shopping, discotheque, vacance!!

Alright. Last time I posted was Monday. What has happened since then?

Tuesday I went into Brussels with Geraldine. And you may be surprised to learn that we went to A MALL. An actual indoor mall. It was lovely. All I bought was a necklace, a pair of tights, and an umbrella, but it was excellent being able to walk around inside- I felt right at home. Tuesday night I had a Rotary meeting with my host club. We ate dinner and then the students who went on exchange last year from Belgium gave their presentations about their years abroad. I'm not going to lie to you, it really made me think. One of them even made me cry. It made me realize how much I need to take advantage of every day that I am here. I need to travel, I need to see the country, I need to study French!!! But overall it was a very pleasant evening, although I did end up going home and crying, not because I was homesick, but because I'm already dreading leaving.

Wednesday I went shopping with Emma, her host mom, and her youngest third host sister. We went to an outlet mall, which Emma and I were super psyched about, thinking that we would find some great deals. Unfortunately, we forgot that we are in Europe. All of the stores were RIDICULOUSLY overpriced (I'm talking 120 euros for a shirt). But we had fun just walking around and window shopping, nonetheless. I ended up spending the night at her house, and we made mac and cheese and Hawaiian pizza, ate ice cream, watched movies, and just had a girls night.

Thursday, yesterday, I got home from Emma's in the afternoon. I spent the day at home, spending some time with my host family and catching up on some work that I needed to get done. After dinner I headed out to our local cafe, met up with Emma and her friend Courtney- Courtney is from the Ohio, like Emma, and she is in France on exchange; she came out for the weekend. They were with some of our friends from school, all of who would be accompanying me to the discotheque later that night. Emma and Courtney did not go, because they are spending all day today in Liege and didn't want to be too tired. So around 10:30 I left Emma and Courtney, and headed to the train station with two friends from school, where we met up with a bunch of other people and took the train out to Hasselt, where the discotheque is. Hasselt is in the Flemish part of Belgium, and it was quite the experience. A large majority of the people there were speaking in Flemish and that was bizarre for me. I always assumed it would be like German, which it is, but it's much less harsh. It honestly just sounds like a joke when people are speaking it; it's hilarious. At one point in the night I was standing with my friend Ladislas, and a guy came up to him and started talking in Flemish. Ladislas clearly had no idea what he was saying, but just stood there nodding and pretending that he knew exactly what was going on. Later, on the train ride back, my friend Tutu started hitting on some girls on the train, who only spoke Flemish. He is loud and crazy and was shouting across the train at them in broken Flemish mixed with French mixed with English, and for me, it was utterly hilarious. We left the discotheque at 4:30 in the morning, and I spent the next few hours at a friends house, before I returned home at 10:00. Needless to say, I'm a bit tired.

Today I am spending the day at home (hopefully sleeping a little bit!), and then tonight I have a party at a friend's house. Tomorrow I am planning on going to Bruges with Emma, Courtney, and my friend Aymeric. It should be a lovely experience, although the weather is not supposed to be all that great.

today I appreciate: having fun