This bloody chipmunk won't shut up.

I am so tired of listening to it run around its cage. Blaargh.

On a happier note, I've been here in Belgium for a little over a week now, and I still love it. It's just an amazing place. The weather is, in my opinion, to die for. There's sunshine, there's rain, and the temperature is just right.

Yesterday, after dinner, Etienne, Amaury, and I went in the Citroën and drove to the homes of my other host families. Les Golard were not at home, but I did get to meet their dog. Mme. Cuyckens was home, however, so I got to visit with her for a while. Les Cuyckens live right behind their store, a John Deere business. It's pretty cool, in my opinion, coming from a place like Wisconsin. They even had tractors on the roof of their garage!

I must say, I love the Citroën. It's kind of the Belgian equivalent of an old VW bug. It's 25 years old, and it's a convertible. I love her. :)

I miss wearing sweatpants. Ugggh.

Sunday night, I went with Adrien and Arnaud to a festival in a nearby town. I'm not entirely sure what the festival was for (there were people biking around in decorated bikes... there was a converse shoe, a fire truck, and army truck, etc), but it was massive amounts of fun. It was a lot like a school dance, except outdoors and with a LOT of beer. I don't think that I can really explain how much beer was there. Well, maybe. If you took all of the water in Lake Loveland and turned it into beer, there you go. And I'm pretty sure that the people there drank all of it too. It was quite humorous to watch them go from sober to smashed. At the beginning when most of them were (relatively) sober, they'd try to speak English with me and they would explain what was going on as best they could. By the end of the night, only the people with really good English managed to talk to me. One fellow told me that he is God and that I must believe in him. Another said that he wanted to be in the Guinness Book of World Records for the smallest ears. Another tried to kiss my host brother. All in all, it was rather enjoyable. I gained an appreciation for techno as well.

Adrien and I left at about 1:15 am. He had to study for his English exam coming up and he said that I shouldn't stay because there would be a lot of fights soon. I was exhausted anyway, so we went home. Oh, and I think Adrien is the best driver in the family, so far.

Earlier on Friday, I went with Anne-Michèle and Amaury to some sort of bicycle race thing that Etienne was catering (they're really into bikes here). The food was delicious, of course. I helped Anne-Michèle sell drink tickets, which wasn't as boring as it sounds. People would start talking to me in French, but I had no clue what they were talking about (I didn't really understand the race thing anyway), so I would say "Je suis americaine. Je ne comprends pas." Most people seemed excited by that fact, and they would start speaking Enlgish to me, which was very nice.

After that, but before the festival, the entire family (minus Etienne) went to the house where Anne-Michèle grew up. The house is for sale, and I gathered that this was the last time that all of the family would be able to get together there, which was kind of sad. I met a very nice cousin, Olivier, who practised his English with me. He said that he exchanged for a year in Paraguay, and he could totally relate to what I was struggling with with the language. He seemed very surprised that I'd already dreamed in French though (Friday night. Woo!). He said it was a good thing; it means that I'm absorbing the language. Sounds good to me.

Anyway, the rest of the party was pretty fun; there were a lot of things to eat, most of them involving candy or sugar in some way. I also got to sneak into a few family pictures, which I think is kinda funny. Anne-Michèle said that they'll just tell people that I'm Alix with glasses. I'm amused. :)

Saturday night, Anne-Michèle and Etienne went to some sort of party at their friend's house, and we kids were left alone. We made croque-monsieurs (ham and cheese sandwiches, pretty much), and it was weird to use brie as the cheese. I'm used to Kraft singles for any type of cheese-melting activity, as my throat kind of freaks out at the texture of most melted cheese. I didn't like it much, but again, I'm not one for melted cheese.

After dinner, Amaury and I rode bikes to a small ice cream shop in town, and we had the most delicious ice cream I've ever tasted. Holy cow was it good! I just had a scoop of vanilla, but it was AMAZING. The guy working there dropped my scoop into the strawberry, so I had a taste of that too, and it was SO delicious. The owner seemed very familiar with Amaury, and asked who I was. When Amaury told him that I'm the exchange student living with his family and that I'm American, the guy started to use all of the English he knows, which pretty much all related to ice cream, which I thought was so cute. Anyway, two things about that little trip stuck out to me:

1. The ice cream. You seriously do not know ice cream until you've had it here.

2. There's something so great about being able to see a city by bicycle. It's way more personal. If you visit somewhere and you drive around in a car, you'll never get to understand it or be able to feel the atmosphere. Take a bike or walk. You won't be sorry.

Well... I think that's all. I'm going back downstairs to get away from the chipmunk.

Mikayla