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!