I also tried caviar for the first time, and that was wonderful. I have expensive taste I guess. I also drank quite a bit of champagne and couldn't turn my head too fast without a little bit of dizziness. But nothing at all to worry about. They just kept filling my glass before I could say no thank you.

Then it was gift exchanging time. I didn't expect to receive anything, but I did get a few things, and it was very sweet and I felt bad that I had left my present for my family at the house, under the impression that we would exchange on Christmas day. From Damien, I received a nice big bottle of Kriek, which is that cherry flavored beer that I do in fact like. My host parents got me a turquoise Ice Watch, which is very Belgian. I think I'm going to swap it out for the green though. I'll explain why in a bit. My host grandparents got me a nice little dainty silver necklace with a rhinestone peace sign pendant. And my host mom's brother's family, who I had just met that day, gave me chocolates. A nice pallet of little sample sizes of all the Galler flavors. And a little box of "chacolat" which is a box with a few chocolates in it and a comic strip starring a cat (cat is "chat" in French). I was touched by my gifts and liked them very much. Everyone got some nice stuff too, including a GPS for my host dad.

By this time everyone was ready for dinner. So we sat down to our first course, which was a sort of log of pureed lobster and vegetables with a white sauce. The sauce also had little pieces of vegetables in it. We had rolls with it also. It was absolutely delicious and the sauce was so creamy. I was already full by the end of the first course. I helped clear the table and get the next round of plates ready. Each person got their own little tiny cornish hen. They were seriously the smallest eating birds I've ever seen. Each person got one, along with some vegetable that is called "chicon" and a couple of these deep fried potato type balls. It was all covered in a wonderful thick gravy. That was truly delicious. Of course, the kids all got something else to eat, and by this time they were all sitting in front of the television watching some Tinkerbell movie. I could not finish all my food. I thought my stomach was going to burst. But we still had dessert! We took some time in between the courses though. I was drinking wine with the meal too! Which is very different for me. I had a glass of white and of red. And I have to say, I did enjoy it. The first time of my life that I enjoyed drinking wine. Anyways, we took some time now to just chill out. I played with the kids a little and talked to my host brothers. But then it was time for my death: dessert. There were two cakes. They were the yule log type cakes. One was ice cream, and the other was an actual cake that was mocha flavored. They insisted that I take a little of each, so I tried them both. I can't believe my stomach didn't burst. But then they brought out the macaroons, and I was obligated to try one of those too. And then the chocolates, but I passed on those. Then we took some family photos. By this time, it was about 11 30pm and it was time to go. We packed up our gifts and drove home, stopping about halfway to change drivers because my host dad was sleepy. We got home, I showered, watched about half of "The Incredibles" and fell asleep with my homesickness.

This morning I woke up with 20 minutes before the Christmas mass. I hurried up and got ready and then me and host parents went to the church behind the house and Benoit met up with us. It was probably the saddest Christmas mass I've ever been to. There was hardly anyone there and the music was very depressive. But it was a Christmas mass nonetheless, and although I didn't understand much, I kept up as much as I could. When it was over, we went back to the house and had a breakfast of bread and Nutella and jelly. Which my host brother thought was especially strange. I then went upstairs to take a nap, but instead ended up writing a bit more of my novel, applying to another university, sending a few emails and writing a letter to Ryan. Then it was lunchtime. We had pheasant, though I had chicken instead (I'm not sure why), grilled mango, cooked cinnamon apples, and roasted potatoes. We were supposed to go today to my host dad's sister's house for Christmas dinner, but because of the snow, we are going tomorrow instead. Then I Skyped with my family for 2 hours and read the story of Christmas with them, watched them open their gifts, and talked with them about things going on in life. I then amused myself with Skype and StumbleUpon, since my host parents went out and my host brothers were each in their rooms doing their own things. Very odd Christmas. I was feeling pretty homesick. But then it was dinner time, which was just fish soup with shrimp and cooked oysters, which I didn't eat. But the conversation was very good and I gave my family the cookbook of American recipes that I had made them for Christmas. We flipped through it together, and it turns out I didn't make that many mistakes in it! I had translated all the recipes from English to French and converted them from US to metric. It took a while, but it was worth it because they really liked it and appreciated it.I spent a good chunk of time downstairs afterwards talking with my host mom and a little with my host dad, and then I Skyped with the whole family, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents, for about a half hour. And then I showered and now I'm blogging and my eyes are closing. It's time for Emma to go to sleep.

Tomorrow, we continue Christmas. Bonne nuit !

Joyeux Noël

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

A Christmas post coming later.

Love,

Chicken Paprikash

So about that party last night... I didn't go. Because I started to feel sick. And I really freaked out. If you know me, or if you've at least been keeping up with the blog, you know that I am deathly afraid of puking. And my host mom and brother came down with a sort of stomach flu the other day. And then yesterday, I was fine all morning. I went to the gym and worked out for 2 hours (and did really freaking great too), came home and cleaned my room and continued writing my Christmas cards and putting together the few packages I'm going to send, and worked out rides and stuff to get to the party. It was all ready to go. And then I decided to take a shower. And all of the sudden my stomach just started hurting. I wrote it off at first, but then it started to really bother me. So then I said, oh it's just an anxiety attack since I'm so freaked out by the rest of the people around me being sick. Plus my host mom had conveniently told me that it was on the news how there have been a lot of cases of stomach flu in Belgium this winter. So needless to say, I was nervous about it. So I said I would just wait a couple hours and see how I was. I laid down in my bed and began watching "The Princess Bride" and told my host mom I wasn't feeling well and didn't know if I was gonna go to the party. Eventually I started to feel a little better, but still decided not to go because I knew I would kick myself the next day if I got sick from going out when I wasn't in good shape. So I stayed home. Over the course of the night, I drank only water, didn't eat anything, and watched "The Princess Bride", "Ella Enchanted", and "Men in Tights". Kind of on a medieval/Cary Elwes kick. But I enjoyed myself. The I watched "Bride Wars", and then fell asleep to an episode of "Big Bang Theory".

I woke up this morning feeling tip top. I ate breakfast, continued with my Christmas stuff, and then after lunch, did some more Christmas shopping with my host mom. Don't worry, I didn't buy anything. Then for dinner I decided to try my hand at one of my dad's classic recipes: chicken paprikash. I had him send me the recipe last night and my host mom got some sour cream for me and I was doing great with it! The chicken was cooking perfectly and I had the sauce simmering and everything.

And then I tried to make the dumplings.

I totally failed. I'm just going to come right out and say it. I can't make dumplings to save my life. I don't know what was wrong with them. But they would not cook through. I put them in the boiling water by the spoonful just like Daddy said. And I was texting him simultaneously and he told me to just keep boiling them, but they wouldn't cook. They turned out totally yucky looking and they didn't taste right either. So I threw away the first attempt, changed the batter a little with more flour, but take two was no good either. So in the end, we ended up just making some pasta and my host mom and I sat down to eat. I have to say though, I totally aced the sauce and chicken. The sauce was a little bit richer than I'm used to, and I'm not sure if there was too much sour cream or I'm just all adjusted to the less flavorful Belgian food. Regardless, it tasted good and my host mom LOVED it. My host dad then came home and tasted it too and he said it was also very good. So I win :) And it was not bad over pasta, though it would have been better if I had done the dumplings right... But the chicken was extremely tender and I am very proud of that part.

By this time it was already past 9pm. And now it's past midnight. Which means technically it's Christmas Eve. And it couldn't feel farther from it. But apparently later today I'm going to have the best Christmas meal of my life at my host grandma's house. We'll see! For now, it's sleepy time. Goodnight all!

Christmas Shopping

Today I went to Liège with Brittany and Hadley to do some mad Christmas shopping before the big day on Saturday. No, nobody's getting married. It's Christmas you silly gooses!!

I woke up this morning to find that the buses still are not running in my little village of Fumal. Convenient. Not. So my host mom drove me to the gym this morning around 10am. We got there just as they were opening and some other people were already waiting outside. These people are intense when they want to be. Anyway, Talia met me there and we worked out for about an hour and a half, just doing the regular circuit as is habitual. Then we took a quick run over to the grocery store so that Talia could pick up a few things, and then we caught a bus back over by the gym with only a minute to spare. Talia took it home, but I stayed on and rode all the way to the Waremme train station, where I caught a train to Liège. I met up with Hadley and Brittany around 1 15 and we caught a bus over the Médiacité, which is like a mall in the middle of Liège. I had no idea it existed! And I discovered Primark, a wonderful store with very well priced clothing and jewelry and shoes and stuff. I finally bought myself a pair of man shoes that I've been looking around forever for! And I got myself some slippers too, since I tend to be so freezing. Then I helped the other two find presents for their host families, which was successful. We all walked out of the store happy. We then did some other shopping and eventually decided to head over to where the Marché de Noël is, where I've been spending a lot of my time lately. But first we dropped Hadley back off at the train station, since she had to catch an earlier train. But then me and Brit headed over and we finished up our Christmas shopping and then caught a bus back to the station, where she got her bus and I, my train. The station was cool because all the lights were shining red for Christmas and there was a group in the middle of the station performing. Not Christmas carols, but they were singing. Songs like "What A Wonderful World" and "Oh Happy Day". Nice.

My host mom picked me up from Waremme and then I went straight to dance, which went very well today. Then I went home, ate the dinner I hadn't had before, and took my shower. Now I'm getting ready to go to sleep since there's a big party tomorrow in Hannut for the end of exams. Woo! As you can see, today wasn't too exciting. And I haven't eaten anything noteworthy the last couple days. I probably won't blog tomorrow since I have the party, but I'm sure I will have plenty to say the next day!

Bonne nuit :)

Is It Christmas Yet?

Christmas is in less than a week. And it feels so very much like it's not. I don't think I've ever experienced a December that felt less Christmas-y. Here's why: There's no Christmas concerts. No carolers. No caroling. No Christmas cookies. No Christmas lights. No extravagant decorations. No Santa's ringing bells. No malls with lines of children waiting to take their pictures with Santa. No television specials. No Christmas songs on the radio. No Christmas movies. No Nutcracker performances. No "The Christmas Carol" to go see. No gingerbread houses. It feels like there's no Christmas. Not to mention on Christmas Eve, I have to go to the school to pick up my report card. On Christmas Eve!! Ugh. Anyways, this is what I did today.

I woke up kinda late, 10 30am, and didn't eat breakfast. I got myself ready and actually put in my contacts this morning. And they're fine! They haven't been bothering me all day and they're not red or anything! So I found that exciting. I then went down for lunch, which was duck and stuffing, green beans in cream sauce, these potato fried things, and some other sort of vegetable that I didn't recognize. After lunch, my host parents and I went out to Liège for another Rotary event. It took us a long time to get there because there is actually a decent amount of snow on the ground now and the roads are legitimately bad. The Belgians actually have reason to freak out now.

We went to a church in Liège, where we were the first ones to get there, other than the President of the club and the musicians. It was a sort of Christmas concert. So yes, finally something festive. There was a piano/harpsichord/organ player and flute player also. But the kind that looks more like a recorder. Wow, yes, I sound incredibly musically educated right now. Anyways, some of the concert was just them playing, but other parts, we sang. All 25 or 30 of us. Yah, there weren't that many people there. But it was funny because some of the songs were in English, so obviously I had no trouble, but it was funny to hear the Belgians trying to sing in English. Especially the more upbeat ones like Jingle Bells. So I enjoyed myself. And I don't think I failed too bad at the French singing either.

It then took us a good hour and a half to get home when it normally takes a half hour. Then I spoke with my mother, ate dinner (cheese, bread, pizza, typical Sunday dinner), and Skyped with my parents. Now I'm waiting to see if I'm going to talk to Ryan tonight. But it is kinda late so we'll see. Tomorrow, I finish my Christmas shopping. Yay shopping! By the way, red pants again today.

And for your own Christmas enjoyment, this is my gift to all my readers: http://theuglydance.com/?v=vjeqsomvwt

Bonne nuit!

TGIF. Although Thursday Was Pretty Great

It's Friday. Which means I'm officially done with exams and I'm on vacation! Yay for no more school! Kinda... Call me crazy but I'm not too psyched for break. I guess it's cause Christmas is in a week and it doesn't feel like it at all. There are no Christmas songs on the radio, no lights on the houses, no TV specials, no movies, no Nutcracker, no Christmas cookies, no big crazy decorations... Not to mention it's hard to be away from home on the holidays. But I really do think it would be a lot worse if I was still on Facebook. So I'm actually really glad I deactivated. Today I had Social Sciences as far as exams. Mikayla and I were able to take it together, and I think we did a really good job on it.

But the really interesting part of this post is yesterday. I had my Science exam, and I just did not haven enough time to finish it. I really only got through about half. The genetics part, because that's what I knew well. But I'm not too concerned about it. But after that, me and Talia went to the gym, as usual, and we biked, worked out our legs, and then did some elliptical. But then for some reason, my arm is really killing me today... Anyways, we also did some ab stuff and took a nice long stretch at the end, which hurt really bad, but also did a lot of good. Then afterwards, we took the bus to Talia's, where we chowed down, talked to her host family, and just chilled for a couple hours. Then we got in the car and her host brother drove us back to the school to meet up with Madame Gallo.

She had decided that she wanted to sort of be in charge of us as exchange students, and kind of act as our counselor and mentor, since she had been an exchange student when she was in high school. She spent the year in Oregon. And she's awesome. So she asked us if we would like to organize some activities with her. And last night, she took us to she her show. She's a comedian. And she wrote a one woman show that she is performing in Brussels. So she took us with her! I was super excited. The entire ride there, we talked, in French of course and just had a really good conversation. And it was snowing. OH MY GOD. But Mme Gallo is so cool, she has snow tires so she doesn't drive like a 86 year old woman.

We got to the cultural center, and she showed us into the theater, and even showed us backstage and her dressing room. But then, obviously, she had to get ready for the show, so we went into the town to find some chow for Eduardo. After taking a few pictures on the stage, of course. We went out into the snow and found a fries and pita place, and Eduardo ordered a taco! He said it was kinda similar to what he had in Mexico. But it had fries on it. It was interesting. I didn't taste it though. After that, we took a few minutes and went into a café and sat down for a drink. Then we went back to the theater, got our free tickets, and waited for the doors to open. And then it was show time. It was a little studio theater so it was pretty intimate and we sat only three rows back. And it was a WONDERFUL show! I laughed so hard. And a big part of it too was the pure fact that she's my teacher doing ridiculous things on stage. The best part of it was that I understood almost every single word that she said. The show she wrote was about American cinema and she talked about classic films like Casablanca and Bridgette Jones. And showed a bunch of different props that were "from the movies". And it was really hysterical. She had this giant pillow beanbag thing that she would use for different things, and at one point she danced the tango with it to "Roxanne" from The Moulin Rouge.

After the show, she took us back to Mikayla's house, and on the way back she told us stories about her exchange and we just had a really great time talking and laughing and everything was splendid. Then we got to Mikayla's house, all of us, and crashed. After having a midnight snack. By the way, peanut butter and Nutella and jelly is a wonderful sandwich combination.

This morning, we woke up and went to school. I went to the gym by myself afterwards, since there were no buses running because of the snow, so Talia could not come up to meet me. But when my host mom picked me up, we went to pick up Damien from school and brought his friends home too. But before, we did a little shopping at the mall there (yes a MALL) and I bought some presents for my family.

When I got home, I went to work on Christmas cards. I got about halfway through. Now I'm getting ready for bed. So bonne nuit tout le monde !

Sore Day And The Cookie Mountain

Can anyone guess what day comes after exercise day? You guessed it! Sore day! Ok, truth be told, it wasn't that bad. My arms were really the only part of me that was in pain. My legs ached a bit and my chest and shoulders too, but my arms were horrible. But Talia and I stuck it through and after our very easy morning, we went for day 2.

Our morning consisted of our English exam. The exchange students had to give a presentation of everything that the class had covered over the course of the semester. This pretty much included topics like why language learning is important, why English is important, the different songs they studied, "A Christmas Carol" and the presentations that some other exchange students had come to give. The prof gave us the first 2 hours of the exam time to prepare while the rest of the class was taking the first part of their exam. So Eduardo, Talia, Mikayla and I worked on the presentation. We had decided to put on a little skit where Talia was the teacher and us three were the students who were in an English class. So we wrote the script and then at the beginning of the second half, we put it on for the class. And it was a big hit! We even got some laughs. And afterwards, the prof could not stop raving about it. She thought it was absolutely excellent. She used the word "extraordinary". Go us! So I think we passed.

We finished our skit in about twenty minutes and then the three girls went over to the GB to look for a pumpkin for Mikayla. We couldn't find that, but she bought some Pringles and I got a little pasta thingy for my lunch, along with some Christmas cards and a new white out. We then went over to the café to eat our brown bag lunches and relax before Talia and I were scheduled to be at the gym at 1pm.

Around 12 20, Talia and I started heading over there. We stopped at the GB again to grab a water bottle, and then we were back on our way. We got there close to one, changed, and then had another run through of the circuit, this time with a guy showing us around. He had us do basically the same things as yesterday, with just a few changes in the exercises and adding a machine or two. At 2pm, Géraldine, Talia's host sister, came up to the gym to join us and do the workouts with us. We stayed until almost 4pm, and I have to say, I had a blast! We had fun talking and joking and laughing with the gym guy, even though I thought I was going to die from time to time due to my very sad lack of arm strength. Tomorrow, we do just cardio.

After we finished at the gym, I went home to begin my next adventure: Cookies! I decided to do cookies for Christmas gifts to my friends at school, and I spent the entire evening making two batches of my famous chocolate chip cookies. You see, in the States, every year for Christmas I make chocolates. All different kinds. Peanut butter cups, peanut clusters, chocolate covered marshmallows and pretzels with different sprinkles, all kinds. My specialty is a chocolate covered pretzel rolled in peppermint pieces. I was a pro at my chocolate making. Even my molds were special. I had all different colors of chocolates and I would make the molds very artistic. The teddy bears would get red hearts. The snowmen were white chocolate with orange carrot noses, colorful hats, scarves and buttons, and black for the eyes and mouth. I was very meticulous about my snow men. I even had little paper cups for the clusters that had holly leaves on them. And then I would take a bunch of the chocolates and put them in little cellophane bags with snowflakes or Christmas trees or holly or whatever decoration on them and tie them up with red and gold Christmas cord. They made wonderful gifts and everyone always loved them. But since I'm in Belgium and they don't seem to be really into that kind of stuff and there's no cake/confectionary store nearby, I went for cookies. Also, all the Belgians rave over my cookies, so why not? I made them a bit smaller too. And since Belgian appliances are considerably smaller than American ones, I could only make nine cookies at a time. Talk about time consuming. But I spent the time in between batches talking to my friends back in the States, catching up with my sister and trying not to raise my arms too high.

By the time I had finished all the cookies, which was after dinner (that pasta dish that my host dad makes with the shrimp... The whole ones... That you have to dismember yourself... The ones that stare at you), I had formed a small mountain from the 143 cookies that I had made. Of course, occasionally Benoit would come downstairs and steal some, and I ate way too much dough and cookies and chocolate... Kinda defeating the purpose of today's workout, but I confess and I will try harder to get back on my diet!

However, the fun did not stop there! I then spent the next couple hours making little satchels for my cookies out of red napkins and plastic wrap and tying them up with gold ribbon with Christmas trees on it. But then I ran out of plastic wrap. So I put a paper towel on top of the red napkin and wrapped that up instead so that the red was on the outside. But then I ran out of paper towels. So I used foil. But only for like two or three of them. In the end, I had forty satchels ready to take to school tomorrow. And now I'm in bed after a lovely hot shower and I'm ready to sleep.

Oh and my host dad wore his red pants today.

Bonne nuit!

Bruxelles À Noël

Today, my host mother woke me up at 8 20am to tell me that they were taking me to Brussels to see it all decked out for the holidays. Needless to say, at 8 20 in the morning, I wasn't too ecstatic about this idea. But I rolled out bed after my six hours of sleep anyway and got myself dressed and ready to go as quickly as I could. Not really, I took my time. But I still managed to get myself downstairs for breakfast around 9am. There was some wonderful bakery and cheese on the table, and the minute I left my room I was greeted by the most amazing smell of cinnamon and sugar. This was because my host parents had been hard at work making the traditional Belgian cookie, speculoos. I've talked about speculoos before. It's like a gingerbread type cookie with cinnamon and almond. And it's wonderful and the scent is to die for.

So as I'm sure you can tell, I broke my diet and ate a couple cookies along with some wonderful breakfast pastry. And some cheese on a roll. And then my host mom made me tea. I was set for the day.

By the way, my host dad wore his red pants today.

We left soon after that and were off to Brussels by car. I sat in the back and read a book on my iPod as we went. I got through almost 50 pages on the way there. I was pretty content, and it's a wonderful book (Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging. Confessions of Georgia Nicolson by Louis Rennison). We parked the car and ventured out into the rainy Belgian city. It warmed up a little today, so the majority of the snow was gone and it was raining instead of snowing. I have to say, I prefer the snow. I hate carrying around an umbrella.

My host mom and I separated from my host dad for a while, and we walked through the city, going into a few shops here and there and looking at all the great window displays. There were chocolate shops everywhere, all with speculoos in the windows, molded into the shapes of Saint Nicholas. Everything was so warm and wonderful and they all smelled amazing. She took me into the Grande Place and I saw the decorations for Christmas there, which featured a huge Christmas tree in the center, all lit up and sparkling. I imagine that it's ridiculously beautiful at night, all lit up and glowing. But alas, it was rainy day, so as beautiful as it was, it was still a little bit sad looking. Hopefully I'll get to go back.

We met back up with my host dad in an art gallery. Ok I'm going to diverge a little bit here. What is with the Belgians and this ridiculous level of comfort with sex and nudity??? I just don't understand! Everywhere you go, there are paintings of naked women or people just going at it or just things like that. They're everywhere! Like yesterday at the Village de Noël, there was a stand where you could buy a license plate and have it engraved. There was one that had a cartoon guy giving the viewer the middle finger while in the process of certain activity that requires a female partner. And there are things like this all over the place. And I'm so not used to it. And what was worse in this case, they were all pictures of the painter's wife. That poor woman... But I suppose that's culture, so whatever. I just find it a little discomforting with my naive American mindset. walked through another shop that specialized in kitchen and bathroom design, and marveled at all the different furnitures and such. Don't laugh at me. I enjoyed it! I like stuff like that. And when I told them that the typical American oven is about three times the size of the typical Belgian oven, they were amazed. But it's true! Belgian appliances are so tiny. I can only do one batch of 9 cookies at a time in the oven here, when in the States I could make two dozen at a time. It's a little annoying...

Anyways, we then went to this wonderful Italian restaurant for lunch. Wow! We started off with a sort of appetizer, where they brought us a big plate that had a bunch of little quantities of vegetables all around the edge and a little pile of beans in the center, all drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Some of them were stuffed with cheese, others were spiced, and some were buttery. But they were all delicious. We all just went at it with our forks and it was gone before we could blink twice. Then we made like true Europeans and sopped up all the vinegar with the bread that they brought us. That was delicious. Apparently that is very Italian. For my entrée, I decided on one of the specialties, the gnocchi with a tomato basil sauce. My host mom got a ravioli in a white marscapone sauce and my host dad got pasta that was really spiced and served with mushrooms and a sauce also. They brought us our plates and I thought it was a pretty small pile of gnocchi. Until I started eating it. It was really, really wonderful. Flavorful and authentic, but definitely heavier than I remember in the States. Although now that I think about it, it did fill me up pretty quickly there too. I also tried some of each of my host parents' meals, and they were rich and wonderful as well. I somehow managed to eat all on my plate, and I was completely stuffed. But that wasn't the end of the meal, no. My host dad insisted on getting dessert. Although he didn't have any... But my host mom and I both got the panne cotta (sp?). It was served with strawberries and a strawberry syrup to pour over it and my God... It was so delicious. Creamy and light and flavorful and just really wonderful. I don't know how I managed it, but I ate the rest of that and I was so full.

Our day did not end there. We went to buy some speculoos from the best shop in Brussels, and then we went to the best chocolate shop in Belgium. This place was nuts. You'd think you walked into a fine art gallery. This was not just chocolate, this was true art. There were two floors. And it was just... Exclusive and luxurious looking. And delicious. And my host dad insisted on buying one of the biggest boxes of chocolates you can get. All different pralines and truffles. He spent 37 euros on one box of chocolates today. Not joking. But man, they are really amazingly tasty. I tried one that was infused with Earl Grey tea. Wow. New favorite chocolate. This might be a problem when it comes to my bank account...

We then attempted to go see an art exhibition but it had ended already for the day and we were too late. So we resigned to going to the car to come home. I ended up falling asleep for the majority of the ride. And now I'm sitting in my room, really cold even though my heat is up all the way, waiting to be called down for a dinner that I'm really not hungry for. But that is ok! I had a good day, and a good week, and I'm pretty happy. Plus one! :)

It's Really Freaking Cold Here

It's Thursday. And it's like negative seven degrees Celsius. And granted, it gets much colder than that in Ohio, but I don't know what it is. It just feels so much colder here. Talia doesn't think she's going to make it through the winter. But she will. And so will I. If nobody else, Eduardo will. He's loving the snow. He was outside having snowball fights today :)

Yesterday, I went to school as usual, but I have the same teacher for all four hours on Wednesdays. And she wasn't there. So I had study hall all day yesterday. So I wrote out a Christmas shopping list and I also wrote out my bucket list. It's about two pages front and back and it's not done. Let's just say I want to do a lot with my life. Anyways, after school, my host mom picked up me and Talia and took us to the train station in Waremme where we caught a train to Liège, got sandwiches from Point Chaud, and met up with the majority of the rest of the exchange students to get a train to Welkenraedt, where ALL the exchange students from our district were getting together, along with the Rotary guys in charge. We all got on a bus from there and went to GERMANY for the Marché de Noël in Aachen. But like I said, it was really cold. I was wearing a pair of really thick lined leggings, my knit shorts under a skirt, socks, boots, a long sleeved shirt, a really heavy sweater, a scarf, three pairs of gloves, my new lumberjack hat, and my big coat and I was alright, but I was definitely shivering. Talia was wearing even more. Four sweaters, I think we finally counted. I lent my earmuffs to Hadley because she had no hat. But as we got on the bus, the Rotary people gave each of us Santa hats! Except they weren't the big fluffy ones that we are used to in the States. Regardless, they were pretty cool. The girls got ones with white braids coming out of them, and the boys got ones without those, but the puff balls on the end of the hats had jingle bells on them.

It took us about a half hour to get to Aachen from Welkenraedt. Once we got there, we all walked into the center of the town together. Germany is beautiful. There was all kinds of cool art on the streets, fountains and such. Plus everything was decorated for Christmas and it was just too cute! And, on my things I love about Europe, there was street music. So you walked through the streets and there was just music playing. It was wonderful. We all gathered and they told us we had about two hours and then we were meeting back up again. So we split off and I went with Hadley and Brittany and Oakley and Alexanne and we walked through the whole thing, and even found a Starbucks! I got a gingerbread latte, which I said in German, and it was great. I missed Starbucks! After that, we walked through it all again and this time actually looked to buy things. I found a few really nice gifts, and so did the others. We talked in English the whole time, though, because nobody spoke French, as we were in Germany. Duh!

After two hours, we met up with the other exchange students. This was around 5 30pm. And it was already dark. We each were given a ticket that we could redeem for either hot wine or hot chocolate. I got the hot wine because the last time I had tried it I really liked it. But I have to say, hot wine is definitely better in Belgium. But it was totally worth it because we got to keep the mugs and they were so cute! They were little boots with German writing on them. I like it :) After drinking our hot drinks and some people getting some food, we all piled back on the bus and drove the half hour back to Welkenraedt. There, the Rotary people gave us a each a bag full of marzipan candies from Saint Nicholas, since that is coming up. Everyone in Belgium is celebrating Saint Nicholas and after Monday, which is the official Saint Nicholas day, we start getting ready for Christmas.

So all the exchange students bombarded the train station and took over the next train to Liège. Which, unfortunately for the people already on it, was a small train. Once we got there, Talia and I were super lucky and our next train pulled up on the same tracks just two minutes later. Talia called her host mom, and since it was snowing, we worked it out so that I could just sleep at Talia's. That is one thing that is very interesting. The Belgians really freak out about driving in the snow. They find it incredibly dangerous and they won't go out if it's snowing. There was probably two inches of snow on the ground, if that, and to them, it was bad enough that I couldn't go back to my house. Which I didn't mind at all! We got back to Talia's, ate pasta, and talked with her host sister, Géraldine. Then we ate some chocolate, went up to her room, had a really deep conversation, and went to bed. We got up this morning, really hoping for a snow day, since her host brother had gotten off of university just a couple days before for the inch of snow that was on the ground, but alas, the buses were running and we had to go to school. It was very cold out though, and Talia's host mom said it was a record cold in Belgium since 1930 I believe. Wow.

So I went through a normal day of school, got a bunch of stuff done at home, like organization and post card writing, didn't go to dance because of the snow, and tomorrow I'm going back to the Village de Noël in Liège with Alexanne and Hadley :) More Christmas shopping! We're going to have a good time, I'm sure!

Yup, that's all for tonight. I'm very tired. It's bed time. Bonne nuit!

Quick Post

You know what I've realized? I go through my whole day thinking about what I'm going to write about in my blog that night, and then by the time I get to my computer and lay down for the night, I have forgotten everything that I was going to say. So let's just recap my day.

I actually had a freaking fantastic day in Belgium today :) It started out with me waking up pretty late, because I didn't have school today, and going down to the breakfast table. And what is awaiting me there but a package. Now I love getting mail, especially when I'm not expecting it. And the last thing I expected to see in my place this morning was a package. I thought it would be from family or maybe Kaitlyn, but I looked at the label and it was from Ryan's family back home! Which I just thought was the sweetest thing ever. So I frantically ripped it open and a bunch of little individually wrapped Christmas presents fall out, along with a card. First Christmas presents in Belgium! I received a shirt that says Hope on it, a few pairs of socks and a pair of gloves. Which I'm grateful for because all the socks I have here are ankle socks and they just don't cut it with the boots. So that was basically the best surprise ever.

After breakfast, I went back upstairs and went hard to work on crossing the 50 000 word finish line of my novel. AND I DID IT!!!! I wrote 50 000 words in 30 days and I am so proud of myself! The book is nowhere near done, but I set a goal, and I achieved it. Now, I'm going to get to work on finishing the actual first draft of the book and then revising it. Because honestly, with some serious polishing, I really do think it could be publish worthy. Which excites me :)

I spent the afternoon with my host mom and Talia. We went to a MALL. This is a big deal. There are like three malls in all of Belgium. Ok more than that, but you get the picture. They're hard to come by. It was so American I couldn't take it. I bought a pair of ear muffs, some pretty earrings, a winter hat and some ridiculously soft, lined leggings that will be super warm. I was on the look out for Christmas presents, since I have begun my search, but no luck today. I also found an absolutely adorable pair of suede gloves that were lined and warm and wonderful, but they were 25 euros, and I just could not justify that. Although they looked lovely.

I came home and Talia stayed for dinner and then I had three hours of dance, the first of which was a mini rehearsal for the show that I have on Saturday. You know, the one with the blue fabric tubey-thingys. And then jazz. But I really started to feel sick during my jazz class. Sort of heartburn ish. Not fun at all. Now I'm at home, ready to make it an early night. Sorta. It's already almost eleven. But I took a shower, so that ate some time. Ok well I'm rambling now. I need to sleep. À demain!