for Oupasan and Handy-Butt-Ripe-Tomato

(my Grandfather and Mother who have been pestering me to do this for a while)

Okay, here is the the rundown on the pictures I've been posting without much explanation.

In December my uncle (Dad's brother) Jeff came from Florida and took me to Italy. It was fantastic. We visited first Naples and spent a day wondering the city. I got my first pair of European boots! Our plan was to wander towards the archeological museum and then take a train to Pompeii. Well we made it to the museum, which I found fascinating. I especially thought that the medical tools (brain surgery instruments during the renaissance?) were pretty cool. We spent so much time at the museum we missed the last train to Pompeii. I guess I’ll have to make another trip to Naples J

The next day we had a driving tour of the Amalfi Coastline. It was truly breathtaking. I feel like I’m betraying the great Oregon coast as I believe its one of the best places in the world, but Amalfi did beat it. I guess if it was any prettier we’d have tourists swarming the place, so maybe its just saving itself the trouble. The road was swervy like the coast at home, in some places worse, but there weren’t lines on the road and it was barely wide enough for two cars if you pull over to the other side of the road and let the other car pass, and not as well kept. It was quite terrifying, to put it lightly.

We then flew to Florence and stayed in a beautiful 5 star hotel (yes, I do feel extremely pampered, thank you Jeff). The first day we had a walking tour of the city and museums, saw all the necessary sights. The tour guide did a much better job then the first one who’s English vocabulary extended to describing everything as “very very old, very very famous, really really pretty” etc. He knew about every little inch of Florence and Italy and went into explanations I’d never dream of asking. More importantly, he had a passion for it. If I’ve learned anything thing here its that if you’re really passionate about something it shows. Passion is a wonderful thing. The next day we stopped briefly in Pisa, just long enough to take the picture, then went to Lucca. Lucca is a little less famous, but has a very interesting history.

Last we went to Rome. Our Rome visit consisted of seeing all the famous sites, and the Vatican. Our Vatican visit was incredible. Our guide took us to the Sistine Chapel first thing when they opened and we got to see it before the crowd. If you’ve ever been there, its normally crammed pack shoulder with lots of noise. It was a very special experience.

That night we flew back to Belgium. Can I just say this first, Ryanair is AWFUL. I guess that’s what you can expect from a discount airline? Anyways, we got there 4 hours before our flight because we weren’t sure how public transportation was going to be getting there so we wanted to play it safe. Security took us all of ten minutes. It was finally boarding time and everyone lined up, then nothing. No flight attendent, no announcements, no anything. Two hours later, nothing. Finally, they let us on the plane after we’re supposed to have already taken off and tell us to hurry in getting seated because we’re late. Once everyone was seated, nothing. An hour later they told us there was some problems with the wind and we had to wait for it to pass. FINALLY, they tell us we can take off, and that the problem had actually been that they lost our flight plan. I have the WORST luck with airplanes. Lucky for me I only have once change coming home, and that’s in Amsterdam, so I hopefully won’t have any problems. We got to Belgium and my poor host dad, Philippe, had been waiting for us for hours. It was 1:30, we were supposed to get in at around 9. He was going to drive in front of the rental car so Jeff didn’t get lost, but of course you can’t get a rental car at 1:30 in the morning, so we piled into his 2 person jeep filled with hunting gear and drove 40 minutes to Renlies. Chantal, my host mom, had dinner all ready for us and had stayed up to meet Jeff. By then he was running a fever and we passed up dinner and went to bed.

The next day was full of activities. We had croissants, took a walk of the village, drank Chimay beer at my host grandma’s house, had lunch, drank champagne and wine, went on a tour of the region and saw the church in Chimay and where they make the trappist beer, went bowling and had more Chimay beer. My host parents wanted to maximize the one day they had of a member of my family, and wanted to maximize his experience of Belgian beer. Then we went to dinner, had wine, and more beer. We kidnapped Kaitlyn and took her to dinner with us. She was going to a party that night (party’s here are sort of the whole region, dance parties) and Maxime (host bro) wanted to go too so while we went to that, my host parents took Jeff to the all-famous regional bar. It’s like, the place to be if you are a small town junkie like these folk. Apparently they drank a lot more and had a good time. If you’ve heard that Belgians drink a whole lot, its true. It’s probably why they are famous for their beer.


The next week was Christmas! I decorated the tree with my host mom since they boys weren’t interested. We had a really round and short funny looking tree because there weren’t any good ones left. We put way too many decorations on it. It was fantastic. Christmas Eve we had dinner with the four of us and opened presents. Christmas day we ate at the Grandma’s house. When I say ate and don’t specify which meal, I mean all day, Belgian style.

For the New Year I went to Brussels and saw tons of exchange students. I think we were about half of the people in the Grand Place. It was so much fun. There weren’t fireworks because there were terrorist threats, which was too bad. Although, some random man tried to kiss a friend of mine, and when she slapped him, he put a firecracker on her that went off and left a pretty bad mark. He must have gotten in before the intense security started up. Anyways, I stayed out all night because trains don’t start running again until about 6am. I got home, had two hours of sleep, and was woken up to eat (remember last sentence of previous paragraph) at the Grandma’s. We then proceeded to drive to all of their important elders and wish them a happy new year. This took all day. I think I slept for a couple days after that.

The week after the new year I switched families. I moved to Philippe’s cousin’s house. From the back of my house, I can see my old house on the top of the hill back there. The families aren’t close though, Philippe is a hunter while Jean-Michel is a history bluff. That was really sad for me. I was really attached to them. The whole dinner I was thinking “oh god. Oh god. Don’t you dare leave me here. Don't you dare" They are nice though. They have four children, two boys and two girls. It’s a lot different from having only a younger brother, which I have at home and what I had here. A lot more animation, a lot busier, a lot more stress around the household.

This past week we had Carnival, another week off school. The day before it started the kids in my class put on a “Spectacle,” which was a bunch of skits, songs and dances. It was good to see some sort of school spirit, it reminded me of Mr Axemen or a Pep Assembly. The kids worked so hard on it and it really showed. They did an excellent job. Then, my host family took me to the French Alps! It was amazing. Mid-week, I caught some sort of bug and spent a couple days in bed without food. About half the hotel had the same thing. The last day of my ski class only 3/10 of us showed. Well, there is not much more to say about that other than, I skied and skied and skied and that the mountains were breathtaking. Oh, and on the train home we drove threw this picturesque town in the mountains. It looked like it was out of an old movie. There were horse pastures and grass and sun, I wanted to go to the conductor and say, “stop the train! I want to stay and lay in the grass!”

Today at school, one of my Belgian friends was asking me about school in the United States. He questions were,

Are there really “pom-pom girls”?
Do you really have lockers?
Do you actually have parking spots AT the school and do kids actually drive?
Are there actually sports teams and colors?
Are there really sports fields at the school?
Were you a “pom-pom girl”?

It was precious.
The other day someone asked me if there was really a ton of security and security like the airport at the doors. I didn’t tell him that the security cameras and locked gates at this school are more security than my school would ever dream of.

Well, that’s about it up until now. I’ll post pictures after this. The weather is good here which makes a huge difference. Next week a friend of mine from Bend who’s living in Sweden this year is visiting me and we’re going to do a little traveling in the area. I’m so excited! Expect an update soon. For now I’m out.