Wow, so I may have dropped the ball on this blog thing a little. OOPS. Well I'm back and I will try to update you on my new experiences. The past few weeks I've been traveling a lot, especially just before the beginning of school to ensure that I could go to the places i could before school takes all my time. These trips included, Bruxelles, Brugges, Leuven, Enghien, etc. These were amazing and I love the flexibility I have on the weekends and after school with the access to the train station in my town. Bruxelles is always very nice because of the presence of English, it makes everything so easy. It's also very convenient for the other exchange students so it's sort-of the go to place to hang-out. But starting last week school started and I've been super tired after school due to the shear amount of translating I have to do in every conversation, it is so mentally exhausting. However, my host family is understanding of this and respects my afternoon naps.
Also, the bus to my tiny tiny town is very inconvenient because it only runs 3 or 4 times a day. Twice in the morning, 7:30 and 9:00, in the afternoons on wednesday at 1:00-ish and finally, the very last bus at 4:00. This doesn't seem like a big issue, "Jakob, just don't miss the bus," but the issue is that my school finishes at 4:30, so yeah. I am not complaining though, I get to miss the last class of the day and go home and nap!!! What an exchange life. Also, over the last few weeks I have discovered something very interesting about rotary and school in Belgium; both are so disorganized it's actually shocking. The school schedules are very 'all over the place' and I still don't know the name of my inbound counsellor and we haven't had any meetings yet. But, it is something that I must accept, I am trying to embrace the culture after all. Other than this, school is very interesting, a complete opposite of the very laid-back system in Canada. The people are nice but it's very frustrating that I can't communicate and make good relationships yet. But that will come and I'm already able to see progress.
A lot of the faux pas are very shocking still and I'm still struggling to fulling embrace the culture. I also don't feel 'part' of the family because I can't communicate effectively with my host parents. Along with this, homesickness is hitting me like a train, probably partly caused by my constant fatigue from school and translation. Of course there are ups and downs, day where I hang out with good friends or my host parents are amazing, however, days that I just return from school, I feel immensely lonely and I haven't developed any coping methods yet, other than taking long naps or listening to music. Unfortunately, the day my family and I went to Brugges I was struck by a very strong wave of homesickness. When the other exchange students said "when you miss home, you start hating everything around you," and, from experience, I can't agree more. It was so bad that day that I started to hate even the shape of the road signs. Thinking back on it now its really funny, but in the moment it wasn't so. One thing I do hate about my town is the infestation of house flies everywhere, when you are sitting in class and on lands on your neck, and it won't go away, no matter how much you swat at it. And you don't want to make a huge swing because it would draw the attention of the teacher, but he just keeps coming back and landing on my head. I hate flies.
Even with everything I "hate" in the moment, certain days I fall in love with everything. Today I went to Mons with another Canadian and it was so amazing. It is possibly my favourite city. On Wednesdays, school finishes at 1 o'clock, so a lot of the exchange students travel around and meet places, however, unfortunately I have a French course in the evening on Mondays and Wednesdays so that is a little inconvenient but it's necessary for me being able to get some friends!!! There is this girl who really enjoys seeing photos from Hiking in Canada or Gabi (the Brazilian at my school) at parties so that's how we communicate.
September 19th is the birthday of a very important person in my life, ME!!!! Ok, I'm not egotistical but I am super excited because I am allowed, by my host family, to have some people over for the night which is super exciting. And also, an old friend who lives near Berlin is coming to Bruxelles that weekend and I am super excited for that too. Along with this, I have some cool trips coming up, but I will keep you all in suspense, otherwise why would you come back to read the other blogs?? Anyways, I am writing this very late at night and I have classes tomorrow at 8:30, ugh. I will try to post again soon, if you are not patient enough you can e-mail or comment and I might post sooner. And, as always, here are some photos of the past few weeks below.
The phrase of the week: "Inconvenient but understandable."
The last photo is of the school, Yes it looks like a prison, it's even worse from the inside.