Italy

Hi!
So since the last time I’ve written a blog I have done quite a few things that I should fill everyone in on. A couple weeks ago I had school holidays for two weeks and during that time I went on a trip to Italy with Rotary and then to the sea with my host parents. I went to Italy with Rotary from April 10-20 and it was really great! We were 75 exchange students from all over the world and I met a lot of great people and had a lot of fun over those 10 days. It took us about 22 hours to drive there in a bus, so we were all very tired the first day in the Vatican City. The day was very tiring and long but it was still very interesting. We got to go inside the Vatican and see the Sixteenth Chapel and everything. We had a tour guide who was really nice but who was very difficult to understand because he had a very strong Italian accent when he spoke French. After our day at the Vatican we just went back to our hotel right on the Mediterranean Sea, but we weren’t allowed to go down to the beach because in Italy it is illegal to go to a beach at night. The next day we went to Rome. We saw so many great things that day like the Coliseum, the pantheon, and the Trevi Fountain. A lot of times I just felt like it couldn’t be real that I was actually seeing all the things we saw because they are so ancient and also so famous. The Coliseum was probably one of the coolest things I’ve seen in my life. It was so big and so well preserved! It was pretty hard to imagine how old it actually is, but after watching the movie The Gladiator I could imagine the gladiators and the crowd and everything. The Trevi Fountain was very beautiful as well, but there were just so many people there it was a bit distracting. I made a wish there and also ate a gelato at what is said to be the best gelato place in Rome. It was sooo good! I already miss the ice cream in Italy!


The next day we left Rome and went first to an ancient Roman city to see the ruins. I don’t remember the name of the city but it was really cool! Some things like the amphitheatre were really well preserved and the city was huge! I’m sure it would be really easy to get lost there. After we visited the ruins we drove almost all day and then stopped at a monastery up on a mountain. The drive was very beautiful because we were just looking down at a huge valley the whole time. The monastery was very peaceful and the view from all the way up the mountain was great. After our visit there, we drove to Naples and got installed in our hotel. When we got to Naples the Rotary told the girls that we had to be careful here because it’s not safe for girls to be walking on the streets alone so we had to have at least one boy with us if we were leaving the hotel. He also told us that we wouldn’t be able to take our tour bus the next day because the mafia has a rule that says tourist buses are not allowed to drive in that area. I found all of that a little weird but oh well!
The next day was probably one of my favourite days spent in Italy. We had a tour along the Amalfi Coast and stopped in 3 little cities. The Amalfi Coast is really beautiful because it has huge cliffs and some beaches, and really clear turquoise water. We first stopped in a town called Sorrento, which is known for growing lemons. It was a very nice town with really beautiful views of the ocean. After that we drove along the coast for a while and then stopped in the town of Amalfi for lunch. It was a really sunny day and I had a lot of fun!

The next day we went to the island of Capri. I was really looking forward to going there because my host parents had told me a lot of good things about it. We had a boat tour around the whole island and then just walked around and explored. There were some really nice view points and I really like the island. It was one of the only cloudy days we had on the trip though, which kind of sucked for being at one of the most beautiful places in Italy.
The next day of the trip was spent at the ancient ruins of Pompeii, the town that was destroyed by a volcano, and also driving. The tour of Pompeii was pretty interesting and I was surprised at how many things weren’t destroyed completely and how many things they were able to discover about the ancient town. The town was actually a Greek city, not Roman so it was cool to see some of the differences between the Roman cities we had already seen. When we went to Florence the next day we had really nice weather and everything was really beautiful. We had a lot of free time so my friends and I spent our time just exploring around the city. We saw Michelangelo’s tomb in a church there, the statue of David, and the special bridge that I forget the name of. We also ran into a group of rotary exchange students from Germany on their eurotour, so we spent a bit of the afternoon with them as well. Its funny how fast exchange students become friends. After our visit in Florence we went to Pisa. We spent about half an hour there, just enough time to take a few pictures. I thought it was pretty funny that everyone goes there to take a picture and that there isn’t really anything else to do there.
Our last couple of days in Italy were spent in Venice and the islands around it called Murano and Burano. The first island we saw was Murano. We had the chance to go into a glass factory there and watch an 80-year-old man make glass figures. Murano is known for its glass so it was cool to see that. I bought some glass earrings there. After we visited Murano we took a boat to the island of Burano. It was a really cool little island and every house was painted in a bright colour. On both of those islands no cars were allowed, and that was really nice. Everyone just has boats to get around. The last day of our trip was spent in Venice. It was a really great day with amazing weather, so we were pretty lucky. After we had a little walking tour with the Rotarians we had about 6 hours of free time. I spent my free time exploring the city and walking around the canals with a group of friends. I didn’t go on a gondola ride because it was really expensive, but it was still cool to see all of the gondola boats around all of the canals. Venice was really beautiful and I really hope I can go back there sometime. I had such a great time in Italy with all of my friends from Rotary and it was a really great experience that I will never forget!

THANKS MOM AND DAD FOR THE TRIP! ☺

Amsterdam + Carnavale

In March there is a week of holidays for "carnavale". In Belgium Carnanvale takes place in a few citiees all around the county. Every city has a different celebration, but most of them involve people dressed up with a parade where the people throw oranges at you. I had the chance to go to two different carnavales in Belgium. The first one I went to was in a town called Malmedy, and I went there with my host family. THe carnavale started out with a bunch of peple dressed in colourful costumes and hats with large feather plumes. There was music and they did a little dance in the middle of the square. After that was finished there was a parade that lasted for probably at least two hours. In the parade there were all different characters dressed in different costumes. There were probably around 100 of this one character called "long nez." They were called that because the people wore masks with long noses. These characters would run around in groups of 6-8 and choose a person in the crowd to imitate. Once they chose someone they would copy everything that person did until he or she bought all of them in the group a beer. There were also many charaters who had very long arms, who would walk by in the parade and mess up your hair. There were many other characters as well but those two were the main ones I think. For the main day of the carnavale, mardi-gras, I went to the most well-known carnavale in Belgium with my friends. At this carnavale the main characters are all these men called the "gilles de binche." These men are dressed up in costumes stuffed in hay and they also ear very large hats with feather plumes. These "gilles" walk around all day long and throw oranges at people. At the end of the day there is a big parade with a couple other characters but every character throws oranges into the crowd. My friends and I watched the parade for a while but then we decided to hop over the fences and join in the parade as well. There were other people who weren't dressed up who were in the parade as well but hose people were the people with the media badges or other types of special passes. We didn't have any pass but we didn't get caught and it was a lot of fn! I was really glad that I got to experience a couple different carnavalesin Belgium because that is something I would not see back home.

During the Carnavale break I also went on a Rotary trip to Amsterdam. THh trip was only for 3 days but it was so much fun! We left early in the morning from Bruxelles on the bus, and we had our first stop in a city called Delft. While we were in Delft we just ate lunch and then we saw the Vermeer museum. If you don't know who Vermeer is, he was a very famous Dutch painter who is called "the master of light". One of his most famous paintings in probably "The Girl with the Pearl Earring." After we finished our tour of the museum we got back on the bus and made our way to Amsterdam. When we got there we first got settled in to our Hostel and then we went out for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. After we finished eating we had a tour of Amsterdam by night which included the Red Light District and all. Seeing everything in Amsterdam was both shocking and interesting. It is just shocking because in Canada I could never imagine seeing anything like that. The next day in Amsterdam we had a tour of the Jewish History Museum, as well as a Synagogue. We also got to go to the Flower Market and have a tour of Anne Franks House that day. I really liked the Anne Frank museum, and it was a lot different than I expected. It was very cool to be able to walk through the secret passageway and see exactly where Anne and her family were hiding. The same night we got to visit the Van Gough museum. While we were in Amsterdam we also had a boat tour of the canals and the Royal Museum. It was a really cool city and I'm already looking forward to going back some day!

SPRING

Hello to all the people who might be following my very inconsistent blog! I guess I should just stop apologizing or not writing more often because it seems it has become inevitable! whoops... I actually haven't been very bored lately at all and maybe that's a reason why I haven't really written...but that's a good thing isn't it? I'm just going to try and start where I left off. Okay! So, since the last time blog things have been going really well with my host family! They are really nice and always wanting to do things together! We usually do at least one thing, like go to a museum, or go see cool things around Brussels every weekend. They are really excited about showing me all the things about the Belgian culture and things to see around Belgium. I am also very happy to be learning a bit more about the culture and history of Belgium. When I first arrived here, and throughout my first few months with my first host family I was pretty confused about what the Belgian culture actually was. We ate pretty much all the same foods as I did back home and I hadn't heard anything about the culture or history. In a way I felt like the Belgian culture had just dissapeared. I thought the country had just kind of turned into a tourist attraction. I realize now that the culture has not dissapeared at all! Sometimes living in a bug city makes it hard to realize what the culture is really about as well! There are so many different ethnicities mixed into one city that sometimes is is really hard to tell. Anyways, being with my new host family has made me realize that there is much more to Belgium than I thought. Many nights we eat something for dinner that I have never tried or never heard of, and afterwards I feel like I just kind of learned or experienced something. We have gone to so many different museums together such as The Comic Book Museum, The Central Africa Museum, The Museum of Natural Sciences, History of the War, and some others. All the museums we have visited shows things that have a real effect on why Belgium is the way it is, or has a big part in the culture.
The situation at school hasn't really improved a whole lot since September or since the last time I wrote. A couple of weeks ago I was having a really tough time because I was just so fed up with school and trying to be friendly and make friends but people always just kind of snubbing me off. I just felt really sad and I didn't know what else I could do to make things better for me. One day at school a couple girls had made some rude remarks to me and I was pretty upset about it so I ended up just trying to explain to some girls how I had been feeling. A couple of them were really nice to me about it and said they understand. They told me that the school I go to is not n easy school to fit into an that I should just keep trying. I'm glad that I talked to a couple people about it but the situation still hasn't changed too much. That's alright though, I just want to get through school and keep looking forward to the good things coming up, like Italy in April, Prague in June, Rock Werchter in July. A few other good things that have been going on as well is that i'm still playing soccer which i'm having a lot of fun doing, and i've still been doing a lot of fun things with my rotary friends. Another GREAT thing is that my mom and my grandma arrived in Brussels on Monday morning. It was so great to see them and I was really happy. Before they got here I felt like I hadn't seen them in such a long time,( which is true, I hadn't) but then when I was with them it felt so normal and like we hadn't been apart very long at all! When they first got here we just ate some breakfast and then they went to sleep for about 4.5 hours. When they woke up we went to the Botanical Gardens to see the biggest flower in the world. The flower actually hadn't bloomed yet but it was already 2.5 meters tall. It ended up blooming the next day but they had already gone to Paris by then. They are coming back to Brussels today (Friday) and i'm excited to hear about all of thei stories! Tonight is also my host mom's birthday, so we're having a big dinner at my house tonight. It should be a lot of fun!
I'm going to try and write about Carnavale and my trip to Amsterdam soon but for now i 'm going to go!
<3 Brianne

New Family!

It has been a really long time since I have been able to write a blog,but I have been a bit busier lately...which is probably a good thing. Since I have posted last quite a few things have changed. After I got back from my trip to Switzerland I had one day left with my first host family and the next day I changed families. It took me a while to pack all my stuff but after a few hours I was finally finished. I already have way too much stuff and that was kind of stressing me out, but I think at the end of the year everything will work out fine. I won't have some of the stuff that I have now because I still have quite a few gifts for host families and other people to give away. I know I will also be sending a lot of stuff home with my mom when she comes. The day I changed families we had planned to have a brunch with my two first families and my counsellor at my first house. After we ate I carted all my bags to the car and we drove to my new house. My new room is really big and I like it a lot! It took me a couple hours to get settled inand then afterwards I went for a walk with my new host mom, Nathalie. We had a nice dinner with my new family, which consists of two host brothers and one host sister and a host mom and dad. The family is really nice and they made me feel welcome right away. None of my host siblings live at the house but there are some weekends that they stay there.

Since then I have done quite a few things with my host family. Every Sunday evening we go and play badminton with some of their friends and then come back to the house and eat dinner all together. One weekend we went to one of the only concentration camps in Belgium which is now somewhat of a museum. It is called Breendonck and it is in the flemish speaking part of Belgium. It was a museum that really made an impression on me. Breendonck is one of the best conserved concentration camps because it is made out of all concrete and before the Nazis took it over it was used as a fort for the army. We walked through the whole museum. Through all the old bedrooms, solitary confinement cells, torture chamber, washing area, and many other rooms. We had audio guides and there were so many horrible stories that were told and information. It was very sad and heavy but i'm glad we got to go there because it was also very interesting. I have gone to about three other museums as well with my host parents. We went to the Musée des Beaux Arts, The Aviation Museum, and a museum which is pretty much a huge excavation site. In 2001 I think a team of archaeologists found a huge site right under the Palais Royale in the centre of Bruxelles. It turned out that there was actually the remains of a castle from the 12th century that was buried there when they decided to reconstruct that area at Bruxelles hundreds of years ago. They had to do some reconstruction but it is preserved really well. It is not very far underground at all and you can even hear the trams going by overheard. When you are walking around down there you feel like you are really walking in a city under the city. There are different streets and everything. The museum was really cool and if you ever get the chance to come to Bruxelles I would recommend going there.

The same day that I saw that museum. I had been invited to a girls birthday part in my class. Her birthday party was a masked ball so I had to go buy a little mask and wear a dress and everything. My friend, Janelle, came with me and it was pretty fun! I have also started playing soccer here! I'm really happy that I was finally able to find a team. My team is really nice and the coach is good but it is pretty different from playing back home in Canada because it is a team made up at all first year players. They have never won a game but I think they are pretty good for it being their first year. The only thing that is disappointing is that the season ends in a month and I just started playing. I have been trying to find a club since September, but I guess thats just the way it goes.
Everything has been going pretty good lately and I'm really excited for these next couple months because there is a lot of good things that will be happening.


À Bientot

Switzerland/Christmas

Salut!
So right now I am on the train travelling back to Belgium from Switzerland. I’m currently stopped in the middle of nowhere and I have no idea why. When I was going to Switzerland the train was really really slow going through Belgium so I hope that won’t be the case again now. I should be getting into Brussels at 10:45 tonight (Jan.7) so hopefully its not too late! I had a really good stay in Switzerland with Cecile but it was very hard to say goodbye to her! A lot of me wishes I could’ve just stayed there with her but I know that wouldn’t be possible. I know it wouldn’t be the same if I was going to school and actually living in Switzerland but its just really nice to go around and do whatever we want and its just really nice to be back with a real friend again. We saw so many cool things while we were there and we spend A LOT of our time on trains! I think everyday expect maybe two or three we took a train somewhere. I got to go skiing in Switzerland with Cecile and that was really cool! The mountain was very nice and the scenery around was beautiful! I missed the mountains so much! There was basically a hill you could see outside of Ceciles house and I know if I were back in Canada I wouldn’t have though that was a mountain but it seemed pretty big to me now that I’ve been living in flat Belgium for the past 5 months! And yeah that’s pretty crazy that I’ve been here already for 5 months! Everyone that I’ve talked to says that the last few months fly by so that’s what I’m expecting. My return date to Canada is confirmed for the 7th of July so that is pretty exciting. Between now and that time I have a lot of things to look forward too as well so I’m happy about that. In March I’m going to Amsterdam on a Rotary trip and in April I go on the Italy trip which is 11 days long. I also might have a few people be coming to visit me from back home and that is VERY exciting! After my Italy trip I have another trip to Prague in June and then school is over! I have to admit I will be very happy about not having anymore Belgian school! I’m not too sure if I will be looking forward to be going back yet but I don’t think it will be too bad! At the end of June until July 4 I will also be going to a big music festival in Belgium called Rock Werchter with a few of my friends! I already bought my tickets and it goes on for four days. Really good bands go to the festival and this year there has only been four bands confirmed at the moment but already the bands confirmed are Coldplay, Kings of Leon, Iron Maiden, and The Chemical Brothers! Coldplay and Kings of Leon are a couple of my favourite bands and I never thought I would get to see either of them live! I am so excited and I can’t wait too see which other bands will be playing. There’s usually about 10 bands that play each day and you camp there with your friends.
But I should write more about what I did in Switzerland! I already said that we went skiing one day and that was a lot of fun! The snow wasn’t super great but it was a beautiful blue bird day and it wasn’t too cold so it was nice! I also saw a really nice Church my first day in Switzerland with Cecile’s family. I can’t remember the exact date that the Church was built in but I just know it was really nice and really old! It was kind of funny because outside of the church there was a sign that said Beware: Roof Avalanches and we had Cecile’s dog, Onya, with us so Cecile’s parents tied the dog to the sign while we went inside the church as a joke. Cecile and I also went to the French speaking part of Switzerland to a city called Lausanne and also another city called Geneva. Cecile hadn’t even been to those cities before so it was new for both of us. We saw a really nice Cathedral built in the 1200’s I think and also a castle built around the same time period. We also went to a big museum while we were in Lausanne. In the museum they had artifacts that dated back later than 800 B.C. It as crazy! They had found a lot of artifacts from burial grounds from around Switzerland and they even had a few coffins with skeletons in them and a lot of jewellery. We thought that museum was really cool and it was free so that was a bonus! Cecile and I also went to apparently Europe’s largest waterfall in the north of Switzerland . I was kind of expecting it to be a lot larger but it was still really nice! It was really wide but just not very tall. In order to see the waterfall you actually take this bus for about 25 minutes to an old castle and then there are trails that lead down to the viewing point. It was really cool except for the fact that Cecile forgot her wallet on a bench while we were waiting for the bus to go back down to the city. She only realised about an hour later that she left it up there so then we had to take the bus for another 50 minutes. In the city there was another castle that was built in the 1500’s. We got to go inside of it into this huge brick room with pillars in the center and we also got to climb this spiral staircase to get to the top and see the view of the city ! It was so cool being in something so old! Yesterday we also took the train to the capital of Switzerland, Bern, and had a tour of the Swiss parliament buildings. I couldn’t understand the tour because it was in German but Cecile explained the main point of it I think. We did a lot more stuff as well but I think this is getting a bit too long so I will stop writing now. I will just have to post this tomorrow or something as well as the one I wrote on the train when I was going to Zurich!
À Bientot!

Switzerland/Christmas

Hi!
So as I’m writing this I’m sitting on a train going through France right now! I’m bored so I will just write this and then upload it on my blog when I get a chance. So I’ve been on the train since 7:37 in the morning and right now its 3:15 in the afternoon. The train was very very slow going through Belgium and I overheard people saying it was more than an hour and a half late now. My friend Janelle slept over at my house last night because she was also going to Germany this morning from Brussels. We went to the train station together at 7:00 AM and then just went and bought a sandwich and stuff for the trip. When we looked at the board with all the times of the trains on it, it said that my train would be 45 minutes late. I wasn’t very happy about that because I didn’t want to be late for meeting Cecile in Zurich but Janelle was pretty happy because now she didn’t have to wait by herself for such a long time. Then I randomly looked up at the board when it was probably around 7:36 AM and the board changed and now it said the train was on time!! Me and Janelle freaked out and started running through the train station trying to make it on time. Right when we got to where my train was supposed to come it pulled in so I was soooo lucky. If I had missed that train I don’t think there would have been anything I could have done! So I was very relieved when I got on the train! I slept for the first couple hours I think and after that I’ve just been watching some tv shows in French with English subtitles and reading. It seems like I’ve been on the train for such a long time and I have a really bad headache right now. Before I wasn’t sure if we were going to be going through Germany or France but we ended up going through France. But then when we got into Strasbourg I really thought that was in Germany but I guess not? I was a bit stressed out because the people sitting across from me told me that this train doesn’t go straight to Zurich anymore and that I have to change trains in Basil Switzerland. I was pretty stressed out because I bought my ticket for Zurich and I don’t want to have to pay more money just to get to Zurich from Basil. Also because Cecile was going to be meeting me in Zurich at 3:57 when my train was SUPPOSED to get in. I felt really bad for Cecile because she would be waiting for me for a really long time. I remembered that I had her cellphone number on an email so I tried to call it but I didn’t have the right area code so it didn’t work. I asked the lady across from me though and she gave me the right numbers. So I just got a hold of Cecile and I told her that I would be really late. I don’t know how long it will take me to get from Basil to Zurich but I hope it won’t take very long! I’m really looking forward to going to see Cecile and being in Switzerland though!
As for Christmas, it went pretty well. It was really really hard being here without my family and friends and it was a very different vibe than in Canada, which I already explained in my last post. I was supposed to go to my host sister’s dad’s house for Christmas eve but that didn’t end up happening for some reason so I went with Ines to her parents house in the south of Belgium for dinner. The roads weren’t very good on the highways or the roads and everyone was driving very slow but I don’t think Ines really had a problem with the snow. Ines’ parents house was very old but it was actually pretty nice! Usually I don’t like old things but the house was very cool. It was built in 1850 and I felt like while we were eating it was like I was in a movie. There was also a church and a cemetery behind the house and the first part of the church was built in the 1300’s! I thought that was pretty crazy. For Christmas Eve Dinner we ate soup, fois gras, smoked salmon, and cake. The dinner was very different than any other Christmas dinner I’ve ever had in Canada and I think I prefer the one back home better than the one we had here. After dinner we opened presents and I got a T shirt that says Brussels Belgium 2010 from my host mom and a cd from Ines’ parents. The next day we just hung around the house, ate lunch, and then went home. I was really happy when I got home because I got to skype my family while they were opening presents and that was really nice! I also got to talk to Alex so that was really cool as well! But anyways hope everyone back home is having a good holiday and that Canada

Christmas Eve

Hi Everyone!

So Merry Christmas to everyone back home! I will basically be getting Christmas one day earlier than you and that will be kind of weird! I would really like to talk to my family and maybe some of my friends on Christmas so I hope it works out with the time change and everything! These past few weeks have been a bit weird but just because I really don't feel like it's Christmas at all here! When I go downtown I do feel like it's Christmas a bit because of all the Christmas markets and decorations, but other than the last couple days there has been no snow at all and there are no decorations whatsoever at my house. Its really weird becaus

e no one has Christmas lights on their houses and I don't know about other families around where I live but we don't have a Christmas tree. I know a lot of my other friends' host families do have Christmas trees though so i'm sure its not a Belgian thing to not have one. Its not a huge deal or anything it just feels a bit weird. Today is Christmas Eve day for me and I feel like its just another day. Usually back home there is a lot of Christmas baking and music and the tree and I don't know there's just a vibe but not here. A lot of schools actually still have classes today which I think is really really dumb. I had to go into school just a little while ago to get my report car

d which wasn't very good. I got a TB in english and in gym though which is the best mark you could get so I'm happy about that. It was really frustrating though because I had to have a little meeting with my Titulaire which i guess is kinda like a homeroom teacher type thing. And he was just saying that he knows that i'm really shy and that its hard but he thinks I shouldn't be spending so much time with other exchange students who speak english and that I should try to spend more time with Belgian people. It really frustrates me when people tell me things like this because it seems like they think I don't want to be friends with Belgian people from my school or that I don't try. But I really do want to be friends with people from school and I do try really hard! Everyone including my host mom thinks i'm the shyest person in the world and that i'm scared to talk to anyone but I have no idea why. At school I have no problem talking to people. I ask questions about what they did last weekend and ask them sometimes if they would like to do something with me but they are always busy. Maybe my host mom thinks i'm shy because the few times that we have dinner together with her boyfriend and his kid they are always talking about things or people that I have no idea about. Its kind of hard for me to join into conversation when I don't know who the people they're talking about are. The teacher was saying maybe he will try to do something to help me but I don't want him to help me make friends! I'm seventeen and I know he's just trying to be nice but I told him that its okay he didn't need to help me and I would continue trying. It just gets really frustrating and a bit sad when you try so hard and no one notices it. But yeah sorry that was my little rant I guess. Its just pretty hard today because i'm away from my family and all my friends on Christmas

and everything is so different. Its not like I want to come home or anything and I know this is a really really good experience for me but it is hard sometimes and today is just one of those days where its a bit harder than others. I think its probably normal to feel kind of homesick on Christmas but yeah I just wish I would be less homesick less often.

But anyways, I will fill you in on what i've been doing for the past week or two. So yesterday my friend and I went to Brugges. While we were there we did a little bit of last minute Christmas shopping for our host families. I thought I was going to go to My host sisters dads house for Christmas eve because thats what my host mom told me so I bought him a bottle of wine but now I'm not going there anymore so I guess I will just give the wine to my host grandparents when I go to their house for dinner tonight. In Brugges we also went to an art gallery which was really cool. I really liked the art and a couple of the paintings at first I thought were really boring because I thought it was just a photo someone took of limes or roses but it turned out it wasn't a picture it was actually a painting. I couldn't believe how good it was! After we saw the art gallery we went to this Ice Sculpture exhibit near the train station. The exhibit was huge! There were ice sculptures from 30 different countries around the world and they were all very good. They had 3 ice sculptures from Canada which were an Aboriginal person, A cowboy, and a totem pole.. maybe the igloo was also supposed to be part of Canada but that would be pretty dumb I think. It has been getting kind of cold here these past couple days as well! It has been -5 and -6 which is pretty cold for Belgium. There has also been quite a lot of snow. I think there

has maybe been 20 or 30 cm. Just with that amount of snow the entire city and basically all of Belgium is shut down. Today there are now buses running and no trams and no cars here have 4 wheel drive. They also don't have winter tires. When I was driving to school this morning with my host mom I really thought we were gonna get in an accident Every single corner we turned we just slid and trying to get up the little hill to get to the school was basically impossible. I think its pretty ridiculous how unprepared everyone is for winter here. Everyone is freaking out and a lot of people refuse to even leave their houses because of the 30 cm of snow. They don't even have snowplows and barely any salt trucks. The highways are closed down after 7:00 PM and my host mom was telling me they wouldn't even let the salt truck go on the highway a couple nights ago after 7 even though it was only trying to do its job and make the roads safer! I don't know I just think a lot of things they do or not do for winter is really stupid. Its not that hard to be prepared for a little snow. But yeah I think I will stop writing now and start wrapping Christmas presents for my host family. I hope everyone has a really rea

lly good Christmas back at home and you should eat pie and cookies and whatever else for me!!

I miss everyone!!

<3>