Voilà

It is over. This is the end of my blog. Thank you to everyone who read, whether you read once, or every day. I appreciate the support that everyone gave me throughout the course of my year. Thank you to everyone who made my exchange possible. Thank you to Rotary, my parents, my friends, my family, whether you were American, Belgian, Mexican, Brazilian, Australian, Indian, or whatever else! You all mean so much to me. Thank you. There is nothing else that the Belgium Blogger has to say. The end.

If you are interested in keeping up with my normal life, the new blog is as follows:

www.emmasaveragelife.blogspot.com

**UPDATE** There is now a different blog up that has replaced This Average Life. Check out Classy Emma!

Father's Day And A Birthday

This weekend was full of celebrations that I was not home for... For instance, Saturday was my sister, Olivia's, birthday. And today is Father's Day. Things like this are always the hardest parts of exchange, I'm finding... Because as much as you love that person and as much as you want to be with them to celebrate with them, you can't always be there because there are 4000 miles of ocean between you.

To my sister:

Olivia, you drive me insane. You make me want to bash my head against a wall. Consistently. But if there is one thing I've learned this year, it's an appreciation for my family. And I love you, sister. And I'm positive that I love you the way I do because you are the way you are. And yes, I would like very much for us to get along. And I hope that we can find a way to make our relationship better once I get back to the States and we have to live together once again. I guess what I'm trying to say is simply that I love you and I hope you had a wonderful birthday. Judging from Facebook, you did!

To my dad:

Faja, I love you more than I can express. I miss you so much. I miss your daddy hugs, our lunch dates, and the egg sandwiches that you made me in the morning. I miss watching stupid movies with you and laughing at screwed up Burger King signs. I miss going to Home Depot with you and running out through our swamp of a backyard to the shed to tell you that you have a phone call. I miss a lot of things, dad, and I can't wait to see you again. I know that you love me a lot and that you have been missing me this year. And on this Father's Day, I hope that you know that I'm thinking about you and sending all my love home. Here's to my amazing father, and the hope that we will soon be eating Mickey Mouse pancakes together again. I have realized more than ever, this year, that you mean so much to me, both as my dad and as my friend. You have done so much for me over the course of my life, caring for me and raising me to be an independent, strong girl. I wouldn't be here, in Belgium, doing what I'm doing without your love and support. So thank you, Dad. Thank you for everything. I LOVE YOU.

ITALY!!! Part IV

Alright here we go. The last in the series of posts about my magnificent ten days that I spent in the beautiful country of Italia.

Day 9: We woke up nice and ridiculously early on the morning of Day 9, had our breakfasts, and packed up the bus once again for a morning of driving. Once again, we took packed lunches from the hotel and got ready for a fairly long drive. We spent the majority of the morning sleeping, watching movies, and just basically recuperating from the last several days. Most of us were already getting sick, and by the end of the trip, it would spread through just about all of the exchange students. But that's besides the point. We stopped around noon to eat, but this time we stopped at a random little gas station on the side of the road next to a Holiday Inn. And we just chilled in the parking lot, half in the middle of the road also, and ate the really gross lunches that we were packed. I admit, I picked the meat off of my sandwich and just ate the bread. It seemed like a very American moment, just vegging in the middle of the pavement...

The afternoon, we found ourselves on the shore once again, goofing around in souvenir shops, ready to take another boat over to the island of Murano. We would spend the rest of the day visiting that island, and another called Burano. They are both parts of Venice. But this time the sun was shining, the water was incredibly calm, we did not have far to go, and luckily it was a lagoon rather than the open waters of the sea, so this boat trip went actually very well. I was calm, there was no freak out, and I enjoyed myself. We took pictures, took advantage of the sun, and goofed around a bit. Finally, we made it to the Murano, where we were given some free time to explore. Murano is known and famous for it's glass (Venetian glass) so that was the big item that we were searching for in this part of our journey. The island is very cute. There are colors all over the place and we stayed mostly on the pier, so there is water everywhere. And it's not weird green murky water. It's clear, bright, turquoise water. The kind that you just want to gulp down. Anyways, we were going into all the shops, admiring all the glass work, and looking for the perfect thing to buy to remember our time there. I finally decided on a really pretty gold necklace, all in glass beads. I decided that it would be something that I would wear even as I got older and it's just gorgeous. The beads are actually pieces of gold that are surrounded in crystal that are surrounded in glass. All hand made. A lot of people bought watches where the face is surrounded in colorful Venetian glass patterns and colored bands. We didn't have a whole lot of time before we had to get back to the boat, so we hurried back to meet Rotary and then we were off to see the second island, Burano.

Burano was bigger than Murano and there was much more to actually see, rather than just shopping. We went farther into the island and we were given more time. Burano is famous for their lace. So this time, the goal was to find something lace to take back home with me. Burano is beautiful also because there are, again, the canals that run through it and the houses are all different colors. It's all very much the way you picture a Venetian landscape. Of course, these islands are touristy, but it's pretty to see. We spent the next couple hours of free time going from shop to shop, looking at different things, trying to pick the right souvenir. I had been debating over a salmon colored lace scarf, which I did eventually end up buying. But the big purchase of the day had been completely unexpected...

You see, the big purchase that I wanted to make in Venice was a Venetian mask. I have wanted a Mardi Gras mask forever and since they are a specialty in Venice, I knew that this would be the place to get one. But I was planning on waiting until the day that we went to the actual island of Venice to look for one. I had looked at some of them on the other islands but I hadn't quite found exactly what I was looking for. I knew I wanted something elaborate, unique, with bright colors and music on the face. Then Jordann told me to go look in one of the stores. By this point, I was overwhelmed by masks because they were literally everywhere. But the minute I walked into this store, my eyes were glued to one that was on the wall. It was gold with a big fan surrounding the face. The fan was actually sheet music. There were rhinestones lining the eyes and gold fringe hanging off a few different parts of the mask. There was a gorgeous design painted on the face and the whole thing was lined in lace. I knew that that was my mask and I had to get it. I ended up paying about 50 euros for it too, which in the end, I found was actually a terribly wonderful price. And I never saw another one like it on either of the islands.

By this point we were running late, so we hurried to take a couple pictures, I went quickly to buy the scarf I had been debating over, and we went to meet Rotary. We all got back on the boat and headed back to the mainland, where we got back on the bus to head to our last hotel of the trip. We got to our hotel on the beach and were told that we had a nice long couple of hours before we had to be down at dinner. So we took advantage of this and went to the beach! And what did we do? Well we took pictures of course! I have a beautiful series of dance pictures from that evening. And we also goofed around and had a great time. But eventually, the time came for us to go back to the hotel. So the last couple of us started walking back, but about halfway there we realized that the key had fallen out of Savannah's pocket. So we went back to look for it but couldn't find it anywhere and assumed it had been taken by the sea and was out in the water somewhere. So we had no choice but to go back to the receptionist and tell her what the problem was. They told us that we would have to pay three euros to replace the key, which we expected and was no big deal. We went up to the room with our new key to get our money, but found when we got up there that the door was open and our missing key was sitting on the bed. Some kind soul had found and returned our key! So we were able to return the new one and didn't have to pay a cent.

We went down for dinner that night and discussed what we were going to do for the evening. Again, since it was our last night we really wanted to go out. Some exchange students started parties in their rooms, but Savannah and I decided that was lame so we went out to go try to find something to do. But of course, Rotary knows what they're doing and had booked a hotel in a city with zero nightlife. So we went back to the hotel and met up with some of the exchange students and the Rotary adults in the hotel bar. We had a drink together and then a song that Savannah knew a dance to came on over the speakers. And she got up and started doing the dance. And I decided that I wanted to learn said dance so I got up too. Before we knew it, we were all dancing, they had turned out the lights, turned up the music, and we were having a dance party! One of the Rotary ladies even joined us while the Rotary men looked at us all like we were completely mental. But they thought it was funny and they knew it was good wholesome fun so there were no problems. So we did get our dance party after all. Then it was bed time and sleep time.

Day 10: Day 10 was another early morning. We packed up the bus for the last time and had our breakfast. I took a bunch of packets of those wonderful biscotti cookies that tasted like the GirlScout shortbread cookies for the road. We piled on the bus and were off to take that boat once more to the island of Venice. Again, there were no problems on the boat. We were each given a map with the different meeting points on it and once we got to the island, we split back up into our four language groups. Mr. Lemoine was, as always, in charge of my group and we spent the morning touring the important buildings of Venice. We saw the beautiful canals, the churches, the buildings, etc. Venice is gorgeous. Truly a beautiful, beautiful place. But also a confusing place where it is ridiculously easy to get lost... And of course, a few of us found ourselves split off from the group and completely lost. We ran around through the little alleys and back streets of Venice to find the Rotary guys to give us our money for lunch. Well, we were late to get to them, but we did manage to find them in time and we each received ten euros. We then spent a good while looking around for a place to actually spend the ten euros since everything was looking expensive. Finally we found a nice looking place that had a lot of seafood on their menu. I didn't get any of the seafood, but one of the girls got a pasta dish where the sauce was made out of cuttlefish ink. It came to the table black. Literally, black noodles. We all tasted it and it was surprisingly good. It just tasted seafoody and salty. I got gnocchi and a salad and Savannah got a pizza and a salad and we split as usual. I love gnocchi. And real Italian gnocchi is incredible. I'm so glad I had the chance to try it. Along with the black pasta :)

The afternoon was given to us as free time, and we had lots of it. Savannah and I spent the first part of it with our group of friends, looking around and shopping, but we eventually got separated from them because we went looking for prices for a gondola ride and couldn't find them again. P.S. we never got to actually do the gondola ride :( But it's on my bucket list. Anyways, we got some gelato (mint chocolate chip, yah baby) and walked around some more, made our final gift purchases and realized that we had so much time left. So, knowing us, what do we do? We start our final dance photo shoot. We found a nice bridge over one of the canals and a little pathway that went ride along side the river and started there. I put on my pointe shoes and the fun began. We did plenty of different kinds of things and immediately people started staring at us. But not in a weird way. More of in a very impressed, "oh look at that!" kind of way. I'm not gonna lie, it was really cool. And it was an amazing way to discover the island because we just walked around looking for places to take the pictures. And we got some incredible shots. This series was not only beautiful dance wise, but artistically too, the pictures are fabulous. Plus, something really cool happened. Of course, there were a lot of people taking pictures of us taking pictures, but one of them was in the middle of the road. And he had a huge camera with an amazing objective lens. And he starts taking shots while Savannah is taking them too. After we were finished and started walking away, he ran after us asking if we wanted to see the picture. Well of course I did! So he showed it to us and it was gorgeous! Then he asked me if I wanted it. I said definitely and he gave me his card and told me to email him. Turns out he was an amateur photographer in France! How cool is that! Other highlight of this adventure: There was a little girl and her mom who were walking through one of the alleys that we were in and the little girl stopped as soon as she saw me and just stared at me. Her mom was speaking to her in Italian, obviously, but since I had been there for ten days, and thanks to my knowledge of French, I could kind of pick up what she was saying. Along the lines of, "Yes look, a real ballerina!" The little girl was so adorable. She just stared at me in awe. So I asked if she wanted to take a picture with me and her mom was saying "yes yes!" but she was too shy. We all giggled about it and I ended up just showing her how I went up on my shoes and such. We talked a little with the mom, who spoke very good English and she told us that her daughter wants to be a dancer. I just thought that was one of the cutest things... There were one or two other little girls like that too. It was too adorable :)

Well Savannah and I got a little wrapped up in our project and eventually we realized that we had to meet Rotary to go to dinner. Well again, Venice is big and confusing. And we were in some little random alleyway. So we ran around Venice for the next hour or so, asking around, completely lost. Eventually, though, we managed to figure out where we were going after getting the help of some very nice and fluent English speaking Italians. We were late for the meal, but it was no big deal. One cool thing about the restaurant: The door to the bathroom was activated by a little square on the wall that detects your hand. But you don't even have to touch it. So it's like Star Trek. You just hold your hand up in front of the sensor and the door opens. It was awesome. Anyways. We met up with them, ate our final meal in Italy (pasta, followed by a meat and potatoes dish that was disappointingly nothing special) and then we were headed off to go back to the boat to go back to the bus to go back to Belgium. We took our final pictures and then we were on the boat going back to the mainland as the sun set. A beautiful end to a beautiful trip. I couldn't have asked for more.

We drove the entire night and the entire morning of the next day and got back to Liège, where I saw some of the kids coming back from Greece and my host dad picked me up. From there, I've missed a few days up until now, which we will catch up on tomorrow. As of now, this is the end of my Italy blog. It's been a long and detailed one, I know. But it was such a wonderful ten days, I couldn't help but tell you all every last detail. I love that country and I definitely want to go back. Thank you, to Rotary for organizing such an incredible experience for us. It's something that I will never forget, and it will always be a highlight when I look back at this exchange year. Viva Italia!! :)

A New Day

I want to apologize for my post on Valentine's Day. Obviously I was having a bad day. But the truth is that none of us are pathetic. Some of us spend the day of love without a boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, life companion, etc. But that doesn't mean we're alone. We have our friends, our family, and the people we spend every day with. If nothing else, we should remember God's love on that day, as it really is St. Valentine's Day. So again, I'm sorry to bring everyone down with my three lines of sadness.

However, I have to say that today didn't go much better... I started off my day with Social Sciences, where we finished watching a truly beautiful Spanish film about a man who is paralyzed from the neck down and is fighting for his "right" to kill himself by means of euthanasia. This film left me with a few tears rolling down my face as I watched the Roman take his poison and die. Afterwards, we discussed the film and our own personal standings on the issue of euthanasia. And that is something that I am very passionate about. The life issues have always had a special place in my heart since I lost my aunt to suicide when I was a young girl. After her death, and then the death of Nick this year, I have been fragile to the issues. And when we talked about it today, for some reason I just could not contain myself. After I expressed my standing on the issue, in very broken French, since I found it difficult to find the words I wanted to use, I couldn't help but break down into silent tears. Talia was sitting next to me and she was the only one who noticed. I rushed the bathroom as soon as the bell rang and cleaned myself up, and I thought I was ok, but then as soon as I had to face people again, the waterworks began again. For some reason I just could not pull myself together for more than a few seconds. And to make matters worse, everyone was asking me if I was ok, but I couldn't even open my mouth to answer because I didn't want to make a scene. Then I had French class, where I had to take part in another oral presentation. I really didn't think it was going to happen, as my eyes were starting to well up again. At the beginning of my French class, Madame Gallo noticed that I was crying (again) and asked if I wanted to talk to her for a minute in the hall. I said yes and got up and followed her outside. I got out there and just let go and sobbed, thoughts of Nick and Aunt Sharon rushing through my head. You know sometimes things don't completely hit you all the way the first time. Or maybe they do, but you're so much more fragile than you think you are. Regardless, my entire composure was cracked, and Madame Gallo saw that. I asked her if I could speak English, and she yes and I poured the whole story out to her. And I have to say, I love Madame Véronique Gallo with all of my heart because she helped me so much. She comforted me and then told me that if I wanted to, I could go home early instead of staying for class. I decided that was best, since there was no way I would be able to get through the class, let alone the presentation, without making a total fool of myself. So I got my things together and went outside to the bus stop. The fresh air was cold today, but the sun was shining and it did me a load of good. I went home and very briefly explained to my host mom why I was home and hour early because I started crying again. She was with Léo and she understood entirely. So I went up to my room and calmed myself down once again.

I spent the rest of the morning finishing my book, "Memoirs of a Geisha". That is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it. I then went downstairs and spent some time with my host parents and Léo, ate a Belgian version of a Hot Pocket, and then went upstairs for a quick cat nap before joining my host dad and Olivier for the real event of the day: cooking a birthday dinner for my host mom! We had decided to make a Lebanese meal since she really likes Lebanese food and I was given the task of making spinach pies, which I gladly accepted. We did the grocery shopping and then I went right to it! It took me four hours to make a half batch, but I did it! And thoroughly enjoyed it too. We had no rolling pin, so I had to improvise and used the olive oil bottle, but it worked and I ended up making a decent amount. We also couldn't find allspice, but I improvised on that too... Hopefully, there will leftovers tomorrow! We haven't eaten the dinner yet, so I'll have to give details tomorrow on the rest of the food.

Usually I make cake. This time I made a real Lebanese dish from my heritage. And it made me very happy to do so.

Obviously I've had a rough couple of days. But I got through it with my family back home and my family here supporting me. Not to mention my amazing friends, both American and Belgian. Special thanks goes out to Miss Kaitlyn Dessoffy, Mademoiselle Romane Robert, Mademoiselle Lucie Gérard, Madame Gallo, my wonderful parents and sister, Miss Sandy Veres, and Miss Kaitlyn Conners, among many many others who have done great things for me over these past couple days. Also thank you to my readers. Just the very fact that you read my blog and support me means a lot to me. I love you all and you rock my world, no matter which part of it I'm in!

Until tomorrow, everyone. Love you!!!!

Thanksgiving, On Time, In Belgium

Today is the real Thanksgiving in the States. And I'm in Belgium. I'm telling you, it's hard. It's really hard to be away from my family today. The holidays are very important to me. They are the days when I get to see my whole family. When we come together to celebrate having each other and being lucky to spend the time together. And for the first time in my life, I spent it thousands and thousands of miles away from my family. It was truly difficult.

Today was a hard day anyways. I was tired, even though I had slept so much yesterday. I had tests in my classes and little things are really starting to get to me. I'm short tempered lately and I find myself getting really homesick, especially thinking about the boyfriend that I left at home. The French seems to get more difficult instead of easier, as well. Then I dropped my iPod after school and the screen cracked, and that's about when I cracked too. It's just starting to feel like thing after thing is going wrong or being unnecessarily difficult. I binged today and had a chocolate eclair after school, even though I'm on a diet. I had fish for dinner on Thanksgiving. So not right.

But then I went to dance and everything started to get a little better. Dancing really is a stress relief for me. It's a shame I don't get to dance as much here as I did in the States. I have a couple of special performances coming up, one that is actually going to be in Brussels. So that was a good thing for me to think about. And when I got home, my host mom said she had something for me. She gave me a little cake from the local bakery, the raspberry mousse one, one of my favorites. It had a little sign in it that said "Joyeux Thanksgiving Emma!" She said it was for Thanksgiving, so that I could eat with my family while I Skyped with them today. It was probably one of the sweetest gestures I've received here. So that made me smile. And I did eat my cake while I Skyped with my family. It was hard to watch them all be in my house, around my dining room table, eating their turkey dinners, without me actually being there. But it was great to talk to everyone and catch up.

And here is what I am thankful for this Thanksgiving:

-Family

-Friends

-Kaitlyn (best friend)

-Ryan

-This opportunity in Belgium

-All the people that made this possible for me to be here

-My host family

-My education

-The roof over my head

-The food in my stomach

-My bed

-My memories

-The things that I get to participate in

-My clothing

-My overall health

-My good fortune

-The technology that makes it possible for me to communicate with the people back home

-The support of my family

-This beautiful life

Bonne nuit

Thanksgiving, Three Weeks Early, In Belgium

So it's November eleventh, and I just finished having Thanksgiving dinner at Mikayla's house with her, Talia, and our three host families.

We have been planning this for a while. I have wanted to do a Thanksgiving dinner with my host family since I left as just kind of an American experience. I'm experiencing and living the Belgian culture. Why shouldn't I open the eyes of my host family to a little taste of the States? At least the delicious parts... And today, it happened.

Last night, Talia slept over my house. I did not have class yesterday due to teacher absence, and today was a day off for the whole school because it is celebrating then end of World War One for Belgium. And we have off tomorrow too :) So this morning, around 10 30, Benoit, being the wonderful host brother that he is, drove Talia and I over to Mikayla's to begin our day of preparation for the Thanksgiving feast.

We got to her house and chilled for a while, sharing videos we had "Stumbled Upon" and just chatting. We went down to lunch, ate lasagna and talked with Mikayla's host family. After that, the fun began. We had a whole menu to prepare, and not a whole lot of time to do it in. Our original menu consisted of:

Turkey

Stuffing

Mashed Potatoes

Green Bean Casserole

Corn

Salad

Cranberry Sauce

Yams

Crescent Rolls

Gravy

Pumpkin Pie

Apple Pie

We were pretty proud of our menu, and had everything all planned out so that we would be able to make it all. Until... We found out it's actually very difficult to find a turkey in Belgium. So instead, we had two chickens. That was probably the biggest disappointment of the whole experience for me. But there was nothing we could do about it, so we kept plugging away. And then we found out that we didn't have any corn, because garbonzo beans had accidentally been bought in place. So no corn. And my mom had put a couple cans of cranberry in the mail. You know, Ocean Spray cranberry in a can. The kind that keeps the shape of the can and you slice up? Yah, it's my favorite Thanksgiving food. But since it was a holiday, there was no post today. So I didn't get the package. So no cranberry. No crescent rolls either, so we settled for Bisquick biscuits, since I had some Bisquick from the English store in Waterloo.

So we started our cooking off with the stuffing and the pies. Talia went to work cutting up a baguette, and I began peeling apples. Which, out of the eight that I had, only one was a tart apple. But that's ok. Mikayla was getting the rest of the things together for the stuffing and they were making progress quickly. We were all working very hard and thing were going great. The stuffing was coming along and my pie was looking fantastic. We had originally had a little problem with oven space, but we quickly resolved that and found that it wasn't going to be necessary to go to Mikayla's host grandma's house to bake some things. So I put my pie in right away and since the stuffing was done, Mikayla went straight to the pumpkin mixture that she had made by hand from an actual pumpkin the night before, since pureed pumpkin in a can doesn't seem to exist here either. That pie came along quickly too, and pretty soon we had the apple pie out of the oven and the pumpkin one in.

Then it was chicken time. After a couple calls to Mikayla's mother via Skype, her and Talia figured out what they had to do to prepare the chickens. I stayed out of that whole mess because I have a problem with raw poultry and I can't handle the prospect of salmonella. Yes, I'm insane and yes, I know it. So I got going on the green bean casserole. Pretty soon that was good to go and we were swapping out yams for casserole and got the chickens in too. The yams got peeled and covered in brown sugar and butter, and I started making my own french fried onions, since those don't exist here either. Those got put on the casserole, and then the pumpkin pie went in the oven. Before we knew it, we had yams ready for the oven, chickens baking, two beautiful pies, and a green bean casserole. But there was still so much to do.

We continued to finish the yams, peel potatoes, chop vegetables for salad and mix up Bisquick. At some point in there, too, we had changed and made ourselves pretty for the occasion. Mikayla's host dad came in and checked the chicken for us, and when they were done, he carved them. We were carefully timing everything out for when we had to throw things in the oven to reheat, and when I had to make the mashed potatoes.

Around 7 30, our guests began to show up. But because this is Belgium, everyone had some champagne and snackage before the meal. We didn't end up eating until after eight. But we had a little disaster before that...

In an attempt to reheat the gravy that Mikayla had made, the flour in the gravy had somehow cooked and our gravy became this lumpy, disgusting substance. We tried everything to fix it, but nothing worked. We even scraped out some of the extra and had another batch, but that got screwed up in an attempt at reheating also. So we didn't have gravy at our Thanksgiving dinner either. But we couldn't worry about that too much. We took all of the food out to the beautifully set table, and sat down to eat. We explained everything, and all of our guests tried all of our food. And the verdict? They loved it! They really really enjoyed our meal, and so did we. The conversation was good, the ambiance was great, and the food was really delicious, even though it wasn't quite the traditional Thanksgiving dinner that we're used to in the States. The only difference was that they didn't completely stuff themselves and then flop down on the couch to undo the top button on their pants, though I probably could have if I wasn't worried about cultural differences...

We cleared away the plates and brought out the pies. And those were a huge hit!! I was pleasantly surprised to see how much everyone loved the pumpkin pie. It was a total success. After we were all finished eating and talking and laughing, Talia and Mikayla and I cleaned up, and then we took a few pictures, said our goodbyes, and now I'm here and it's almost 1am and I'm so exhausted I'm falling asleep at my computer.

I hope you enjoyed by Thanksgiving post, because I did!

What am I thankful for? This crazy experience in BELGIUM!!!

One Month - I'm Grateful For... Everything

Ok so this weekend was "La Fête de Wallonie". And I have lots to say about that and pictures to post as well, but it's is 1:17am and after two nights of the craziness of Namur, I am way too exhausted to talk about that right now.

But today I noticed that Maxabella posted a linky on her blog for the things that we are most grateful for. And I decided to participate in this one because this week was rough, and I would not have gotten through it without all the things in my life that I am so blessed to have.

This week, I am grateful for people. People make you feel better when you are sad. People help you when you are lost. People explain to you how to buy fries in the French-speaking cafeteria at school. People encourage you when you're having a rough day. People are the best! And when I say "people" I am specifically referring to my friends and family. They are getting me through this experience without a doubt. I have been here for one month, and it would have been disastrous without all the people that have pulled me through it. But even more so, I am grateful for all the people that made this possible for me. My family, for their support and encouragement in my decision to go abroad. My friends, for being there for me and cheering me on as this experience drew nearer and nearer. Rotary, for sponsoring me and allowing me to have this fantastic opportunity. My host family, for being completely wonderful and welcoming. Madame Beck, for introducing me to this amazing program, and helping me through the entire process, as well as encouraging me and being basically the best French teacher ever :) I would be completely lost without all the things I learned from her, both in the French language, and in life. And I'm being completely sincere. Thank you to all.

I am also thankful for another amazing happening this week. Friday, at 1pm, my baby cousin, Charlie, was born. You all remember my aunt and uncle's wedding anniversary, and how I said the baby was due any day? Well he's here! And we welcome little Charlie John into the world with open arms :) I only wish that I could have been there with my family to celebrate this joyous occasion. Now I'm just waiting for pictures and I couldn't be more excited!

I am also thankful for a few other, materialistic, things. Skype. AIM. Cell phones. Facebook. Email. Basically technology in general, specifically the technology that allows me to keep in touch with the people that I love back home. Letters also. I love hand-written letters. There is just something so thoughtful and heart-warming about receiving a letter :) I am grateful for Mac & Cheese, peanut butter, and pizza. I am grateful for hugs. I am grateful for memories.

I am grateful for life, basically.

Tomorrow, I post about la fête. Promise. Bonne nuit :)