There are a few reasons why I really like the Flemish part of Belgium...
1. They watch TV in English so whenever I happen to go up there or get a station here, I can watch it in English, yay!
2. Some things in Flemish just really crack me up: "Wat eeten wee?" - what are we eating?, "We komen aan in" - we're arrving (we comin on in...)
3. They REALLY know how to throw music festivals
So for those of you who don't know, Belgium holds some of the finest music festivals in the world, including the one everyone calls THE best on the ENTIRE planet. That one is called the Werchter Festival and has some pretty big hitters this year like, Incubus, Metalica, Muse, My Chemical Romance, The Killers, The Arctic Monkeys, Pearl Jam, Marilyn Manson, Keane, and Snow Patrol. This would be an amazing show but it also costs 160 euros... so I stick with Groezrock!
Don't get my wrong, it was one of the best concerts I've ever been to, it just doesn't hold a light up to the other one in terms of fame.
So me and some friends packed up and headed for Middle-Of-Nowhere, Flanders aka Meerhout. When we got there I think I was going to die of shock from seeing so many emo kids, all at once, all together after not seeing them at all for such a long time. There are pretty much zero francophone emo kids.
We got in and I had to pee, and I have to say, I was VERY impressed by the cleaniless of their port-a-potties, even when I had to go later on, they were still clean! Anyway, there were two stages and neither of the first bands on either stage interested me but I went to the one where Senses Fail was going to be playing after that. To be honest, I wasn't too impressed with Senses Fail but they weren't terrible, it's just the voice sounded a little muffled because of the way he holds the mic... oh well.
Next was Saosin and I was sssooo excited for them! I had just gotten the new cd and loved it so I was pumped. They were so good! In one of the slow songs the Belges suprised me by forgetting the classic lighters or more modern cell phones to wave around, but going for the sparklers. The singer hopped into the crowd a lot and I thought that was pretty cool, although I wasnt anywhere near him, there were over 10,000 people there and I wasn't to keen to be in the front middle to die in the mosh pit.
Then was Motion City Soundtrack! They were definitely my favorites. They were one of the best live bands I've ever seen. His voice live is even better than it is on the cd, which says a lot, considering how high it is. Most bands with high voices *cough cough fall out boy cough* really suck live AND what's more, the guy who sang harmony was actually on key (another thing with seeing bands live). They were really witty too and talked to the crowd a lot. I actually took a video during Everything Is Alright and the sound isn't bad but the video isn't great, I was being jostled around a bit and I ran outta batterie in the middle of it, but here's the link anyway if you feel like watching... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVHJ7HTpUEY
Unfortunately for the All-American Rejects I was looking for a friend and didn't actually get to watch them but did get to hear them, that was alright tho, I'd seen them before. New Found Glory finished it, and they were a band that I'd always liked but never loved or anything like that but in preparation for the show I listened to them a little more, realizing I forgot how much I like them but then was a little disappointed at the show. They were pretty good but they just seemed too cliché... and old. They seem to be getting a little old to be playing punk rock. I dunno, maybe it's just me?
So we went over the to camping site and got about 2 hours of sleep with all the crazy partying going on all over the place and took the first bus in the morning. That concert was so great...
So I typed all this then wanted to upload photos then realized that this thing hates me when I type first then upload photos so that will be the next one.
After I got back from Paris, I arrived in Brussels to find out that the day earlier one of the controlmen on the train got held up and all the workers were on strike and I had no train home. I had to call my host mom to come pick me up and I HATE having to ask for rides so that really sucked. I pretty much unpacked my bag from Paris, put in new stuff for my trip to England and went to sleep. then I got to wake up at 430 inthe morning because I had to be at school at 545 in the morning for the bus. Benoit was not too happy about driving me there and I hated asking again.
So off I went to England with my class. We were in the bus for about 3 hours until we got to Calais and we got on the ferry for a little bit then had a LONG time in the bus again. We filled many hours on the bus playing BS and go fish. We finally got to this castle, Hever Castle. In all honesty, the castle wasn't amazingly intersting but it had some pretty cool grounds. There was a normal hedge maze but also a water maze where there were a bunch of slabs of concrete leading to a tower you could get to the top of. Some of the slabs moved when you stepped on them and they sprayed water all over, the point was to not get wet, a little obviously, but most of us did it anyway. Then we went to meet our host families, which wasn't a huge problem for me considering I'm a little used to them by now and they spoke English. Me, Marie and Oussima got called off the bus to meet our host mother who was this typical cute English woman. She only lived with her husband at the typically English house and when we walked in we could smell the pasta sauce and it was so good. Another thing that happened once we walked in was the phone rang and we had to go back and change host families. The only girls that were left were a group of 4 and she had 4 beds, and we were only 3.
We drove back to the meeting point and met our new host mom, who wasn't even English and one of the first things she told us was that she didn't like noise. Great. Oh well, it didn't work out too badly. Her husband was another supporter of the Chelsea football team so we got along pretty well. My name has seemed to work out for me while in England, I'm just hoping I don't run into some crazed Manchester United fan sometime. They also had a six year old boy who I thought was cute at first but soon realized that he didn't shut up and understood why the woman hated noise.
The first full day in England we visited Stratford, Shakespeare's city. I enjoyed this a little more than normal cuz all the tours were in English and I didn't have to really listen to understand. We visited all the Shakespeare houses, there were 5 of them I think. The day after that we went to Oxford, which I wasn't especially looking forward to but was actually pretty fun. The shopping there was great and I found this Little Miss Fun shirt, from those books that probably no one but Gramma knows I'm talking about. When I saw the shirt I almost had a stroke cuz I had completely forgotten about those books I used to read in Washington when I was little. We visited two of the colleges of Oxford and I was VERY pleased to find out that Harry Potter movies had been filmed in the two colleges we went to. The Great Hall was based on one of the refectories in one of the colleges. The other one is a little more complicated and only people who really know the movies will know what Im talking about (man, sometimes I really feel like a HP nerd). So, ya know the part in the 4th movie when Malfoy gets turned into a ferret by Moody in that little courtyard? Well I was there :). Made my day.
The last day we went to London and I was really disappointed about how little free time we had there. We went to the Tower of London which was actually very intersting, I hadn't gone there last time and I was glad I did. It had a bunch of really intersting mysteries that happened there. I was mostly disapointed cuz I wanted to show some of my friends from school who are really into good music the Camden Markets but we only had about 2 hours of free time and that would not have been enough. Tant pis.
I got back to the house Friday night at around midnight to a text from my host mom telling me that the Rotary said I HAD to go to a Rotary weekend the next day. Like I had zero choice. I was a little bugged cuz I knew I would be changing on Monday and wasn't sure if I'd have enough time to pack. So I went to the camping thingy and did absolutely nothing besides take out the garbages, set the table, play cards and read a little text from The Alchemist in front of everyone. I got home Sunday and packed all my bags and realized how sad I was to be leaving the Denis. What really broke my heart was the look on Clement's face when I told him I was leaving Monday night. I won't lie, I cried when I left. But my third host family welcomed me with open arms, I guess they had some serious problems with the last girl that was here. I don't quite know the details but my new sister Margaux told me that Micha, the other student, had spoked to her twice the whole time she lived here and my host mom, Anne-Marie, never wants to see her again.
So my new family is the Romain family, we live in Bièrge and I just realize now that I haven't asked for the address yet, I'll get that ASAP. There are 4 boys and one girl in the family, one of the boys in studying marine biology and English in England and the boy on exchange is in Beverly Hills. The guy is really lucky but I kinda feel bad for him cuz his view of the Us is going to be so distorted it's ridiculous. The two boys that live here are Mathieu, 24, and Julian 21. The girl is Margaux and she's 14 even tho she looks like she's 16 or 17. My parents are Bruno and Anne-Marie. There are a ton of animals in the house and I've actually been missing pets a lot. There are 2 dogs, 3 cats, 2 birds and a few gineau pigs.
School was a pain in the neck to get back to after 4 weeks of vacation but hopefully I'll get used to it soon enough.
I tried to put a little song from the Shins in here, dunno if it will work or not...
Sorry, I realize I've been leaving everyone in the dark. Well, the last four weeks might have been the busiest four weeks of my life. Normally in Belgium we get two weeks of vacation for Easter and at my school, we got the week before that off too so the teachers could do all the grades. So I messed around that week, went to Brussels a lot and went clubbing with some Belge friends. So that was actually a pretty chill week but whatever, I'll use it to back my case of not blogging...
The week after I went to the sea with my host family. Their grandpa rents a house every year during the Easter vacation and that house is seriously huge. Like more than 25 people could sleep there if needed. While we were at the sea we did everything but go swimming but it's not a big deal. We played tennis, rode bikes, played cards, soccer, went out at night... that was really fun. I came back from the sea on Friday afternoon because I went to a concert that night. We went to see the Shins who are amazing. We ended up meeting another American girl, Brittany, who just lives here in Brussels and she's pretty cool and has been hanging out with us a lot lately. After the concert I spent the night at a friend's house and came back home on Saturday to pack my bags to meet my parents in Paris.
I left Sunday morning for Paris and met my parents at the gare. It was so good to see them again. We didn't do a whole lot in Paris that night because my parents were so jet lagged but oh well. The next day we rented a car and drove out to Normandy and on the way visited a little town called Honfleur. It's a cute little port town that was a favorite for a lot of impressionists back in the day. Once we got to Normandy we got a little lost looking for our bed and breakfast, which was one of the coolest places ever. There was this French woman running the place who spoke about zero english and I was amazed at everything she did. We went to Mont St. Michel, which is one of my favorite places in France and I ended up running into my friend Joe, who's another exchange student in Belgium. We also visited the tapestry fro William the Conqueror and the D-day Beaches. We headed from Normandy over to Brugges and spent the night there then visited the next morning.
After we left Brugges we went over to Brussels and I showed them all my favorite things about the city. One of the things was "mitraillettes", which means machine gun in French but is also a very tasty sandwich... thing. It's part of a baguette with a hamburger inside with onions, lettuce and stuffed full of frites with one of the belge sauces. You take three bites and then think about how bad of an idea it was but there's no stopping now. I also showed them the Mannequin Pis, the statute of the little boy peeing, the Atomium, the best place to get Brussels/Belgium souvenirs and the best view of Belgium (which is actually an exchange student secret).
After the day in Brussels we had a dinner with my host families that I've had so far and my YEO and his wife. My third host family also wanted to come but were at the sea and couldn't make it, but they have told me to tell everyone they say hello. My parents spent the night at my house and then in the morning we went to the Château de la Hulpe, which is a pretty little castle in my town. It's very Pride and Prejudice-esque and I'm a big fan. We drove back to Paris after that and spent the afternoon reading and napping in the park in front of the Eiffel Tower. Then we went to our hotel which was pretty much a block away from the Arc de Triomphe. The next day we visited the Musée d'Orsay and I was really excited about that because it has a lot of the impressionist painters/ings that I love. Then mom ran the marathon and me and my dad tried really hard to get a picture of her running across the finish line, we even tried tag-teaming it, but we failed. Later that night we went up to Sacré Coeur (and I really do mean UP, the little elevator going to the top wasn't working!), had a little dinner and enjoyed watching the sunset over Paris and listening to the guys playing guitars and singing. It was actually really fun until some guy behind me starting talking to me and I didn't exactly feel like talking to him...
On Monday we went over to Versailles but I was very disapointed. We couldn't even go inside and there was reconstruction work all over the front so we couldn't get a decent picture. So we decided to go to the gardens, which had no flowers. My dad remembered liking the gardens in Mary Antionette's farm so we headed over there only to find out we had to 9 euros to see gardens without flowers so we skipped out on that one. Then we went to lunch where the service wasn't entirely great, but what are you gonna do? We went back to the hotel for a bit and then it was time for my train. It was sad to leave but this time I managed not to cry cuz it's only a few more months.
Ok I'm gonna start a new one for the next little bit cuz this is getting too long...
