Fête de Wallonie, c'est gaie!

I had an awesome weekend. Really, I did.

On Friday I had my favourite course in school, Histoire de l'art. Those who know me *coughschoolfriendscough* know that that's not my cup of tea in Finland. But here it totally rocks my world! It's the only class where the teacher has a powerpoint. I am not kidding. In Finland almost all teachers use powerpoints in class.Here it's just in histoire de l'art. And my prof actually speaks at an understandable speed for me, and since she has PICTURES! Almost understanding everything is a huge thing for me. I still can't take notes but I have awesome friends who I can loan notes from. After school, I hang out with my hostsister and some friends of hers.

On Saturday I slept late just because I could and was really tired. Hearing French all the time makes me so tired... On the afternoon I went to Namur to fête de Wallonie which is basically a huge feast for the French speaking Belgians. I have now learnt to be proud of learning French in Belgium. I have a pin with a map of France (titled France with Frenchies) and Belgium (titled France without Frenchies). Hello, my name is Emilie and I'm a Pinoholic.

I hung out with other RYE students in Namur and we had a blast which means PICTURE TIME!

What I learnt that day: Barbapapa is actually Barbe à papa which means cottoncandy!

Mölkky! The students at the local university brought the game here from France :D They were really excited to meet a real Finn!

Pins from Namur. The one in the upper-left corner is the "France without frenchies" one. The two first from the left on the front row are also mine.

I slept over at Nana's since my hostparents were at a soirée that evening. I came home today and have been copying histoire de l'art notes and waiting for my package to arrive. About 15 minutes ago it actually arrived. SUPERSALMIAKKI <3! And also the edition of my local Finnish newspaper featuring me and the French exchange student who is going to live in my family for some time.

Please post any questions you might have in the comment-box-thingy. They can be in Finnish, Swedish, English or French. For Japanese I have to utilize google translate... It's a bit difficult for me to know what to write about sometimes since I don't know what people want to read.

gros bisous

-Emilie

School

Yeah, I'm really creative with the title. Here it goes :)

First day of school was on Friday but nothing really happened. I got to know my class, talked a little with the others and found some really great people. On Friday there was also a barbecue and first real meeting with my hosting club. I felt a little lost since everyone was just speaking French, but the food was really good.

Monday was the first "real" day. Gym in the morning! Yey for that :) It felt really good to do some work-out again. That's my problem. I like to work-out but I have to be told to do it... Oh, and they don't have showers here in school. Yeah...

History here is a pain for me. I love history, but since the teacher here just talks (really fast) I can't really catch anything up. Géo is easier since at the moment we are talking about USA as a world power and how to measure it. Thank you Johan for making us do this in human-ecology last spring! I talked with the others students but they don't seem to appreciate what I do as a specialisation.

French is actually not really a problem at the moment. We have to read some books in French and the teacher knows not to ask too much of me since I'm an exchange student. Same goes for Religion. Religion for the sixth-years is more philosophy and today we wrote a "poem" were we bragged how great we are. The teacher was really surprised that I did it, although in English, but still :)

Science here is not only Physics and Chemistry but also Biology. I am quite clueless during class since I can't really understand Chemistry in Swedish either. We draw some schtroumpfs today in class to demonstrate force.

The other rhétos will work on a final project in school which I luckily do not need to do. I know all about it though since I had to attend a lecture about TFE [tefö]. Very interesting though :)

Hmm... over for today methinks. I have French class tonight so can't wait to do some more studying :)

bisous
Emilie

Chouette!

First posting of the month!

For once, I've been too busy to write. Lots of things have happened since my latest post so just trying to put it all together. Tomorrow is the first day of school so there is going to be a separate post about that.

First things first, my house:

Nice huh?

Oh well. Last Saturday I went with my hostfather to Waterloo and on Sunday to my "hostcousins" from my hostmother's side. A RYE-student is staying there also so me and Nana had a great time together. Last week I was also at another family for the beginning of the week but now I was staying with Nana and her hostfamily. We didn't do much really, mostly just chilling and playing basketball on the backyard.

Yesterday we went to Namur to shop/be tourists. We were also joined by the Finnish girl. Good to be speaking Finnish so randomly :)

That's all for now I think. Today I have a test for a French course. Yey for that :)