Happy Halloween!
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Halloween
Happy Halloween! Here they don't celebrate it like they do in the states... Man I miss America tonight. Some people put out decorations but in general, its just like any other day. In the city the "petits" from really young until 5 years old go "trick-or-treating" I guess, but I don't live right in the City, so no one comes here...

The next week is vacation here, so tomorrow at noon I'm leaving for Paris with my host family!! Wow FINALLY!! I've been waiting to see Paris since...what...6th grade at least, maybe even before that! I've wanted to go since before I even knew how to spell Paris!!!!! We are staying there for 3 days, then "mercredi soir" I'm getting dropped off at the Fauquenoit's house and staying there until "dimanche soir." They have a lot planned to do, and its going to be great!!!

Adriana is off to Barcelona (spelling??) this week. But even thought this weekend was pretty nice, starting tomorrow all of Europe is going to be covered in one big rain cloud, so her trip to Spain and my trip to France are going to be soggy ones!

The last two days of "school" before vacation, were served in Dalhem (thanks Adriana) at the castle thing I mentioned before. It was better than going to school! I guess its the "retreat" thing that they do anually for the 5eme class (11th grade) Its kind of like a camp Kieve only in French and more on a Religion theme than a skill building theme. Adriana stayed sick both days so I had to go without her :-(

Annie (the English girl) was supposed to come to visit Belgium again for the weekend, but I don't know what happend. The day she was supposed to arrive (Friday) Pablo informed us, oh by the way, shes not coming. But then Pierre got a text message from her after the "Retreat" thing finished, saying she was in Liege at the Fair and we should meet her there... What!? But Adriana was sick and I don't have any money so I kind of ducked out of that one, and I still haven't heard from Pierre whether or not he met up with her. Oh... did I ever explain the Pierre and Annie thing? No!? Ok well, heh heh they are really going to appreciate this, I'm broadcasting their love life over the internet... but I'm sure they will forgive me. Ok: At the battle of the bands thing I went to a while back with Adriana and Annie and Pierre and some other people, Annie told us she really liked Pierre and we both knew that Pierre already liked her so all we had to do was give them a little nudge and they would figure it out... Well that nudge turned into a shove and they still didn't figure it out!! Ok to make a long story short, by the end of the night they finally kissed, then the next day Annie had to leave for England! Such a tragedy!! So Pierre is completely heart broken and is always looking for ways to see her again. When he found out that she was coming for the weekend, they planned to meet up for dinner at Pablo's house, but then Pablo called it off! I just don't understand...

Did everyone remember to set back their clocks? Wow that threw me through a loop today! Usually I wake up at...I don't know, maybe 11 or noon, but today I woke up at 9! Wow whats up with that!? Go figure!

Elections in 2 days!! Everyone here is all for Kerry. Does anyone in America even care? Nah probably not. My host mom says that Aurelie Dor (her daughter, the one that is in Pennsylvania for exchange) is very scared because of the terrorist threat durring elections. I wouldn't worry too much if I were her, whats so important about Pennsylvania? I am rather worried about my uncles who live in DC, right near the White House. :-( But what can yah' do?

Cliff graduated from Navy Bootcamp on Friday! Congratulations! I bet he's glad to be out of there!! :-) Now he's going to stay around the Great Lakes until the base in Pensicola Florida is done being repaired from the damage caused by those hurricanes last summer. I guess they are going to keep him busy working on repairs on some of the "ships" in the camp...wow sounds like loads of fun... heh heh heh. But he was really looking forward to going back to Maine for a week or so after bootcamp but the Navy changes its mind like other people change their socks. So... maybe for Christmas he'll get home!

I guess thats all for now.

Ciao!

A phonecall from your boyfriend helps the medicine go doooown, medicine go doooown, medicine go doooown...no wait thats not righ
Mood:  irritated
Last weekend Adriana's English class went to Eurodisney and I was going to go but I thought Cliff might call so I stayed home...Well he didn't and I was rather bummed about that, but then Tuesday night... or I should rather say early Wednesday morning, (12:08 am) he calls me!! We only got to talk for 5 minutes (Crazy Navy rules and stuff) but of coarse I'm like this now --> :-D :-D No matter whats going on here, hearing his voice makes it all better!

Thursday (today) and Friday are wierd this week at my school because we are doing this thing for Religion class, I guess. Everyone in 5D (my class) and 5C (Adriana's class and the class I had been in for the first month I was here until the school decided to rearrange my schedule ) are supposed to go to this castle thing in... Oh I forget the name of the city, and from 9 until 5 we do activities and stuff. Some of it gets pretty boring, but other stuff is really fun and it sure beats going to school!

On Wednesday after school at noon, Adriana and I scooted into town to pick up a graduation card for Cliff and some cool looking pens. There we met up with another girl from Rotary (a fellow North American, from Canada) Terry who chilled with us until 2 when we caught the bus back to Adriana's house. So last night I stayed the night here at Adriana's so that Pierre could pick up both me and Adriana to take us to the Castle thing but late last night Adriana started to feel bad and this morning it was just worse so she stayed home but I had to go on ahead (Even though I begged my host mom to let me stay... It just wasn't happening) Then when it finished, I caught a ride back to Adriana's and I'm staying the night again tonight and hopefully tomorrow she will be well enough to go with me!

Ok I have lots to write, but I think its best if I wait a little while and then fill everyone in.

Ciao -(Haha, my host sister was reading my blog and looked at the place I had written Chow and said " What does that mean?" I'm like what do you mean 'what does that mean'!? Its in French! But she informed me when they say "chow" like as a fairwell, they spell it Ciao. Heh heh, whoops!) :-P

"The Relax Cafe"
Mood:  silly
Ok... The relax cafe isn't really a cafe...its a gay bar, and yes, that is where I spent the better portion of my Saturday. LOL!!!! Ok, its difficult to explain... but they have great coffee!

I was going to go to a movie with Adriana and Annie, but we got the times mixed up and I missed it, but spent the afternoon with Roman and Selina. Then when I caught up with Annie and Adriana, we went with Pierre and some other guys back to Pierre's house to grab something to eat before we went to the concert that Generic was playing at. Generic is a band that some guys from my school are in.

Scrapbooking supplies, birthday parties, and Engish exchange students; Oh My!
Mood:  silly
I finally got my package...It was my scrapbooking supplies that mom sent me...not my videocamera. So my VC is still among the missing. :-( ....*sigh*

Last weekend I went with Adriana to Laurianne's birthday party. It was a lot of fun!! We played congo drums, drank ...stuff...Eline played the guitar and everyone sand American and Belgian songs to the best of our ability. Adriana tried teaching us the "take your shirt off and spin it around your head like a hellicopter" song in Portugese. it goes kinda like this: tira a camisa, tira a camisa levanta pro alto e comeca a rodar, and around 1 in the morning, Laurianne's mom took us all to the Fair in Liege center. That night I stayed at Adriana's house and on Sunday my host family planned a big lunch and invited my two future host families to come so I could get to know them. I had already met my second host family, but that was the fist time I had ever seen my third. They are both really nice and I like them a lot!

Monday the exchange student from England arrived. Turns out she isn't an exchange student, just someone visiting for a week...:-( Her name is Anna and she's really nice. We are trying to convince her to come back often if she can get permission from her ultra strict Hitler resembling principle (heil Hit- I mean, may I please go back to Belgium?!)

-Chow

*crosses fingers*
Mood:  energetic
Yesterday my host family got a little flier from the postoffice saying something has arrived for me! I'm going today to pick it up along with my cd of pictures at the Carrefour. I hope the package is my video camera!! It has gone among the missing for almost a month now and I have reealy been stressing over it. But it could be my scrapbooking supplies that mom sent last week... Won't know 'till later today!!!!! Then once I get my CD of photos, I can put more pictures on here because this site is looking a little pathetic right now...:-( It needs some sprucing up a bit.

Last night Aurelie called home. (She is the girl whose place I'm taking while she spends a year in Pennsylvania) Well she is veeery unhappy because her family doesn't spend any time with her and are very religious so lately all they have been doing is going to their Jewish ceremonies in Hebrew! (How is she expected to learn English when all they talk is Hebrew!?) Well I guess its getting pretty stressful for her (I can imgaine) and she is seriously thinking about coming home...which would put me... yeah I don't know either. That would prove for a problem.

In school I have heard a rumor that an exchange student from England is coming. Well no, actually I know an exchange student from England is coming, but the rumors are of when. One person said in a month and the other said in a few days. Adriana is worried that I won't hang out with her any more, LOL! So far we are the only two exchange students in the school (our own small happy family) :-) I'm worried that this girl might be snotty...because she's English...isn't that the worst stereotype? Bad tRACY! Bad! We'll see...

Yesterday there was a Yep meeting for all the exchange students in Belgium and we went to the Blegny Mine which is right near my house (so I didn't have to take the train) It was pretty funny *ahem* I mean interesting. No, but seriously, it was cool because we got to go into the mine and see how everything worked and we had to put on hardhats and big jackets before we went...so I can just imagine what the pictures are going to look like! LOL!!

-Chow!