Belgium

Still not dead...

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...

posted by Chelsea @ 3:58 AM