Orientation Weekend !

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After waking up today, after a much needed sleep in, I began preparation for out first orientation weekend being hosted in Belgium. Here, we’d meet all of the current inbounds who’d already been here for 6 months, who were known as the ‘oldies’, and also all of the new inbounds from parts of the world such as Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, Brazil and the US of A. We met everyone in the foyer of the Chaussee de Wegimont, which is a beautiful old castle like building, complete with a moat and everything. It was awesome. From there, we did the rules and regulations talk, and an update about the rules surrounding a popular student hangout at a place called ‘the carre’ in Leige, which is basically a tonne of bars and clubs in the centre of Leige where all the uni students hang out, and where all the rotary students meet on Wednesdays.

So we then had dinner, and we played games like this one where you’d say something you liked, and didn’t like about the person sitting beside you (just physically), and everyone would go around and say these things about the person sitting beside them. This was all well and good, and things like a like for peoples ears, necks and eyes were said, and dislikes for knees, fingers, and even toes. The (unknown to us) second part of this game was that this time you had to go around, and kiss the part of the body you said you liked of the person sitting beside you, and bite the part you didn’t like. You can only imagine the hilarity… I cant wait to bring it back to NZ and have a few games on some unsuspecting mates. Then we played a music quiz where everyone would sit in a circle (quite a big one), and in the middle was a tea-towel. The object of the game is that over some speakers would play songs (either reasonably well known or one that featured in a famous movie or TV series), and if you knew the song when it started playing, it was up to you to get to the tea-towel first, cite the correct artist or song name, and subsequently earn your team a point. There were all sorts of collisions happening during this one, and it was pretty awesome. After this, I got out the guitar after one of the oldies spotted it at the dorm, and we drank, ate and sang the rest of the night away basically.

Another sleep-deprived night lead to a slow morning, with an afternoon of a continuation of rules and regulations, but with the host parents attending this time, who we had a massive lunch with beforehand. Complete with an Italian soup dish, steak and frites and a salad, and an éclair for dessert. I met both my second and third host parents which was so cool, and they both are really jokey laughy types of people, which suits me just fine !. Then it was all wrapped up by 4:30, which when we eventually left, it was ZERO degrees Celsius outside. This was unlike any cold I’d felt before, and it was lightly snowing. They say that next week it might get down to as low as negative 8. You read that absoloutly correctly, negative 8. Bring it. Sonia bought me a man-scarf, so I’m ready. That brings me to now where I’m celebrating the fact that I have no school tomorrow because schools are closed due to a strike. So all in all, a big weekend where I met some cool as people. OH ! I almost forgot ! I nearly cried with happiness when I read on Friday that INCUBUS is coming to Belgium !! I found a girl there, Claire, who is an oldie that is also keen to come see them. This makes getting the approval easier if she comes with me. But as you can imagine, I was all ears on what exactly I need to do in preparation when wanting to go to a concert.

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