A bit about school, my birthday, and getting stuck on a balcony



 

 

     School is going well, and while I prefer the weekend (who doesn't?!), I like going.  I am not quite yet able to take thorough notes in class, but I can usually understand what the teacher is saying, it just takes too long for me to decipher what is said to take notes as well.   How much of a class I can understand depends entirely on which class I am in, and if the material is new material for me.  Chemistry and Biology are my easiest classes (aside from English class) because I have already taken them in the US and I know the material, but in classes such as history and geography, my comprehension level is much lower.  Surprisingly, my French class is one of the easier ones to understand, and math is one of the hardest. 

      In French, two hours a week (each Wednesday afternoon) are devoted to theater practice because at the end of the year, the French class will be putting on a play.  Ironically, they are doing the French translation of an English play; Shakespeare's "All's Well That Ends Well".  I have two parts, a page (about three lines) and another three-lined part because one of the minor roles is in English.  To give you a taste of some of what happens in Theater class, today the class broke up into groups of four, then the teacher would give everyone a theme and the groups would creat choreographed dances representing each topic, practice the dance a little, then present to the class.  After everyone presented, the teacher would announce the next theme, and everyone would create new dances.  Some of the topics included "the first drop of rain on dry earth", "Easter" (my group mimicked rabbits for this one), and "anything round".  Most often, the dances ended in everyone laughing, dancers included. 
 

       My 17th birthday was wonderful, everyone wished me happy birthday, and I can now say that I have been sung to in four different languages, French (three times), English, Spanish, and Portuguese. The English, Spanish, and Portuguese were thanks to someone shouting "it was this girl's birthday a week ago!" to a boat-full of exchange students, who all started to sing in their given language, which was quite chaotic to listen to.  The evening before my birthday, my host family gave  me their present (a few turtleneck shirts and a scarf) and on the day of my birthday, we went to the baptism of a family friend's baby girl.  It was the first baptism I have ever been to, and it was really interesting to learn about and experience the different traditions.  The night after, my host mother and I made a wonderful cream desert, and she gave me the recipe so that I can make it on my own and be sure to never loose weight again (it is definitely not the healthyest of desserts!).  During lunch break on Monday, my school friends bought a cake and a present consisting of some Belgian specialties (including, of course, a box of chocolates that lasted all of two days).  They even got candles and lit them (which I was sure would get us all in trouble, but no one seemed to care and none of the teachers came into the senior cafeteria before I blew them out)  All in all, a fantastic birthday.

Most of my birthday stash, all aligned nicely on my bed.

 

 A few weeks ago, my host family, a friend of Gladys (my host sister) and I spent the weekend in my host mother's parents' apartment at the beach, which was a lot of fun even if we didn't get to swim (my host family only put their feet in, then jumped back out because the water was too cold, and as I had just barely gotten over a cold, my host mother said that I couldn't go in past my knees)
   Also worth mentioning is the fact that Belgium has three official languages, French, Flemish (which is a dialect of Dutch), and German, but the German is only spoken by the 10% of the population that lives along the German border.  The rest of the country is split into two regions, the northern half of Belgium is Flanders, the Flemish region, and the southern half is the French speaking Wallonia (where I live).  The capital city, Brussels, is geographically located in Flanders, however about 70% of the people living in Brussels speak French.  All Belgian coastline is also located in Flanders, and all towns along the coastline are Flemish-speaking towns, and so after a month of getting used to speaking in French, I was plunged into an entirely new language, but no worries, everyone else in my host family can speak a bit of Flemish, with the exception of my oldest host sister and my host father who are fairly talented in it. 





From left to right: Me, Sylvie (host mom), Clemence (host sister),  Valerie (Gladys's friend) and Gladys (host sister).

 

 



Hey, kinda looks like the beach in Maine,
only on the other side of the ocean!



Everyone hopped in a six person bicycle on Sunday,
which was tiring, but we got to see the beautiful town



 

 

 



       Some people might be wondering why I would put a picture of  a balcony on my blog. It is just a plain old balcony with two doors leading to it, a railing, and that's about it.  Nothing special about it what-so-ever, not really outstanding blog material, I know.  However, this balcony has taught me a very important lesson; ALWAYS check to make sure that there is a handle on BOTH sides of the door before you close it behind you. If not, you could be stuck in the cold for a half hour before your host family wakes up and finds you.  Not a fun morning. 

 

The bakerie that taunted me from my balconie. 

  

 

 

 

A day trip to the town of Bouillon, which is about a half hour from the house by car.


A lovely castle, if I do say so myself.







 

 

A few weeks ago the Belgian Rotary organized a kayaking trip for all of the exchange students, and while kayaking we passed this cliff with a gorgeous castle on top.  Aside from being more than a little bit wet by the end of the day, it was a fun trip. 

 

My host mom taught me how to make waffles!  We made them together once, then another day I made them by myself, batter and all. 

Gorgeous, no?

 

Emails

While trying to send a notification email, I realized that I have no idea who wants me to send them an email when I write a new post and what email adress they want it sent to.  I tried to get everyone, but I don't think I did, and I also don't know if everyone I sent the email to wants to be in the email list.  So, if you want me to email you when I make a new post, would you please put your email adress in the comments?   This makes my life much easier, and means that I don't unwillingly spam people who don't want my emails.
Thanks!

A Very Late Post

 

Sorry for the lack of consistant posting, I am so busy its hard to slow down and find enough time to write!  But I will try to post more often, I am hoping for at least once every two weeks.  Also, I have tried and tried to organize an artical that says everything I want while transitioning between ideas well and has a general format and structure, but that simply isn't possible in a reasonable amount of time, so enjoy this bit of jumbled rambling, and next time I will be more organized :)

 

-School is hard, but the teachers understand that my french isn't good enough to follow the class (for reasons unknown to me, I was put in the equivallent of senior year) and the other students lend me their notes to copy.  My favorite classes are  French, English, and Gym.  It is really interesting to hear English taught in another language, and it is, not surprisingly, the one class where I understand everything!  Gym is also in the top three because while it is mostly running, I am on the same page as everyone else, running is running, no matter where you are. French made the cut because even though I can't understand much of the class, the teacher is by far my favorite.  She gives me the subject of the next class the night before so that I can study it on my own and with that starting point I can understand more in class, she also gives me homework that is different from what the rest of the class has to do, and that I can actually finish.  As for her personality, the best way to describe her is as a french hippy; she dresses in an almost oriental style that doesn't at all follow European fashion, but works nontheless and right now is teaching about famous philosophers and their ideas, which is really interesting.  She also devotes about a third of her class time to theatre practice, because we are putting on a play at the end of the year, and these classes have so far just been light-hearted memorization and improvisation exercises that usually end in the whole class giggling.   

             I think the most interesting thing about school is how my priorities have shifted, I can't do the acedemic work, so instead I put in more effort socially.  The students are really nice, and seem genuinly interested in what I have to say, and I can usually understand what they are saying if they speak directly with me  and slow down and simplify what they want to say.  When they speak between themselves, I understand about half of what they say, but I can already understand more than I did two weeks ago. 

 

-What happens when over 200 Belgian exchange students gather in Brussels?  Complete chaos, thats what.  At least three languages can be heard at any one point (the most popular were English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese) and because it is so difficult to keep 200 kids organized, we had alot of free time to meet each other and attempt to memorize names and countries. 

 



The Day I Learned About Lorries

Once apon a time in the city of Beaurang, my host sister was giving me a french lesson and pointed to a truck...

here is the very confusing conversation that followed, I am red, Clemence is blue, and while I wrote it in english for my non-frankofile friends, everything except the word "lorry" was said in French.

"That is called a 'camion'" (following the moving truck with her finger)

What are you pointing to?

 That, there! a 'camion'

I don't understand, is it that big car over there (pointing to a van close by.  The truck she was pointing at then drove off)

It's gone now, wait a minute...

Wait for what?The next camion! (she wasn't upset with me, just exasperated with the anonymous truck and that he dared to drive away)

I still don't understand, what is a camion? Can you describe it?

Umm... A big car?  No, that doesn't make sense (half muttering to herself)  In English it's a 'Lorry'. 

What's a lorry?  I thought it was a camion! I don't understand!

'Camion' is 'lorry' in English, get it?

What is a lorry? Can you spell it?

L-O-R-R-Y, but its an ENGLISH word!!!!

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand! Maybe you can look it up in my dictionary when we get back to the house? 

Ok... (obviously confused about why I was so confused)

When the dictionary didn't help, we looked it up on google translate, which translated "camion" into both "lorry" and "truck" and that is when it dawned on me...

Clemence, in English, what is that? (pointing to the couch)

A sofa, why?

And that is when I realized people in Europe learn Brittish English, and I ended the day feeling completely foolish for not figuring this out sooner.  That was also the day that I learned that in England, trucks are called lorries.  The end.

 

-Belgians love nutella.  I haven't yet been to a house that doesn't have nutella, and in restauraunts or waffle-venders there are giant two liter (about half a gallon) tubs of it.  And, my host family and I were able to polish off a "family size" jar in less than a week. I hope my pants still fit by the end of the year...

 

 

-Before I left, I looked up the time change, and I thought "well, if its six hours later, I will probably be awake at night and tired in the morning"  Nope. For a week and a half my internal clock had no discernable pattern, some nights I was tired, sometimes I couldn't resist a nap in the afternoon, and sometimes I started the day tired.  This picture was taken on one of the first days when I woke up at sunrize and saw that my poor bovine buddies (the little white dots that are actually cows) were covered in mist.  This is also a nice picture of the view from my window.

 

-Dutch words make me smile, and the dutch food-words make me crack up.  Anyone want to guess what "sinaasapplesap" means?  Orange Juice!!! Don't ask me why, but it does.  Annnnnnnnnnnndddddd, my absolute favorite; Hagel Slag!!

 

Mmmm. Melk

If you can't see the picture, those are in fact chocolate sprinkles. On a peice of toast.  Yes thats right, they put chocolate sprinkles on toast and eat it for breakfast!!! And, it all has the awesome name of Hagel Slag!  I had to actually cover my laughter with a caughing fit for this one.

 



-Turns out, Belgian French is slightly different from traditional French (they can still understand people from France easily, but a few words are different)  The words unique to Belgium are called belgesisms, and so far I only know a few.

Tirette-zipper (I am told that in France there is a different word for it, but I don't know it)

Septante and nonante-70 and 90 respectively, for example, the number 97 is nonante-sept, so much easier than the traditional quatre-vingt-dix-sept, but anything in the 80's still starts with quatre-vingt.

Dejuner, diner, and super are used for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, where in france they say petit-dejuner, dejuner, and diner.

 

-Watching Harry Potter dubbed in French is just bizzare.  The voices match very well, which makes it seem like it is actually supposed to be French, but everyone has a different voice, some work, some dont.  They also renamed a couple characters, spells, and house names to make them sound more French.  For example, Hogwarts is Poudlard, and Hufflepuff is Pouf-souffle, and they cleverly called the Sorting hat the Choixpeau, which mixes choisir (to choose) with chapeau (hat). 

 

-Lewis, the dog, has a chair instead of a dog-bed.  It is like, this two-foot tall rocking chair that Lewis jumps up into and sleeps in, it is so cute!

 

-My host-sister knows by far more songs in English than I do, as do all of her friends. 

 

-I have discovered that it is incredibly difficult to describe the phrase "Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do" in French.  It takes deconstructing the different parts of the phrase, using examples to explain them, and explaining the dual meanings of the word right, then explaining how everything fits together to make the one phrase, and why someone would put it on a shirt (where they had read it)  In the end with all of the explaining the joke was lost, but on the plus side I think they understood. 

 

-Checkers in Belgium (and I assume the rest of Europe, but I am not certain) is played with different rules, which came as quite a shock when I first played with Clemence. 

 

-Belgian style is wonderful. It is more on the plain side and less flashy than American style (as far as I know) with lots of structured jackets and a ton of scarves. 

 

-Turns out, French keyboards are organized differently than English keyboards.  Most of the letters are in the same place, but enough are mixed up to make typing quickly impossible.  I also have come to realize that it is just too complicated for me to make accent marks (like this: è) everytime I need them on my computer.

 

-Fete de Walloonie, this huge festival in the streets of the beautiful city of Namur, is so much fun.  There are people selling everything under the sun, and both French and English bands.  It is also really easy to get lost in.  Luana and I went, met up with other exchange students, and a few hours later tried to find my host family and got ourselves thouroughly lost, which led to a half-hour running around and through people, and eventually finding our way to the train station, where we surrendered and called my host-mom to come find us.  Even with being lost, it was a lot of fun.

 

 

And now a few of my favorite pictures!

 

-My Brazilian friend, Luana, striking a pose :) 

 

Clemence, my host sister, and me 

 

(top three pictures) The beautiful city of Namur, which I have now seen twice.  The first time I went, my host family took me to see the citadel (old fort-type thing) which is on a hill and has a great veiw of the city.

 

 

Another exchange student and I went on a journey to find the infamous Mannequin Piss (which is it's official name), getting ourselves moderately lost in Brussels, then realizing that there are signs everywhere for the little statue, finding it, and realizing that it is tiny, only about a foot tall, but cool nonetheless.
 

Bievre
 

 

A really cool house in Bievre made with two colors of brick, stone, and wood.

Lewis the dog :)
 

Chris (Australian), me, and Luana in front of the Atomium

 

My bedroom

 

Me, Clemence, and Gladys, my host sisters

 

Alecia, this is for you :) Unfortunately I couldn't take a segway, but I thought I would let you know that they are everywhere.

The veiw from the citadel, which was basically like an ancient fortress protecting the town

Crepe with whipped cream, ice cream, and chocolate sauce. Belgians know how to do it right :)

 

 

Namur is so beautiful!  I can't get over the oldness and the architecture of it all!

 

The First Post from Belgium

My first post from Belgium!!
I am sorry that my writing is not at its best, but I don't want to spend all of my time on the computer, and I have opted for a longer post with more details rather than high quality writing.  Enjoy!
 

Friday morning I said goodbye to my family and for the first time, boarded a plane alone.  The flight to Philadelphia went well, aside from the stewardess giving me dirty looks when my carry-on didn’t fit under the seat.  In Philly, I easily met the other exchange students, and one random girl who didn’t want to sit alone and had “never seen anyone so excited to go to Belgium!”  The flight to Brussels was long, but I slept through most of it.   Going through customs in Brussels took a while, but that was only because the little group of exchange students I was with couldn’t figure out which line to wait in, and this spent some time waiting in all of them, before finally going to the back of the correct line.  Thanks to the Magic Blazer, we got through customs in about half the time it took everyone else, all they did was look at my passport and confirm that I was an exchange student, then let me through.  In the airport, all of the host families were held back by a barrier, waving banners and whatnot, but my host-family had the biggest banner there!

 

Clemence, me, and Gladys with the welcome flag.

 After getting acquainted with my host family, we went to the Rotary orientation that was being held in another town that day, where I met the other exchange students in my district and tried to fight jet-lag through the agonizing four hour lecture on the Rotary rules and different Rotarians all saying in different words that we must study and use French, then saying it all again in Spanish.    After the orientation, my host family brought me to their home in Bievre, and in the car I succumbed to the jet lag and passed out.  That evening, we ate bread with salami and cheese, and I went on a short walk in the back fields of Bievre with my host-mom, Sylvie and the dog, Lewis. 

Me presenting the flag to the rotary.

On Sunday, Sylvie, Lewis, and I went on a 9 kilometer walk with the rotary, where I talked for a while to a very nice woman whose daughter is in Australia.  After the walk, we joined the rest of the family and went to the Rotary-sponsored lunch, where I presented the Rotary with my flag.  After lunch, Luana (the other exchange student sponsored by the same club), Clemence (my host sister), and I were just waiting around while the Rotarians chatted.   I decided that just sitting was not in the spirit of Rotary exchange, and after failing to convince Luana to join me, ventured out alone to meet and talk to people.  I remembered that a rebound once advised me that if I was ever lost or in need of help, find a pack of old ladies, they tend to act grandmotherly and nurturing around everyone, and so I sought out the nearest group of grandmotherly looking ladies and asked to sit with them.  They gave me confused looks, but after I introduced myself and started chatting, they seemed to warm up to me, but couldn’t really understand my accent.  I wandered back to my seat and asked my host-father to introduce me to people, which he did.  After that, I got a French lesson on the back of envelopes and napkins from Luana’s host-mom, with my host-mom chiming in every once in a while. 

I don’t know if the Rotary gives all of the host families magic pills or something, but my host family and all of the other host families I have met are just fantastic.  By now, I am able to communicate fairly easily with my host family, and when I don’t know a word, they explain it to me in French.  While almost all of the family know a little bit of English, they wait for me to puzzle out what I want to say in French, and then correct any bad grammar.  My host father and brother work during the day, but they come home for about forty-five minutes to eat lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day here.  We all eat lunch, which yesterday was a typical dish for the region made of boiled cabbage, potatoes, and eggs, and was delicious.  Whenever my host mom goes on an errand or walks the dog, she invites me to come with her, and I always say yes.

One evening, Sylvie, my host-mom, Lewis, and I, all drove to this beautiful little town called Bellefontaine.  Sylvie explained that the town is very representative of the region, and we walked down a little path to a beautiful stone house with a man outside, working on a stone sculpture of a horse.  Sylvie introduced me to him, and after about a minute of me trying to speak broken French, he informed me that he spoke English, and we talked about the differences between carving stone and wood. 

We then walked to a water fountain that all of the people in the village use for drinking water.  As we headed back, I saw a couple walking up with tons of empty water bottles and it hit me that in the US, such a fountain would be very commercialized, and people would probably have to pay for the water they take, but in Bellefontaine, they just go, they take what they need, and that’s that.  It’s a simple, natural process, and I am really glad that I had the privilege to see it. 

Sylvie and I also visited the site of a battle (the name of the battle and the war I unfortunately didn’t understand) where the soldiers ran over a cliff and died.   The sight has a now ancient plaque to explain it and benches lined up for a church that occasionally goes there for Sunday worship. 

In general, I am having a great time here.  Occasionally, it is really stressful and difficult, mostly because it is difficult to communicate, but I haven’t had any real problems yet.  I now have a cell phone, but I can only use it in Europe and yesterday I got my bus card.  Tomorrow I am going to Brussels with all of the exchange students on a tour of the capital.  It will be my first time in Brussels (aside from driving through a little bit of Brussels on the way back from the airport) and my first time on the train!

Unfortunately, some of the photo's don't want to cooperate with me, so hopefully I can add them in later.

I hope everyone is doing well! 

-Rachel

Welcome To My Blog!

If you have found this blog, chances are that you know me or know of me, but if not, here is a little introduction.  My name is Rachel Rokes and I am a sixteen year old living in the quiet little town of Andover, Vermont, but I won’t be living in Vermont for much longer!  Actually, I won’t be living in the USA for much longer because in eight days I will catch a plane to Brussels, Belgium.  For the next ten months I will be living in Bievre, a small town in south-western in Belgium as a Rotary Exchange Student.  I will be about an hour from the capital of Belgium, Brussels, and only a few miles from the French border.  I will be in the French-speaking region of the country, hoping that the three years of French that I took in school do me some good!

I intend to post news, stories, photos, and other information about my exchange year on this blog. I hope you enjoy reading, and wish me luck!