My time is slipping away!!!

Well another week has passed and now i'm starting to fret!! It seems like time is just going so fast, and there are so many things I still want to do...

Last weekend I was supposed to go to Holland to stay with a friend and see a My Chemical Romance concert. However it didn't work out :( It turns out the week before my friend (whom I was going to stay with) went to London and couldn't contact me throughout the week. Turns out she didn't have the tickets anyway though so no real harm done! I'll just have to go another time! Instead I got to Skype the fam :) which was really nice!

Well.. This weekend I'm going to PARIS :) wahooo!! haha. Then when I get back on Wed i'm going to the North Sea with my family :) So that'll be nice!

I did my "New Zealand" presentation for my geography class and my famil and they both really seemed to enjoy it! My family said they now wanted to visit NZ :) So that's exciting!! Also my younger host sister said she wants to name one of her children Harriet. I am so awesome. Obviously :)

Eliza's mum came over from Latvia to see her on Monday and I got to meet her on Tuesday (I got to impress her with my latvian skills). She was really nice, but made me a little jealous... I've been daydreaming a little of what it will be like when I go home, thinking of all the things I want to do. Then I remember all the things I want to do here and think "golly! One thing at a time!!"

Oh yeah, so Tuesday I heard about the earthquake - it was on the news here for a few days. It made me so sad.. and also a little homesick - like I felt I should be home at a time like this. It was really touching having people coming up to me concerned and curious about what was going on. I've been reading the online reports and have cried a couple of times (I don't see how you can't!)

Well... That's all I can think of right now. I'll let you know how i go in PAAARRRIIIIIS :) :)

byee xoxo

best part

OMG i can't believe I forgot to mention the most hilarious part about this whole thing!!
So while my fellow Latvian Crew were out celebrating our 6 MONTHS of being in belgium (that is quite a feat) mixed with Mother Latvia's birthday, it seems that Mother Latvia decided to get into a teacher....
Let's just say we had a substitute English teacher at the start of the year whom M.L. found fairly attractive.. Well he just happened to walk into the Irish bar whilst she was in there.. Let's just say a couple of drinks later there was no more talking going on between those twoo.. (raises eyebrows in  very "you know what i mean" way...)
Ahh... cracked me up - well, just thought i'd share that ;)

ouch! my head hurts

soo... funnily enough it's not for the same reason as usual... haha
Well, this past week I have had the lovely experience of being sick! wahoo :)
On Wednesday it was Eliza's birthday, so I made her a card and got her a twix (yum) and said i'd take her out to dinner in the weekend and then out for a few drinks. unfortunately... I hadn't planned on getting sick! So I decided to skip the weekend out and stay at home instead. The family are away for the weekend so i'm here with my host brother looking after the animals :) i'm actually pretty keen to have just a relaxing weekend at home - i forgot how tiring school can get!! Thus.. the reason for my sore head.. I was exciting the toilet, but when i opened the door i managed to jam it with my foot and not suspecting it to not open, slammed my head into the side of it - leaving a slight hole in the side of my forehead, how great :)
Soo... school. Well, i'm feeling positive at the moment! I guess it's something that kinda goes up and down for me and it all depends on who i'm with, what day it is, if i'm tired and what class i'm in! But, overall i'd say it's going pretty well.
I am slightly stressed about something though! Next weekend i'm supposed to be going to holland to see MCR with my friend, but i haven't been able to get tickets here - she said she'd try get some there so now I just have to wait and see.... I hope it happens!! If not, I'll probably just go anyway.. :)
Hmmm... I dunno what else..? I got permission to go to Paris! So that's all sorted :) aaaand.. yeah! that's all I can think of right now!
Anyways, hope you enjoy my non - delayed posting :)
Peace out Latvians. xo

another update..

alright alright! emily told me off for not updating this lately, so here i go!!
so.. two weeks ago (jesus, already?!) i had the week off. On monday i was lazy and hung around home :) On tuesday I went to Waterloo with Eliza. We went and found the Lion on the hill and took photos and all things exciting! Then we found a lovely little pub place which made Eliza super excited because she could smoke in there and apparently it felt 'homey' haha ok... On Wed i stayed at home again :) :) i really don't mind sleeping in!! On Thursday I went and rescued a drunk Eliza and took her to meet her friend in Brussels - not an easy task!! Then finally Friday rolled around and i managed to buy Danger Days by MCR, a FANtastic album!

ON Saturday.. I had to get up early (gasp!) and my host brother took me to the train station because this weekend was the midstay AFS camp!! wahoo!! pretty much everyone took the train there and i totallt felt sorry for the other passengers cause we were takin' over!!! At the camp I was immediately disappointed as we weren't allowed to eat for what seemed like hours! i think it was actually 20mins... Thus we decided to aluse ourselves with countless "that's what she said" jokes, mostly at my expense!
Basically the whole weekend we were split up into groups to talk about our feelings. sometimes it was good and sometimes it was fairly average. But meal times were fantastic, between mixing puddings until they look like diarrhea, having "who gets the most bread" wars and trying to figure out what some of the mystery dishes were (including grey slop covered in cheese and chicken like legs the size of my arm!), we managed to entertain ourselves with many more "that's what she said" jokes and unattractive stalker photos of those eating...
The weekend was really great overall, and I loved seeing everyone again and meeting yet more people! It was sad though how they reminded us that the next time we're in that situation we'll be heading home soon!!! It was a bit of a shock to realise that..
OMG my life has been ruined!! I've been spending a lot of time with Americans and those who speak English with an American accent, and i'm afraid it's rubbing off on me!! It was actually one of the American girls who pointed out to me that I was losing my accent, and it's true! It scares me. Also, the other day i said "garbage" - it scared me greatly.

On Monday I went with Rosie to see "the kids are alright" and it was good! It was nice to go see a movie :)

This weekend I went to Brussels with some other AFSers and we hit the Anglosaxon pubs! aha always a treat :) We had quite a lot of fun! Paha.

Ummm... yes well I am lazy so will stop there, but yes.. Have fun waiting for my next post!!

Harriet.

Another week gone..

well, well, well.. here we are yet another week later. i must say, when i first got here i was thinking "wow! i have a whole flipping year here, that's so much!" I had heard people say that time flies, but i must admit that i didn't completely believe them! However, now that i think that i am already halfway through, it kinda shocks me! like, 'oh dear, how'd that happen??'
During the week it was school as usual, but i did have one fairly exciting thing happen! So I have a fair amount of free time at school, and often go to the coffee shop 5mins away. the owners are really nice and we have a few chats. I was talking with one on Tuesday and she kinda asked me if i'd ever be interested in a job! i was kinda shocked, but unfortunately had to go catch my bus so couldn't discuss it with her. obviously i'd have to see what it involved, cause i'm not allowed to sign up to do any work or anything, just odd jobs. so i guess i'll see if that goes anywhere..
I am now a little stressed about what to do for my community service thing. i totally can't think, but.. i'm hoping something will come to me.. haha.
We got given some information about morocco at school, and its making me fairly excited!!
On Friday we went, as a family, to Brussels to this big outlet store thing which was super cheap anyway and outrageously cheap now because of the sales. I found an awesome pair of converse which turned out to be only 25€, compared to 80 odd normally - and then in the end my host parents bought them for me as a gift :) it was super nice :)
On saturday i went to Liège with Lila and Nicky (USA) and we did a little shopping, then had pizza hut for dinner (yum) then went to the carré - its like a block of bars and restaurants. Usually it's the place to be and is packed with exchange students, however this week there just happened to be a big festival thing on so it was a little empty. not to worry though - we ended up in maccas eating DELICIOUS McFlurry's =) When i was taking the train, i had a hot chocolate with me. this creepy old black man sat down opposite me and started making movements towards it (it was empty by now, anyway). i gave him my best WTF are you up to? face, and he was like 'can i have some?' 'ummm... no. it's empty anyway.' 'please?' 'no! it's empty!'..... 'where are you going' 'i'm getting off at the next stop.' 'really?' 'yes' 'really?' 'yes' 4really?' 'yes! (i really was!)'..... 'can i have some?' 'no, it's empty! (come on you slow poke...)' 'well... how much was it?' 'i dunno, like 2€, '  'OK, just give me that.' 'what?!' 'just give me the 2€' 'wtf, no.' 'c'mon i'm hungry' 'no. (stared out the window, pumps up the music and ignores his moving mouth.' - it was both very frightening and very annoying!!! luckily my stop came soon. also i was like wtf, cause he was playing with these two cellphones the whole time..
This week and for two days next week, i have NO school! i am fairly excited about that :) so i may get a chance to have a wee look around at various places in Belgium! i dunno yet, for the moment i'm just enjoying a sleep in :)
Ok then, i'll keep you updated on any travels i make this week :) see ya!! xo

lets get a government..

well hello there, it seems like quite a while since i've last written anything, but that'll just make this one extra good :)
school's been continuing as usual, possibly even getting a little boring. I feel like i want to do something different, interesting. like i dunno talk to people i wouldn't normally or anything like that. That sounds a little lame but i feel like even just a little change like that would shake me up a bit!
Last weekend i stayed at a girl from my class' house and some other girls came over. we made crepes, a galette du roi and had a few drinks. it was pretty fun! on saturday i went home and hung out with the fam :) on sunday it was a really nice day and we all went for a bikeride outside which was really fun!
On wednesday this week i went with AFS to the European Parlement. Instead of taking the train like normal, Eliza (Latvia), Liam (USA) and I decided to take the bus. That way it was a little adventure! i googled mapped it a bit but really we had no idea where we'd be when we got there and how to get where we wanted to go! Luckily we had a very enthusiastic bus driver who gave us all the directions we needed, and with only some slight illegality we snuck onto a train and BAM! were there in one stop! We unfortunately had about 3 hours to spare, so went in search of a pub (we are in belgium after all). We ended up in an irish pub, and in search of something interesting i wanted to try a stella and coke, but the coke machine was broken so i settled for a stella and cider (called a snakebite!). So yeah, the actual parliament was pretty fancy! we got airport securite checked as we came in. the room was so clean! and nice looking. it was cool! That evening i took a ride with a stranger. haha. i got off my bus and a guy who occasionally gets off with me had a car waiting for him so offered me a lift home. i figured i could always army dive out of the car so i accepted. but it all turned out fine :) except that his maniac son drove through the village at about 75km/h!!
on friday i decided to finally take a little advantage of the sales. i bought an AWESOME hoodie and a cool book about india. so that excited me a bit :)
Yesterday we went to the new Clint Eastwood film, the Hereafter (Au-Delà), in english. it was REALLY good! my host mum talked to me in english for the first time there and i got such a shock because she had such an american accent! almost not french at all! haha i wasn't prepared for that!
Today we're going to brussels to take part in a protest telling belgium to finally get a government, after 6months without one. so that should be pretty interesting too!!
I'm also very excited because i'm planning a trip to holland to go see My Chemical Romance and stay with a girl from NZ who's there on AFS. And then i could even meet my other host brother in real life!! :) :)
ok then. that's about it. byeeeee xoxo

latest updates

so now i'm back to school, it's been two days so far, and i guess its not too bad.. It's a little difficult forcing my eyes to open in the morning and forcing my tired body out of the most comfortable cloud of a bed, but somehow i manage...
The last week of the holidays i spent sleeping in late, watching movies and prisonbreak, and enjoying the holiday. it was great :)
On Sunday i moved into my new home! my room is super cool :) and my bed is awesome! We also fed the donkeys, there are two.
school was school, not too much to report there. i now take the bus, meaning i leave the house at 7:30 and get to school around 8:07 :) i haven't yet taken it home yet, but hopefully when i do tomorrow i get off at the right spot!!
i really like my new family, they're so happy and helpful and warm hearted :) so i'm excited to  be spending time with them.
yeah, there's not too much to report just now, all is going fabulously boring :) but i'll try to remember to be regular again with postings and report anything exciting.
biisous xx