Viola's Visit

Yep, this year I have been lucky enough to have both of my wonderful sisters visit! Lucy came in April and Viola was able to fly up here this last weekend. It was a short but fun-packed visit. Here's a little bit of what we did.

So she arrived on Friday around 6pm and was greeted by typical Belgian weather...it was pouring! Rain drops were literally bouncing off the sidewalk as we ran to the car with my host mom. Poor little Spanish Viola was freezing in her T-shirt (and I do take some of the blame for that, it had been so warm and abnormally sunny here I told her she didn't need warm clothes...oops). That evening we came to my house and after dinner I gave her the "guided tour" of Pieton.

During which, in our usual fashion, we talked non-stop about a mile a minute which eventually led to her telling me about how she and another language assistant in La Roda had made oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies...and yep, you guessed it, of course after hearing that I had to make some! So we stayed up until about 1am baking (my host mom was greeted by a plate of DELICIOUS cookies in the morning) then we went to bed....but didn't actually sleep for probably at least another hour.

Saturday morning we got up early and went to get our hair cut (both our mops were looking rather shaggy...) then we came home and the chef cooked up some yummy tortilla for my hosts and I :)

Then it was off to Tournai to visit Justine. It was great to see her, as always, and we walked around the city a bit, got to see her house, and Viola got a taste of real mouth-watering Belgian frites! I think I can skip over the part where we stayed up until the wee hours of the morning talking, it's kind of a given now.

Anyways, Sunday we once again had to get up relatively early to make it to the Sunday Market in Charleroi. I love going, they sell everything there! It's huge, and besides it's general awesomeness going was a cool way for Viola to get to see a little bit of the city.

We went with my host mom and host sister and this was about the moment where I really started to get fried with all the back and forth French-English translation, luckily for me Viola (being the genus she is)was able to communicate pretty well in a sort of Franglonle, still it was pretty tiring. Luckily we had time for a quick siesta before hopping in the car with my hosts to visit Maredsous, a monastery, and taste some of their famous beer and cheese. The cheese was delightful and the beer was strong and according to Viola it is "le liquide magique de Belgique!" That one got plenty of laughs out of my host mom :)

Finally, Monday, for our last day we got up early to go see a procession in Forchies of men women and children dressed in old military costume accompanying the virgin as she was taken through town to the other church. It was pretty neat, though obviously minuscule compared to the Spanish Semana Santa. Then we drove out to Namur with my host parents to tour la Citadel. The cities ancient fortifications dating back to the middle ages! It was really cool, we got to go down into the underground tunnels and see where soldiers lived during the first and second world wars.

However, we didn't stay all day, we had to get home in time to go to our jogging class. Viola came with us, I'd been bragging about her to my fellow beginning runners, "ya, my older sister who lives in Spain is going to come run with us next Monday, she's REALLY good...." and man, she did NOT let me down. She was running circles around me! Pretty much everyone was in awe, some of the other girls even asked me if maybe she was running that fast because she was cold? (when we arrived she was actually very cold, and it started to rain which didn't help the situation) Anyways, after she blew their Belgian socks off we came home and started right in on the big Spanish meal I'd promised my hosts my talented sister would make them, paella. It was so fun listening to the radio, chopping up veggies, sipping on wine, playing with my "nieces" and soon the whole house smelled scrumptious! Our noses were not lying, it was amazing!

My hosts had never eaten paella and they LOVED it! The day was a definite success. For our last night together we stayed up until around two laughing and joking and speaking a bizarre mixture of French, English, and Spanish. If there is one thing that I really am grateful for about this year, it's how much closer it has brought me to Viola, I think I have two BSFFs! Now that earns a little shout out to Hodge the graduate :) Love you Hodgie!

may went out with a bang!

OK, so I have been working on, and stressing about, my big presentation for my Rotary club here. I think it is pretty universal that RYE students give a presentation about themselves, their country, and culture to their host club. They schedule it late in the year so the student can (hopefully) speak the language. My presentation was scheduled for last Monday. It was a special night for my club, "Ladies Night." Women aren't allowed in my Rotary club so the spouses of Rotarians have formed a sort of club of their own and whenever there is a fifth Monday in a month the women are invited to an evening meeting (usually they're at lunch). So my counselor thought it would be cool if I did my presentation that night because I would have more of an audience (gulp!) Plus they decided to do the presidential Promotion/Demotion that night...all in all it was a pretty big deal!

Now, as some of you know I have started jogging. It's this really cool program I'm doing with my host family designed for beginners, we go every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Since we're usually done by 6:40 and my host counselor wasn't coming to pick me up until 7:15 I decided I still had time to get in my jogging (I can get ready pretty dang fast.)

However, as usually happens when you are on a tight schedule, we got behind some slow cars, picked up my host brother from babysitting and had to go back for the keys...you get the idea. So instead of getting back at 6:45 with plenty of time, we got back at 7:05 and, trust me, not showering was not an option! So, rushing like crazy I was ready at 7:12 when my ride got here. I wore my RYE blazer and some nice jeans (no holes).

When we got there the room was already full of men and women in suits and dresses (at this moment i was particularly glad my jeans were hole-less).I was surprised to see candles on all the tables and a piano with mics set up in front of the tables. We started off with an aperitif, and hours devours. Then the music started. There was one man on the piano, and a man and woman singing what I was told were “Classic” French songs, this is when I realized just how old the members of the club are; the man sitting next to me was kind enough to explain that these were classic French songs from when he was my age, back in the early 50's! Actually the music did sound sort of familiar to me, you know...the background music you hear whenver someone goes to Paris in a movie? Everyone seemed to really enjoy it, most of them were singing along, after a few glasses of wine of course!

As the first course of dinner was served (lobster!) they offered my some wine. I declined as I figured it probably would not improve my accent during my presentation. However, I think it really primed the audience for me. The lobster was great. I probably would never order it, but it was pretty dang good. There was lots of singing and piano music between the meal courses. They kept playing while we were eating but a little more quietly. At one point, the male singer came to my table and handed the mic to the Rotarian sitting next to me, and I knew what was coming next. Of course he asked me to dance! Well I couldn’t say no, so I got up in my blazer as the pianist broke into a Tango! Now, I don't know the Tango, but I managed and there was lots of pleased laughter and applause from the audience. Apparently my dancing was the give-away that I wasn't Belgian (not my blazer) and after that there were plenty of jokes about California.

Second course was a white asparagus (and more wine for my hosts). For the third course we had a lemon ice cream dish that was sort of like desert (and more wine). During this time the club got on with the demotion of the current President, and the promotion of the incoming pres. They didn’t pass the gavel, it was a necklace, or more like a ribbon, with little gold plates with the names of all the past presidents. It was pretty cool.

Then came the entrée (and more wine) of caramelized roast duck with garlic potatoes! Trust me we were well fed!

After the entrée, it was almost midnight and my turn on the program. As I looked out at the smiling audience, I was glad I had passed on the wine, and glad they had partaken. Now quickly back up a little, I had run through my presentation once with my host mom before the meeting and I had a bit of trouble saying the word gouverneur. I explained this to my counselor and was practicing a little bit in the car on the way there, well he must have related this story to his table because when I got up and was pulling up the power point one of the men from his table started coaching me, "repeat after me, gonvernEUR...exploratEUR....etc" so when I got to that part of my presentation, I took a brief pause to concentrate and then said it perfectly, this was greeted by laughter and applause. Everyone also really liked when I said that one of the reasons I choose Belgium over France was that although I had always wanted to learn to speak French, everyone told me Belgians were nicer and friendlier than the French :) One last thing that went over really well was when I explained that my home Rotary club had very different practices and was much less formal. I told them that if you showed up in a tie at my Dad’s club, there was a good chance someone would get some scissors and cut it off! This brought rolls of laughter, seeing as there wasn't a one of them withOUT a tie.

Overall my presentation went really well. I got lots of positive comments on how well put together it was, my French, and how sociable and polite I am for a young person! (That made me laugh) I even got invited to come and attend a meeting of the Ladies club.

It’s pretty weird, looking back on my first days, weeks, and months here, struggling to communicate and "fit in." Now I can sit in a room for several hours and converse over food and drink comfortably with people I have just met. I know this analogy is corny but it seems oddly appropriate: I feel like I have been climbing a mountain, with the summit always just over the next ridge, and suddenly...I am on top and the view is killer. It feels pretty awesome!

Now I have less than a month left here in Belgium and I feel like it's not enough. There were moments, back in the freezing gray months of January and February, when I doubted I would feel this way, but I do. I'm so excited to be coming home, but so sad to be leaving.