There's a mouse in my house!

Or rather, in my suitcase. I've heard it in there before, and I always hoped it would just... disappear or something. No such luck. I woke up yesterday morning, and I heard it digging around in there again. I'd only been asleep for about three hours, so in my half-awake state, I grabbed the water bottle sitting next to my bed and repeatedly whacked the top of the suitcase in hopes of scaring the little critter into submission. It worked, apparently, because I managed to fall back to sleep...

When I was totally awake later on in the day, I decided that enough was enough. Mr. Squeaky needs to find a new home. So, I opened my suitcase and started removing things, one by one. Two t-shirts, a chewed hemp necklace, my packets of Ranch dressing, two (thankfully) untouched boxes of Mac n Cheese, a sportsbra sporting (pun intended) a nice new hole in the strap, and some random papers made it out, but my Reese's Cups Minis, were, unfortunately, lost to the dreaded Monster Mouse. I was afraid to pull those out in fear of what I would find, so I just zipped the suitcase shut and set it down in the hallway outside my room. There it shall stay until tomorrow, when Talia and Emma come over to get ready for Lady Gaga. Talia loves mice, apparently, and she will brave the uncharted waters of the rest of Mikayla's Suitcase-land in hopes of finding Mr. Squeaky (who is, in fact, Monster Mouse by night, much the way Superman is Clark Kent during the day) and rehoming him to the great outdoors.

I think it's a great plan.

Tonight after a yummy dinner of pork, potato chunks and green beans, courtesy of Arnaud, I was doing dishes, and mentioned the mouse in my suitcase. He said yes, he had read it on Facebook. Is it still in there? My response: ...That's really a great question... See, I may have knocked it out when I woke up yesterday morning and beat the snot out of my suitcase with a water bottle, but I think it's still alive because I'm pretty sure I heard it scratching around again this morning...

Arnaud's suggestion? Set a trap. Um... except that means it will die. As I'm sure you know, I'm not okay with the idea of anything dying, ever. I said as much, and Arnaud looked at me and said, "C'est juste une souris. C'est rien." (It's just a mouse. It's nothing). But that's the thing. It is something. It's a life. It doesn't deserve to die. His response: It's either the mouse or your Reese's Cups.

I almost thought about it.

Except the Reese's cups are already gone. So no dice. I told him the Reese's Cups are already lost, and he agreed we could set a trap with cheese. No death involved, thank goodness.

I hope Talia finds it tomorrow and we can just let it go outside, no sneak attacks with cheese involved. But we shall see....

Until next time....

RIP Reese's Cups.

Karaoke, Belgian Style

Most of Monday, I just hung around the house and relaxed, getting ready for LONDON (I leave tomorrow and will be back on Sunday). At around 6, Arnaud and I left for Namur. Talia and Emma were initially supposed to come along, but Talia had to be in Brussels early the next morning and Emma was sick, so it was just me and the brother. We passed the car ride discussing my French, tattoos and who knows what else.

We got to Namur and had dinner with a bunch of Arnaud's friends (delicious pasta with some sort of tomato sauce and either chicken or scampi) before heading over to the karaoke bar. On the way, Arnaud told me that I had to sing. It was not a question, it was not a request. I was obligated. Period, end of story. I tried pulling the "I-can't-sing-in-French" card, but he wasn't having it. We got to the karaoke bar, and after meeting up with some more friends, the karaoke got started.

Most people sang songs in French (which I didn't understand), but a girl I met from Spain sang the Macarena, which was tons of fun. :) Eventually, the song book came to me, and I had a chance to search through the English songs. They were real gems, like Billie Jean and I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing. I did find "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz though. Before I continue, it's important to note that Arnaud has NEVER seen The Wizard of Oz. I'm working on remedying that situation, and Arnaud and I talk about the movie quite a bit. I'm still trying to find a copy of it in French. Anyway, to continue, I pointed out the song to Arnaud. He said "Okay, that's what we'll sing," and stood up to put our names on the list. I refused to let him subject me to that humiliation, and I forced him to sit back down. He smiled and said, "Okay, then we'll sing it at midnight."

The evening continued, and people from our group continued to sing tons of songs. Apparently, you can only sing a certain number of times before the Karaoke Master (yes, I made that up) won't let you sing anymore. Arnaud reached his limit, but instead of just not singing, he tried telling the Karaoke Master that his name was Noah. It didn't work.

At about 1 am, the karaoke bar closed. I ended up not singing in front of the crowd, but the last song was "Zombie" by The Cranberries. Arnaud and I stood up in the crowd and screamed the words at the top of our lungs. It was quite fun. We all headed back to the flats (college studio apartments) and hung out, watching YouTube videos and talking. It was a great night.

Yesterday I went to the monthly Rotary meeting and got to spend some time with my third host family because Camille was there doing her presentation. It was a lot of fun, despite the fact that my chicken wasn't evenly cooked and there was a vein in it. :(

Today I did a little shopping with Anne-Michèle and Amaury, and tomorrow I'm leaving for LONDON! I'll be back on Sunday with loads of adventures to recount, I'm sure. :)

Mikayla

The Soirée.

I've decided to dedicate one post to the soirée, before writing about the rest of what's happening in my life. So, here goes.

Beginning of September: I was at dinner one day and Etienne asked me if I wanted to go to a soirée with Arnaud. I agreed, not entirely sure what it was. In fact, I'm still not entirely sure. Regardless, as we got closer and closer to the date, I started freaking out more and more, comme d'habitude (as usual). One night Anne-Michèle and I chose one of Alix's dresses for me to wear (it's absolutely gorgeous, by the way. Navy blue halter with a flowy skirt. Gosh I love those flowy skirts.) and she found a shrug for me to wear with it to cover my tattoo. We went shopping the day of the Fête de Wallonie and bought shoes and a necklace to go with it. I was totally set for the big night.

A week or two before: Anne-Michèle told me after dinner that all we needed now was to go to the hairdresser. There may or may not have been a mild exclamation of disbelief/terror/panic when I heard this. Mais ça va.

3 days before: Minor flip outs during English class with Emma and Talia.

1 day before: Anne-Michèle told me that I needed to use some self-tanning lotion.

The day of: I went to Namur with Rotary. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Then I reapplied the tanning lotion, per Anne-Michèle's request. We found a small purse for me to take.

1 hour before: Anne-Michèle did my hair. She did a blow-out, then curled it. I love love loved my hair. She did an AMAZING job. Seriously, my hair looked great. After the hair came the dress. Then the makeup. Then the sweater. Then the merciless stuffing of my cell phone, gum, a pen, some bobby pins, and my little perfume thing into the clutch. After that, I toyed with the idea of putting on the heels, but decided that I'd rather make it down the stairs in one piece, so I just went barefoot. I got downstairs, and Anne-Michèle handed me a pair of pantyhose. Back up the stairs I went to add those to the ensemble. I came back downstairs after that, and I was all ready to go. Arnaud was doing something with the GPS, and then Anne-Michèle and Amaury wanted to take pictures. I basically just stood there while they snapped oodles of photos with various picture-taking devices. Arnaud was laughing. He, however, did not get his picture taken.

After the photos, we left. I had made it 20 minutes without a mishap, so one was bound to come soon. I was wearing the heels when we left the house. I forgot that there aren't any lights outside, and my brain, in its laziness, had decided to forget that there are steps coming down from the door. No, I didn't fall, I merely made a loud, stumbly, scraping noise as I descended. So... I pretty much fell, but landed on my feet.

We got in the car and headed on our merry way after that. It was a pleasant car ride until Arnaud told me that there was the possibility that we would be sitting at different tables. Cue panic. But since the people throwing the party knew that I'm American and don't speak French, they probably put us at the same table. End panic.

We arrived at the soirée at about 9pm and I immediately sunk into the grass when I stepped out of the car. Thank you, heels. There's a reason so many women hate you. I managed to get out of the grass just fine, and when we walked up to the house, the first person I saw was my third host sister, Camille. I talked with her for a second before Arnaud and I went inside to greet the parents of the party. When Arnaud introduced himself, they immediately looked at me and said, "The American!" (In all honesty, that's a fairly common reaction. It's as though I'm expected to look different or have a flag painted across my face. I really look just like all the other people out there in the world, promise). After greeting the parents, we found a board with little pieces of paper listing people's names on them. These tell you which table you're sitting at. We flipped them over, and what do you know, we're at different tables. I was totally ready to flip out, but then I decided it wasn't really a big deal. I mean, it's one night. I can manage to eat a meal with a bunch of people I've never met before and who speak a language I don't understand, right? No sweat.

I found Camille not long after that, and she introduced me to her friends, all of whom were very nice. They spoke French with me, which was a nice change from the English I usually get. During this time, Camille told me not to talk or dance with any guys who were wearing only pinky rings. The pinky ring is a tell-tale sign, apparently, that the guy is a money-obsessed, snotty jerk. Well, what the hell do I know, I'll believe it. Not long after that, it was time for dinner, so we all filed inside. Camille helped me find my table. We waited for a few people to sit down, and then she walked up to a guy and this conversation followed, in French, of course:

Camille: Hi, what's your name?

Random Guy at My Table: Olivier.

Camille: Hi Olivier. This is Mikayla, she's my host sister. She's American. She's going to sit by you at dinner, and you're going to talk to her, okay? Have fun.

And that was all. Olivier was actually very nice, and he and I talked quite a bit during the course of the meal, which was quite delicious (the meal, I mean, not Olivier...).

What did we eat?

Well, the first course/appetizer-y thing was raw salmon rolled around little shrimp. It was actually pretty good, despite my aversion to raw meat and seafood.

Second, we had a form of potato (I'm thinking it was potatoes au gratin, but I really have no idea), something involving ham and a sauce (really great sauce), something I'm hoping was chicken, and something else I can't remember. It was all super delicious though. I loved it.

Desert was an AMAZING raspberry/sugar creation. The raspberry was like a serbet kind of thing and was SO yummy. I wasn't a huge fan of the sugar part, but the raspberry. Yes. Incredible.

This whole meal was accompanied by a roll (one of the best parts of any meal, in my opinion) and two wines, one white, one red. Both were quite good.

After the meal, we all went outside as the waiters cleared out the tables so people could dance. Camille found me and we went outside with her friends for a while, then we went in to dance. Yes, I did dance. I actually had a lot of fun! There were little platform thingies for people to dance on, so I joined Camille and her friends on one of those. It was great fun. We would go outside for some fresh air for a while, then go back in and dance some more. During one of our trips outside, someone walked up behind me and said, "What is your name?" in ENGLISH. I told him, and he and I started chatting about English, me being in Belgium, and his time studying English in England. Camille came back over, and we went inside to dance some more. As we were walking, she told me to be careful; that guy had a pinky ring. I didn't really give the guy another thought, and just started dancing again. All of a sudden, the guy appeared right next to me, dancing. Camille and I moved across the dance floor, and he followed. No matter where we went, he was no more than a minute behind us. It was a little creepy after a while. At around 12:45 (yes, am) I went outside and the guy followed me. He commenced what I'm sure was a lovely soliloquy about how much he knows about America (he's been to Washington DC and Chicago, after all), every reason he could think of that demonstrates why Belgium is better than America, and the brewery his uncle is buying. What did I gain from listening to this? there are approximately 164.7 things I would have rather been doing than standing there, including, but not limited to:

watching grass grow

attending a Justin Bieber concert

learning Korean

singing karaoke in Polish

attempting a back flip, heels and all

Luckily, Arnaud came to my rescue. He came over and said, "Shall we go? I have to be up early tomorrow." I think he was my favorite human on the planet at that moment. I turned to Mr. Pinky Ring and said, "Bonne soirée!" and bolted. As Arnaud and I were walking to the car, I thanked him profusely for saving me from the pinky ring guy. He said, "Yes, I saw your face... and I heard him talking about Belgians not having to use ID cards..."

The drive back was passed discussing the fact that Arnaud has never seen the Wizard of Oz, the possibility of an afternoon of watching Disney movies (ahem... :P), and blasting Ke$ha songs. Then, we got back to the house, and I passed out in my room, exhausted.

That, my good people, is the story of an American girl, a pair of heels, and an evening in Europe.

A weekend with Emma.

Okay, so I haven't written about the soirée yet, but I promise I will soon. This post is all about the fabulous weekend that began on Friday night and is going to end Tuesday morning.

Friday after school, I went home with Emma. Her host mom picked us up from the café after school, and we went to a lady's house to buy some vegetables. When we got back in the car, Emma and I were both complaining about how hungry we were, so her host mom took us to a boulangerie (pastry shop/chocolate shop/bread shop/heaven) and let us each pick out a piece of cake. I got something involving chocolate and mocha, and Emma picked out a cherry creation. We drove home before indulging in the deliciousness, and let me say, that was possibly the best piece of cake I've ever had. EVER. It was SO yummy.

After that, Emma and I asked her mom if we could make pumpkin seeds, since her mom was making pumpkin soup. She agreed, and so Emma and I spent the next hour or so picking pumpkin seeds out of pumpkin goo and trying to explain the idea behind pumpkin seeds to her host mom. She seemed a little dubious at first, but after we baked them, she couldn't get over how delicious they were. Emma and I ate a good portion of them, but we saved some for the rest of her family too. I definitely want to make more.

We ate a delicious dinner with her host family, and afterward, we put on sweatpants (YES) and made cookies. Emma is the best. These cookies were PERFECT. I tried making cookies with Talia last week, and they didn't exactly work... They were more like little rocks than cookies. But the cookies Emma made... fantastic. Absolutely perfect. There was one cookie in the bunch that was just... words can't describe it. It was the PERFECT cookie. Baked to a light golden brown, the correct chocolate to cookie ratio... It was amazing. We saved that cookie for Arnaud, my host brother, to try to help him recover from the traumatic experience of eating a cookie I made with Talia. Although, he said that the cookies Emma made were too soft. So Arnaud, here is a challenge for you: You can try making the cookies. That way they won't be too hard or too soft. Show us how it's done. :)

The only downside to making the cookies was that I burned my finger. Why does that always happen to me? It's nothing too bad though, and it doesn't hurt. I'm excited because I think it's going to be a wicked awesome scar when it's healed.

After cookies, Emma and I went up to her room and tried to watch Ocean's 11, but we both fell asleep.

The next morning, we made French Toast. YUM. It was delectable. SO delicious. French Toast is really good with Nutella, by the way. Shortly after breakfast, Emma had a dance class, so her host mom drove me home on the way to dropping her off. I cleaned my room and just bummed around for about 2 hours, and then Emma came over to my house. We basically sat on my bed on our respective computers, chatting and just relaxing. No one was home last night, so we made tortellini with a butter sauce... Kind of. It was supposed to be a butter sauce, but it turned into a butter/milk/flour/cheese-alfredo-ish sauce, but it was actually REALLY delicious. We had an excellent dinner followed by some home-made mousse au chocolat (chocolate mousse) made by my host dad. That stuff was GOOD.

After our delicious dinner, we hung out some more, talking and being crazy girls.

We got ready for bed and watched 27 dresses. It was a pretty cute movie, and lemme say, James Marsden is a very attractive human being. We fell asleep at about 2 am, and slept till 9:30 this morning, which was refreshing.

We got up and had breakfast, and then my host dad drove us back to Emma's house, where I'll be spending the night again tonight, and possibly tomorrow night as well. We don't have school Monday, so Emma's host mom is taking us to Brussels to see some sort of exhibit about European/American relations. I'm rather excited. :) Plus, I get to raid Emma's closet, which will be fun.

That's about all I have for now... I'll write another post in the next couple days about the rest of what's going on. Until then, enjoy life and eat dessert first.

Mikayla

Oh, and I cut my bangs. :)

La Fête de Wallonie.

The group.

Arnaud and I.

I've been sick for the past week and a half.

And I'm soooo sick of it! My host family doesn't use tissues, they use hankies, which, quite honestly, have always kind of grossed me out. Don't you want the germs to get away from you? Alas, I have been craving tissues for the past week. I go to school every day and take a bunch of paper towel from the dispenser in the bathroom and use that. It's worked quite well so far.

Tonight, Anne-Michèle asked me if I wanted to make "pâte avec le fromage," commonly known as mac n cheese in America. Of course I said yes, and ran up to my room to retrieve the boxes of Kraft goodness. While cooking, I talked with Anne-Michèle and Amaury, which was fun. I was almost moved to tears of joy when I opened the package of powdered cheese. I do think Anne-Michèle was a little surprised when I didn't bake the final product in the oven for a few minutes. When we finally sat down to eat it, Anne-Michèle and Arnaud both wanted salt and pepper on theirs, which was fine by me. The only thing that freaked me out was when Arnaud added ketchup. You just don't do that to mac and cheese. You just don't.

While we were eating, Arnaud asked me if it's a common American dish. I laughed a little and told him yes, yes it is. I eat it at least... 5 or 6 times per month, right mom?

Anyway, as we were eating, Anne-Michèle was saying that it's made with cheddar cheese. I responded, "Well... I'm not sure I'd call it "cheese" exactly...." (come on people, the stuff comes in powdered form...). I don't think I was very clear though, because Anne-Michèle started explaining cheddar cheese to me. Of course, being a Wisconsinite, I could live off of cheddar cheese (and often eat little else for days at a time...), so I found it kind of amusing that she didn't think I knew what it was. On a related note, I've been missing cheddar cheese. If Anne-Michèle knows what it is, it must be in the country somewhere, right? I have a new mission. :D

I'm going to post pictures of the mac n cheese in a different post; the photo uploader is acting funny, unfortunately.

Here's a recap of the things that have happened lately:

Friday I was in a stupendously happy mood, and I have no idea why. I was jumping around with happiness. My adrenaline was insane. It hasn't completely worn off yet, either. I'm still walking on air!

Friday night Etienne and I went to a concert in a nearby town. It was the Belgian band October. They do U2 covers, and they were pretty good. Unfortunately, they totally butchered "Sunday, Bloody Sunday", which is my favorite U2 song. That put a bit of a damper on it for me (that and the fact that I was so cold I couldn't feel my feet), but otherwise it was a lot of fun. I met some of Etienne's friends (I'm not kidding when I say my host family knows EVERYONE) and two little guys who were 13 and 14, the sons of one of Etienne's friends. The friend kept trying to force them to speak English with me, which was a little funny. They did try a little bit though, which was nice. And they didn't laugh at my mediocre French, which was a relief.

The concert ended at midnight with some fireworks (I enjoyed those, of course) and Etienne and I left right away. It was SO cold! But I'm really glad I went. It's nice to get out and see things once in a while.

Saturday I slept in for a bit, and then Anne-Michèle and I went shopping after lunch. I didn't bring nearly enough warm clothes along, and my school doesn't allow shirts that expose our shoulders (that includes tanktops, unfortunately), so I needed to get a few things. I managed to find a warmer jacket that I really like as well as a sweater and two pair of tights, one black, one gray. At the next shop, Anne-Michèle and I found a pair of black heels and a necklace for the soirée I'm going to with Arnaud at the beginning of October. Funny story: when we got home, I realized that the shoes were both for the right foot. Anne-Michèle exchanged them today. :)

Anyway, Saturday night, I went to Namur with Arnaud for the Fête de Wallonie. We went in a big group with his friends, which was a lot of fun. There was the usual exclamation of "You're only 16?!" and one guy thought it would be funny to ask Arnaud if he was babysitting, but aside from that it was a pleasant evening. I met up with Talia and Emma (other exchange students who go to my school) for a little while, which was great. We had a good time laughing and joking about school and exchanges and life back home and all of the rather drunk people we were surrounded by. Talia and Emma left at about 11:30, and Arnaud and I went with his friends to a tent with a DJ and we all danced until about 3 am. Arnaud taught me a swing dance move either called "The Rock" or "The Work" (his English wasn't too good at that point), which I enjoyed. The DJ stopped playing at about 3, and we were home at 4. I only slept about 3 hours, but I really wasn't too tired the rest of the day.

Sunday at noon, we had lunch at Mami's house again, and I got to meet one of Etienne's sisters, which was nice. Her name's Sophie.

The past two days I've been doing school stuff, and tomorrow is a half-day, so I'm very excited.

Oh, I've also had some new problems with the shower. It seems that it wants to be one of two temperatures: freezing or third degree burns. This should be interesting.

I hope everyone is doing well!

I definitely hear the sultry sounds of NSync.

Coming from Arnaud's room. That was just followed by "Dancing Queen." I do appreciate his taste in music.

I've been craving cheesecake lately.

So Arnaud went to a supermarket and found some for me. I like having an older brother. :)

Except now, I really want pickles and liver sausage. I know, I'm weird.