Sunday, December 30, 2007
Gelukkig Nieuwjaar Everyone!! Well I can truly say, this has been an amazing year!!! This month alone has been great! I was off from school for most of the month, so I got to do a lot of site seeing. My friend Nichole from Cooperstown, NY is an exchange student in West Flanders, so I went to visit her for three days. And then she came to visit me in my city for 3 days. It was a ton of fun. We also took day trips to Gent and Antwerp and also toured Rodenbach Brewery! I made another day trip to Antwerp and also Hasselt with groups of exchange students to do some site seeing and ice skatinggg! My host mom took me to the Museum of Fine Art in Antwerp and also to visit the christmas market. Belgium is so beautiful during the holiday season! Each town has a christmas market for at least 2 weeks and an open air skating rink for a month. Everything is all light up and there are vendors in the shopping streets selling roasted chestnuts. In front of each town's cathedral in the grote markt are life size mangers.... with real animals (a donkey, sheep, goats, sheep, ducks, chickens)!! Its great!!! The holiday season has been difficult though... not being with my family for the first time during the holidays. I miss you all very much, but my host family tried really hard to make christmas special for me. (Their daughter is in Chile on exchange, so they know what I'm going through.) We had a great christmas eve dinner and I went to Belgian christmas eve mass. Christmas day, all of their family came over and we had Fondu. It was a fun time!
Last night my host family took me out to a really nice restaurant for a going away dinner. And today I packed up all of my things. Tomorrow I am going to Brussels and celebrating New Years Eve there with some exchange student friends. Then on New year's day I move to my second host families house. But I won't be unpacking until two days later because once I get there, we are going to Holland to visit some of their family.... this second host family is originally from Holland. Then on Wednesday, I go on a day trip to Brugge (a city named to be the most beautiful in Belgium - famous for its picturesque canals) with Rotary.
So it will be a busy next few days. And I have so much already planned for the new year... time is flying by!
Thank you all for your Christmas wishes. I miss you all and wish you a happy and healthy new year!!
P.S. My new mailing address while I am living with my second host family is...
Whitney Brown
Larikslaan 1
2460 Lichtaart
Belgium
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