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My Internet Diary of Belgium
Friday, February 4, 2005
Carnival Vacation...umm... yay!
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Carnival Vacation
So today begins another vacation. I am happy... don't get me wrong. It seems like we just had vacation... oh yeah, we did! Everyone in school has plans to go to Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, or God knows where else, and me... I'm sitting here on a Friday night staring at a computer screen. I hate the thought of wasted time seeing that my time seems to go by 5X faster than every one elses. Somehow I have bumped my life into hyper-drive and now I can't get it out, so when I have a spare minute, it just doesn't feel right. I wanna go to Germany! After all, the festivals in Germany for Carnival are top notch (like Rio de Janeiro) and I am right here in Europe, an hour from the greatest city in Germany. Take the opertunity to see that I say! But I haven't been able to get a hold of Heike... so I can see myself spending this vacation at "home" studying for my French exam (which, I know, isn't a bad idea and I will admit that my presentation is going to be kick ass...) but I want to go out and be crazy with everyone else!!!!

Jana, a girl from Allemande (that is french for Germany) came... almost two weeks ago, and she will be staying here for 2 months. She lives in the neighbor city to Heike's and so she will be going home this vacation to see her family and party. Then after vacation she will return to learn more french. How I wish I were her... with the possiblity of just going home for the weekend... ahh that would be nice. She knows french really well ( well enough that she doesn't have to rely on her English or German and she can formulate sentences to express what she wants to say ) and that is a great start because getting to that level when learning a language is the slowest part but once you reach that level everything picks up speed, so I think in 2 months she will learn a lot. I am bound and determined to teach her all I know (which you may or may not think is very much... *ahem* Charlie!*ahem* ;) lol ) as well as helping her with her English occasionally ;)

So I am in train of making the best damned presentation for French class that the school of Institude de Notre Dame de Jupille has ever whitnessed... yeah... its that good. I've got a movie lined up, the Pledge of Allegiance, and I'm practicing it like a mad woman.

That is about it for now. Tomorrow I am going en ville tout seule to cherche un film pour ma presentation en Francais. And Heike is supposed to be calling me then too, which is good because Sarah va m'appelle aussi parce que je dois travail sur ma presentation en Science Sociale avec elle a jeudi si je suis ici... mais je ne sais pas si je vais en Allemande... well wish me luck finding plans to make this vacation pick up some speed and not be a complete waste de temps.

-ciao

happytracyinbelgium typed this up at 10:53 PM CET
Thursday, January 27, 2005
HEIKE and GERMANY (encore)
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Trip to Germany
Last weekend...wait, was it last weekend? Yeah I think so. Ok, so last weekend (Friday) I left for Germany again and got to meet Heike for the first time ever!!! But I already felt like I knew her so well!! She met me at the train station and introduced me to her friend, Sarah, and then Jo took us to a school party. I thought there were a lot of people there but Heike said that there are normally more except that on Saturday many people had to take exams so they wern't there. I think I'll write about that in a different entry... Everyone there is so unbelievably friendly and I got to meet tons of people who had gone to America last year and they were asking me if I knew the people who were their partners and things. It is so funny being a world away from Maine and meeting people who know my people!! (Does that make any sense?... Ok, I'm really tired!)

We got "home" to Heike's pretty late and on Saturday slept in until about 11:30. Then left around 3 in the afternoon to pick up Flo (Heike's brother) and go to their Holiday House that they are still in the process of building. I just can not get over how quickly it is getting finished! The first time I saw it, there was no furniture, kitchen apliances, or anything, now it is "presque fini" except for little things like painting... oh and Heike still doesn't have a bed yet. (lol, just minorly important):) We stayed there for the afternoon and invited the family who lives right by them (the one that is building the house) to come for tea and cakes. (Wait, did I go to England or Germany!?) :) That night we went first to Heike's aunts birthday celebration, and then to Jo's brother's new girlfriend's birthday party! LOL! I prefered Friday night, but Saturday was fun, none the less!

On Sunday they were invited to visit a new neighbor so I went with them. It was a young couple with a 2 year old baby and they just completely redid the house (which is huge) Everyone can speak really great English so I got to be in on the conversation too!! (Such a change from Belgium.. but *ahem* anyways)

Heike let me borrow one of her valise so that I can fill it up with useless things (like my scrapbook and all the things I was going to put in it) and give to the Fauquenoit family to bring back to America when they go in March.

I'll try to post some of the photos tomorrow that their family got back from the first time I was there. (Before Heike got home) but I'm too tired to do that now.


*ciao*

happytracyinbelgium typed this up at 6:01 AM CET
Thursday, January 20, 2005
"I'm a genie in a bottle baby" ... wow, where did that come from!?
Mood:  lyrical
Yesterday was Wednesday so everyone got out of school at noon time. I stayed at Adriana's house and then today I was supposed to stay in school until 4:30 when it usually gets over but on Thursdays I have 3 hours of study hall then English, so I decided today to just go home at noon. I was sooo tired. Here, I will tell you my normal schedule for school now that I have changed families. Don't think I'm bitching; I'm not, I just think it is amazing how much time I spend at school/ getting to and from school.

6am- wake up
6:45- leave for the first bus
7-7:05- bus arrives
8- I arrive at school
8:35- school starts
4:20pm- school ends
5:10- take the first bus home (of 2)
6:15- I finally get home!!!

*phew*

http://www.ufrgs.br/cvresultados/listao/
^go here, it is a website (all in PortugUese) with the list of names of the people who got into this really important college. "011820-6 Lourenco Fernandes Dutra Fonseca " :D CONGRATULATIONS LOURENCO!!!

This weekend I'm going back to Germany! So I will finally get to meet Heike! IM SOOOOO EXCITED because the last time I went, she was staying at my house and so obviously she wasn't there. So here we are... two girls who have never met before but we feel like we've known eachother forever; we know eachothers families, homes, and now we are finally going to meet eachother!!!! wweeeeee!

I just sent an email to my mom asking her to buy me the plane tickets to Brazil for December so I can visit Adriana next Christmas. Cross your fingers for me, I don't know if she will have a problem with it or not... After all, this trip is really expensive, I don't know if I can afford to go on another trip so soon... We will see.

Ok I guess that is pretty much it for now with my Random Thoughs of the day... I can't really say what I've been doing, because I haven't been doing anything! Oh yeah, I just thought I'd enlighten you: Where it says "Post Your Comment" and then there is a little bracket with a number in it, that is saying how many comments have been posted to that entry. You can click on it even if you do not want to post an entry just to see what other people have written. I'm not sure how many of you already knew that but I'm telling you, it took me a long time to figure it out... so there you go.

happytracyinbelgium typed this up at 9:59 PM CET
Sunday, January 16, 2005
"Hui is a pretty city"..."Yeah, except for that huge nuclear pwr plant over there!"
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: My Party Scene
On Saturday afternoon I bee-bopped my way into Liege to meet Adriana at 2 at Fnac (a big store sort of like Borders, with books, calenders, music and things of that general clasification) I was on a mission to find a DVD player, card for my cellphone and a watch. "2 outta 3 ain't bad" ... but I figured that since I already had a cellphone then I didn't need to get a watch. I need a DVD player because I have started a rather large collection of French DVDs only to find out that they don't work in American DVD players because of different zones or something?!?! So instead of trying to sell them all off and return them I just figured I'd get a DVD player that they would work in! Pretty good thinking, huh? We first went to Media Markt because everything in all of Europe (I think) is on sale from January 3rd to the 31st. (When we went to London and visited cathedrals they even had things in the Church gift shops on sale!) I found a "lecteur DVD" for 45 Euros (which is pretty damned good seeing my dinky little cellphone cost more than that)

DVD players in hand, Adriana and I dragged ourselves to Mobistar (the cellphone company) so I could buy a card. It just so happened that "le plus beau garcon dans tout le monde, il travail la" and so I decided to stay and ask him to put the money on my phone for me and then had him hook up other random things to my phone just so I had an excuse to talk to him. He even spoke English with me, so I'm happy! I love my cellphone :D!!! LOL

Around 6 we went to Romain (Charlie's) house ;) because that is going to be Adriana's second host family so we wanted to get aquainted. They are so nice!!! ... I can see her having a difficult time with his little sister, but no worries...*zen* ... :P Then his mom took us, Adriana, Romain, and me to the "Gare"- train station to catch our train to Hui. When we got there Emma (Australian) Hugo and Mariana (Brazilian)and Hugos host brother were already there waiting for us. We waited another 10 minutes for Finn to show up then headed out for the Centre of Hui. The first bar we went to wasn't bad. Expensive, but that wasn't an important facter for me because I just had other people buy my drinks! :) But there was a lot of smoke and no one was dancing...or stripping... wow it was nothing like Liege Wednesdays! We all stayed there for about 2 hours, at some point Adriana and Hugo's host brother left to pick up another Austrailain and "Stoner" (a Brazilian) I forget what his real name is but that is what some of the people were calling him so I'll stick with that. Humm and Marcelo, Patricia, her boyfriend, and another Brazilin whose name excapes me at the moment showed up not long after we got to the first bar too... When he first saw me he leaned over the table and asked if Romain (who was standing dangerously close to me ;)) was my boyfriend. LOL, I can understand where he might have gotten that idea, but nope, not exactly the case! So after I assured him that he wasn't then Marcelo came over and put his arm around me and bought me a couple drinks. Soo great! He told me that he's backing to Brazil in a month, after only being here for 5 months, instead of staying for the whole 12 months. I can't understand why!? He says he likes Belgium but he just doesn't want to be here anymore. This is so sad! :( I really care about that kid!

Hugo was my designated boyfriend for the night, but Adriana tried explaining Brazilin phychology to me... its difficult. In Brazil they are very up front with you if they want to kiss you, they kiss you, and if you want to kiss another person later that same night, ok thats fine. Hmm... And one time when we were outside we met up with 2 people from...humm was it Spain or Mexico. Well I doubt they are going to read this and correct me or be offended if I get it wrong, so I'm gonna go with Mexico. They are with Rotary and both from Liege (and go to Liege Wednesdays all of the time) but honestly I have never seen them before in my life! Oh well, I'm sure I will be seeing them a lot more now if they do the Wednesday scene. :D

We changed bars but the scene was pretty much the same... there were more people dancing in the second bar we went in but I think they were drugged or something...it was bizzar... Once when I was going out to get some fresh air some guy tried hitting on me and while I was trying to understand what he was saying (he talked really fast French) I almost fell out the door (when I wasn't even drunk... buzzing maybe, but deffenitally not drunk) So...quite a way for me to make a nice impression... oh well :P!

After that everyone pretty much split up and most of the Brazilians (aside from Adriana and Hugo) went to O'Malley's pub to eat spaghettie (at midnight.) I went to the Big Ben with Adriana, Hugo, his hst brother and his hst brother's friend, where they had some really good exotic drinks but I forget what they were called. Adriana really liked Hugo's host brother and he seemed interested in her too but everytime they started talking his friend would jump in and make it completely impossible for them to get anywheres! Ahck! After a little while Romain and Finn joined us from wherever they had been and we all shared a couple of exotic drinks. Hugos host brother and friend left around 1 because they have exams tomorrow, and so we finished our drinks and decided to switch bars.

Rounded ervy' body up and located a pita store (which I still can't understand why was open at 1 in the morning, but whatever!) When Adriana was trying to get chairs for everyone, she took one from a table that no one was using and the guy called her a "Salope"- which means bitch. We didn't think that was too overly impressive but no one knows French well enough to tell them off properly so we just dropped it.

Then all of a sudden it was 2h dans le matin and we had to pick a taxi to Hugo's house because obviously there were no running buses. We all had to be really quiet so not to wake his family, and it seemed like forever before they figured out where everyone was going to sleep. The house was pretty much a mansion and I think that everyone could have gotten their own room if we had thought it out better, but we ended up with with like 4 people in each room. "Crammed" is an understatement!LOL I don't know about everybody else, but I fell asleep around 3.

Then this morning we woke up around 10 and got ready to leave really quickly because we didn't want to impose on Hugo's host family. HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUGO!!!! Today is his birthday and his family put out a couple of little presents for him this morning at breakfast, it was so cute!

He doesn't exactly live IN Hui, he lives about a 10 minute drive from it, which is like an hours walk. He says "Hitchhike to Hui, its not difficult, there are plenty of cars" LOL yes!! So we split up (the 8 people who were left, everyone else left earlier in the morning and took a taxi I think) and 3 of them caught a ride after only walking for 5 minutes or so. Lucky bast***s! LOL :P We continued walking for another 10 minutes with absolutely no luck before finally Hugo's family came and picked us up and took us to the Gare so we didn't miss our train.

Reeeeeeeeeally smart me had to make the comment about how beautiful the small city of Hui is. About that time our boxcar train passes by these 2 HUGE funnels that make up one of the largest nuclear pwr plants in the country! ...Ok, that was a little intimidating... but besiiiiides from that, it is really a pretty city! :D

happytracyinbelgium typed this up at 11:36 PM CET
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Liege Wednesdays
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: My Party Scene
I should be careful what I write about this. Rotary says it is not allowed and if they "catch us" they will send us home, but (dont worry mom) it wasn't dangerous. :)Yesterday I went with Adriana to Liege to the Carre (a square of all bars and nightclubs) where all the exchange students meet on Wednesdays. (I won't mention where in the carre...its a secret! :-P) I don't usually go, but we made an exception because there was a big party for 3 or more people who were leaving us to go back home. (Those lucky bast***s) There were mostly Brazilians, but a lot of Belgian people showed up also, which isn't normal, but whatever, bring on the drinks! It was a fun time, finally being able to mingle with people who speak french is a nice change...its also good to know I can still remember my french even after a couple of rounds of Jupiler! (one of Belgian's best beers)

Then last night I stayed at Adriana's house... We watched Bridget Jones, The Age of Reason in French... umm... found her a second host family!!! (I was getting desprate and losing hope that we would ever find her another family here in Liege), but Romain's family accepted her! This is so great because it is like a "fete"-party all the time with Romain!! (I just posted some photos of him in my Odds and Ends photo album)if you care to check that out.

What else to say? ... I'm loving my new host family. (Not liking so much that I have to get up earlier and take 2 different busses to get to school, but its what I do if I want a good family!) :)

Sorry this post is so incoherent (sp?) but like usual, my mind is elsewhere. I'll write more later probably.

*bisous*

*ciao*

P.S.- THIS SATURDAY BE AT THE HUI GARE AT 8 (AT NIGHT)IF YOU WANT TO GO TO HUGO'S PARTY!






^ me after I eat all this GREAT Belgian chocolate

happytracyinbelgium typed this up at 1:45 PM CET
Updated: Sunday, January 16, 2005 11:37 PM CET

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