The longest news letter of all time

Okay, here’s the news letter for Christmas up to February 11th. I’m still hoping the version I’m sending out to everyone in Word format with pictures is going to work, but barring that then I’ll just put everything in the e-mail itself and then find another solution for the photos or otherwise wait until next month to make them available in the flckr page. I’m having so much trouble with Blogger right now I want to scream, I’ll be glad when this headache is over with.

So enjoy the update, if you don’t have the version with photos you can either e-mail me or wait for the pictures to go up next month. -Andrew

Blog & flickr: Before reading this news letter there is one little development to inform you all of. As always my blog is open for your viewing and reading pleasure, it mostly contains old news letters, which is fine if you haven’t read the previous ones, but there is some other content. What I’m sure everyone will be most interested in with this news letter is my recently found solution for making my pictures viewable online. Before, putting all the photos on the blog manually was just way too time consuming and difficult so up until now I just hadn’t done it, but now I’ve finally set up a page, which can be accessed directly, or through a nice handy link on my blog no one could miss. So the addresses for the blog and the photo page are: for the blog - andrewenbelgique.blogspot.com ;or for the photo page (which can also be accessed from the blog) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/salmonator

The blog will have all updates including this most recent one, and the photo page currently has the est of my photos up to the beginning of November (including Paris), and as of next month should be entirely caught up to now (this is because I can only upload a certain number of photos per month, sorry).

Intro: So here we go again folks, I’m trying a new format this time which will allow me to add pictures and hopefully reduce the chances of deleting my entire project on these useless ‘azerty’ keyboards, that should make everyone happy I think.

So I suppose the last time I got a real good update out to you guys, aside from my short Christmas letter and one little blurb on my blog, was November, which isn’t all that impressive of a record on my part I know, but here I’ll bring you right up to date, everything, you’ll have it all, plus photos!!! I won’t waste any more time then, I’m already sure this is going to be one long letter.

Christmas and the big move: So back to the end of December, Christmas was as it normally is for me I suppose, other than the fact that there was no snow. I was still with my first host family the D’Ippolito’s, my host dad Paolo invited his parents to come spend Christmas eve and Christmas day with us. We were all together as a family which was very nice, we spent our time speaking and eating, but mostly eating. We even watched ‘Home Alone,’ or ‘Maman J’ai Raté L’Avion’ (Mom I missed the airplane) as it’s known in French. Those were my last days at the D’Ippolito house as a few days later it was time to change to my second host family.

Next it was off to the Dufays’ house to take everything out again and get settled, at least it’s the easier part of moving, aside from lugging my suit cases up six flights of stairs!

My new family, as you already know, are the Dufays’, they are: the dad Christian, he works in insurance at an office and also teaches part time at a college, not unlike my own dad; the mom Isabelle, a very intelligent and friendly woman who teaches French as a second language at a community college; the older brother Frédéric, cancer survivor, former Rotary exchange student to Sweden who holds a master’s degree in political science, whch included a year of studies as an Erasumus exchange student in Paris, who works for a senator in Brussels and would very much like to earn his doctorate in Montréal as he loves Canada and has many friends from there! What else? Oh yeah, he speaks four languages and is currently working on his fifth, and he was also a contestant on the Belgian version of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ where he got to the 11^th question and won €25,000 (about $38,000 Cdn), which would have been €72,000 on the French version (about $110,000 Cdn)!!! Anyways I don’t mean to sound like I worship him but for 24 years old he’s doing pretty good I think! Continuing on, next there’s their second son Xavier, who is mentally handicapped but nevertheless very sweet and friendly (except when he loses at playstation!); and then lastly there’s their youngest Nathalie, who is currently on exchange in Brazil.

The Dufays are a closer family than the D’Ippolito’s, which is not o say anything against my first host family, but for sure a family atmosphere in the house was something I was starting to miss before changing.

So then, moving day was the 28^th of December, and I was heading south for New Year’s, so I spent the next couple of days getting acquainted with everyone and learning my way around their house.

New Year: As mentioned previously I headed south for the New Year where I was invited by Marie-O’s family to come spend both New Year’s eve and New Year’s day with them in the Ardennes.

I spent New Year’s eve at the house of Marie-O’s grandmother where the whole extended family was gathered from as far away as France to be together. The evening started with the usual drinks and finger food, and was followed by a typical Belgian party supper, ‘raclette,’ which is basically a dish that everyone prepares themselves from a special cheese and meat and vegetables which goes in little metal trays under a heating element so everything melts together and becomes very delicious. Next we watched a movie together which took us right up to midnight, then all of a sudden where we had been calm and quiet the champagne was uncorked and everyone was giving three kisses and exchanging gifts, I got cd’s and chocolate. It was certainly a very fun night, but after getting home at around 3am after a 45 minute drive back to Marie-O’s house we were all happy to just get in our beds and sleep.

The next day after getting up late and eating some yummy baked goods for breakfast we headed off to Marie-O’s other grandmother’s house, her mother’s mother this time, where the other half of her family was gathered together. The afternoon basically followed the same progression as the night before, drinks and snacks, followed by a big meal, this time another typical Belgian dish ‘tartiflette,’ which is like a scalloped potato dish with cheese and ham and beer. Marie-O and I were happy to watch another movie while the rest of the family either talked or napped to make up for the night before, I couldn’t convince her to watch the Da Vinci Code though so instead we watched Lafesse, who is a weird French comedian that shoots stuff in the streets just being very weird and annoying people, I’d recommend it to you, but it’s a French thing really.

That evening we went back to Marie-O’s other grandmother’s house where we had been the night before, I’m not really sure why, but I only had a short amount of time to eat some spaghetti then I had to catch my train back to Liège. The next day was January 2^nd, which meant only one week left in my Christmas break.

Bruges: The Rotary was very well organized as usual in planning a nice activity for us during our break, and our monthly Wednesday trip was a full-day trip Bruges, in the north of Belgium, a beautiful medieval city that is also known as the ‘Venice of the North.’

This was without a doubt the best activity the Rotary has organized for us up until this point. We started the day with a two hour train ride, and then arrived in Bruges where went on-foot to a youth hostel where we ate the lunches we had brought (or were supposed to have brought, some of us didn’t read the e-mail too carefully though and wound up having to run to the nearest Quick). The first walk through the town was nice on its own, but the afternoon was even nicer as we had a guided tour with a local organized. It was so neat to learn about the history and see all these great buildings and houses and bridges, all from the middle ages.

The tour was topped off with an hour for wandering and shopping, not the most creative idea but I’m sure it was enjoyable for some, well, the girls looking to spend lots of money at any rate.

The end of our day in Bruges brought us back to the hostel where we had hot drinks and ate ‘Galette des Rois,’ which is a type of cake eaten on a special day, the ‘Fête des Rois’ (celebration of the Kings), the cakes each have a little porcelain figure in them and the person who gets the figure in their piece of cake is the king or queen for the day. I wasn’t the king in Bruges, but that wasn’t to remain the case with my Rotary club as you’ll learn later.

Folon: Before heading back to school on the 8^th of January I had one last trip in store for me. Daphne the Brazilian, Chantelle the Texan, Chantal my next host mom and I all headed off to a small town near Brussels which lies right on the Flanders-Wallonia divide (I live in Wallonia, the francophone part) where the gallery of a great, recently deceased Belgian artist is located. The artist’s name is Jean-Michel Folon, he did a lot of water colour painting and sculpture and his work, which often reflected current events in 20^th century politics and world affairs, was used by many magazines such as Time and also by many other publications and even in film posters. I really enjoyed the visit, which gave me the opportunity to see both some very beautiful art, and also something uniquely Belgian.

Back to school and Fête des Rois: As of January the 8^th I was back at school, not the most exciting prospect after nearly a month of but still it was nice to get back and see my friends and classmates. Plus I found out that I got 65% on my chemistry exam, I was so happy! I mean it’s no 98, but still, considering it was all in French I was pretty pleased, my teacher too.

Rotary also had a nice evening organized for us, including their own Fête des Rois, which they rigged so that Dana from New York was the queen and I was the king, they even had silly little costumes and crowns for us and Paolo’s brother Serge smeared charcoal on my face to give me a moustache and goatee! I’m so going to get them back on April fool’s day, or Poisson d’Avril as it is known here!

Balade and Standard: January’s next cool activity for me was a 22km hike with a club that includes my host mother and other adults, many of whom are from the Rotary club hosting me here. The idea is that every month one member has to plan a big hike like this, that way the responsibility is shared and also every area that people know is explored and everyone sees more of the country, simple yet effective.

January’s hike was in an area known as the ‘Trois Frontières’ (or Three Borders), as it the area where the borders of Belgium, Holland, and Germany meet. The weather started out pretty windy and rainy, as we were still in the tail end of a big storm that had just passed through Europe, but luckily that died down and it was calm for the rest of the day, even if the sun didn’t bother to show up and give us some warmth. We started around 10am and did 12 kilometres, then around 1 we stopped for lunch where we were joined be the wimps who had opted to do a half day, including my host mother and also Daphne the Brazilian and Dana from New York. The rest of the afternoon saw us finishing the remaining 10 kilometres in some pretty wet conditions, luckily being from the Great White North I was prepared, I can’t really say the same for poor Daphne.

So I got home around five that night, aching and tired, but my day wasn’t over, I had just enough time to get changed into my supporter’s gear before heading off to my second Standard de Liège game with my host brother Xavier. It was much better than my first time out, Standard won 3-1 over Lokeren in the score that I called before the game, plus I got to see my first ever penalty which was Standard’s first goal. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me as the batteries were kaput after my day hiking, but you can see pictures of my first Standard game on my flickr page to get an idea of what the ambiance at a game is like.

Bastogne: Still in January, I think the last weekend (Allez courage! We’re almost all caught up!), this time I was invited to Marie-O’s house to go visit Bastogne, which is of course a big historical sight where the American 101^st Airborne was surrounded by the Germans in the the winter ’44-45 in the Ardennes offensive, also known as the Battle of the Bulge. First we did a little driving around Bastogne and stopped at a cemetery, then we thought we’d stop by Marie-O’s grandmother’s house to say hello. It turned out to be a good idea because on the way we stumbled across a very new monument near a town called Foy close to Bastogne, and it turned out to be the monument to E Company of the 506^th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101^st Airborne, a unit immortalized by the Stephen E. Ambrose book ‘Band of Brothers’ and also the miniseries of the same name.

Later that day we went to an exposition called ‘J’avais 20 ans en ‘45 à Bastogne’ (I was 20 in ’45 in Bastogne), which, despite it’s name, was not an exposition about the young men fighting there, but about the Belgians living there during the occupation and offensive. It was an exceptional exposition, with lots of videos, documents, and recreated scenes from the era. Everything was covered, from life as a young woman, to the treachery of the collaborators, to the dangerous commitment to the resistance. I’m going back to Bastogne on the 17^th of February, this time to the big war museum there to see the tanks and such, which I’m really looking forward to if only to see the lovely little town. Gratte: As I previously mentioned, my host brother Xavier is mentally handicapped, but as I also mentioned he is a very nice guy (even if the playstation wouldn’t agree with me) so I had no problem taking a bit of my time one Thursday night to go to an activity of an organization he is in called Gratte, which organizes activities for handicapped people aged 18-35 with non-handicapped people of the same age group. February’s Gratte activity was an evening of ten-pin bowling. Neither Xavier nor I are the best bowlers, but at least we had a great time talking with people and having a few laughs.

A musical day in Brussels: One thing I have to say I’m missing a lot more than I would have predicted here is music, in fact it actually never really occurred to me that it was such an important thing in my life until I didn’t have it on a regular basis. Luckily though an opportunity presented itself that I was smart to take advantage of. It goes all the way back to November I think, one night I got the idea to see if there weren’t any concerts coming up to see in Belgium, and it turned out, a Belgian artist by the name of Ozark Henry (http://www.ozarkhenry.com) was playing in Brussels on February 3. Knowing that Marie-O really likes this guy I quickly sent her an sms to see if she’d like to go, well I got a quick ‘yes’ in return and so I went ahead and bought the tickets that night. It was a little wait, but finally that day was approaching, so Marie-O and I planned a day in Brussels to compliment our evening at the concert.

Staying with our theme of music Marie-O and I decided to spend the first part of the day at the ‘Musée des Instruments Musicals’ or MIM (Museum of Musical Instruments ;-) ), which is quite simply one of the nicest museums I’ve ever been too, and easily the nicest of it’s category. The museum’s collection spans four floors and includes instruments from all over the world that span centuries, everything from guitars to bagpipes, violins and a whole lot of pianos.

After the MIM, Marie-O and I went to try and find lunch, which lead to something of an overwhelming experience in a really touristy part of town, eventually though we did manage to find a little restaurant where we ate a Flemmish specialty (it was really just like beef stew but I guess they mix it up by putting beer in it, who’d of thunk it?) with a beer to drink for good measure. With our bellies full we were off to Grande Place to see the sights and eat a ridiculously huge waffle, the regular tourist stuff in Brussels.

After visiting the Grande Place we were starting to run out of time before our concert which was starting at 8 (but was general placement which meant getting there well beforehand or being stuck in the nose bleed seats), so we quickly figured out our route on the tram (like a streetcar) and got to our train station where we left our stuff and then finally on to the concert venue. We were glad when we arrived that we had planned ahead because despite the fact that the concert was sold out we got places right up front just a couple of metres from the stage. So we waited for the concert to start at 8pm, about 45 minutes, but then 8 rolled around and nothing happened, 8:10, 8:20, still nothing, then finally at 8:30 the band took the stage and started their show. All in all I was very impressed by the performance. The singer, Ozark Henry, had quite a good stage presence and his singing was spot on with his unique voice, plus he had an instrumental presence on keyboards which I really respect. The band was great too, though stage right had an interesting contrast between the clean-cut piano player and the greasy old guitarist who was smoking cigarettes and even drank a Jupiler (Belgian beer, basically the equivalent of Molson Canadian here). The band did three encores, which was certainly milking it a bit considering they left the stage the first time after like only 45 minutes, but when it was over Marie-O and I were happy to go catch our tram back to the train station ahead of schedule to get the train at 11:30 instead of midnight, or so we thought.

As it turned out the train the internet said was at 11:30 didn’t exist (it’s certainly not the first time that’s happened to me), but we were okay to wait for the midnight train, that was until we found out that was delayed 50 minutes!!! I seriously couldn’t believe it, it’s midnight and the country is full of empty trains, and we’re in Brussels, but still it took them 50 minutes to get a train there for us!!! Well, we got into Liège around 2am but still my host dad Christian was nice enough to pick us up and drop Marie-O off at her place before taking me home.

St. Jacques: This is it everyone, the last activity to show you for this longest of long news letters! This one I’ll keep quick too. Just this past Sunday the 11^th my host mother Isabelle noticed in the morning that one of the most beautiful churches in Liège, St. Jacques, was runnging a guided tour. I’d never been and it was an opportunity to ge to batter know Liège so I immediately jumped at the opportunity.

St. Jacques turned out to be quite an amazing place, not so much as a religious monument or anything, but just to look at it for it’s historical value, engineering genious, and beautiful art it was great. The church started out as a Roman church around 1000 years ago, and through the years was updated as notably the Gothic perdiod and the Renaissance passed through Europe

The tour turned out to be a little longer than we had expected, four hours in total, but it was okay because we really learned a lot and got to see areas of the church most people never get to see and if they do they probably don’t get to learn the history of it all as we did.

The culmination of the tour was going up to the bell tower. I’m personally not much of a fan of heights but I put on m game face and climber the 1000 year old practically non-existent steps (as I’ve actually gotten used to in a way here) up to the room full of piles of hundreds of year old wood and also hundreds of dried up pigeon carcasses for which they actually had a little rake to rake them into little piles, and then finally to the bell tower in the last group where I got stuck as the fifty other old ladies with us practically got in a shoving match to be in the first group. Once there my host mother agreed it was kind of a let down, but luckily we were going home to celebrate her birthday and eat a big supper of raclette and cheesecake made by Frédéric (the guy can cook too!!) for desert.

The Near Future: As I’m writing this ‘Vacances de Caravale’ (a week of celebrations) is coming up, and this Thursday I’m heading to Eupen (a German speaking town in Belgium) with a German class from my school to see the festivities as they are especially important in the German speaking area of Belgium. Then next week I’m hoping to do a trip to Holland or Germany, or maybe both. Other than that I’ll be heading to Brussels this Sunday then again at the end of the month. The first two weeks of April are spring break and in the first week I’ll be heading to the south of France with Marie-O and her family, then when I get back I’m heading straight out to Scotland to spend a few days with some old friends from Canada. Then at the end of April I’m going to Paris again with school and beyond that there’s Eurotour in June with plenty in between I have no doubt to fill up the second half of my exchange.

The End: Well I’ve gone over all the major events in my life in the last little while for you, but as you can imagine that’s only a small part of my time here, and that really the majority of my typical week is occupied by time spent at school in the day, French lessons at night, and then perhaps once in a while finding some time to relax or write giant news letters. No matter how busy I am though, I never mind coming home after a long day to find I’ve got an e-mail in my mail box, so if you’re interested in knowing more or just want to say hi you’re always more than welcome.