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

"Its ok, we've found you now"
Mood:  blue
Topic: Second Host Family
The exchange students returned from London around 1:30 in the morning on the 6th which is a ...Thursday? yeah. But we were still on vacation until the 10th so it was fine. (we were supposed to get back late on the 5th...but anyways) Adriana's mom came to the train station to pick us up and I stayed the night at her house. The next day I dragged Adriana to the Dor's house with me to help me pack all of my things and the next day I was moved in to my second host family. That was Friday, that I was switched. (still on vacation) It is much smaller than the Dor's house. I don't get my own room, I must share with Justine, who is the same age as me. My bed is a little makeshift mattress that I have to pull out from under Jasmine's bed every night and put back the next morning. I don't mind at all. Don't think I'm bitching, I love this family right to death, they are soo nice to me and even though my host mom is nervous, at least she isn't nervous with me. She doesn't work as in leaves the house every day and gets a regular salary, but she does enough work right at home. The house is spotless and the fridge is always stocked. "Je suis tres content ici" -I am very happy here. But because my new family lives in Herstal (which is a long ways from my old neighborhood) if I want to continue to go to my school and see my friends here in Jupille, I must wake up at 6 (like at hoooooome) and take 2 different buses to get to school, then I arrive a half an hour early, but I can't take any later bus because they have a schedule conflict. *sigh*

I have a very real fear of the buses here... It is not pretty. They make me nervous. I get lost... constantly!! Today is Tuesday and vacation officially ended on Monday but Monday morning my host mom brought me to school so I didn't have to bother with the bus situation. But to return home after school I had a slight problem. I got lost and didn't know when to get off the bus so I just randomly chose a place and guess what... it was the wrong one! And with my luck, I chose a place that was in the middle of a black out. I couldn't tell the difference between street and sidewalk until a car would go by and I had to jump out of the way so I didn't get hit. I still don't have a GSM (cellphone) so I had no way to call my family and I didn't want to knock on anyone's door because there were no lights so I thought everyone must be sleeping!! To top it all off, some guy with a really bad limp came out of the middle of nowheres and started trying to chase down cars, holding his hands out and yelling and cursing that he needed help (all in french of coarse... I didn't want to get involved) I was cold, lost, crying and it was just a mess. All of a sudden I hear someone say in a small voice: Tracy?? Oh god, I didn't think it could get any worse, but now I'm hallucinating!!! (But it was Yasmine, the older of my two host sisters.) She had come looking for me! :)

When we arrived home I was still a little shook up and she hugged me and said, "Its ok, we've found you now."

I love my host family. :)

"When a man grows tired of London, he has grown tired of life"
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Trip to London
The best way to start out the New Years, I think, is TO GO TO LONDON!! I left with Adriana and her WEP group (like my Rotary Group)on January 3rd at 6:30 in the morning. We took a bus to the French shore where we got on a Ferry that took us and our tour bus to England. From there, it was 3 more hours to get into London. But we also stopped in Canterby to see a Cathedral there and buy postcards and do what we wanted. Then we got lost looking for our hotel and were finally set free in London around 6 PM. Adriana, Mariana, Paula, Hugo, Diego, Marcelo, Finn were my bus buddies (or mainly the people I hung out with on the Bus)I'll try to upload a photo, if I can steal it from Adriana's blog since she won't send them to me!! (salope!)

When we arrived, I was dying for Chinese food but Adriana talked me into KFC because its a lot cheaper (especially in England) so we went with Paula and Mariana (two of Adriana's friends who are also from Brazil) to the nearest KFC. Paula went out with me later that night to look for a club but the woman who we asked gave us crappy directions and we finally gave up looking around 11 and just went back to our hotel. That was all of Monday.

Tuesday morning I went with Adriana to purchase tickets to the Phantom of the Opera that is showing exclusively in London but the tickets were #40 each and that is $80 so I decided not to buy any. Adriana, Marcelo, and Paula each bought ones though. N' we hopped on our tour bus that we had brought all the way from Belgium to go visit Madame Tiussou (the famous wax museum) and then we were set free for the day to do as we pleased. Most of us went to see the Big Ben and do the Tour of London by double decker bus. London Bridge, The London Tower, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, Saint Paul's Cathedral, umm... and lots of things. Got to see the guards with the big black plume hats that are not allowed to move. So beautiful!! :D or maybe I just think they are beautiful because I am intimidated by their important official uniforms! ;) That night the people who bought tickets to the Opera, went to that, and I hung out with Mariana. Guy seeing *ahem* I mean sight seeing. Then we went back to our hotel and got online for about 2 hours to talk to some of Mariana'a family and friends back in Brazil (Eu falie com o cara mais bonito do Brasil lorenco!! :D) (sorry if I spelled his name wrong)

On the day we returned, the 5th, we first went to the London Tower which is a biiiig castle overlooking Tower bridge (the famous bridge that has 2 stories and the bottom one opens to let boats pass through) before scooting off to Picadilly Circus to do some quick shopping before heading back to Belgium.

The bus ride home was probably my favorite part of the trip.. but class just ended so I'll add more info. later

*ciao*

-----------

Well for the first hour or so I slept and bummed around because I was sad that we were already leaving and I was thinking about stupid things that I shouldn't have been worrying about on my TRIP TO LONDON! But then once we crossed the French border I came around and everyone sang and danced (on the bus which made us all feel really drunk because we kept falling over whenever we went around a corner) We went around the bus asking all the people of different nationalities to sing their national anthem, Adriana and I danced like Britney Spears, I sang "Baby Got Back" with Finn, and Hugo held my hand and sang to me but it was in Portugese so I didn't understand it!!! Sooo great!

"happy new year my sister" -Donovan
Topic: Vacance de Noel
"Je vous souhaite pleins de bonheur pour l'annee nouvelle"- I wish you plenty of happiness for the new year!


"Happy new year~ and this year I will be able to see you again! Bye! Love Sisi" -Sisi

Today Donovan came up to me and gave me a piece of paper that said "happy new year my sister." You really have to appreciate that. :-)

Last night the Fauquenoits had a family reunion at Crystel's parents house, which included mooooore eating! (I don't even see how that is possible!) When the clock struck midnight everyone stood up and said "Bonne annee; bonne saunte" (not exactly sure of the spelling on saunte [?])and gave each person 4 kisses on the cheeks (like left, right, left, right) then sat back down and ate more (to my complete disbelief)The Moulon Rouge was playing on the tv and we got back to the Fauquenoits house around 2.

I started on packing my bags today. Trying to figure out how I'm going to fit all the stuff I got for christmas in Adriana's little black suitcase that she let me borrow. (She'll never forgive me if I pop it!)

I got to talk with annie yesterday:
Me: ANNIE?! Ahhhhhhhhh! Don't you EVER scare me like that again!!
Annie: *Puppy dog face* I'm sorry, tracy!

-bisous

Thailand and the tsunami
Mood:  hug me
Topic: Vacance de Noel
Isn't it unbelievable, what happened in India and Thailand? Its even worse when someone you know was vacationing there over Christmas vacation. Annie, the girl who came to Belgium for a week, from England. She was there... In Phuket. I found out about the tsunami the day after Christmas and it had been 6 days with no word from anyone, Annie, Pierre, Adriana, whether or not she was ok. But finally, finally today I spoke with Pierre. Thank God, shes still alive and safely in England right now. I swear, I cried when I found out. I am just so happy!! I don't think I could have handled losing TWO people on Christmas day...