emotional roller coaster

I have always been a very emotional person; I have been called a "drama queen" more than once. The last few days in Belgium, however, have been more of an emotional journey than usual.

As my earlier post expressed, I had quite a bit of anger and frustration today. And last night, I was just sad.
I missed home, and I missed my life.

Today, right now however, I am as happy as can be. I am spending the night at my good friend Emma's house. She is another exchange student, from Ohio. She is wonderful and I am very grateful to have her attending the same school as I am; she's my best buddy here, for sure. This is the first time I have been to her house, and I love it. I had a lovely night eating dinner with her family, venting about my prior anger, and now I am as happy as I can be :)

So now, I am able to tell everyone about the lovely aspects of Belgium.
It is beautiful here. I am in Europe. I am living with a Belgian family, and I am speaking French. The gravity and reality of this situation has not completely sunk in for me yet. I am making Belgian friends, I am sending text messages in French. I am learning Biology in French. I am living a completely new and unimaginable life. And in general, I am truly loving it.

My mantra since I have been here is one word: "appreciate".  Every night before I go to sleep, I think of the one thing that I appreciated most throughout the day. Today, what I appreciated most was laughter. The laughter I was able to share with Emma and her family truly transformed an average day to one that I will from now on remember as lovely.

And so here I am. Here I am, sitting on the floor, watching Emma decorate her room with jewelry, facebook chatting with new Belgian friends, as well as old American friends, and writing a blog post. And I am happy. I really am very happy. I am blessed. I am so lucky to have been given this opportunity, and I am so grateful for it. To my family, Rotary, and everyone else that has helped me achieve this: thank you.

I will end on a happy note.

There is a picture of my first waffle, and Emma and I enjoying said waffle. They were apple, which means they had apple on the inside, and of course, were utterly delicious. This picture was taken in Liege, when we travelled there to attempt a shopping journey. Waffles are utterly delicious here, as are the fries. The food in general, is lovely.

But now, I believe I must head to bed. Emma and I have to start our second full week of school tomorrow, and we need to be in the best shape possible ;) Et alors, á demain!