"I'm sick and tired of always being sick and tired"
Topic: Brugge & the French coast
I'll post pictures as soon as I get my CD back from the Carrefour. It has been finished since Tuesday but here it is, Thursday, and the slip my host family needs to bring in is still stuck to the mirror in the hall... There are pictures of Paris and my adventures with the Fauquenoit's along with some odds and ends from in between.

Well a lot has happened lately but I'll start where I left off last time. On Wednesday afternoon after visiting the Louvre (November 3rd) we headed back for Belgium. Late that evening I arrived at the Fauquenoit's house and stayed there until Sunday. (November 7th) On Thursday Pascal and Cristal took me to the city of Brugge which is a really old city in Northern Belgium that was built in the 13th century, I think. It is similar to the Italian city, Venice, because there is a river that runs all through it and you can get around by boat so before we left we went on a tour of the city by boat. In the center of town is an old cathedral with a big bell that still chimes the hour. You can climb the belfry and see how it works, so (after just climbing the Eifle tower two days earlier) I climbed that, and reached the top at exactly 3:00 so I got a first hand experience as to how the bell worked... But then of coarse my ears were ringing the whole rest of the day. Brugge is also known for its famous "dentelle"-lace. There are tons of stores that sell beautiful expensive lace and I got a little "papilion"- butterfly made of lace to put on my Rotary Blazer. That night after Pascal had left for work, Cristal took me and her two sons to a "friterie" which is a french fry (oh excuse me, I mean Belgian Fry) restaurant. Even thought they are really common here I had never been to one so of coarse I got pictures of that.

Friday I went shopping with Cristal. I finally got a winter jacket which I desperately needed!!! Its one of those marshmellow looking ones and its soo warm but it isn't water resistant so when it rains, I absorbe the water and then I'm left soggy the rest of the day.

We all went to visit "la mer" on Saturday. (The ocean) But not the Belgian coast, instead, we went to the northern coast of France because it is prettier. (In the northern part of Belgium where the land meets the water is completely flat but in France there are more hills and cliffs.) I have never been to the shores of Belgium but I'm planning on going there the weekend after this one with Adriana and Pierre. But back to Saturday: The place we visited in France is about 500 miles east of Normandy and you can still see the "pock marks" where bombs were dropped in WWII. (Pock marks, hah, they were gullies the size of my living room!) I got to walk along the beach and, unlike in Beigum, there wern't tons of condominiums crowding the edge of the beach, it was just pure and beautiful. Before we left, we went to an "ocean zoo" that sat right on the beach. It was huge and there were a lot of displays of different sea animals (including a big shark tank!) Ahh! I loved it! (and a little Nemo tank too!) That night we went out to eat at "Le Pirat" which is a restauratnt designed to look like a pirat ship. They have a buffet and a big grill so you can choose what you want to eat and then cook it yourself. It was so much fun and it went along perfectly with the "ocean" theme of the day!

Sunday I had to go "home" and Pascal and Cristal showed me how to take the train and explained how to use the train when I want to come back to visit them.

Tuesday night (November 9th) after school my club counselor, Dimitri came over to discuss my "issues" and so I explained everything and then Friday (the 12th) he and another Rotarian came back and we decided that I would stay with the Dor family because I'm just so tired of arguing and pushing with this system...

On Wednesday the 10th of November I went with Adriana and the rest of my French 2h (French 2hours a week) class to see the Italian Opera present Don Giovanni. It was all in Italian of coarse but there were French and Dutch subtitles on a screen above the stage so I could understand it.