Sad news.

I hopped over the English Channel on Monday morning at a rather unfortunate hour (something gross like 6 am...), arrived at 7 am local time in Dover, and headed off toward Cambridge and Newmarket. The weather was AMAZING in England. Really. It was warm and SUNNY, and the air smelled like springtime, which was WONDERFUL. It's really a beautiful country, with rolling hills and tiny villages. Driving on the left side of the road is pretty fun too. :)

I know I promised pictures, but here's the thing....

I only got about 20 pictures the entire day, because we were in the car the WHOLE day. I'm not kidding. I got out three times: once to go into each of the John Deere stores we visited, and once to eat lunch and go to the bathroom. Seriously. No exploring, no visiting towns or interesting sights. So, all of my pictures were from inside the car, so they weren't that great.

Here's the other thing:

They all disappeared.

No, I'm not kidding. I uploaded all of my pictures just now, and they're mysteriously... not here. I checked my memory card, and they're not there, either. I must have accidentally deleted them. It's unfortunate, to be sure, but that's the way these things go, I guess. I wish I still had them, but at least I didn't lose a BUNCH of pictures, like the 150+ I took today in Bastogne. Ah well, life goes on. :)

So. I finally got home yesterday at about 5:30 pm. My host dad had a dinner of some sorts to go to, so he left, and my host mom and I had dinner, then I came up to my room and went to sleep. I'm lame, I know. I go to bed at about 8pm every night, but I'm TIRED people. It's exhausting to be an exchange student.

Today, I woke up at 8 am to catch a train at 9:22 so I could be in Liège to meet up with everyone else from Rotary and go to Bastogne, a city in southern Belgium. Christian, my Canadian buddy, and I sat together on the bus, which was quite pleasant. When we got to Bastogne, my favorite New Yorker, the fabulous Emily Snell was waiting for me, so I was STOKED about that. We started off having lunch (it was like 11:30 or something by that time) at some sort of petting zoo/farm thing in Bastogne. It was a pretty cool place: it's a petting zoo/farm as well as a home for people who are mentally handicapped. The residents take care of the animals and help out with general farm work, which I think is really cool. The land was very beautiful. While we were there, we saw goats, rabbits, llamas, chickens and sheep, including a lamb that was born this morning! One of the workers caught a lamb and we could pet and hold it as well, which was so cute!

Christian and a llama.

After that, we piled back in the bus and went to a museum about World War II. The guide is a member of Rotary, and he had Harry Potter glasses. SO awesome. The museum was WONDERFULLY done, and very interactive. There was a lot of information and a lot to see. There were little video screens everywhere, playing videos of people who had lived in the region during the war. They shared their memories, which were heartbreaking, more often than not. One woman told how her father had told them to go on ahead as the family was fleeing from the Germans; he would catch up with them later on his bike. He never came.

A letter written during the war. It was giving information about people selling on the black market, which was a booming business at the time.

After the museum, we went to the Mardasson Memorial, which is in honor of the Americans who fought and died in Belgium during the war. Over 70,000 American soldiers died there. Isn't that number mind-blowing? The monument is in the shape of the star, and it has every state engraved on it. You can climb up a spiral staircase to the top, and look down over the city of Bastogne, which was really cool.

Yours truly in front of the crypt. There's a memorial in there for Catholics, one for Protestants, and one for Jews. They're absolutely BEAUTIFUL mosaics.

Christian and I on top of the Mardasson Memorial.

After that, we climbed back into the bus and drove to a random building (that's not an exaggeration... none of us knew where we were) and where we were served pie, waffles, coffee, and soda by Rotary. They have a thing for giving us pie, seriously. There's almost always pie at Rotary events. I sat with Emily and Kryston (New York and Missouri), Christian (Canada), and Siddhant and Aditi (both from India). We had a very interesting conversation about geography. I learned that India has 28 states and that Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories. Also, Aditi and Siddhant tried to name all 50 states. They got quite a few of them too, which was very impressive, I think. The first three they named? Washington, New York, and Ohio. Emily and I thought it was hilarious that Ohio was the third, out of all the states they had left to choose from...

Side note:

Some of you may know that one of my passions is education. I believe that the American education system is broken and needs to be completely reformatted. Schools should be palaces. Teachers should be paid like kings. Kids should wake up every day excited beyond all imagination because they get to go to school. Courses should be challenging. Graduation rates should be 99% across the country. All of these things are POSSIBLE. But as of right now, are any of them true? No, unfortunately. But I digress. The point of this was to explain a few differences between American schools and schools in other nations.

Did you know that in Canada, kids can (and DO) choose to take a 5th year of high school to bring up their grade average and thus give them a better chance to be accepted to college.

Siddhant and Aditi could name about 35 of the 50 American states. I couldn't name 5 cities in India. Nor did I know that India has states. I took World Geography sophomore year. I passed with an A. I took a full year of World History Sophomore year as well (1st semester Pre-AP, second semester regular). I earned an A in both of those.

Siddhant and Aditi are fluent in English, German and Marathi, as well as 2 or 3 other native tongues from India. They are here in Belgium, learning French. They are both 18 years old, and they speak 5 languages each, FLUENTLY.

At the end of this year, Siddhant is returning to India for 2 months, then moving to Germany, where he will study to be an engineer for FIVE years. He won't return home during that time. He will be going to university in GERMAN.

And to think, kids in America whine about having to take 2 credits of foreign language.

Just some food for thought.

Tomorrow, Amandine and I are going to Oostende, so I can touch the ocean. I've never touched an ocean before. Heck, I didn't even SEE the ocean until 2 weeks before my 17th birthday! I'm super excited. After that, we're going to take the train back down to Bruges and spend the day there. I'm excited! :)

Friday night, we're all meeting up in Hannut to celebrate Amandine's 18th birthday (WOO!). Then, Saturday, I'm hoping to go to Maastricht (in the Netherlands) with Christian. I love having a week off of school. :)

Biosus,

Mika

(that's what all my Belgian friends call me. I LOVE it.)

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.

The laundry turned out okay.

I let it all hang-dry in my room, which works just fine for me. Back in the states I let my laundry air-dry all the time. I prefer it, actually.

I have yet to discover the chipmunk's name. Right now, I'm just calling it "the chimpunk." I know, I'm just that creative.

Aujourd'hui, I figured out how to get accents on my computer. C'est magnifique!

I'm still plodding my way through Harry Potter. I'm only on page 46. If I was reading it in English, I'd be done by now. But I realized that that attitude is part of the problem. I can't expect to learn French (or any other language) overnight. It's a process. Everyone I talk to here has been speaking it for their entire life -- I've only been able to speak French every other day for 90 minutes the past three years. There's no comparison.

I've only been here for a week, but I've realized that languages are taught WAY differently than they are in the U.S. Back in Loveland, I had French class every other day for 90 minutes. Over here, my younger brother (Amaury) goes to a school that's taught in Flemish. He has been going for a few years, and I'm willing to bet that he's 30 times better with Flemish than I am with French. I can't say I'm surprised, either. When he's at school, Amaury is surrounded by Flemish all day long. Heck, he even watches cartoons in Flemish when he's home! But in the U.S., we get one little dose of French (or Spanish or German) every few days. It's simply not enough.

I wish to continue writing about this, but as of right now, I can't keep my thoughts straight. So ça va.

Anyfunk, you can see that I've got accents now! I'm very pleased. :) It took me a while to figure it out, but after some Google searches and several minutes of confusion, I have it figured out. I quite like the system -- it's not complicated at all.

I'm super stoked to start school here. I know I'm going to be incredibly nervous on the actual day, but I know it will do wonders for my French. I'll be going with Talia, another exchange student (she's from Minnesota) so I won't be completely alone. I'm also curious to see what the "special program" is for the exchange students. I'm really hoping to take some art classes while I'm here. I think that my "creative juices are flowing," as my mom always said.

If you ever travel abroad, take more socks than you think you'll need.

Thank you: Michelle Skeens, for reminding me that it will all be okay, and that I should try new things.

Marianne Deschodt, for being an exchange student before me and reminding me that tomorrow is a new day.

Toni Theisen for being the most awesome French teacher ever, and for answering all of my random, half-formed questions at all hours of the day.

Mikayla

P.S. I kind of miss being called Ségo.