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