October in Belgium

 At the beginning of the month all the exchange students went on a day trip to Namur to see the fort. We were allowed to take photos on the big tiger tank that they had situated out front of it. Then later that week all the Canadians meet up in Liege for the day, and had a little reunion. A week later rotary hosted a river cruise for all of us. This was kind of uneventful as we just sat on a overcrowded boat trying to take photos of the "castles"(chateuxs) on the river banks, but we were given waffles which was cool. One of the most exciting things that happened this month was that i finally got to attend to Belgian Rotary meeting. So in Belgium the meetings are on Thursday nights. The meeting starts at 6:30 but a lot of them arrive earlier and have a drink before the meeting starts. Then they have a several course meal and the "local wine connaisseur" force feeds everyone a bottle and a half of wine while asking if you can taste the difference in the altitude. A few days after that a few Canadians went to the beach and when they were going back home their train had to stop in Liege because there had been an accident on the tracks. So long story short, there was a surprise sleepover at my host families house at midnight after talking to my host father to see if it was okay for them to spend the night. The next day i got to go to a hockey game here in Liege. We arrived early a got to go skating which was a great feeling to get to do something that i never thought i would actually get to do here in Belgium. Now they are not the best hockey players but the tickets were free. However this past week has been a holiday in Belgium, so this was kind of a free pass for me to tour Belgium with all those who also did not get into the Paris and London trips that are going on this week. On Saturday i went to Brussels for the day and got to see a bunch of street art exhibits. Then on Monday i went to Leuven/Louvain. The reason the town has two names is that the first one is the dutch part and the second is the french part. This made for a really fun train ride as we tried to figure out which one was the one we were going to. Then Tuesday we went into Mons for the day and got to see the town from the top of a cliff that is famous for having things thrown off of it. We did not get to throw anything off of it as they had a cop stationed there to make sure people did not do it. Then Wednesday some exchange students from Flanders area came into Liege and go to see all the cool stuff we have. I went with them and saw a lot of stuff that i had not seen despite living here for a little over two months.