2nd week - Le Carre, SNOW, Verviers, 'Lac De La Gileppe'

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30/1/2012

Today I woke up around 9 or 10 I guess, and upon opening the wonderfully pink curtains in my bedroom, I was greeted by a yard full of snow, covering all the roof’s nearby, and all in all a pretty magic looking scene. I took off downstairs and began taking pictures from the comfort of the house of the glistening exterior. Following lunch, Clara and I headed out into the snow, and took a sled around to one of the nearby hills to have a few runs down. I couldn’t resist taking a bunch of photos as the sheer beauty of masses of snow covered objects everywhere, coupled with the frosted landscape. I had a go at rolling down the hill after a demonstration form Clara, and at around this time the sub zero chill started to really have a bite, so we took back inside. The rest of the day was spent having French lessons with Clara, and she taught me essential verbs and nouns.

31/1/2012

Today was another early school day. I really haven’t gotten used to the cold yet… But now I have a great new man scarf that’s proven to be a real asset. It was awesome today at morning interval, out in the big courtyard where everyone kind of conjugates, there was a big snowball fight. You had to keep your eyes on the sky, because there were snowballs from every direction coming in. I still find snow such a novelty, but I can tell that the locals here don’t share the same feelings, as its more of an inconvenience than anything. We also had our first rehearsal of ‘Gospel’ today, and a bit of a run through the first song ‘The Show Must Go On’. Sasha also lent me his guitar to practice on, which is a decent Epiphone Joe Pass Signature model. More of a jazz guitar, but it should do the job.

1/2/2012

The first day of February brought with it an adventure in which because we finish school early on a Wednesday (12:30), all the exchange students travel to Leige, where we are now actually allowed to go to ‘la Carre’, which is a group of pubs in one square. It was awesome there, and I saw all the people from the orientation weekend that’d just happened. It was a really small bar, but we somehow managed to fit in all the exchange students from around the district. The trains (and all public transport actually) are awesome here, and you can get anywhere in the country promptly for reasonably cheaply. You do need to know exactly where you are going, and where your connecting train or bus is though, but luckily we had our oldies Riley, Eliza and Morgan to help us find our way. So my first night in ‘La Carre’ was awesome, and I think that now that it’s technically ‘legal’ for us exchange students to go, a lot more go now.

3/2/2012

Tonight, Friday night, I was invited around for dinner at Nicolas Host familie’s house which I was stoked about. Today took long enough to end, so when it finally did, we were all off to Chicco to hang out. As I dint want to be late for the dinner, I took one of the earlier busses home, and I left Chicco to go catch the bus. When I arrived at the station, I waited a few minutes with Claire and Riley who kindly escorted me to the station. I was told to get the 738 bus, as there are bus routes all across the country to get people to all sorts of places, but this bus was mine, so I got aboard, and off we went. All was well, and I was getting keen to get home when all of a sudden things stopped looking familiar. Doubt began to seep into my head, and I was trying to piece together where I might be. We continued on, and I finally saw a sign that said Verviers, Claremont. However, we were on a overpass, and were going almost the exact wrong way for someone such as myself who needed to get home to Thimister. This is when I kind-of knew something was wrong. We kept going, and went through a town called Battice, where we made some stops. But I thought to myself that we might just be taking a really obscure route to Thimister via some nearby towns. So I stayed on, and we exited Battice. Ten minutes later, with no sign of going in any way to even the general direction of Thimister, I thought I might cut my losses, so in the next town of Herve, I got off outside a Swimming pool and watched the bus continue on it’s obscure route off into the country.

I didn’t realise at the time, but apparently there are two ‘738’ busses. 738a and 738b. Well, of course, I should have taken 738a, but I took the wrong one and hence why I was in some random town I’d barely heard of let alone step foot in before. So I called Alain, and Robin came to my rescue, and picked me up around 6pm in Herve. After defrosting in the house for a while, I was picked up by Nicholas host father, host brother Roman, Patrica (an exchange student from Brazil), and Romans mate. Vincent and Mano Colyn have a house around 15-20 minutes away in Herve. Their house is amazing, it’s so big… As Vincent explained to me later that evening, they’d bought it when it was basically just a skeleton of a house, and then over 10 months, they completely refurbished and cleaned it up, with the help of a very unique architect. They had awesome large windows, a cellar, 3 stories, and an elevated fireplace. Mano is an amazing cook, and we had my first Mexican meal since I’ve arrived. Then we had an epic battle of ‘Just Dance’ ,which is a game for a Wii, which you do heaps of random dances on. Patrica (being Brazilian) had an unfair advantage of being a naturally great dancer though. By this time the night wound down, and we all crashed at around 2.

4/2/2012

Today, we awoke at 9, and I got back to my place at around 10, and slept most of the day. The French wine takes some getting used to. Anyway, that night, we went to a party at SFX, which I think was a type of fundraiser for the school to raise money for class trips and such. So off we went into the sub -10 degree night, and arrived there. It was 5 euros to get in, then you could buy a drinks card with 10 drinks loaded on it for 6 euros, which was a bit of a bargain. The music was sweet though, and the normal Belge anthems came on.

So when 2.30 rolled around, I was incredibly tired and cold, so as the party drew to a close, Sonia came and picked me up, and I slept solidly till 12 the next day.

5/2/2012

Today once I woke up, I went on a walk with Sonia and Alain to the ‘Lac De La Gileppe’, which is basically a massive dam that provides Verviers with all its fresh water. As we pulled up, the sight was amazing. As you looked down the valley onto the Reservoir, the frozen surface of the Reserve shone up onto the snow covered trees surrounding the lake, and gleamed. So we walked into the observatory and took a few aerial photos of the site, before we began our trek down the hill, and around the boarder of the Reserve. The dam was over 130 years old, and could hold many billions of litres of water in its max capacity state. As you may be able to see in some of the photos, there was a 15 meter high statue of a lion, which was erected by the second king of Belgium to mark Belgium’s strength and power, as the lion looks towards Germany. It was actually strangely warm in the sun, and we had a nice look around and walk around this famous Belge landmark. Then we went home, and had some ‘gateaux’ that was a special Belgium recipe, and we enjoyed it with some of Sonia’s and Alains friends. Whilst I was trying to stay awake, last night caught up on me, and my eyes just could not stay open, so I took up Alain on his offer and slept until dinner that night, which was a special dish from Switzerland. This dish works by having a special little machine that has a heating element inside, and 6 trays that you could pull in and out. You’d take out the trays and put in cheese and onions, and ham, and slide it back under the heating elements where it would melt the cheese, and cook the rest, and you’d enjoy it poured over sliced baguette. Such a unique and tasty dish. I was beat, and after a quick dose of last minute homework, I was out.

6/2/2012

Today was another dreaded early Monday start, but luckily rotary came to the rescue, and after 3^rd period, we went with Mr Rueter to the rotary meeting, held in a nice location around 15 minutes away from school. There we met the chairman of the sponsoring host rotary club, and various other members, as Chris and I sat at the ‘Important table’, since we were the newies. We were introduced to the club, and we handed over our banners and tucked into a three course meal of soup and slicked baguette, Belgium frites (no surprises there) with a chicken side, followed by crepes with caramelised pears and tea and coffee. Just such a good feed..

So from there, we went back to Morgan’s host families house, where, as we walked to the bus stop to get picked up and taken back to Verviers, we jumped a fence to go check out a frozen lake, and hopefully try to break it. However out of nowhere came the apparent owner of the lake, and shouted at us probably to get off his property or something, but we left anyways. No matter though, as ten meters down the road was a public rest area, with a frozen lake that we spent a good 15 mins running and sliding (and falling over) on. It was awesome !.

7/2/2012

Nothing to say about today really, it was cold…

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