Belgian Waffles
Mood:  hungry
Topic: Vacance de Noel
This morning around 11, Giovanni, a friend of Laurie's, stopped by to say hi and invited me out on Thursday night... so thats what I will be up to Thursday night. Then we went to the grandparents house and made homemade belgian waffles. SoooooOOOOoooo good! I added photos of that to my album. I even helped some... ok, actually I just supervised.

Dylan is really sick today (like I was a couple of weeks back) I'm sick too, again, but for different reasons... So we are going to plan to go to the ocean a different day.

I've decided to go to London. I'm leaving the 3rd and coming back the 5... That is, if it is ok with my cordinator. I just e-mailed him today to ask permission and that will probably not make him too happy (that I'm only asking permission a week or so before my trip when their strict regulations say nothing is allowed unless authorized 14 days in advance. Oh well, I payed for it (on accident but its a long and complicated story) and so I must go now.

Uuuhhh
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Vacance de Noel
I just set mood to "Not sure" because "Feeling like a piece of rotten leftover, forgotten about in the fridge since last Saturday" wasn't an option. I should deffenitally write to the creaters of Tripod and request that they invent that mood. I think it would be a hit. And I guess that is all I have to say about that.

Joyeux Noel tout le monde!! (merry christmas everyone!!)
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Vacance de Noel
There is one big difference between the Christmas here, and the Christmas in America: The amount of eating that goes on!!!! In America, Christmas is allllll about the presents, but here, each person has a couple of presents, but they all get together and eat a looooooot! On Christmas eve, the whole family came to the Fauquenoit's house and started eating around 6 or 6:30. After 4 different meals, a cheese plate, and dessert, we finally called it quits at Midnight!! I thought I would never eat again!!!

But then Christmas came around and after all the presents were opened we headed out at 11 or so for Lunch...and Dinner... and everything inbetween! We had another 4 course meal, a couple of desserts, some cheese and a few cups of coffee before finally waddled home at about 10.

As for Christmas morning: I think I had more presents under the tree than any one else in the house! All together there were 44 presents, and it took about an hour to open all of them. Crystal said "An hour!! It took us an hour!! I never could have imagined!" LOL! The majority of the things for me were little stocking stuffers that mom had sent me, mostly following a Clifford/Navy theme...

That night cliff broke up with me... On Christmas! Can you believe that!? Yup, well this time it is for real. When I told mom, she just said, "Oh well, now you can smash the mug. One less gift you will have to lug home" Thanks mom... always the rational thinker.


On Sunday, the Fauquenoit family took me to Brussels to see the most beautiful square in the world! I think it would have been prettier if I wasn't soooo cold!! We walked around for 3 or 4 hours, looking at the big "Creche" or something like that which is set up in the center of the square to show the Manger scene with Jesus Christ. These are really common here... You see them set up next to the side of the road in almost ever town, weeks even, before Christmas. But only on Christmas day is the little Christ baby set in it. So I got to see the big manger in the center of Brussels with the baby Jesus! Awwww! I also got to see the Mannekin Pis (the famous statues/fountain of a naked little boy peeing. He is said to represent the rebelious side of... something) I also saw the Jannekin Pis (the Mannekin Pis twin sister, who is also peeing, but she was shut off for the winter.) I will go back to Brussels with Adriana on the 12th of January with her host family, if everything goes right.

Well my vacation isn't over yet, its only Monday, and I will be with the Fauquenoit family until January 5th or 6th. So I will write later about my up and coming adventures!! :-)

All the photos I take this vacation are going into my Noel Vacation Photo Album if you care to check that out.

S'il vous plait...

Je suis malade! (I'm sick!)
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Vacance de Noel
Starting Sunday night, I came down with something and was up half the night. Then monday morning I slept allll day. I mean literally. I woke up 3 times, and each time I went downstairs and got a glass of water, then back to bed. I remember waking up in the morning, then again and the sun was setting!! Thankfully, we have vacation all this week and I wasn't missing any exams (as if it really changed my grades any whether I showed up or not) Tuesday wasn't much better... a little, but not much. Adriana came over Tuesday night.

**Come to find out, her day had been as crappy as mine... On Monday she broke her tooth on a candy but Tuesday was the earliest she could get in to get it fixed. The doctor was completely mad, drilling into the side of her face with no sympathy..OMG! Then her host mom had to leave her at the hospital to go to work and as it turns out, the buses are all on strike so she had to walk!!! (its a looooong walk) back to the square to catch the one running bus back to her house. (She had called me on Monday morning to see if I wanted her to come over and stay with me while I'm sick but I said no... Then she broke her tooth. She says that if I had just let her come over, none of that hell would have happened to her. Heheh whoops)**

She stayed Tuesday night and Wednesday, today, we went into town with Alex (my to-be host sister when I go to my 3rd host family) We did the rest of our christmas shopping and it was soo funny. It started to snow. Adriana says "Look!! Its snowing!!!! ... right!?" because she had never seen the snow before. "Yes Adriana, it really is snowing." Then it started to turn into a blizard and she didn't like the snow after that. But I got a picture of her at least pretending to be happy!! :-)

My host family had an early christmas for me, tonight, because I will be with the Fauquenoit's for christmas . They got me a beautiful silver braclet , some peach scented bath oils, and a decoration of people playing in the snow.

Now I am at Adriana's house because her family did an early Christmas for me also! Adriana got me a shirt that has RIO all over it and Brazilian colors *makes peace sign, typical of Adriana* the Brooklyn hat of Lila's that I wanted, the LILO AND STITCH 2 DVD !!!!!! And a little package of scrapbooking supplies that Adriana got at the Lafayette Galleries in Paris. There is still another gift for me but I'm saving that for when I get back.

Tomorrow I leave for the Fauquenoit's house, where I will spend Christmas and New Years.

Oh yeah, and I met my second host family last weekend!!! They are soooo nice! They have 2 daughters, one my age and one in the University. The one in the university went to America as an Exchange student in '02 and stayed in Texas, so she knows English really well. (with a southern drawl too!) They live in Herstal, about 10 minutes from where I live now, but I won't change schools, I just have to take the bus. They will be taking me in (feeling a little like an orphan saying that but....) on January 15th.

*bisous*

Saint Nicholas Day
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Saint Nicholas Day
December 6 is Saint Nicholas day here. Reserved usually just for the "petits" mostly candy and small gifts are given out on the days leadin up to it. Had it not been for Adriana's family, I would have known nothing about it, seeing my family did not even celebrate it. When I stayed at Adriana's house, her family would put little candies in our shoes for us to find the next day. "Oh wow, Saint Nicholas came!!!" Let me try to define the difference between Santa and Saint Nicholas, from what I understand of it: Saint Nicholas is some what of an impostor, looks similar to Santa (dressed all in red) and comes in December to bring gifts to children. But hes not alone, and I'm not talking about being escorted by reindeer either. He has a black man who goes with him to help him. When he visits the chilren, they must promise something for him (for example to keep their rooms cleaned or to be good or something like that.) If they have not been good, then the black man stuffs them in the big sack he has with him.

So Monday was Saint Nicholas day. I woke up and to my surprise... there was Corentin! Still at the house! But didn't Saint Nicholas come last night?! He didn't leave me any presents or anything! and how could the black man have possible over looked Corentin... And that was when I stopped beliveing in Saint Nicholas. But when I got to school, Adriana presented me with a huge bag of candy that Saint Nicholas had left at her house for me!!! Later she showed me the many presents that Saint Nicholas had left her: The DVD Mulon, two beautiful photo albums, a scarf and.... a big black whip. ... Uh... I didn't get it either. She explained that she had asked for it specially so that she could protect me from my CRAZY host family!!! Ahhh I strogly like that girl sooo much! Then she waved it around a couple of times for good effect.

That same day, in the morning time at the entrence to school, there were many kids (none of who I recognized... I think they were college kids or something) wearing white aperons and holding big bags of flour and eggs. I managed to get by them without being caught and egged, but when I got inside I realized that I was one of the lucky few. If the people didn't give them money then they would get egged... actually even the ones who gave money were egged and floured... but I didn't even give money. I just put on a really pitiful face and when they came my way said, Oh I'm sorry, I don't speak French, I don't understand. Then ran like hell for the school. LOL. Thankfully Adriana didn't get foured too because she is allergic so that wouldn't have been good. I asked later what they were raising money for... maybe a cancer fund or childrens charities.

Nope...

It was so they could go out and drink! The school allowed them to stand there and egg their students for money to go get drunk!? No, not possible... Crazy things happen here.

On Wednesday, (December 1st, the day Adriana and I had to go to the Airport to see Pedro off) the people were celebrating the coming of Saint Nicholas Day. (Because the 1st was the last Wednesday before Saint Nicholas Day.) It was only a half day, but actually I would consider it a quarter day because out of the 4 classes we have on Wednesday, the last two were cut so that the students could enjoy the visit of Saint Nicholas... It was strange and bizar to say the least... even scary sometimes. Many students came to school dressed with white aprons, and they were running around with makeup crayons in red and pink and tons of stuff. (So they were dressed like nurses and they were painting peoples faces to look like they just came out of World War 3... and this is supposed to represent Saint Nicholas how?) Then after 2nd block, all of the students went to the theatre room to watch a performance put on by the 12th grade class. (We call them the 6th grade here...) There were I.V. bags hanging from the ceiling and the fog machines were working... it was bizzar. They threw out tons of candy to everyone and had tons of crazy activities planed out to do. Like for example they called up 3 guys and 3 girls. Had 3 peeps sit down and blindfolded the other 3. Then gave them toothbrushes and a jar of Nutella chocolate. You can imagine how it went from there. There were tons of other things too. I'll post pictures when I get them developed.

After it was all over, Adriana and I rushed to the bathroom to try and get off the makeup so that we didn't look like clowns, but despite all the scrubbing, i still had a black line across my forehead for the rest of the day!

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Well sh!t, I tried resizing my photo of Adriana and me and now it won't work! Ok, this is my last attempt so let me know if it works: