DERAE's 4th REPORT
Bonjour!
Ok so it is now my fourth month in Belgium. This month has been very busy but I will try to talk about everything. At the beginning of the month the Rotary Rotex here put on a exotic dinner. Everyone had to make a dish from their country and all the host parents came and tried the food that we made. For Canada we made Bannock, stew, and Pancakes. The dinner was really good and really fun.
Since it was Saint Nicholas the next day, they brought Saint Nicholas to the dinner and he handed out candy and everyone got to take pictures with him. So I'm guessing you're wondering what saint Nicholas is. To be honest I am still not to clear on what he exactly is. Since they don't believe in Santa Claus like we have, Saint Nicholas is pretty much there Santa Claus. But like us its more for just the kids. Saint Nicholas was on December 6th. For this day Saint Nicholas comes the night before and leaves candy, chocolates and gifts for the kids. I didn't realize that it was that big of a day. In the morning my host brother came knocking at my door trying to get me up and when i went downstairs i was shocked. Every surface in the house was covered in candy. There was candy everywhere, even on the floor. For breakfast the table was covered in chocolates and we drank hot chocolate and ate pain au chocolate(It is a croissant with chocolate in the middle, very common here).
The 11 of December was my last day of school before the break, except I had exams the next week. I had to write four exams in French, Social Science, English and Math. The exams were extremely hard. Thankfully my French teacher wrote me a different one which made it easier. Other than English the others were very hard. That week i also had a rotary meeting/Christmas dinner. It was like most other meetings except me and the exchange students handed out gifts and chocolates to everyone.
After that week of exams i was finished school for the break. I decided I wanted to travel as much as I could and see as much of Belgium as I could. That's one of the things I love about Belgium, I can hop on a train and travel anywhere in the country. So me and a lot of the exchange students travelled around Belgium on most days and saw a lot of Belgium.
After a nice week of vacation it was Christmas. I was expecting Christmas to be very sad and horrible without my family but it was not that bad at all. The only thing that was very different was how Christmas was not nearly as big of a deal here as it is in Canada. I was expecting to wake up in the morning and go downstairs to gifts and all the other kind of things we do in Canada. Instead the day went like any other day. For dinner we went to my host brother's house and had a family dinner there and exchanged gifts. It was really different but really interesting to see.
So December was a pretty big month and i decided to save my new years for next month's report. Also coming up on January 2 I switch host families which should be exciting and weird. Well that was my fourth month in Belgium so bye for now! Bisous!
Derae