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!