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Published: January 3rd 2013
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10/12/2012
I’d been preparing for this day pretty during all the free time I had last weekend, as I was about to give a 20 minute presentation of my choice to my rotary club. This was for a number of reason. It was the last speech I’d give there this year, it was one of my last re-unions with the other members, and it was to show the development in my French during this year. The topic was up to me, and having seen presentations form my oldies, I thought I’d do a little mix-up. I really wanted to talk all about my year, the things I’ve learnt, seen, heard and experienced. Show off some of the photos I’d snapped, present the times I’ve passed here in Belgium. But at the same time, I can imagine the dullness if EVERY exchange student did this for their members at their club, as for the members (despite how unique and special the student perceived it to be), it all would become quite monotonous after a few. The other clear topic of interest was my country, which I could imagine would be super interesting (if done right) for the members.
But
me being me, I decided to go for a 50/50 split. Retain some memorable facts about NZ, a comparison of the GDP, Population and surface area of the two countries and yet have the personal aspect checked, by presenting my 5 favourite moments of my exchange. I was all set, and soon after lunch finished, I got up and go to the presentation. The last slide I had an absolutely breath-taking video of slow-capture New Zealand scenery. I had this playing, and over the top, I sang and played acoustically our national anthem, “God defend New Zealand”. I ended up getting a 2 minute standing ovation from all the members. The club president gave a bit of a speech about how they’ve enjoyed hosting me, and it was all goodbyes and farewells (despite there being one remaining one final meeting next week).
14/12/2012
This Friday, I was heading off to the Netherlands for a weekend with the Elferinks, the same family Mum, Dad and I spent a weekend with around the start of October. I headed off at around 2:30pm for my bus, as Nathalie and Mark were both busy. What eventuated from me having to take the bus was that the ONE place in Belgium with two bus stops with the same name, is Jalhay. I was there, chillin’ (literally – it was negative 5 degrees..), and saw the back of the bus trail away. There went my schedule. Without a cell phone number of the Elferinks to tell them of my new adjusted schedule, I had a dilemma of having them waiting for me for an hour in the Nijmegen station while they awaited me. Without thinking, I texted Mum and Dad asking for the number of a member of their family to try and resolve the problem. About 2 minutes later it became apparent to me that it was around 3:15 in the morning when I send them a text. Didn’t think that one through.
Anyways, I ended up finding WIFI in a local Mc Donald’s, and everything went well, as they arrived just after I completed the 3 hour 15 minute journey, and back we went to their place for dinner. Following this we went and watched Rhea’s boyfriend play a game of indoor soccer. Made me feel a little bit guilty for doing zero exercise here. After the game the feeling left though,
donc tant mieux. We chatted all evening, and Rhea busted out a bottle of rum that we made a pretty good effort of polishing off.
15/12/2012
Today we were up and at em’ at 9am to go check out Helen play a few games of hockey at a local sports centre. We sat and drunk coffee as we watched form the courtside stands, and after three full-action games, we retreated back to the house. From here we met up with friends of the Elferinks who have a daughter who plays guitar, and had just bought a new one. Unfortunately she wasn’t there and we couldn’t jam, but I had a good chat to her parents (who spoke great English – like all the Dutch). During the rest of this night, we did all manners of things from checking out bullets that used to lie in Bernard’s personal UZI, to watching Dutch TV shows about fake Japanese reporters, to how to cook.
16/12/2012
Having a nice sleep in today, I was off to the train at 1pm to catch it back to Verviers. Tonight my host family had organised my last dinner with all my host families at our house, for one last big re-union before I left in around 20 days. Getting back into Verviers at around 4, I was picked up and had some time to catch up on what I’d missed being away the weekend, and to tidy up a bit before the Winandy’s and the Compere’s got here.
They eventually arrived, and we had an awesome time skipping through my exchange photo album, recounting the stories we’d made together, and drinking fine French wine. Nathalie really outdid herself and made a great three course dinner, which after the 3 hour train ride, I was dying for. But as for the last meeting of all of us before Christmas, I gave them a few presents Mum and Dad sent me that’d arrived just days before. But a great night was had by all.
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