Ok Go, anyone?
Last night was Ok Go! And it was amazing. I was a little disappointed by the crowd, the concert was sold out but I guess the Belges don't really understand the thing about a concert being a place to go crazy. It was alright though, me and Stephanie made some friends with some guys who I think had tipped back afew but were dancing a lot.
This might be a little bit of an inside thing, but they threw out tamborines and told everyone out in the crowd to get some rhythm. Me and my friends were all dancing but most of the crowd just kinda did this stay in one spot and bob the head a little bit and I think the singer got alittle sickof that and jumped into the crowd with his mic stand and started dancing with us and thankfully it was right next to me and I was super excited. So we had a dance pit for about 30 seconds. After a little bit I was feeling pretty tired from all my dancing and then the singer walked out into the crowd again and told everyone that they were gonna play in the middle for a few songs. So they pulled out their acoustic guitars and asked the people in front to sit down so everyone could see. I thought it was pretty cool.
They played all their good songs and I was happy. Then for the very last song of the encore, they did the dance for a Million Ways to Be Cruel as seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw0YHv3ub-kOverall a good concert, I recomend people to see them if they're interested in stuff like that.
Bisous,
Chelsea
PS: I put in this thing that should play the song I don't really know I haven't done it before, we'll see ifit works...
Fat Tuesday!
Yay Mardi Gras! So this week has been Carnaval and I have been enjoying the break from school VERY much. Me and Marissa have pretty much been chilling and doing almost nothing the entire week. I'm gonna have a realy hard time going back to school on Monday but oh well, it happens.
So Binche is pretty much the best place for Mardi Gras in Belgium and as it turned out one of my friends, Stephanie, has a host uncle who was a "gille". Now to explain a gille.. they're pretty much these guys thatget dressed up in silly costumes, wear wooden shoes, parade arond town banging drums, dancing and throwing organges. I have asked a ton of Belges why they throw oranges and no one seems to know. Continuing, Steph has a host uncle who is a gille and she invited me and Marissa to spend the night so we could see what really went on in this Belge tradition. So we got to wake up at 3:30 am to get up in time to see the gilles get dressed. And in my half asleep state i managed to fall down the stairs of death. Yes, I do have very large bruises where the sun don't shine.
We went to some person's house at four in the morning and watched the gilles get stuffed with hay and then everyone drank champagne... at four in the morning. I don't really know? Then we started parading around the city banging the drums and doing our little carnaval dance. We did that for about an hour and a half then went into a little cafe to have the special gilles breakfast of oysters, salmon and white wine. At five thirty in the morning. Mmm... delicious. We did some more dancing and stuff for about an hour after that but me and my friends didn't eat an amazing amount because anyone who knows me well enough should know that I do't exactly do oysters or salmon or white wine. Especially at 5 am. So we left the group and found a patisserie and had some caffienated beverages and pains au chocolat. There were so many people after that we kind of gave up on finding our group and hung out in the grand place for a little bit and ended up getting in a confetti war with a ten year old boy. That was pretty fun. Then all our other friends got there, we had some frites for lunch and got a good spot for the parade. We just chilled for about 2 hours then the parade finally started and all the gilles threw oranges for about...ever. After a while me and Marissa finally got sick of running on 3 1/2 hours of sleep for 18 hours in the hot sun (yeah, sun. In Belgium. In February. I got a sun burn.) so we left a little earlier than planned. We were kinda the party poopers, we were in bed and asleep by ten on Mardi Gras but o well, we were happy to be home :)
Bisous,
Chelsea
Random pic of the Atomium I took a while ago but never got around to putting up
My new best friends
Croad at Binche, wasn't even when it was the most crwded
Breakin' it down with the gilles
Mystery person?
Yes, I am alive.
Sorry it's been so long since I've written, not an amazing amount has been happening here. Until yesterday, I guess.
Yesterday was Carnivale for my school, normally Carnivale is next week but the school chose one day to celebrate it on. The rhetos (seniors) put it all together and chose a theme, which was Far West this year. Everyone came dressed up as cowboys. The celebration was mostly a three hour long talent show. It was cool I guess but how many times can you watch girls who think they can dance hiphop? I really don't know. it was cool though, everyone was just throwing confetti and silly string at each other the whole time. And there was one semi-good band and a mosh pit started and I was pretty excited about that. I got to dancing and I'm still preparing for Ok Go. And there was a part where they put up all the pictures of the teachers and you could boo or cheer depending if you liked them or not. :)
For the last part of the show, all the rhetos got on stage and started dancing to Cotton Eye Joe and then I remembered the dance and I asked my friends if they knew and they were kinda like erm... there's a dance? So i decided to teach them which appearantly was a bad idea cuz they thought I was a psycho. I guess they don't really understand sqaure dancing here. I'm sure everyone in Utah County knows the dance though, all those stake dances...
They may not have liked my square dancing but they did like my Valentines! Those conversation hearts were a hit, and so was my yearbook. Everyone loves seeing that there actually are "pompom girls." But I'm not exactly sure if Vday here is for friends too or mainly boyfriends/girlfriends, so who knows? I may have a good part of the junior class thinking I've come on to them.
After school I spent the rest of the day in brussels with the other exchange students. We shared some Valentines and just spent the day with friends.
Next week is vacation! So excited! the family will be goe except me, Benoit and the dog, so I'll pretty much have the house to myself except that one of my friends needed a place to stay so she'll be here all week, we'll be chillin. that's about it, I'll probably be blogging sometime soon after Mardi Gras with pictures.
Bisous,
Chelsea
PS: Birthday shoutouts to Brayden and Bailey! A day early for Brayd but he's gonna be a teen! Watch out world! Happy bday to the best little brother and the best Bailey ever! Love you guys!
