Belgium

Today was my first day of the French community lessons. I'm not gonna lie it's a little below my level but that's ok, I feel comfortable there because we all suck at French. In my class there is a Japanese couple, an Iranian couple, my friend Mikyla another exchange student with Rotary, Yun, a Chinese exchange student and Olina, a Czhek (?) student on study abroad with her college. We have fun and today we learned the verb être and I was a little bored considering I've known it for 4 years. In one of our exercises there was the word "veuve" and no one knew what it meant and English is the only language we all have kind of in common so the teacher said it means widow. Everyone understood except the Chinese girl, who didn't know the word in English. Then Olina said "When my husband died, I became a widow." And she's 26 so it was kind of suprising that she'd been married but not unbelievable and everyone was like "Oh... sorry." Then we realized that she was just trying to explain to the other girl what widow meant. We all felt a little stupid after that.

After my class, I went to the train station and I was the only one from my class taking it. I didn't know where to go so I went to the ticket booth and asked him where to go and he said platform number 6 so I go over there and wait for a little bit then I hear the man's voice come over the intercom saying the train headed where I need to go is actually number 3... thanks a lot. So the train is coming and I have to sprint down the stairs, under 4 platforms, back up the stairs, through the station and finally go the train and I barely made it in time. I thought I was getting a little more comfortable with the trains but I guess not.

With the timing of the trains I would only have 15 minutes of lunch at school when I got there but I had to wait 30 minutes for the next train there so I decided to eat my lunch there. I was very glad that I had something to do once I got to school ( my mom needed some kind of letter saying the school accepted me so I can get my identity card) so I wouldn't have to sit outside all by myself like an idiot.

Then... there was my first class. I knew what building I had to go to so I went in there but I had no idea which room was which. I asked someone and they pointed me in the right direction and then the door was locked. So I stood outside of it then some girls came up and were helping me (praise the Lord). They spoke extremely fast and I had to have them write down what they were saying. There was one girl in particular who helped me and I really wish I could remember her name... So class started and it was Religous Education (no, not seminary) and I honestly didn't understand a word. The teacher had this really weird voice and after class she explained to me (in English) my homework assignment, which I am not excited for. I have to bring one object that describes my relationship to my parents, my teachers, my friends, and my boyfriend, who is nonexistant.

My next class was double Geography. The girl whose name I can't remember showed me the way to the room. I was pretty much the first one in there because aperantly all the other students have friends to talk to between classes... whooda thunk? Anyway, I choose a seat on the far right kind of in the middle. The class starts filling up and then my teacher starts talking. She introduced me to the class and then said that we're going to learn about the conflict in Isreal. After a little bit in class I notice that I am the only girl on the right side of the room and I'm like um... did I miss something? But I guess Belgians are still at the cootie age or something.

It's funny how I'm thousands of miles away from Utah, yet I'm meeting the same people, only with different names and faces. For instance, there was this guy Fabio... yes, Fabio, and needless to say he thinks he's very hot, but he isn't. He wears a fannypack around his neck and I have no idea why, but I guess he thinks it's cool. Anyway, I managed to choose the seat right in the middle of his gang and they're all the stupid jocks that do something that they think is funny but it really isn't and everyone else knows it but they all do that fake laugh that drives me insane. I can think of plenty of boys who do this at Timp (cough Coburn cough Cam cough Nate). They all seemed to want to practice English with me saying stuff like "I play for Manchester United!" and "Bush can go to hell!" Ok, thanks.

That's pretty much everything for today, I'll write tomorrow.

posted by Chelsea @ 8:23 AM