PRIDE.

Christian and I.

Saturday I went to Brussels with Aditi, Jordan, Christian and Pius. We met up in Central Station, and walked a few blocks to the Grand Place, before settling down to faire la fête (party). Why? GAY PRIDE. The parade was on Saturday in the streets of Brussels, and it was one of the most magical atmospheres I've ever experienced. It was not just a celebration of sexuality, it was a living, physical representation of love. There were couples of every orientation there, people of all ages, Dutch, French, German and English speakers. There was even a gay-rights group from Africa. We were all celebrating LOVE.

I stayed with my friends for most of the day, but I did run into my old host sister's boyfriend, Lionel. He's a police officer in Brussels, and it was nice to catch up. He offered to drive me home, which was super nice, and saved me the cost of a train ticket! There were all sorts of booths and stands all along the parade route selling drinks, souvenirs, rainbow bracelets, necklaces, rings, flags, banners, leis, and all sorts of other things. We took pictures, we danced, we laughed, and we celebrated. I looked at the stats online, and over 45,000 people were there. Isn't that amazing?! 45,000 people all supporting the one right we all share: to love and be loved.

It was magical, plain and simple.

The Parade.

The Main Stage.

I said I wanted a piggy-back ride, and this is what I got.

Me, Jordan, Aditi and Pius.

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!

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