So, in the past month nothing too huge has been happening for me. I did celebrate my birthday a few weeks ago, and I had a pretty good time. The day before it was a Wednesday, meaning a half day for me, so a few of my exchange student friends and I went out together. It wasn't anything super elaborate, just a good day with friends. The day of my birthday itself was very relaxing, the teacher of my French course was sick, so my morning was completely free. Then I went off to school for the remaining three hours or so. When I got there, it was lunch time, so I walked into the senior class hang out spot room type thing (called the salle rhéto) to find my friends, and everyone I knew came up to give me a bisous (traditional Belgian cheek kiss thing) and tell me happy birthday (bonne/joyeux anniversaire). My closest Belgian friend had also bought a little cake, so we split that up and shared it (fun fact, she neglected to bring a knife, so we cut it with her ruler...). After school I had a little time where I got to skype with Mom and Dad, and Willem a little, as Hendrik was already at school and Marijke's in Seattle. We caught up a bit, and it was really nice to see them all. That night with my host family, we had a delicious chocolate cake and some champagne, and they gave me a really cool watch, of the trés belge company Ice. All and all I had a pretty great birthday.
I haven't had any huge adventures lately, but the last month has been extremely satisfying in a lot of small ways. First of all, I haven't spoken any English at school since we returned from winter break. Whoooo. New level of French achieved. Boom. I also got 91% on my exam in my French class. No big deal. I have also been able to ask my teachers questions when I have them, and, even better, I've been able answer theirs in front of the class. New level of French achieved, again. It was also my best Belgian friend's birthday a few weeks ago, and I had a really great night out with her and my other school friends. That was a time when I felt like I really belong here, like I'm a Belgian too, it was cool. Another recent addition to my life is my new gym membership. I had no idea how much I would miss working out, it's been really nice to have that back. Plus it will definitely help me stay healthier in this chocolate and waffle filled land. Pretty exciting stuff. On Saturday I went to scouts with my host sister, Mathilde, who's about my age, and it was really fun. She's what's called a "chef", meaning leader basically, so I helped out with her group of seven to eight year old boys. It was great because we're kinda on the same level of French, so we had pretty great conversations. I heard a great joke, that really only makes sense in French, so that's how I'll tell it, but I'll translate as well:
Him: Est-ce que tu as un cerf (pronounced like ser)? (Do you have a deer?)
Me: Non...
Him: Et est-ce que tu as un veau (pronounced like vo)? (And do you have a calf, like a baby cow?)
Me: Non...
Him: Donc tu n'as pas de cervaux (pronounced like ser-vo)! (So you don't have a brain!)
I thought it was pretty funny, personally.
They also liked to show off their English prowess, one of them could count to 12, another could say yes, no, and I love you, and in typical little boy fashion, they had tons of questions. Here are some examples:
"You're American? What language do you speak?"
"You have an accent, is it because you come from America?"
"Is it true you write the date backwards in the U.S.?" (that one took me by surprise actually, really smart)
And finally, my personal favorite, "In the U.S., um, are there cars?"
It was a really satisfying day.
Today (Sunday for those of you in a different time zone and whatnot), my family and I went to a town called Binche for Carnaval. It wasn't the biggest day of celebration, but there were some pretty cool costumes and an enormous amount of confetti. There's still some in my hair I'm pretty sure.
It's been really nice out lately, and the sun has come out at long last. That made this weekend that I spent outdoors really awesome.
I apparently have not been taking very many pictures lately... whoops. Here are some from Binche today.
One of the troupes of drummers, this one dressed as multiple Marios, and sporting American flags.
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