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Published: November 11th 2012
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12/09/2012
Once a month, we exchange students are taken from the grimy depths of the carre, to go do a rotary planned activity somewhere in Belgium for the afternoon. After all meeting up at Liege around 2, we all jumped on a bus and took the half-an-hour-or-so bus ride to Blegny, where we’d be descending down 60 vertical meters into an abandoned coal mine, and having a walk around down there. After arriving, we had some kind of safety presentation, and soon enough we were kitted up in blue trench coats and yellow safety helmets, ready to descend. The lift down was the same one they used way back in the 60’s when the mine was still running, and they piled us into this closed-cage lift where we descended the 60 meters in little over 10 seconds.
Once down there, we heard a tonne of info about the atrocious working conditions of the men, the fact that horses and donkeys used to work down there too, only to return to the surface once they’d died. Also the fact children used to work there too, due to both parents working there and not having the money for a baby-sitter at
the time (the money for being a coal miner was terrible..). So we basically were taken all around the different parts of the mine, experienced the noise down there (imagine heavy machinery operating in a small, rock tunnel… the reverberations were deafening). As life was tough, they all tended to be quite religious, and would all prey to a virgin Mary statue every day before descending down into the mines. I guess this was one thing they could count on to keep their wits about them being so deep underground, in disgusting work conditions, earning very little for the extremely claustrophobic and backbreaking work.
After all this we were given a hour or so to chill out, eat and drink something, and enjoy the sun. On the way back, an air-conditioning unit decided to explode in the bus, coving a girl with green, steaming hot air-conditioning fluid. This meant we had to wait for the next bus to come rescue us some time after, but the girl was fine after they rinsed all the fluid off, and made sure she didn’t have an allergic reaction or anything.
15/09/2012
I was off this weekend with my host family
to the south of Paris, to visit their friends and participate in a Baptism ceremony for their new child. The car ride was crazy long, but to my delight there was an AUX input into the car sterio, meaning we didn’t have to endure the incredibly average music the Belgian radio stations so intensely looped over and over all day. So there was John Mayer, Jack Johnson, James Taylor, incubus, sublime, and a bit of sneaky deadmau5 for good measure.
Arriving there, we unpacked, and headed out for a walk around the village before the ceremony began. The ceremony was a typical Belgian one, with all French songs, two signatures in the sacred book, and gifts given to the baby in recognition of the event taken place by the godparents of the child. Afterwards we basically feasted on amazing paella, and had a few drinks to celebrate.
16/09/2012
Today we went to visit two of the most famous castles in France. The first we toured around was called ‘bleu-fontaine’ (blue fountain), and the sheer size and magnificence of this castle an it’s grounds was insane. The meticulous attention to detail in terms of the garden layout was
amazing. It took us about 2 hours to walk around the perfectly kept castle ground and courtyard, and after this there was the castle to take a look around. There, we checked out the rooms of past kings and queens, and we saw their beds that they used to have, which were weirdly small. Turns out that they used to sleep in a sitting position. Why ? Because apparently their biggest meal of the day was dinner, and so after they’d eaten this immense meal, the upright seated position was the best to aid them in the digestion process.
The climax of this point of the journey was the spire of the castle that we climbed to, up a tiny one way staircase. Here you could all the castle grounds in full detail. The channel of water at the end, the geometric gardens, the walls surrounding….. It was really something to behold.
The second one we visited was just as awesome, but quite soon the sun and all the walking caught up with us, and we got back in the car for the 5 hour ride back home. On the way back, there was a massive traffic jam,
which prolonged the journey from the expected arrival time of 10pm, to 1:30am. But at least we had Bon Iver to lull us all (but the driver) to sleep.
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