Week 25 - "Hey Ya" Recording session, Wallibi

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13/7/2012

Today, My first host family, the Compere’s came around for dinner and a catch up. Coline of course had a lot of stuff to get sorted before she left on Sunday (two days away), but she still made it. We sat around talking about the exchange to come, and how best to go about having the best time, and general things to do.

15/7/2012

Today my mate Maxim decided it was due time to record another song, after his last video on YouTube got 10,000 hits for their cover of “Airplanes”, by Hayley Williams. So off I went to his house, where I met up with Steph and Guillaume (yes, that’s his actual name !), and we hung out a bit before getting to it. Made me miss home so much as I entered Max’s room. There was a warm 40W Fender Deluxe Reverb, a USA standard Strat, and a custom made pedal board with around 5 boutique pedals on it. Needless to say, it took them a while to get me off that and to get to actual recording. The song he’d chosen was “Hey Ya” by Outcast, and we got right down to sorting out the parts. After a few times over each part, I re-listened and thought it’d sound a bit more developed with a harmony chucked in. They thought it sounded really good, and at around 12pm we wrapped it up. Because their video had got 10,000 views, they celebrated with the best, and most expensive beer in the world, the Trappist Westvleteren 12. Being nearly impossible to buy because of its rarity, and the fact its brewed by a few Monks in Belgium, it was truly a once in a lifetime beer-tasting experience. The taste was just incredible. The fact it weighed in at 10.2% alcohol was non-existent, because of the ultra-smooth taste. But a single 250ml bottle split 4 ways only got so far, and Wyn cam and picked me up after we’d slowly drunk what is regarded as the best beer in the world.

16/7/2012

Jordan invited me to hit up the gym today with Terr and His mate, and luckily for a free two week subscription, I got in free. It was some of the first proper physical activity I’d done in months, and now my body aches all over. But it’s a good, satisfying ache.

17/7/2012

Got up nice and early at 7am today, to go to Walibi, the park I went to in week 14, But this time I was going with Jordan, Terrence and three other mates of Jordans. It was sweet as, and we did most rides 3 or 4 times over. But after one run on the “Dalton Terror”, (think free-fall), my stomach was not on its game, and I had to sit out the following 4 times, from fear of vomiting. It was a good day because there were hardly any other people there, so the lines were super short, and the weather held out for the whole day, with basically zero rain the whole day.

Despite getting back home, exhausted at 9, Jack invited me to a party at his house. His new family he’d moved to 4 days earlier live in Thimister, not fat from where I used to live with the Comperes, so getting there and finding the house wasn’t too hard. Getting there, I met his host sister Ali, who is leaving for an exchange to Invercargill in two weeks ! So I told her to make a trip up to the better of the two islands, and come visit in Hawkes Bay some time next year. Also I met some Czech people here on holiday there, and had a good chat about where abouts I have to visit when I go there. But when Ali’s parents turned up, and the party started dying down around 3, Jack and I crashed.

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