Radio

I have now talked with CBC Radio One on Ontario Morning three times. It has been such a wonderful experience for me, and I'm so grateful that they have given me this opportunity.

It all began after I did and interview for a newspaper article along with Natassja, who is another outbound student. So Natassja and I enjoyed our time talking with the Barrie Examiner,and as the interview was coming to a close, our interviewer asked us if we wanted to add anything else... My Mom being my Mom (sorry, I can't explain it any other way...) wanted to share how proud she was of me, and said that she was so excited for me because she had an idea about what waited for me on my exchange because she went on exchange with the same program when she was 16.

The radio called me less than a week before my departure to see if my Mom and I would be interested in doing an interview because they thought our story was interesting
My First interview was on August 15 with my mom. the main topic of the interview was the lead up to my departure; how I was feeling about to leave and how my Mom was feeling watching me go having a little bit of an idea about what was waiting for me.

The second interview was October 5. This was a follow up interview about what has been happening, the differences I've noticed, how I was feeling and dealing with the culture shock.

My third and most recent interview was on January 4. The focus of this interview was on my encounter with homesickness. If you've read my Homesick post in December you already understand how I could talk about this for ten minutes...

I will keep you posted about any other interviews in the future...
:D

3...2...1... Happy New Year!!!

For New Years it is absolutely mandatory to go to a party... that's Belgian culture for ya.
So I was going to go to a party in Charneux.

My New Years eve evening started at 7 when I went to a friends house to eat before heading out. There was a total of 8 girls there, 3 exchange students (Canada, USA, and Japan) and 5 Belges.

We laughed ate and had an all round good time. we did not leave to go to the party until 10:45!! this is a totally new experience for me. at 11 I'm in bed...

It was quite an experience  at for me at the party... it truely was shocking what I witnessed. I thought I would not see a party like that until university not at a party where the majority of the population was 16,17 years old!!

By 1am , I had more then my fill of New Years. I didn't end up leaving until 3:30 (never in my life have I ever). At that time I was a little ticked off and now longer was "having a good time." It wasn't until a couple days after that I could laugh about the whole thing.

That's one thing off my list of things never to do again (to that EXTREME)


... I'm not a party girl...

Disney Magic

We left at 4am from close to Liege and did not arrive to Disneyland until close to 11am. We walked and walked until we got to the front gate... like at any theme park.

Elenore, Elizabeth, and Yurina (missing Charline, and me)

It's a small, SMALL WORLD!!

The Chicken faced her fears and went on Space Mountain!!! I was screaming and everyone else was laughing...at me...

This was the first moment of the day where I totally let go of everything and was living in the Disney world.

It was a lovely fun day, filled with screams, laughs, and good times. It might have been drizzleing the whole day but we didn't notice.

We stayed until after the fireworks and light show after closing.

We were told that the bus was leaving at 11:45 sharp and that they would not be waiting, and I knew that they would not be waiting... we did not get out of the park itself until 11:35 then we had all the walking to do. As time ran out we just ran faster and faster. Now I'm extremely asthmatic meaning it does not take a lot before I need my puffer. After running over 300m in cold weather, I was wheezing like there's no tomorrow. Don't worry I lived... I know a few things to help calm down my asthma. One of the most painful thing s that I could do was to laugh, so what were we doing laugh at me laughing like a smoker... oh man...
We didn't get home until 4:30am...again...
Needless to say due to all the rain and cold I was sick the following days...