Je suis, finalement, en Belgique

I am finally here, and I love it. Our first flight out of Portland was delayed two hours because the freaking president who thinks he can just shut down the entire airport, was in Minneapolis. So Lizzy, Ian and I waited and finally got there just in time to miss our next flight to Amsterdam where we met up with two kids from California, Emily and Ernie. We were put on standbye for the last flight and barely made it on, arriving an hour late for our last flight to Brussels where we spent four hours waiting and hoping our families figured out what happened. On the long flight to Europe I sat by a girl from Germany who had been an exchange student two years ago and was coming back from visiting here family in the states. Well we arrived and surprise, surprise, they lost our luggage. I went home with my family and had an amazing dinner and then went to bed.

Today has been quite the busy day. I went to the Boulangerie with my host mom and got bread and Pain au Chocolat, c'est trés bien!! We drove around and looked at the tiny surrounding villages, got pictures taken for an ID, went to the bank, and then to the school to sign up for classes with the other exchange student, Kaitlyn (which we weren't able to do, don't ask me why, everything they said was jiberish to me). Then we went to Hilde's house (Kaitlyn's host mom) for coffee and chocolate. Chantal's (my host mom) daughter, Marie, and Hilde's daughter, Jade, are on exchange in the US and Mexico. They are good friends so it works out nicely.

So far, I really like Belgium. The little villages amaze me in how close they are to each other. It takes less than five minutes to go from town to town. My host brother, Maxime has a little "boogie" (like one of those cars they ride on the sand dunes) that we have been riding around in to get places. It is so cute. He is taking me on a tour tomorrow because it is supposed to be sunny. He drove me to Mamie's (Grandma) today on the little cobblestone streets in the village, Renlies. I swear there are maybe fifty people who live here. She is cute, we had a hard time communicating. Pretty much all of my host dad's (Philippe) family live here. His brother and wife came over after dinner for wine.

My host parents are so good to me, and they love that I speak a little french. I am so so glad that I do because otherwise I would be completely overwhelmed. This afternoon I took a nap and acually had a dream in french. It wasn't long, but it was very strange. I think my language skills are getting better already. Philippe's sister in law said I had a better accent than their previous student. It is strange though, being an exchange student. When they speak slowly and animate words I don't understand, it makes since, but when they speak to eachother, it sounds like a huge breath full of nonsense. I just sit there and act attentive. It is very tiring. I really don't think Americans speak that fast. My parents are so nice and patient. They are also extremely concerned with making me feel at home. They keep saying that if I don't like their food, that they will make something else. All of it so far has been wonderful and surprisingly, the meat doesn't bother me at all. It turns out that their daughter is vegitarian and they offered to make me tofu!

Well, I am off to bed. Pictures hopefully to come soon. I don't know how to do it on this computer but they are having someone come look at mine to try and get it online. Tomorrow will hopefully be more relaxing, and saturday mine and Kaitlyn's family are going to London!