Week 47 - Ice Skating, Jack's leaving party, Brussels day.

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26/12/2012

Today was the final carre, and was also the day I planned to give out a lot of my old clothes I either no longer wore, no longer wanted, or could not longer fit into my suitcase. Arriving at the carre, I threw all the t-shirts around, and people replaced their t-shirts with the ones I threw, which was pretty funny to see. The afternoon ended up pretty danm good, and we partied ‘till quite late as this was really the last time we’d ever do it like this. I’m definitely gonna miss the carre. No wonder it’s renowned world over by exchange students.

27/12/2012

FINALLY ! always wanted to patinage (ice skate), And during the winter season, there’s temporary rinks set up all over town, even in Verviers. But today we were going to one of the biggest we knew about, the indoor patinoire situated in Liege’s massive shopping mall ‘Mediacite’. It was a little hard at first, and the initial step onto the ice was bizarre… There was very little friction, and you just glided over the ice. Being stable on the ice skates took some time, but after around 2 hours on the ice, and after the ankles started feeling a little stiff, we packed it up, and Mark and Nathalie picked me up for a dinner at their friend Linda’s house. We had a massive spag bolg, and I sifted through her entire music collection, which was the closest relevance in terms of musical matches to back home I’d found since being here on exchange. She had everything we had back home. Before we left she handed me a beer called ‘Bon Secours’, and wished me a happy and safe depart. I assured her I’d be safe.

28/12/2012

Tonight I had a leaving party at Jack’s house, and from about 7pm Chris, myself and Antony arrived at his for a night full of drinking games, re-telling stories of exchange, and just general banter. It was sweet, and as always Jack’s host dad was his normal, extremely hospitable self all the night. Even when we’d run out of beer, he was on the run to a mates to get more. A sweet as night was had by all, and probably the last time I would see them.

29/12/2012

Headed off today with Jack, Chris and his family to Brussels, as Spanish family friends of Jack’s host family wanted to see Brussels before leaving (they were o holiday here), and so off we went. Spent all day getting a durum, and chilling out watching footy in Celtica with Jack and Chris as we’d kind of already seen all the Brussels has to offer on a tourist level. Seeing the Atomium was something I’d never done before, and it was simply stunning.
Tonight my Belge friends had organised a dinner party type thing, and upon coming back from Brussels for the day, I was off to Theux to Laura’s house, where I met up some of my best mates from SFX. We had AMAZING vegan pizza, and had a few typical Belgian drinks like Leffe and Peterman’s before leaving, and it’s fair to say I was shattered getting back to chez moi that night.

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