Yesterday I went to the Scouts "jour de passage" (passage day, the day where the scouts move into the next year/level). I'm going to start off by saying that Girl/Boy scouts here is very different than in the States. For one, it's really cool. If you tell someone that you are a scout (pronounced "scoot" here) you get a smile of admiration and a "that's great!". This is probably because the actual layout and activities are different. It's every Saturday for a few hours, it's ages 5-18 and the counselors or "chefs" are all about 20 years old. You plan events, hang out an play games, go on trips, etc. The "Les pis" are the scouts (mixed boys and girls) ages 16-18, and that was the group that I passed into yesterday. 
         The day started with me being picked up by my friend Alisson (from school and her family is really good friends with my host family) and we walked to the school (scouts is on the grounds of my school). We all met up and I saw quite a few kids that I know already, we got in a big circle and introduced ourselves. This also included one of the chefs walking around the circle with makeup remover looking at the girls eyes because makeup is not allowed in scouts! Then we played a tag like game, and formed groups to do a sort of scavenger hunt type game. Then we had lunch, and after lunch we had the passage ceremony. 
          I saw people setting up a long line of tarps and dropping pieces of soap on them, then pouring water on top and rubbing a broom over it to make it soapy and slippery. Everyone gathered around the tarp (including parents that were starting to come!) and they put two inner tubes with a long rope attached in the middle. They started with the little kids who simply walked across half the soapy to the inner tubes and got pulled down to the end met with lots of applause. For the kids who were a bit older (9/10) did the same thing but were met with some gentle water guns at the beginning. Then it was time for the passage into Pi. Everyone started taking off their sweat shirts and rain coats, shoes and socks (it was on and off rain all day, with a very fall like temperature). Then the chefs tied our hands behind our backs, and we all got into a line behind the tarp. They opened up a bag full of sprinkles, cream, grenadine syrup,and chocolate powder. We had to kneel at the front of the tarp two at a time and walk on our knees (while being sprinkled and poured on) to the inner tube where water was dumped on us before we were pulled by the rope down the soapy runway! We all fell at the end and then were not only wet and food covered, but also muddy! We were greeted with "Bienvenue aux Pis!!!" and lots of hugs. Shortly after it started to rain again, and I ran home dirty, soaking wet, barefoot, and smiling like crazy. I think I'm going to like scouts :)

   Coucou!! I haven't been up to anything really exciting since my last post. I had a relaxing/host family/homework day on Sunday, school and zumba on Monday, and today I had my Tuesday rotary meeting! Those are so great. I love talking with Lucas and Yu-Chi, two other students from Brazil and Taiwan who also come to the meetings every week. Connecting with other exchange students is the best; it's one of my favorite parts about being here. 
   I've had a couple of hard moments in the past few days, but they're still fewer and fewer so I'm not worrying about it :) It's still up and down! But it seems to be leveling out a bit. 
    Learning French is still so fun. I don't tire of it like a lot of students seem to, but maybe that's just because I love the language so much! I'm finding myself not needing to translate conversations in my head and just thinking in French... it's a crazy, wonderful feeling. 
Bonne nuit!

        I've been here for five weeks today, and I feel as if yesterday I was thinking to myself "I've been here for four weeks". This week went by really quickly, which makes me wonder if every week will be like that. Right now that's okay, but I know in the Spring that will NOT be okay!
       School was actually really good this week. I'm understanding the teachers pretty well and I had two quizzes. The Spanish one I did well on (I've taken Spanish before so that's no big feat or anything), and the history one, hmm... It was a paragraph answer, so much depended on writing! I got a three out of ten, which normally I would be appalled by but half the class got the same grade, and the American equivalent is about 60% (grades are a bit different here, a really good grade is 75%), so I'm not too disappointed! I also had an small oral presentation in French class where we had to bring in an object and describe why it is poetic to us. I brought my plane ticket to Belgium and I think it went really well! I was quite relieved and pleased when I finished. 
      Today I'm going to Louvain-la-Neuve with my friends Michelle and Minna. Michelle is an exchange student from Colorado who is also in Braine-l'Alleud, and Minna is an exchange student from Finland! I'm very excited. 
      I have also gone 5 days without skyping with my family, which is the longest I've gone here. I am skyping with them tonight though :)

      My last post was more about how I've been feeling than what I've been up to, so here's what I've been doing! 
      This weekend I went to my first birthday party! A couple of kids from school invited me, and I felt so thankful even for that! (That's what comes of being an exchange student... you feel so grateful and immediately love anyone who invites you to do anything!!). The party was wonderful. I feel like I really got to know a lot of the kids in my grade and like I have some real friends at school now. Even if I don't understand everything, at least I have people to eat lunch with! 
      I've realized that even though school is really important, the most important part is participating in activities and being with people. Right now I'm putting most of my effort into making friends and doing activities, but school is going pretty well so I think I have a good balance! Math class changes every day: sometimes I feel like I'm understanding and sometimes I just want to cry in the middle of my teacher's lecture. I think it will probably be off/on like that for awhile. However, my other classes are pretty good. I had a quiz in history today, I'll see how I did Friday!
     Sunday I went to the "Fête du Cheval" (the horse festival) with my friend Michelle (exchange student from Colorado). It was great!! We got to ride a cow (pictured below :) ), watched horseball (a sport that I actually LOVE watching!!!), and ate frites with andalouse sauce. 
Andalouse sauce is this delicious sweet/savory, ketchup/mayonnaise type sauce, and I am in love with it. 
      Something that I figured out about Belgium: At school, girls don't wear back packs. In fact, it is a bit of a social taboo for a high school girl to carry one. Bags are the "cool thing". Well, I blatantly ignored this rule one day when I had so many things to carry that the thought of putting them all in a little bag made me crazy. While no one looked at me strangely or acted any differently towards me, during lunch a couple of my friends told me that they could "help me find a new bag!" while looking at my like I had so much to learn. They seemed happy to assist the poor Americaine" who doesn't know the rules. I bring a bag to school now. :P
Bonne Nuit!! 

MIchelle and I with the cow!

        Tomorrow I will have been in Belgium for one month. My first thought when I realized this was "already? I feel like it's been so much shorter!". Then I started thinking about how many things I have done this month. Everything I've already learned, the experiences I've had, the people I've met, and then I started to think "and it's only been 1 month???". I think that is how this year is going to be. I will do so many things and have so many wonderful times that it will feel very short, but the amount that is packed into this year is the equivalent of 5 normal ones (and probably more!). It made me start thinking about my exchange and why I came here. That led me back to looking online at Maya Frost's website and all of the exchanger's stories. Maya Frost wrote a book called "The New Global Student", and if it wasn't for that book I wouldn't be in Belgium right now. I sent her an email telling her about my experience and how much she helped me get here, and I received an awesome and encouraging response today. Looking back at the past year, how much I prepared for this trip, and how much I have already gotten out of it, makes me realize that an adventure like this is comparable to nothing else. 


I've only been here a month and I've:
-learned a ton of French
-been to quite a few cities in Belgium   
-made wonderful exchange friends, some that I get to see very often
-started to make really great Belgian friends
-been on a train by myself
-started to adapt to and feel at home with a completely different family
-done math in French
-done dance classes!
-ridden a horse
-gone out on the town with Belgian buds
And so much more!!!
I can't wait for everything else that this year has to offer, I'm sure I can't even begin to imagine it now :)

        I shuffle through so many emotions in one school day it's ridiculous. Nervous to excited, melancholy to content, energetic, talkative, confused... all in 7 hours. My classes are good. Math is getting a TINY bit better. I talked with my teacher and he told me to work on what I can and to not worry about things too much. I also went online and printed out notes on elementary trigonometry, studied them that night, and brought them to class to study while the teacher was teaching (i probably won't be able to follow most things he says for awhile...). But I think that studying in class really helps because i'm pretty sure I will be able to do the homework for Monday! My other classes are pretty good. Certain things are quite difficult to understand, but all of my teachers are wonderful and see that I am trying, so even if I can't keep up with the class all the time I think everything will be fine. Spanish, religion, and geography (and of course English) aren't much of a problem (yet). I love taking Spanish here, it's wonderful to view another language from the point of view of a different one! It makes me understand French better as well. I am having to do about twice as much homework as a lot of kids because I have to translate a lot of notes/readings/questions, but that will get better with time. My theater class is also wonderful, so many of the "games" are so similar to those of my theater class in the U.S.! We're going to put on a play at the end of the year, I can't wait!         
       The social situation isn't half bad at school. There's a wonderful group of people that are my "friends" right now, but I know it will take a little while to find good friends. I had to remind myself half way through this week that it was the first week of school: I don't have to have great friends and understand everything yet! If everything was easy, there would be no point in coming. I've had to remind myself of that quite a few times this week :).
         Everything is wonderful with my host family. I'm feeling the relationship beginning to deepen: we joke more, I have more chores, they're beginning to tell me more rules and treat me more like a member of the family. I'm able to follow dinner conversations a bit better now, and I'm talking much more than before! I'm really appreciating how wonderful my host family is. I've fallen into a nice routine, and I think that's really important! 
         I have a district Rotary event tomorrow, it will be really good to see a lot of the exchange students again! 
Bonne nuit

       So today was my first official, classes all day first day of school. It was really good for the most part! Spanish, English (obviously... :P), and religion/psychology were great. In Spanish I'm helping other kids (in French!) because I took a lot of Spanish in The States, English is just amusing, and I really participated in Religion today and could understand pretty much everything! Science was difficult. My class is starting with physics and I've never done that (they did some last year), so I didn't understand much. However my teacher, M. Henry, is really helpful and nice and he emailed me a review-type packet tonight, so I think that with a lot of work I will at least pass (I hope!). Math was a different story... first of all, it's very difficult to understand my "prof". French mixed with math is hard enough to understand by itself, let alone when you can barely hear the teacher! The handwriting here is a bit different as well, so I can't really even follow along on the board. Most kids end up with about 50 or 60 percent in his classes... so I know it's not just me. Anyway, I hope that that class get better! At least I don't have it every day, and at least he's a nice person. Hopefully by the end of the year I will be able to get by! (Hopefully soon There are also a lot of students (and my host sister!) who are willing to help me, so hopefully I can get through it. Overall, I think it was a pretty good day. I'm really excited for tomorrow because I have French (literature!) and theater, I can't wait!
          Tonight I also went to an awesome Sumba aerobics/dance class with my host sister and host mom. A much bigger workout than I thought it would be, but it was great! The teacher was from cuba and kept yelling out instructions mixed with Spanish, there were a ton of people and it was so fun to do dance here. I think we're going to go every week! :)
Bonne nuit

         I've had a pretty good weekend here in Belgique! Yesterday I went to this street carnival/outdoor sale in downtown Braine-l'Alleud called the "Braderie". I went with my best exchange buds Michelle and Jordann, and as usual we had lots of fun and ate too much delicious food :). 
         Today was a pretty relaxed Sunday, I took a walk with Michelle, read, organized things for school, watched some Gilmore Girls online, but most exciting I made an American breakfast for my host family! I got up at 7:30 and found a good pancake recipe and made pancakes (with the syrup I brought from Massachusetts), and scrambled eggs with cheese. Although the pancakes weren't nearly as good as at home because the ingredients/amounts are a little different here, they weren't too bad. I need to learn how to cook and bake here, it is one of my goals for this year :). The eggs were pretty good too. My family had never had maple syrup before, and they were quite tentative and curious about it, but they all ended up really liking it! Before we ate I also set the table, and when they came into the kitchen to eat they were exclaiming how "the table is set like it's dinner time! The plates are so big for breakfast!". The were quite amused by the average size of an American breakfast. We ended up getting into a fun conversation about the food and meal differences between Belgium and Europe - they were pretty disgusted by the idea of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and egg and cheese english muffins! Ahh the cultural differences are so fun to learn about :) 
Here are some pics from the Braderie:

I'm still not sure

Venetian Mardi Gras costumes! (These people were everywhere!) 

Jordann and Michelle (or "Joordannnne et Meeechelle)

         Yesterday was my first day at the prestigious Christian Belgian highschool, Collège Cardinal Mericier. Here on the first day of school each grade has a different arrival time. My "5ème" (5th year, the equivalent of a Junior) class was called at 10:10. I had the morning planned out perfectly: I would set my alarm for 7:45, stretch out, take a shower, eat a good breakfast, pack a good lunch, gather my things together, and meet Allison (the daughter of my host mom's friend who is also in my grade) and walk the five minutes to my school. NOPE. My alarm didn't go off and I woke up at 9:00, took half a shower, said hi to Allison in my bathrobe, ate cookies for breakfast, and we were off. 
          The school is enormous. I felt like I was walking around a college campus, with the different buildings, students walking around everywhere, the student-center-like cafeteria with everything from Chocolate croissants to delicious non-premaid sandwiches. I met up with some of Allison's friends, who loved asking me to say things in English and asked me if I liked Barack Obama or George Bush (surprisingly it was the first time I had been asked that question here). They were all relieved by my answer. We were called into the OTHER cafeteria building (yes, there are multiple) and got called into our groups. The groups are organized by your "option", which is the path you're studying. The options are subjects like: economy, math, French, foreign language, history, art, theater, etc. I have a theater/language path, so I was in a group with other kids studying the same things. I was luckily in a group with a lot of kids I had met that morning!
         We spent time in a homeroom-like class, introducing ourselves and talking about our likes/dislikes, and what was expected of us this year. I introduced myself to the class (something I had been imagining doing that for months!). All of the kids were extremely welcoming and friendly, I felt pretty comfortable. Then we had a 20 minute break, which happens every day! Then we went back to our homerooms and got our schedules. Once again, the school reminded me of college. Mondays and Tuesdays I don't have to go to school until 9:20, (ahhhhhhh!!!) I am there until 4:20 but that's completely fine. Wednesdays I leave school at 11:00, and Thursdays and Fridays I start at 8:30 and leave at 3:30. We also have an hour for lunch. My classes are different every day, and last for only 50 minutes each(compared to 90 minutes at Northampton High). I only had English class (the teacher told me I would be her assistant...), and Spanish class yesterday. Spanish was the coolest experience! (honestly!). Learning Spanish in French... I felt like my brain was doing gymnastics. The kids in my grade start Spanish in 5ème, because they study English and Dutch in the earlier grades. Because I've had 4 years of Spanish, the teacher said that she was going to try to move me up into 6ème Spanish.    
           Monday I will have a complete schedule, which includes science, religion, Spanish, and gym. Yes, gym is required here. But they have an indoor pool and a rockwall, so I'm actually really excited! By the end of the day I could understand almost everything the teacher was saying, and was able to have better conversations with my classmates than I had that morning! But we'll see how I feel learning math in French...
           Last night I went out with my Belgian friends and my friend Jordann who is also an exchange student. Now that I have school, friends, a schedule, horseback riding lessons (!!), and possible dance classes, along with Rotary events, I feel amazing here. My boredom is gone, I still skype with my family and friends often but it never gets in the way of my learning French or feeling integrated, I am learning more French everyday, am meeting more people and becoming more active every day, this exchange thing is pretty cool...
           Advice for future exchange students: Once again, try to stay busy! It helps EVERYTHING. Be involved with your Rotary club as much as you can, because that is how I've met some of my Belgian friends here. They are also the ones that made it possible for you to go on an exchange, and often the meetings are really fun (and have really good food...). And don't be afraid to contact your friends and family at home more than "once a week". Having a support system back home is a wonderful thing: it makes you feel less alone or bored before activities start picking up, and once you feel more comfortable and busy you don't need that contact as much (it's still fun though!).