Notes from Valerie Verhei in Belgium

I heard from my Dad that my letters didn't get through, not really sure what's going on with that. I'll try to recreate them here.

 

  My Rotary club is ,of course,similar to the Hawks Prairie club, but also very very different. For one the meetings are for dinner, and last late into the night. The one Tuesday a month I attend, I usually get home a little after 11, and the Rotarian who gives me rides is always one of the first people to leave. The food comes in two courses and then dessert and is always quite elaborate. Sometimes it's amazingly good, sometimes it's a bit too creative for me, but it's always interesting. Also at the Rotary meetings is Milou, an exchange student from Argentina. She's been here 8-ish months already and will only be here for another month. Her French is very good and she didn't know any upon arrival, so she's a bit inspiring for me when I have linguistic diificulties.

 

  The school hours are intense: 8h25-4h25 every day but Wednesday. On Wednesday, I've only got 4 hours of class and this is standard all across Belgium. The things that make school less difficult than it sounds are that I have study hall rather often, an hour for lunch, and two 15 minute break, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The use of computers is emphasized much less than at home. Personally I don't like that, I think it'll be harder for the students here when they enter the workforce and can barely operate computers.

 

  The Rotary district organizes a trip once a month. This month, we went to the limestone caves at Remouchamps, they were quite pretty. The caves are very old, it takes about 100 years for a cubic centimeter of rock to form on the stalagtites. It was lovely too see the other exchange students, although we were fairly noisy on the train which I don't think was appreciated by the other passengers. Oh well, we didn't do anything bad, we were just all talking at once. It's really great to have such a good public transport system, especially for exchange students. You can go just about anywhere between the train and buses. Next month the trip is to a brewery.

 

 I'm not having an easy time, but I am enjoying myself. Thank you all very much.

 

Bisous,

Valerie Verhei

 

PS: Best wishes to Pamela, I hope she's enjoying Washington.