New Things Galore

Just casual waffles in the vending machine

Today marks the beginning of my true education in French. Like in an actual classroom with actual lessons and such. It was also the day I met all the inbound exchange students (I think all...) in my district. We are all in the French lessons together, and I'm maybe not the worst at French, so that's a plus. They all seem really great, and they all seem to speak English. It makes me feel kinda inadequate.Redwall, it gave me a sense of what it would actually be like to live in an abbey, albeit not mouse sized, but still. Also it's been raining nonstop since sometime this morning, I don't know, I was learning French. I learned all kinds of useful things like how to talk about my pets and the words for jet lag and host family. If you were wondering, they are décalage horaire and famille d'accueil. That was today.

After class, at about 1:30, we went to the Abbaye de Villers-la-Ville (pictures at the bottom) which was pretty cool. After all those years reading

Over the weekend I tried all sorts of new things. I roller skated for the first time in many, many years. And when I say roller skating, I really mean it. Like 3 hours, probably close to 10 kilometers total, rollerskating. It's tough work, believe you me. We stopped at a grocery store on the way and Julien and I skated all around, great time. That night, after dinner, we played many a wild game of Foosball,

Gaufre de Bruxelles avec Nutella

complete with the regular interjection of "Ouais!!" as Julien scored on me yet again. I went to this crazy art festival on Sunday. It was full of some pretty cool performance art, including acrobats, horse dancers, trapeze and tightrope artist, etc. It was there that I tried my first gaufre, or Belgian waffle as we 'Muricans say, with Nutella and everything. Fun fact, there are two kinds of waffle: gaufre de Bruxelles and gaufre de Liège. The Brussels kind is less dense and rectangular, whereas the Liège waffle is round and more rich. On the way home we stopped for frites (french fries) and I also got some chocolate and a Fanta, which by the way, is way different over here. It's more like sparkling juice than

Julien finishing mes frites...

soda. Très bizarre. Sadly, I was a tad bit full after my lovely graufe de Bruxelles avec Nutella, and had trouble finishing my fries, so Julien took over. He. Eats. All. The. Time. He never stops! Crazy kid.

goat cheese anyone?

As I mentioned in my previous post, on Friday I signed up for my courses at school. They are as follows: English (4 hours a week), French (4 I think?), Spanish (4), Math (4), Science - Chemistry, Biology, Physics (3, 1 hour each), Gym (??), History (2), Geography (2), and Religion (2). Whew. I think that's it. And when I say that, I mean, "Please God let that be it I don't think I can handle anymore. It's gonna be a handful that's for sure.

Well, all in all, things are going pretty well. I understand a lot more of what my family says, still not a whole lot, I've met some really cool people, seen some cool things, eaten delicious foods, and managed not to die of exhaustion. I do have an abnormal amount of bug bites on my face and neck, about seven I think, and if they're from your gosh darn almighty bed bugs Marijke, I swear...
Anywho, I've got to go eat some homemade, garden fresh tomato soup, it's almost like I'm back home! See ya later alligators!


This link will take you to a video about Bernard Tirtiaux, the owner of la Ferme de Martinrou. It shows where in Belgium Fleurus is, and also has some good shots of the farm, at least the courtyard. If you pause right at 0:39, and look over his left shoulder, you will see the building that is my house, only for a second or so though, so don't blink!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMJM-lcZqbQ

La Abbaye de Villers la Ville

Just call me a goatherdess...

Today is Thursday, or jeudi, and I am exhausted. I got in to the Brussels airport yesterday at about 8:30am and met my lovely host parents (Christine and Vincent) and, I guess you would say, my host cousin of my third host family, Elina. Christine speaks decent English, and Vincent a little. They don't live together, and stay with Christine, her son Julien, her partner Serge, and his daughter. Christine is the only one at home who speaks English and she works all day. Serge is a teacher so he's still on holiday as well. On the way to Fleurus we stopped in Wavre to go to an art supply shop for clay and glaze, because my host mom makes pottery. There's a wheel in our house and everything. My house is located on the property of la Ferme de Martinrou. It's pretty well known, at least in Fleurus, for hosting many arts camps for kids during the holidays and for the plays they put on every month. The house I live in is one of several that people live in, along with two theaters, one bigger, one smaller, and the

office. There is a nice garden full of fresh vegetables that we eat with dinner every night , including eggplant. That's right mom, I ate eggplant, and I liked it. Quelle surprise. There are several cats as well, the one in the picture is Whiskey (potentially spelled differently, but I like it), chickens, a rooster (which did not wake me up this morning, but I'll get to that later), and three goats. Let's just say I'll be eating A LOT of goat cheese these next three months.

Mon chambre

My room is pretty small, but it used to be a farmhands room back when the house was a barn, so I'm not complaining. My bed is comfy though, and warm, which is nice, because it gets pretty cold here. Also it likes to rain. After lunch, I unpacked all my clothes and organized my room, took a shower, and then a nap while Julien (host brother) was at camp and Christine was at work. The picture of the shower only begins to cover it. It's so cool! You go through this little hole in the wall to get into it, and it has a light. The toilet is separate from the rest of the bathroom. When Christine got home we ate dinner, I went over to one of the neighbor's houses (Serge, Christine's partner) and watched, in French with subtitles, Extremely Loud

The coolest shower ever

and Incredibly Close. It's really sad, but good, and I think I probably missed the full experience since it was in French, but still. I went to bed and Mini, one of the cats, slept in my bed all night until I let her out at about 7am, when I was awake. I got back in bed because we weren't having breakfast until 9, and I ended up sleeping until 12:30. Ridiculous. I had lunch with Julien, who, by the way, doesn't speak English. Then I went with him to the art camp deal, and I hung out with these two girls, one of whom speaks close to fluent English just from watching TV. At about 3ish the camp ended and Julien and I walked across the court yard to the house, where we found one of the goats had escaped and was eating everything. Serge was busy, so Julien and I spent a good 10 minutes corralling the crazy thing back into its pen. Now, I'm sitting here writing for all of you, and that's basically it! Tomorrow I go to meet with the director of my school to pick my courses, so that's exciting. Hopefully he'll just let me take English, French, and math all day. That'd be prime. Thank you all for tuning in, this has been adventures in Belgium with your hostess, Ariana Keyser, signing off. See you all soon for another thrilling tale of my life in Europe.


Here are a few differences I've noticed between Belgium and the good old States:
Starting with the obvious, the cheek kissing. It happens all the time.
Lunch is not a big deal. You get bread, cheese (goat cheese), meat, sometimes veggies, and water. But that's okay because lunch was never really my thing, and, strangely, I haven't been all that hungry since I got here anyway.
Also the colors. The brightest clothes I've seen have been on little kids. And even then it was just normal pinks and yellows at the most. None of the neon, highlighter type thing you see at home. Also white shoes are not really a thing. Some people have them, but you can tell they've been worn a lot. I was wearing white Converse on the first day, not the best goat house touring shoes, and I definitely heard Christine and Elina talking about chassures blanches and something about Americans... C'est la vie.

Let the countdown begin...

Here I sit, eight days before the big move, feeling nervous beyond belief, yet somehow even more excited than that at the same time. I'm currently doing a whole summer's worth of laundry, thanks to my job at camp, and I'm planning on spending this next week packing, sleeping, last minute shopping, fretting, and spending as much time with my family as I can.

Though my French skills are slim to none, I have been in touch with two of my host families, and they both seem great. For the first few months I will be living in the small city of Fleurus with my host mom Christine and brother Julien. I will attend the Collège-Saint-Etienne, about 20 miuntes from Fleurus by train. I am not sure what sort of courses I will be taking as those will be determined with the director of the school once I arrive. Within the first few weeks after I arrive, I am going to a street art festival in Chassepiere, Florenville with my host father, taking part in a roller parade, and I will be attending some French courses that will hopefully help me get a better grasp on the language. I absolutely cannot wait to get my adventure underway, and if you're reading this, I hope you will enjoy experiencing it with me. Next time I check in I'll either be about to get on a plane, or already in Belgium! Look out world.