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!

Novels And Films

I do not have school this week. This week, the entire country of Belgium is school free :) Honestly, I could not tell you why we don't have school this week, but if I could, well, I would.

Today, I went to see my first film in a movie theater in Belgium. I met up with Brittany around 2:30 in Liège and my host mom drove us into the center of town. We then went to go find the theater that Brittany had looked up online. It was called the Souvenière. I thought I had seen a sign with the name when we were driving, so we went that direction. We found the sign with the same name, but when we looked at the building, it was dingy and dirty, slightly rundown and not very promising. Not to mention there were papers all over the door saying something about a sports center. Realizing that I had been mistaken, we asked a Belgian for directions. She was very nice and showed us the way. It wasn't very far, and on the way there we noticed that the street that we were on was called Rue de Souvenière. So then it made sense why there were would be multiple things with that name.

Once we found the theater, we went in and attempted to purchase two tickets for "Despicable Me", which is a brand new release here in Belgium. And of course, it is in French here and is called "Moi, Moche et Mechant". Which translates literally to "Me, Ugly and Wicked". That made me laugh.

Anyways, we get up to the front of the line, and the woman at the register calls out that there are only five places left for "Moi, Moche et Mechant" (it just doesn't roll off the tongue the way "Despicable Me" does, does it?). So I figured we'd be fine and I bought my ticket. Little did we realize that at the same moment, a family of four was purchasing the rest at the next register over. So when Brittany went to buy hers, there were no more left. Sad and defeated, we weighed our options and finally decided to see "Social Network". It's a movie about the history of Facebook. And it was going to be in English. Plus the ticket for that one was cheaper, so once I exchanged my ticket, I got some money back so that was a definite bonus.

We now had an hour to kill, so we went to go find some food. We went into the café that was attached to the theater, but after realizing that we had no idea how that worked, since nobody was coming to our table to ask what we wanted, we decided to leave and walk around. We got a piece of pizza somewhere and then went over to my favorite waffle place where we split the pizza and a chocolate stuffed waffle. We then headed back to the theater and went in for our movie. It actually turned out to be quite good. It was in English, with French and Dutch subtitles. Ever so often, I would read the French ones, and understand them. But the thing was, they didn't match up very well to the words that were actually being spoken. Again, this goes back to the whole issue of there being much more expression in the English language. But I'm not going to get into that rant again. I think another big part of it was that the actors spoke very fast, and it would be almost impossible to keep up with the movie if they tried to put everything into written words. But the movie was very funny in English, and there were many times where Brittany and I would find something hilarious because we understood the American jokes and such and nobody else in the theater would laugh. But that is ok. We had fun!

After the movie, Brittany and I made our way back to the train station, she took her bus home and I caught my train. I came home, ate dinner, and then came up to my room where I continued working on my next big project:

My book.

Yes, I am writing a novel. Why, do you ask? Because it is National Novel Writing Month. And I have signed up on nanowrimo.org where they challenge you to write a novel in a month. Yes, 30 days, 50,000 words. That is the challenge. And I have become an official participant. So far I have about 1700 words. I'm not entirely sure what my plot line is yet, but when I read the guidelines, they said that the writer shouldn't worry too much about it. The plot line will come. It's about just writing. Cranking out a novel. It doesn't have to be perfect. They encourage you to muffle your inner perfectionist and editor and just write. This is about quantity, not quality. It's a first draft. And with the way it's going so far, I actually quite like my first 4 pages :) I think if it continues like this, I could have a decent novel by the time it's done! I'm quite excited!

But I must sleep soon. Bonne nuit.