Thanksgiving, Snow, and Saint Nicolas

Thanksgiving Belgian style

'Tis the season, eh? I certainly have kept busy with all sorts of holiday happenings over the past week or so. Last Sunday, I went to Brussels to celebrate Thanksgiving with several of my American

Pumpkin pie made for me by
my host family

exchange student friends, plus one Australian and one Canadian. It was a bit of a struggle to find fresh cranberries over here, but with my host mom's help, find them we did. The meal was a great success, over all. We had turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, this really weird but delicious pumpkin
dish, apple pie, caramel tart, and we made some spiced cider, and yeesh my mouth is watering just remembering all of it. It was perfect.

The only photo I managed to take
before it all melted

Over here in Fleurus, Belgique, we received our first snowfall this week. Sadly, it has, in fact, melted already, and the rain has returned. It was beautiful while it lasted, and the best part was the reaction of all the exchange students from the Southern Hemisphere. They took photos and videos and rolled around and generally acted like small children. It was adorable. Anyway, that was the snow. I hope it
come backs soon.

You know what else is great about the holidays here? Saint Nicolas. Last night, December the 5th, jolly old Saint Nick came to Belgium. This tradition is a lovely part of the season here. I opened my door this morning to find a mandarin outside my door, and looked down the hallway to see a trail of chocolate coins and more mandarins that led all the way downstairs and into the kitchen. It only got better from there. As you can see, the kitchen table was full of more goodies, from chocolate to specaloos to little gifts for each person. I received a cook book full of chocolate recipes and a lovely

The haul.

Saint Nicolas a été ici!!

new scarf. I am no the proud owner of my very first cook book, which just happens to be in French, cause I'm that cool. Another thing that made it into my pile of treasure was particularly exciting for me, and my immediate family will understand why right away, but I'll do some explaining for the rest of you. As many of you know, my father's parents come from Holland, or the Netherlands (which happens to be right next to Belgium). That being said, every
year going back as far as I can remember, each kid in my family has received a large chocolate in the shape of the first letter of their name in their stocking on Christmas. These "chocolate letters" as we've come to call them, also come from Holland, hence the tradition. Anyway, along with all of the other lovely chocolates and treats on the table thi
s morning, I found a chocolate A. There was a J for my host brother, Julien, and an S for my host step-dad, Serge, as well. Needless to say, I was extremely excited. Even though I hadn't really thought that far ahead, I know that I would have missed my chocolate letter a lot come Christmas. It was also fun to share with my host family that we do the same thing in my family, connections between my two different lives are so fun to find.

Well then. I have to go do some studying now, as here in Belgium, we have our exams before Christmas instead of in January like back in Wenatchee. Luckily, since, 1) this scholastic year doesn't actually matter for me, and 2) the rules of Rotary are very kind, I am only obliged to take four exams. I have chosen to take English (that's not as lame as it sounds, I've actually been learning things in my class, plus I don't want my English grammar to fall by the wayside while I'm here), Spanish, math, and I'm taking the exam for my introductory French class for foreigners. They shouldn't be too hard, but I feel that some work might be necessary nonetheless.

That's all folks! See you soon with hopefully some more fun stories to tell!