Christmas is a coming!

Wow, so, it has been a while, much too long really. I shall make no excuses but simply forge ahead!!! Belgium has been quite lovely in the time we have been apart, every city is preparing for Christmas with large trees and festival markets. Each town has its own Marché Noel, that's what they call the Christmas markets, and each towns Marché is like a small piece of the North Pole, except without the elves. Here in Belgium people do not only celebrate Christmas, but St Nicholas as well! In the days before Christmas break a Father Christmas looking fella can be seen distributing candy to all the good students.

That picture is from my after school french class, and yes, that basket is full of candy! 

I went to visit the Grand Place in Brussels because I felt it would be irresponsible of me not to visit during the Christmas season, I was reasonably impressed. I visited in the evening so the light show that they have set up was up and running, allow me to show you a small clip! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFPu1w2i7Sg&feature=youtu.be

Nothing can really fully describe the sights, smells and sounds but I will say that it really felt like Christmas, except there isn't any snow... As a young man coming from Northfield Minnesota the lack of snow is becoming a teeny bit of a bummer. The cold is there but there isn't any snowfall in my part of Belgium. If all goes to plan I will not actually be spending Christmas in Belgium, but in Germany. My uncle, well really my Tio, lives in Frankfurt with his wife and child and I have been invited to spend the holidays there. I am very excited to visit Germany, I have never been before nor do I know the language but I arrived the same way in Belgium and that all worked out ok!

Back to all things Christmasy, I went skating!! That was very fun. I went with a huge group of Exchange students, and due to the size of our group, instead of skating in downtown Brussels we went to an actual full time ice rink, one of the biggest in Belgium apparently. It was a whole lot of fun, I saw my first Zamboni! 

Now the experience level of the skaters in our Rotary group went right from one end of the spectrum all the way to the other, we had the Canadians (most of whom have been skating since before they could walk) and then we had the Brazilians. Brazil is a warm country, and the populace does not often have the chance to skate. This is very apparent when you put 15 Brazilians on an ice skating rink. These are kids who have never seen snow, and yet they are bold enough to strike out onto hard, unyielding, mercilessly hard ice with blades strapped to their feet. That ladies and gentlemen is how Rotary kids work, you show us something we have yet to experience and we will want to try it. I would like to say that these brave souls were able to master the art of skating in the 3 hours that we were at the rink, but I don't think master is quite the right word. Grasped is the one I am looking for, many of them were able to grasp the concept and were indeed making their way around the rink at a good speed by the time we had to leave. 

One of the great things in Europe is the Metro system. That is something that I never really experienced back home, but here it is a vibrant and always interesting place. Where else would you find a man playing an accordion? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5tD3J75FSM&feature=youtu.be

Because for real though, you just don't see a lot of accordions in Minnesota, but stuff like that is all over here, and I love it! It's raw culture, just right there in the street! 

I saw Santa Clause! It has been a long time since I took a picture with the old man but we stumbled upon some Coca cola awareness campaign thing, and he was there so I decided I might as well!

I also got, I dunno, 3 cans of free Coke, so that was nice.

I feel like I am forgetting to write something...... OH YEAH! That's right, I went on a limo ride!

A school friend of mine had his 18th birthday party in Louvain le Neuve and thought it might be cool to hire a limo to take us there. Definitely a classy thing to do, limos are just really really cool! 

Well, that is all for this week, I hereby promise to be a more consistent writer from this point on, I think I might finally have a system. Any way, lots of love to all you reading, spread it around!

Winter is coming.

Well, it is getting cold in Belgium, there is no snow yet and the leaves are still on the trees, so technically it is fall, but winter is definitely coming. The increased amount of darkness is one sign, I would like you to observe the following photos please

Absolutely gorgeous sunset no?? I think so, the only problem I had with that sunset is that I took those pictures as I was leaving school. Take a moment for that to sink in.... On Mondays I am released at 5:00 PM (17:00) and by the time I walk down to my after school French class it is dark out. I am not complaining though because the view is really good all the way there! 

Not a whole lot happened this week, so I haven't got much to report. I had fun with my theater troupe, attended a Rotary dinner at the usual schwanky establishment, I am going to a birthday party this afternoon and visiting a new town Monday. So what can I write about right now? Oooh, my grades came in! They were terrible, except for gym and English, I aced gym, which until now I did not realize was a graded subject and I got 15 out of 20 in English. Only because our tests had portions that required English text to be translated into French. I feel I have to explain that because it is a tad embarrassing not to score 100 percent in your own language. I am hopeful that my next grades will be better because as my knowledge of the language improves I can actually try to participate more in class. Admittedly it is a little weird to be trying to get good grades when I have already graduated but my teachers don't like it when I just read Harry Potter all class, even if it is in French! By the by, did you know that in French Hogwarts is called Poudlard??? And that Hufflepuff is directly translated into Poufsouffle!? It's hilarious! I have been reading the fourth book for quite some time now and it has been very good for my vocabulary, not so much for my pronunciation as I tend to read everything in a Spanish accent, but hey it's progress! 

Ok, sorry I don't have anything more to write about, next week I will have a ton of stuff so tune in then! I have an exotic dinner to attend. But I would like to end today by asking you who read this to ask me questions, what are you curious about life in Europe? I would love to be able to answer anything people might be wondering. Well, until next time then, and remember, no matter how tired you are, never sit on a bench after it has rained, that is not a mahogany shine you are seeing, that is water...

Vacation!!

Hello again, it's that time of the week. I have been a very busy kid! And you know why? Because it is
Autumn vacation here in Belgium! Meaning I have been enjoying a week of no school! And using the free time to explore more of this here country I am in. I went to Louvain, not to be confused with Louvain le Neuve, with a group of exchange kids. We saw the sites, explored a building or two, and experienced the most radical weather I have seen yet. It went from sunny to rainy every few minutes, sometimes it was sunny and raining! And the wind, oh my was it windy, the kind of wind that makes this happen:

But I have come to expect strange weather from my host country, even grown fond of it..... Enough small talk, behold, pictures!

I am afraid I cannot yet fit in completely as a local since I take pictures of so many things, but I really want to show everyone what I see!

Right, Louvain was Monday, Tuesday I went to Mons, again with Rotary kids (we all like to get together) and we did the same thing :) Tour the city, explore buildings, have a good time!

Of course, we are KIDS, so we do like to monkey around a bit:

That was Tuesday, Wednesday I went bowling with some kids from my school, yes, bowling is a thing here. Friday I went to have dinner at my second host families house out in Gesves with my current host parents and brother, Saturday we went to my third host families house in Mallone. Then I went to a dance with my future neighbor Lucy there in Mallone and slept over at her place. And finally Sunday (today) I went to Louvain le Neuve with my host dad to tour the Hergé Museum!!!

As an avid Tintin fan I have to say that it was really cool to learn a bit about the author, I didn't know much about the man before. I am not going to throw facts about him at you, that's not what I am her for, but I will definitely recommend the museum, it is really well done, plus admission is free the first Sunday of every month AND they gave me a free book. A nice free book, that was pretty strange for me actually. I also recommend paying a visit to Louvain, Mons, and Louvain le Neuve if you are ever in Belgium, they are all incredible cities, that are just different enough to make it worth a visit. Sorry if this is a rather short post, it really was a good week. Tomorrow is the start of school again, which means I will be making up at the usual time of 6:30, that promises to be painful. Have a nice week guys! See you next Sunday, Bisou!!!!

Walibi!!

Hello! Yes, it is Sunday, so it's my day to write!! The highlight of my week was a visit to the Belgian amusement park, Walibi!!

I went with some friends from school on an absolutely beautiful day. One of those rare ones here in Belgium, sunny and warm!! But not too warm, just enough that you can wear a t-shirt you know?

Walibi is an amazing place, and it is situated rather in the middle of nowhere, which allows for some really awesome scenery!

Now, since it is Halloween time Walibi has some extra "themed" attractions! Lots of horror stuff, obviously. We visited 2 different haunted houses, which were very scary and made me realize that I haven't actually done haunted houses before, unless you count those TAB ones, (Teenage Advisory Board to the Northfield public library) and somehow I don't quite think those were on the same level.

I couldn't take pictures inside the attractions, because I was too busy having my pants scared off! No but really, there were some pretty terrifying moments, the second haunted house was by far the scarier! Allow me to elaborate. It was within a large warehouse, as far as I can tell, it was hard to distinguish anything with all the noise and flashing lights and screaming. But you go in, and you can't see a blinking thing, you have to go through tons of doors, and every time you go to the next area there is something new to scare you, but you can't tell where it is gonna come from or what it is going to be! The scariest point for me was when a huge man, probably over 300 pounds came lumbering out of a hole in the wall, covered from head to foot in blood and brandishing a running chainsaw. The smell of gasoline, and the strobe lights, and him charging straight at me put me in quite a state I can assure you, especially when he actually attacked with the chain saw. It was quite safe, he had taken the chain off the saw, so really the tool was harmless, but as I didn't know that at the time the effect was very good.

Walibi has all sorts of other things to do, we went on the roller coaster "Dracula" the king Tut ride, the story of Ali Baba, a tower of power, Project Z, Etc. The only draw back was the lines, looooong wait times. Once it got dark they put on a fireworks show, complete with accompanying music, trippy lights, flame throwers, and confetti cannons!!! Please refer to the video below for an excerpt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNodv1UTCWM

Trop cool non? I thought so, have I told you about the Zombies yet? I don't think so! So, wandering around the park all day were these brilliantly made up actors that looked like Zombies, they walked around and you could take pictures with them or they would sneak up on you and scare you! That was always funny, one poor woman turned around and one of them was inches away from her, so she jumped backwards into a hedge out of fright, in full view of more than a hundred people waiting in line.... I really can't think of anything so mortifying, I would be crazy embarrassed. She took it in stride though! 

Yeah so, I think that is all That I have to tell you for now, thank you for reading! I will finish this post with pretty pictures that I took while waiting in various lines :) Until next week then!