So it's been a while since I've written and I've done a lot in the time that has passed.
1st during the week of Carnaval I went to Amsterdam with my host parents. We had a wonderful time. The weather was great and we rode our bikes around for 3 days straight. I really enjoyed that trip... it was the same days as the Rotary trip to Amsterdam and we saw a lot of the same things. We actually ran into some of the exchange students in McDonald's one day. It was exciting to see them there. I love the tulips in Holland. We didn't see them all over the country side but we saw a bunch in the little shops in Amsterdam.
I have not been motivated for school. I have a hard time wanting to do my best. Some exchange students and I were talking and someone said that this exchange is starting to get boring... As far as school goes I completely agree... I wish this could just be more of a vacation but that's not the point of an exchange. And the things we do outside of school are so cool that it's so worth it.
On the 27th of March we went to an Adventure park. We did ropes courses, a zip line and a crazy mine simulation. I had a ton of fun and met some more new people. While we were doing the ropes course there was a section where there were logs with a little green rope under them. I stepped on the log and said, "hey it moves.." then log spun out from under me and my arm caught on the wire cord. I had a huge bruise for about a week...
In the beginning of April we had a Rotary weekend near Namur. We talked to the future outbounds from Belgium about our countries. It was a cool experience. I wish we had something like that last year. Something for more than just 1 day.
My host parents and little brother left on the 6th for Ecuador to go visit their daughter.
I spent 10 days in a bus driving to Greece. We left Sunday the 10th at 5:00 pm and we drove through Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, and Italy. In Italy we took a boat to Greece. We had a lot of fun and we all got very close on this trip. It's hard to spend that much time with anybody though... by the end of the trip everyone was on edge just about ready to flip. There wasn't really any drama because people were pretty good about talking about there problems rather than exploding but it got pretty tense at times.
We didn't get to our first hotel until Tuesday night. On Wednesday we did our first actual visit of some beautiful monasteries. We visited for a few hours and then quickly we were on our way to the next city about 4 hours away... We ate dinner and went to the hotel and then had to go to sleep. We did basically the same thing the next day after visiting Delphi for a few hours. We then continued on to Athens where we visited for the whole day before driving on to Porto Heli.
Friday night we were staying in a beautiful resort in Porto Heli, right on the beach. We went swimming at midnight and had so much fun. Saturday we took a boat to Hydra, an island without cars. We spent the day there it was beautiful! That night we were at the same resort and we went swimming again.
A lot of people dyed their hair on this trip it was pretty crazy to wake up and see a bunch of girls who had been blonde the night before now with red or purple hair!
The next visit was Mycenae. Can I just say how beautiful Greece is... All of it! I just wanted to stare out the window the entire drive!!!!! I wish we could have spent more time visiting rather than in the bus.
On the 18th we went to Olympia. That was really cool to see where the Olympics really started and to imagine them so many years ago running on that field where I got to stand!
Right after the visit of Olympia we drove to the port and got on the boat. We had a 23 hour boat ride so I got to start my birthday on the boat. I was hoping to be able to celebrate that and really enjoy it but it wasn't what I expected my birthday to be like. I am now 17 it's crazy! So I decided that rather than being bummed for how my actual birthday turned out I'm just counting the entire Greece trip as one big great birthday celebration.
After the boat ride we had a 20 hour bus ride back to Belgium. I really wanted to see Switzerland so I talked to the bus driver and he stopped at a rest stop so that I could put my feet onto Swiss ground and officially say that I've been there. I would have liked to have slept on the bus but that was difficult... I probably got 3 hours on the bus.
I was sad to leave everyone after the trip. We had gotten so close in those 10 days cramped in a bus. I hope we can all stay great friends throughout all our adventures.
My host parents are in Ecuador till tomorrow so I've been at the house with just my older sister. It's been fun I really like her.
Friday night I went out downtown with a bunch of exchange students and got home at 6:30 in the morning and then at 11:00 I left for the beach with some more students. I tanned a little bit. It was soo nice. The weather has been wonderful lately. It's not normal for Belgium to be this sunny. Normally there's a lot more rain around this time of year.
Yesterday was Easter and it didn't feel like Easter at all because I just went to church (it was just a normal service) and then came home and had some friends over. There was a girl from Australia and a girl from New Zealand. They both live far away and would not have been able to make it to brussels in time for a big get together this morning. We woke up at 4:30 in order to get there in time... It was just for Australians and New Zealanders so I was able to come back home and sleep. For lunch I went over to my counselor's house. We ate a traditional Easter meal: Leg of Lamb, Green Beans, and potatoes. Dessert was strawberries. YUM!!! I love spring and summer foods.
Tomorrow school starts back up and I don't want to go... I hope that I can still have a little bit of motivation to get there... We'll see...
It's a Small World Afterall
