Last Blog Post

It seems that a popular theme with exchange students is posting a final blog. This is something that I should have done a long time ago, but hey, I'm doing it now! I was not able to post anything for pretty much the last half of my exchange, during that time I made several trips, I visited Italy, Denmark, France, Spain, England, The Netherlands, and Budapest. In that order. When I write it down like that it actually sounds pretty cool!

As you can see, I took a lot of photos with my hogan brothers shirt on. I'm hoping they will give me a hoagie per photo, but I'm not too attached to the idea.

The trip to Italy was with an orginization called BRESA, it was a trip that involved a lot of other Exchange Students, 84 to be exact.

We hit a lot of the big sites, Rome:

Venice

Pompeii

All of the Gelato shops we saw... Every single one.... Seriously I had Gelato twice a day for 9 days. 

Amalfi Coast 

Nope, that's not the same coastline, there is just so much beauty in Italy, this one is the island of Capri

It was an amazing trip, I made a lot of bonds that I will never forget, road trips are a great way to get close to folks, let me tell ya. 

I did a lot of other traveling as well, some with friends, some with family, all completely within the guidelines set by Rotary. Wait, what's that? Oh yeah, my exchange is over, ok now I can be honest! Belgium Rotary never actually responded to any of my travel requests so I took their silence as a go ahead. The only officially sanctioned trip I took was the BRESA organized one to Italy. You probably don't want to hear that but rest assured all of my travels were carefully planned and I made sure that my parents (both host and paternal) were well informed of my whereabouts. This is part of the reason that I did not blog about them before... Part of the reason.... The dots imply that I'm lazy.... 

Anyway, sorry Northstar, all I wanted to do was travel!

So, now that I have that off my chest I can continue, I went on to visit a whole ton of extraordinary places. Europe is just chock full of the coolest stuff on earth. 

The sky is the limit right? I have so many pictures, and yet the thing I regret most is not taking more pictures. There are a ridiculous amount of things I wish I had gotten a photo of. Why didn't I? Well, I only had my camera on me for about 35% of my exchange. Part of the idea is to try to blend in with the culture, try not to look like too much of a tourist. Which I accomplished very nicely. When I would travel with big groups I didn't care too much about standing out, and I went full tourist then. Which is why I have a large amount of photos from Italy. 

So I wanted to make this blog as full as possible, it being the last one and all. I hope I accomplished that. I would like to leave this blog with a final message. Everyone should go on Exchange. I doesn't matter where. My exchange was the best, and also the hardest year of my life. Sometimes it felt like the worst. I faced a lot of hardships, this is not something exchange kids like to talk about, everyone always shares the good parts of their exchanges, because people loving hearing about those exciting, fascinating, happy new experiences. Not about the times when you felt like it was too hard, and that you just wanted to go home. 

It happens to everyone, but DON'T let that be something that turns you against exchange. It may be hard, but dealing with those issues, and forging ahead, alone, helps you discover yourself so much better than you could imagine. Rotary says that the average exchange student grows 4 years on their exchange. It is spooky how accurate that is. 

So yes, exchange can be hard, but it's a package deal. Because with those hardships come the stories, the amazing friends, the trips to foreign fantastical places, and a drinking age so low you could faint from excitement.

I had the most amazing year of my life, there's no debate there. And do you know why? Not because I did awesome things and met the coolest people ever (well I mean partly). But no, the reason I had the best year of my life, is because I have the most amazing Grandparents in the world. None of my exchange would have been possible without them. So this entire post is dedicated to them. 

Thank you.

6 Months....

Once again it's been a little while, I find myself tired of using that phrase, I apologise in advance for any and all mispellings, to further my immersion into Belgium I have converted my computer into a French one. According to my spellcheck software every single one of these words is mispelled. Be impressed therefore with my spelling capability as it is all directly from my brain. 

Let's see, what's new. Well, clearly Christmas is over, as is New Years, Bon année by the by! How was your New Years? Mine was fairly epic, it isn't everyone who gets to say they spent New Years eve in Brussels! I wish I could show you pictures but I decided not to take my camera for its own safety, a valid concern as it happens that several of my friends lost their own cameras that night.

The night was spent doing a lot of dancing, walking, and getting losting (yes I am aware the last one isn't a word). The entire world decided that Brussels was the place to be that night so it was rather ridiculously packed in the city. The whole tale of how I spent the night is long and tedious so I won't go into it, but I saw the fireworks, kissed at the drop, and somehow ended up paying 9 euros for cut up tomatos (fancy restaurants are overrated). 

I have changed families! When we last spoke I was living in Jambes, juste à côté de (just next to) Namur. Now I have moved to a little village called Gesves. It is about 25 minutes away from Namur by car, same by train. It's a different sort of living here but I like it!

Other new things.... Ah Yes! I went on a little excursion to London! 

Boom! How you like dem apples?? Yikes, sorry not sure where that came from. But hey! London baby! 

It was absolutely amazing!! London is completely different from Belgium. I got to speak english again, with people in the street! The english was perhaps a little different, but it was still english! I got to ride on the London underground:

They have these helpful little signs all over the place that clear things up a bit.

I found the TARDIS.... I don't know how many of you watch Doctor Who, or even know what that is, but when you are as big a fan as I am, finding the TARDIS in London kind of makes your week.

Shout out to Simon, who is either a fan of this football club or the other one... Who can remember.

Below is Kings Cross train station, perhaps the name rings a bell. If it doesn't well, then maybe you haven't read the Harry Potter series. 

Of course I had to journey in, what would a trip to London be without a little magic??

The pubs have the greatest names!

How British is that?? 

Maybe you won't understand this, but one of the highlights of my visit was finding a chipotle. Allow me to elaborate on why. You see, sometimes we take things for granted, actually a lot of the time we take things for granted. And when you are seperated from these things you come to realise just how important to you they were. So it is between me and chipotle, I had been craving a chicken burrito for over 5 months, and when I saw the sign..... Well let's just say it was magical.

I have a whole list of things that I am going to do right when I get home, and another list of places I am going to get food at! 

This week at school my class went to go see two exhibits in Brussels. The first was on Radio, the history, the development, the utilisation of the radio throughout time, lots of stuff. I must admit it wasn't the most interesting exhibit I have seen in my life, but it was more fun then school so I'm not complaining. We also went to see a filme at the cinematek, two filmes in fact, both silent ones. In addition to the filmes we got a tour of the little museum they have there. I got to learn all about the different methods of filming, and the ways that people used to do things in ancient times before there were even cameras. We have so many ingenius methods of making images move you know. 

All in all it was an fun outing. The greatest bit for me was observing the differences from an outing back home. You see, we didn't take a bus or anything. We took the train, and we weren't designated a car or given reserved seating. Our teachers just gave us go passes and told us to split into groups of 5. Once we were in Brussels, we all went to the Radio exhibit, but somewhere in between the radio exhibit and the Cinematek, during our lunch break, we lost about 25 students. This didn't seem to bother the teachers so I guess thats normal. Then on the way back there was considerable confusion taking roll call, and half of us got on the wrong train. I thought the whole thing was a huge catastrophe and that the teachers would be angry. But once again, it seems that the students getting seperated from is normal. I am not quite sure if I understand the system completely but it is a lot more independant so I like it!

I almost forgot to mention! It's my 6 month marker in Belgium today... 

My bedtime is long past so I am going to hit it but has been great to write again! See you next week!

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...