The 26th of August through the 31st !

Bonjour a tous,

I'm having such a wonderful time here its hard to find time to write on this blog. On sunday or the 26th, in the morning I went with Voisin to his choir to sing, and I will be doing this every Sunday now. My host mom Nathalie, her boyfriend Voisin and I went to "la dousse d'Ath" which is basically a celebration in the town of Ath. We went there and for two hours we watched a parade pass with giants and marching bands, each representing a piece of history. It took a long time because just down the street everyone stopped and had beer, and then continued. Here beer is drunk like soda. It was great however. All a long the streets of Ath are flags with the colors purple, white and yellow, which are the colors of Ath. You can even buy necklaces and bracelets to wear as well. Besides the parade, there were numerous carnival rides, and I had my first corne of frites or cone of french fries !!! And crustillons. They had so many different things you could put on the fries from ketchup to tarter sauce to fish sauce. And crustillons are a specialty in Belgium which is just fried batter balls sprinkled with powered sugar. They also deep apples, bananas and pineapples in the batter and deep fried them as well. Overall it was a great adventure.
Monday or the 27th I went to my rotary counselor's house and rode horses with his daughter. It was fun, but weird for me because we rode English saddles and I had never done that before.
Then Tuesday I went to the Coast with my counselor and his family. The beach here is a huge boardwalk, at least the one I went to. WE rented a huge bicycle slash 4 wheeler and rode all up and down the boardwalk. Then we roller skated up and down it and finally just walked along the beach. Xavier the small boy of my counselor just went and ran into the cold water. We were lucky though because it was beautiful and sunny the whole day. Then we went and had famous ice cream from a famous shop that starts with a V oops... And we also got Babeluttes which are sticks of candy made only on the coastal areas. That night they took me to a Tuisinain restaurant where we order couscous and it came in a huge bowl of plan couscous then we had to add vegetables which consisted of turnips and carrots. Then you add meat and sauces to each individual bowl, it was wonderful!!!!! What a great day !
On Wednesday I had a Rotary meeting in Bruxelles where we went to the Royal Palace and then to the Senate and I meet the President of the Senate and talked to him ! Not even my host family has seen the senate. There is about 300 exchange students in Belgium from all three districts. It was a lot of fun meeting some many people from many different countries. I took the train there and back. Then Wednesday night Voisin's god father and wife and daughter Virginie came over and we all dinner together. Christine (the wife of the god father) just bought a brand new Chihuahua which she named pee wee and he is only three months old ! So cute yet so small we call him crevette or shrimp.
Thursday Juliette (my host sister), Voisin and me went into Ath and walked around the Thursday market until around noon, when Juliette and I took the train to her father's house. It was his birthday Thursday so we went to celebrate it. He father will also be my second host family. He and his wife Anne ( Juliette's step-mom) have four girls living with them. Three of which are from Anne's first marriage: Aurelie (14 years old), Deborah (11 years old), and Virginie or Titi (8 years old). Then Camille who is two and a half. (and adorable) So we cooked dinner and appetizers for his birthday. It was a lot of fun, and we ended up staying up till 1 or so.
Then today or Friday, Voisin and me went to my school and got information on my school. I start on the 9th of September but for half a day to get registered for classes and stuff. I will be in 5 th grade ! (the have a different way of counting). I'm really excited to start school and begin making friends and improving my French. Well that's it for now. And for my photos it is really hard to put them up on this blog so I put them on another called Facebook and then links are below.

Bises,

Lizzy



Ath pictures:
http://hs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=49624&l=8f94d&id=803190472

Bruxelles pictures:
http://hs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=49968&l=df5ff&id=803190472

Other Pictures:
http://hs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=48419&l=2bf59&id=803190472