Do you want to know more about Belgium?

Credit for this one goes to Breanna Briggs, but I enjoyed it, and it is somewhat helpful in explaining the oh so confusing assets of the Belgian government. :)

London, Paris, & Six Weeks Into the Greatest Year of My Life

Well, it has officially been six weeks since I arrived in Belgium, and I can easily say that it has been the best six weeks of my life thus far. Since I have been here, I have met oodles of great people; attended a few Belgian festivities; tasted WAY TOO MUCH good food; tried many a good beer and wine; traveled to two other countries, and found a new family with whom I will always be connected to.

The 10th of September, I had the privilege to travel to London with my host brothers, Benoît and François, a few of their friends, and my host sister, Fanny. We drove from our humble village of Deux-Acren (pronounced deuzz-ack) to the port of Calais, France to take a ferry to Dover, Great Britain. The ferry ride from France was about 45 minutes long and quite quaint. Upon arrival in England, we drove for about two and a half hours to London, where, that evening, we attended a concert of the popular English band, Muse at Wembley Stadium. We were a group of seven, including three good friends of François and Benoît from Belgium. Three of us stayed at the apartment of another Belgian friend who now lives in London, the others stayed at a hostel type place nearby. 

Antoine, the Londoner-Belgian, served as our tour guide and travel director during our stay in London.

Le Grand Concert de Muse

The concert was set to start at 18h00, with the doors opening at 16h00. We left Antoine's house around 16h30 and took the metro from nearby to Wembley Stadium. We arrived just shortly after 17h00, and had no problems getting in... EXCEPT that the dude at WILL CALL didn't want to give François our tickets because in the English computer systems when the character "ç" is used, it shows up as "c4sdf" or other ridiculous characters such as this... Thus making finding our tickets near impossible. But, with our good Belgian luck (ironic... refer to my video post about Belgium) we got out tickets. So, we secured our spots in the standing room only section (the best spot of any show), just left center of the stage, about 30 meters away. SUPERB spots.

 The group in our "I <3 Muse" t-shirts, minus François. 

Back from left to right: Me, Fanny, Sophie, Kevin and in front left to right: Antoine, Remi, et Benoît

(I'm not supposed to post any pictures with any of my host family in them, so no one tell my host mom! She always knows....)

The first band that went on was called White Rabbits, a GREAT band from New York. Next was The Big Pink, a very disappointing and weird band from I don't care where. And then... from London, one of my favorite female artists... LILY ALLEN!!!!! She was AMAZING.

 Lily Allen!!!

And the band we had been waiting two and a half hours, and traveled to a whole other country to see......... MUSE!

 Opening song: The Resistance.... EPIC

 Exogenesis Symphony Part 2 (Cross Pollination)

 Playing on a moving lift about 10 meters in the air- SWEET

 The lighters, cell phones, and camera flashes that illuminated the stadium during an encore.

 Encore- Exogenesis: Symphony Parts 1 &3

(Acrobat dancing from an inflatable UFO)

Two hours of utterly amazing music and two encores later, I had officially experienced the best night and most amazing concert of my life thusfar.

The original plan for after the concert was to go out and get a drink, but after waiting an hour to get on the train and the short ride home, we were all too tired to go out, so we returned to our slumber-spots, and slumbered. 

Saturday morning we got up bright and early from our amazing night, at the ripe young hour of 9h30  departure time. Our first sightseeing spot of the day was a very large and famous park. After, we saw a few huge cathedrals; Harrods, one of the largest, most expensive, and most popular stores in the World (at one time it was the chosen store of the Royal Family). Then, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the house of the Prime Minister, Camden Town, London Tower, London Tower Bridge.... perhaps there are  other attractions that I have forgotten, for it was a very long day in which we traversed most of London by foot in just one day.

 

With one of the famous London Guards!

 (He was supposed to be a mounted guard)

                         In front of Buckingham Palace                            

        Left to right: Fanny, Antoine, Benoît, François, me, Kevin          

AGAIN: HUSH HUSH TO HOST MOM! ;)

We left early Sunday morning for the ferry in Dover, and made it back home around 14h00. It was a truly amazing weekend that I'm sure I will never forget. 

Le Petit Voyage à Paris

My host dad, Laurent, is a doctor. A few weeks ago he had a medical conference in Paris and invited us to come along with him for a short voyage. We (Laurent, Cécile, Fanny, et moi) left for Paris Saturday morning at 6h30. We arrived in Paris around 9h00, and from the conference center, Cécile, Fanny, and I took the metro to a station just a few minutes away to meet Cécile's sister and brother-in-law. From there, we walked to the Louvre, Notre Dame, Le Centre Pompidou (HUGE modern art museum), Les Champs Élysées, various cathedrals, followed by a leisurely sightseeing boat ride (on which Cécile and I both fell asleep). From the boat, I got quite a few good pictures of me with La Tour Eiffel in the background. That evening, we had a delightfully delicious dinner as a group at a quaint little restaurant. Afterward, we went to a nearby theatre to "regarder une pièce de theatre" (see a play). It was a comedy called "Le Technicien", I understood the majority of it, but most of the witty jokes were a bit too much for me to comprehend. Making this our end of the long, fun-filled day, we returned to the hotel for a much welcomed sleep.

From the boat :)

 In front of the former house of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Laurent had his convention again Sunday, so we did a little bit more sightseeing in the morning and into the early afternoon. We saw more cathedrals, and hiked up to what my legs and butt would tell you was the highest section of Paris, but I'm not entirely sure if that is true. Here we saw Saint Pierre de Montmartre, a huge cathedral overlooking Paris, the art district of Montmartre where some of the most famous artists worked and lived; Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste tenoir, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Langston Hughes just to name a few. On our descent from Montmartre, we saw Moulin de la Gelette, a cute little vinyard, a few houses of old french celebs, and last but not least, the Moulin Rouge. Marking this our last sight to see in Paris, we took the metro back to the convention center to meet Laurent, and headed home to Deux-Acren.

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Since these little voyages, I have mainly gone to school and just hung around at home. During the week it's pretty quiet at the house, usually just Benoît, François, Azeline, my host parents, and me. It's nice most of the time, but it leaves for a lot of free time... which often turns into nap time.  I will confess that the previously set goal to run or bike everyday has failed miserably, and I regret to say I have gained x# of pounds. I'm steering away from the scale until I start to lose some of this unwanted poundage. Recently I started a scuba diving class, which will help me stay active. François and I still run sometimes, but not quite as often as we were. This last week I did start swimming laps in the beautiful pool in our backyard at night, which has been nice. Regrettably, my host dad plans to close it for the winter this weekend. I was supposed to start a Zumba class yesterday (dance exercise), but Wednesday afternoon I came down with a debilitating virus that has made my body hurt allover, and given me the worst of migraines and sore throats, which has in effect tied me to my bed for the past two days. Hopefully I will be able to start Zumba next week, cause I need to do some calorie shedding activities!

Tomorrow it is on the schedule to go to a town called Namur for a "All District Rotary Event" containing a boat ride, lots of walking, picture taking, and hopefully eating (bet you can't guess why I'm so fat...). And tomorrow evening there is a soirée for my friend from school that's turning 18, which should definitely be fun. But, we shall see if my bed-ridden illness has subsided just long enough for me to see the daylight. On the upside, my Belgian friend Loïc has diagnosed me via wikipedia to having Mono. Whatta guy!! ;)

I will try to update my blog somewhat more regularly, but it is very time consuming and requires lots of brainpower. Because lets face it, being an exchange student is a full time job, filled with lots of language headaches and much needed power naps.

À bientôt!