I start school tomorrow.

Yay.

Actually, I'm usually excited for the first day of school. Summer loses it's oomph after a while, and I like the order and discipline that comes with the school year. I like getting up at the same time every day, having a set schedule, and being able to plan out homework and whatnot. I'm a nerd, holy cow.

But anyway, I start school tomorrow, and I'm a little nervous, I think. Nothing major (I'm not going to cry or anything like that...), just a few little butterflies. My new school is huge, and I don't have ANY classes with the other exchange students aside from our one French class first thing in the morning. I know that that will be good for me, that I'll be able to grow as a person, and that I'll learn quicker if I'm not tempted to speak English with the other exchangers. But still. It's a little intimidating, jumping into the deep end like this.

My classes (that I can remember):

French ---> first thing in the morning, taught by an 83 year old priest.

Religion

Math

Phys Ed.

Social Science

Geography

and other things I just can't remember. I think there's a science class thrown in there somewhere...

I went to a Rotary meeting last night and gave a small speech about me and where I come from.

It went something like this:

"Bonsoir messieurs et monsieur le président:

Je m'appelle Mikayla et j'ai seize ans. Je suis americaine. Je viens de Loveland, au Colorado. J'habite avec ma mère, deux chats, deux chiens, et six poissons. Les chevaux sont ma vraie passion. Je monte à cheval tous les jours avec mes amis.

J'étudie le français depuis trois ans. Après mon séjour en Belgique, j'irai à lúniversité pour étudier le français et science politique.

J'ai choisi de venir en Belgique parce que j'adore la pluie. Le Colorado est un dèsert, et il n'y a jamais de pluie.

J'aime lire, parler, et sourire.

Merci."

Let me know if you want a translated version. :P

All four of the inbounds to our club had to give their speeches last night, and we all did smashingly well. We gave the president our flags as well, and of course took a bunch of pictures.

Earlier yesterday, I rode Eros again. Sophie wasn't there this time, so I took Eros into the small arena near his stall and lunged him for a while, which seemed to work out some of his kinks. He still wouldn't behave on the trail though.

This past weekend was the Inbound Orientation for all of us YEPs (as we're affectionately known) in District 1630. It started with a lot of standing around and waiting in line on Saturday morning. We had to show the district people our passports (I forgot mine...) and received our insurance cards and gave the Chairman, M. Binamé, a pin.

After that, we had lunch, which was typical cafeteria food. I don't even remember what it was. I sat with Jordan again as well as some other exchange students, and it was nice to sit and talk some more. When we were finished with lunch, we saw about 584 slideshows about Rotary and the rules and what we are and are not allowed to do. Once all of that business was finished, we took a walking tour of Huy, the city we were staying in. The architecture was phenomenal. We toured an old cathedral and a monastery that was connected to a museum. It was all very interesting, and I wish my camera hadn't died halfway through. :( Dinner was uneventful (I don't remember what it was then, either), but afterward, Rotary had a dance party thing for us. There was a DJ and music and flashing lights. We also got 2 beer tokens each. With one token, we were able to get one glass of beer.

***No, we were NOT breaking any of the Rotary rules. The rules about drinking in Belgium are different, because of the culture. We, as Rotary Youth Exchange students are allowed to drink if we maintain proper behavior and do not go over the legal limit for alcohol consumption.***

I spent most of the night with Emily and Lily, from New York and Florida, respectively. We stayed at the dance for about an hour, then went up to Emily's room and just sat around and talked. The dance ended at midnight, and we all went to bed then, which was good because I was exhausted.

The next morning, we listened to more slideshows and presentations, then had breakfast. Our host families came to the breakfast as well, though we didn't eat with them, which was weird. The students ate first, then the parents (again, weird), so while the parents were eating, most people hung around talking or playing cards. I played cards with Jordan, Emily, Aditi, Christian, Lily, and a few other people as well, I believe. We played Egyptian Rat Race and B.S., and had a lot of fun.

After the parents finished eating, we all piled into our cars to go to another meeting thingy, at a nearby school. We listened to two or three speeches, took a huge group photo (I think I'm looking away... I wasn't sure what was going on) and then went home.

All in all, it was a pleasant weekend. :)

Today, I went riding with Marion, the daughter of Etienne's brother, who lives across the street. She has a pony, Fleche, who came home today. I had a chance to ride Fleche at the stable before we brought her back. She's a cute little pony. And I did NOT get bucked off. :)

The other day (maybe it was Monday?), I went to Namur with Etienne. He teaches at a cooking school there, and showed me around. He also drove up a large hill and we drove around the castle there. It's absolutely stunning, and the views are incredible. As we were driving through Namur on the way to the cooking school, I saw a CHINESE RESTAURANT! I don't know if words can express my excitement upon seeing that building. I told Etienne how much I love Chinese food, and he brought some home today. It was delicious. I think I'm going to have what's left of it for dinner.

There's a little problem though. My craving for Chinese food has been satisfied, but now I've moved on to cheesecake. Oh my gosh, I WANT CHEESECAKE. Oh well, I guess I'll survive.

I'm also out of chocolate, so I'll have to go buy some soon. Belgian chocolate is SOOOO good.

The other day, Anne-Michèle loaned me Season 1 of The West Wing in French. She has all 6 seasons and she knows how much I like politics, so she figured I'd want to watch it. She was right. I watched three episodes yesterday alone! It's definitely really hard to understand, but I like it nonetheless. I've tried watching it in French with English subtitles, just in French, and French with French subtitles. I think the French with French subtitles is my favorite. The English subtitles distract me from the French speaking, and the plain French is too complicated for me. My only complaint is that the French subtitles don't match the speaking, so that kind of sucks. But hey, it's better than nothing.

The chipmunk is still here, and it's still making tons of noise. I think it waits until I'm relaxed and about ready to sleep before attacking. And yes, it plans these things ahead of time. There's also a bird outside my window that caws every morning to wake me up. I love nature, but that bird is evil. Maybe it's friends with the chipmunk.

Tonight at dinner, I found out that Adrien can understand basically everything I say when I speak English. He just refuses to speak English back. I think it's a good and bad thing. It's good because I'm forced to speak French, but bad because he needs to practice speaking English. I did make him speak English to me today at lunch. I had understood what he said in French, but I wanted to see if he would say it in English. It came out as: "My father was to cherche my brother." That right there is an excellent example of Franglais. In case you're interested, he mean to say that his father had gone to pick up his brother (Amaury).

They're very into fountain pens here.

Amaury and I went for ice cream after dinner today. I had strawberry this time, and it was delicious. I have a feeling I'm going to be going to the ice cream place a lot. :)

One thing I've noticed since I've been here: my dreams are very strange. They're not bad, exactly, just strange. For example: Last night, I dreamed that I skipped school and took a train to Australia and spent the day there without telling my host mom. I missed the train back or something, and got in huge trouble.

Why is this strange? Well, number one, you can't take a train from Belgium to Australia.

Number two, I've ditched a grand total of 2 days of school my entire high school career; I don't think I'm going to start now. Other exchange students have been having strange dreams as well. I suppose it's part of our brains and bodies adjusting to a new lifestyle.

I'm craving American news. My friend Corbett just told me that Obama has officially ended the war in Iraq and that there's a hostage situation at the Discovery Channel building. I had no idea either of these things were happening. I'll have to start going to cnn.com or something so I can stay updated.

I'm doing laundry again. I don't know if I've said it already, but the first time I did my laundry, I used fabric softener instead of detergent. Go me, right? Well, I've got the buttons on this machine down-pat so I'm not worried about it never stopping. I'm just waiting for it to finish the eternal spin cycle so I can grab my laundry and go to sleep. I'm exhausted, and I think I'm getting sick (why does this always happen to me the first week of school?). My host brothers are passing some sort of cough/runny nose business back and forth, and I will be thoroughly displeased if it hits me next.

Well, that laundry is almost done, so I have to run. Have a smashing rest of the week everyone. :)

Mikayla