Oook... So I have been a little slack at this lately.. I'll try to make up for it!
Wow, I officially only have 99 days left in Belgium. It's super crazy to think about! When I first got here I remember thinking 'wow, I have such a long time here...' but ever since Christmas, time has literally been flying by! It sounds clichéd, but it's true! All of a sudden it stopped snowing, then started to get hot, then BAM! spring is upon us and i'm outside sunbathing! It makes me think of all the things I still want to do here! I know I won't be able to do everything, but that just gives me an excuse to come back! Also, I've noticed that many people here are very into travelling (I get it, it's very easy!) But I still think to myself, It's super cool that I can travel here, but I did choose to come to Belgium, to experience life here - so if I end up staying in Belgium instead of going on a Euro-tour, it's not exactly a bad thing...
Speaking of travel... my trip to Morocco is in 11 days! That has definitely crept up on me! I am extremely excited! It will be a chance to experience a totally different culture, and also get to know more of the people at my school, seeing as I only really know the ones that I have classes with. However, the weather there is apparently 30° right now, thus... it is highly possible that I will die there from overheating. Or loss of water due to my constant sweating. Oh well, hopefully it happens to everyone else too.... haha.
I am also still hoping to make a small trip to Amsterdam with some friends. Maybe in May we are thinking. We have discovered the joys of buses! They are so much cheaper here, making a return trip to Amsterdam only 20€!
I will also have some free time between when school ends and I go back home. Some girls and I have been talking about a trip to England and Ireland (!!!!) but I also REALLY want to go to this festival here in Belgium. It's four days long and you camp there, and it has the most AHmazing lineup!! Only catch is that it costs 195€ for the two days... But we will see! I also have my best friend from when I was younger who's just moved to Switzerland! So hopefully we'll be able to catch up then too!!
Tomorrow there's an AFS barbecue near to where I live, so I shall be attending :) Hopefully it's good! :p
It seems the school is catching on a little as to the fact that Eliza and I have occasionally been skipping school... It's just so tempting in the sunshine lately!! But I think we'll have to cut back.. We recently went to Brussels for the day (to find a Nikon repair shop) and ended it in the irish pub for some Hoegaarden (my favourite name for a beer!). This guy she'd met once was there and he gave her a rose!! ahhh.. how romantic <3 However, he doesn't speak English, nor French, only Romanian... So there's a slight catch. I was more worried about the fact that he was wearing a visor type thing upside down AND to the side. It looked very... special.. But the fact that he was shouting made up for it a little ;)
Otherwise, school is going OK. I'm a little over it though.. When you think about it, I was getting over going to school in NZ, then I just decided I'd do a whole other year here! It also doesn't help that people in my school are just annoying!! Ok, not all of them, but many! They're all exactly the same. Dressing the same way, having their hair in the same hairstyle, saying and thinking the same things. They always talk about the same boring stuff and they're just so... Self involved? I dunno, they just annoy me greatly. They also have problems not getting in people's way. They'll be walking in a door, then stop right in the entrance, preventing you from entering yourself. Or halfway up the stairs they'll stop to give someone a bisou, have a chat, or sometimes they just stop for no reason!! Arghh! It's making me insane! The girls are the worst.. They are just.. clones... And bitches too very often. It's so boring ... But I enjoy laughing at the looks on their faces, especially the ones who seem to have just caught a big whiff of poo. Whenever I meet people who don't go to my school in Belgium, I find them really cool and interesting. But anyone from school is just dull... (though again, there's the odd exception). They just do the same thing every day... But at least I'm not like them!
I may not have mentioned it before but my host brother is in Holland right now on AFS. He came home the other day for the weekend so I got to meet him, and he's really cool! Although I already knew that. He was the one who got me into his family, and we often talk over facebook. But it was good to see him in person. I feel sorry for him though cause he had an AWFUL host family. He just changed, after waiting about 7 weeks. His host father used to scream at him all the time, and threaten to kick him out. His host mother was a manipulative little bitch who tried to control everything that he did. So thankfully that's over for him!! I can understand the relief he must be feeling right now!
One thing that I've learnt here, I've noticed lately, is that I've become more.. house trained, I guess you could say. I now clean my room on a regular basis, I help out with cooking and all things like that, and I do my own washing. It's cool knowing that I can do things for myself. It also kinda makes me motivated to keep doing it back home :)
Ok, gotta go now, cause we're having a dinner party and the guests have just arrived!
Byeeee xoxo

another week..

Alrighty then, what has been happening this past week...?
Well.. we finished up our trip to paris in style, visiting the sacre coeur and going shopping in old paris. it was fantastic. Our youth hostel was top notch too! we were staying at the Plug-Inn hotel :)
When I got back to belgium i stayed with my friend one night and we went to see 127 Hours. It was soo good!!! ::)
The next day i went to meet my family at the seaside. the first day was average weather so we went to Bruges (so cool) then the next few days were loooovely :) so we spent our time go carting and bikeriding beside the sea followed up by some sand castle making and kite flying :) ahh it was fun!
Monday was back to school as usual. It was good to see people again, but... school isn't exactly my fave hangout haha. On tuesday my friend convinced me to skip school (it was only english and religion really) and go to brussels with her. it was pretty fun! Except when she took me on a walk to find the park, telling me she knew exactly where it was, then leading me in the wrong direction for 45minutes haha. Buuuut it was all good in the end :)
Well yesterday was wednesday and I decided to go to my friends to another city for a student party! it was pretty good too :) buut we didn't get too much sleep haha. soo last night was sleeeping night :)
Oh yes, so thursday and friday are days off this week in my school :) Which i don't mind at all!! haha.
Oh well i'd better get going, i have plans to meet my friend for lunch! yum haha
byyyeeee

PAAAAAHRIS =)

Well here I am coming to you from the youth hostel kitchen in Paris. its our second night here. WE took the bus here and almost missed it due to late trains, but i all sorted itself out in the end, besides being hated by the bus diver. After arriving here we went to the Louvre for a wee looksee around. it was fairly aweso;e i ;ust say. after a stroll through the gardens we carried on up the champs elysees and took a lovely photo of the Arc de Triomphe. We decided to stay in that night cause we were all dead on our feet<
This ;orning we had our free breakfast then set out for the perfume museum which smelt delicious i must say.. then we found a supermarkeet to buy delicious goods for lunch and dinner. we then wined and dined 9literally0 under the eiffel tower. it was extremely romantic. after that it was time for the notre dame, pompidou then back for eat time!!!
Both nights we made a short voyage to the night store for some lovely wine :)
So Johanna it seems has shit luck. Firstly she takes money out of the wrong account meaning she has none left for paris< then<<.... blah blah many things then we get a ticket control in the metro. she cant find her ticket. she gets charged 40 euros for that. she has like 20.... hmmmmm.... so, she has no money now.... haha.
anyway. ill update this again later
bye xoxo

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.