I love playing in the park. I love not having to take a jacket with you when you walk outside. I love eating ice cream to cool down while walking outside. I love watching little kids blowing bubbles and playing tag and hearing them laughing. I love love love spring!
After my Greecian adventure, it was back to Belgian life!
April 22 I had a girl's day at the Spa in the city Spa with Mallory and Mollie! The weather was magnificent and we treated ourselves to pool time, saunas, steamrooms, we even took the leap and went to the "all natural" section of the spa- we are some brave girls!! After three hours of being pampered, we went down into the city and had a lovely dinner- OUTSIDE- so great and ice cream for dessert! The girls all came back to my house and spent the night. The next morning we all went on a run together in the sunshine : )
We dropped the girls off at the train station and I went with Annie to her nephew's communion lunch at a very fancy Chinese buffet! In Belgium they think that a Chinese buffet is super exotic, which I alway giggle at, but I had fun teaching her whole family how to eat with chopsticks and what food they were eating!
The 24th was Easter, and it was one of those picture perfect easter days... sunny and warm with everything green and in bloom! We didn't have to go far for Easter dinner, Mary José, my host aunt and Annie's older sister, lives literally in the house right next door! Each family brought a pasta salad and we all just sat around outside enjoying the sun and each other's company! I was given lots of little chocolate eggs- although no chocolate bunny ( I am pretty sure that doesn't exist here, since I did not see a single one throughout the season...).
The 25th there was another Carnaval!! I love these things! This one was in Hèrve which is the town that I go to school in, and what is special about it is that evey float is pulled by worker horses!! It makes the parade goreous because all the horses are dressed up too, but I did feel kind of bad for them, since they are pulling a ton of weight and it was about 70° outside! Just like every carnaval- I had a blast! I got to hang out with a lot of friends and came home full of confetti- who can ask for a better day really?? : )
The 26th-28th I went to some of what I think will be my last days of school, so my main objective was to finish my research project!! It is complete!!! I am so happy! I did a 40 page paper in French about all aspects of the Rotary International! I was beaming all day Thursday when I got finished- so so proud!!
That weekend, starting the 29th, was the 'Outbound Weekend' for District 1630. This is the weekend where all the Belges that are leaving on exchange in August come together for information and most importantly, this is the time that they find out where they will be going the next year! The Rotary has some exchangers from each of the countries that the Belges are getting sent to come to the weekend so that we can be somewhat of the "know-it-alls" for the Belges to ask questions to. Friday afternoon we organized presentations about our country and the got the kids settled in their rooms, had dinner, and gave the presentation about life where we are from. After that, each student finds out where he or she is going- it's a really exciting moment : ) I had so much fun and there is one girl going to district 6060 (my district) in Missouri next year- I have no idea where she'll be yet, but it was exciting!!
The second day, we woke up and while the Belges had meetings, we had a session to tell fun stories about stuff that has happened throughout the exchange-- we were brainstorming stories to tell the Belges for each aspect of the exchange like the airplane, the first day at school, homesickness... any little stories. Then we had lunch and took them on an 8km walk where we dispersed amongst them to talk about the exchange- they could ask any questions they wanted or just talk- it was so fun! I loved seeing them like that because I knew that was me 9 months ago! I talked to the girl who is coming to Missouri a lot and her friend who is going to Minnesota as well- they were adorable! That night we told our stories to the kids and then did a little skit, telling the story of a year on exchange- the kids loved it and afterwards we were all hanging out together and they were storming us with questions! SO cute!!!
The next morning we cleaned up and moved out of our hotel rooms and then Mollie and I took the bus back to my house. There we went on a run and took her back to the train station to go home. That night I went to bed early, preparing to get up at 5:30 am to start my first day as a baker!
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