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17/5/2012
Today was a day off for everyone, as employers and employees alike were given a free day, along with students. This was the first day of the three day preparation for the annual Rotary Talent Show, and as I went to go to the gare at 9am sharp, I spent my time practicing the guitar while waiting. An hour passed, and I though what the hell is this ? Turns out, the email said you could arrive between 9-12. What kind of instruction is that ? a three hour variable time to arrive ? There must be a reason. And there was. There was one car going the 15 minute trip back and forth from Theux to Verviers transporting over 50 rotary kids from all over Belgium. Good ‘ol rotary. Having waited, I was on the first car there which was good, and once we arrived we all started jamming and catching up with each other. Basically all today was, was a day to decide what you wanted to do, and who with. Walking in, I was playing one song on the guitar, something like ‘Carolina in my mind’, ‘Vincent’ or ‘Home’ (Jack Johnson). And wow did my plans
change by the end…. But all in good time. At the end of the day, which was pretty relaxing for the majority of it, Jack came back to my house. We ate out at a friterie, in a really nice rural setting. After this we crashed soon after getting home and having some casual brews.
18/5/2012
For the second day, there was the same early start time, but today was a little more organised and on-to-it than yesterday, and we decided that today, the boys would dance to a girly song, because basically, why the hell not ?. We decided on Shania Twain’s “Man, I feel like a woman”, but this was soon changed to ‘single ladies’ by Rihanna, because we’d actually seen a funny as movie on YouTube of Justin Timberlake Dancing to it, and we thought we could give it a danm good shot. So after Claire took us in as the coach, we figured out a routine, and were kind-of set for the dance tomorrow. There was also a dress rehearsal today, where (apart from makeup), we got fully dressed up in skirts and bras, which was to say the least, a weird experience. It
goes without saying that many, many photos and laughs were shared today. After a long day, Christelle and Jean-Claude picked Jack and I up and they dropped us at Laetitia’s friends house Terrence, where we were treated to a night of free pizza and an array of Belge drinks on the table, from “blonde cocas”, to Peterman’s, to “rouge vodkas”. My favourite part of the night was when someone introduced me to the awesome DJ mixes of DJ Bl3nd. Not usually a follower of this kind of music, but this guy was awesome and we jammed out to him for the night. Needless to say, my iPod’s full of him now.
19/5/2012
Late to bed, early to rise. Can’t open eyes. Gotta hate the always early starts to almost ALL rotary organised activities here. Ah well, c’est pas grave. Anyways, today we had a different (and evidently, much stricter) lady running the show. This meant very little time for messing around. We were rewarded by a colossal feed off pasta for lunch though, and after a moments thought as to whether we should really get the massive after-pasta bellies just before trying to be sexy as hell for tonight, the boys knew that a good pasta meal shouldn’t really ever have a reason to be missed, and we rocked our beer bellies. It started at around 4pm, and everyone was so so good ! just before I went on, I got a spectacular lead on from Riley, Chelsea and Juan..
“And now, we will see Henry. He will play and sing for us, and it’s he’s first time so be nice”
”He comes from New Zealand, and as you know, there is heaps of sheep in New Zealand. So, he is Kiwi, and all his friends are animals. So when he sings this song, he thinks of his friends”
So I sang you’ve got a friend by James Taylor, and mixed up the vocals a bit. Next was a dance I got pulled into literally at the last moment and danced with Brad and Bernardo to ‘party rock anthem’ by LMFAO. This was so fun, we shuffled our asses off. Dressed up in the most bizzare way we could find, because we wanted to resemble as closely as possible LMFAO, we just lived like true exchangers, YOLO (you only live once – kind of our motto here…). Our last thing following this, was the ‘Single Ladies’ dance. We went all out on this one. Mascara, eyeliner, lipstick, skirts (rolled up) and borrowed bras from other exchangers, we went onstage and in front of some of the most important men in my exchange (councillor, district governor, travel co-ordinator), Jack, Connor, Brad and myself danced like there was no tomorrow, and received undoubtedly the biggest applause at the end of the show. It’s another moment of this exchange I’ll never forget. The men were all in good spirits about it though, and the Belge Rotarians congratulated us for the courage to do that and for the general good humour and ‘originality’ that’s the key to these Talent shows.
Anyway after that all wound up, a few of the exchangers decided to stay at the building and eat dinner with the public (which was free for us), so we hung around and played piano and jammed while people were leaving and waiting for the dinner call.
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