Dans la Port d'Amsterdam

The song above is made by a Belgian musician, Jacques Brel. I have worked with another one of his lyrics for French class in school which was quite interesting. And people say that Finnish music is tragic/sad.

So as the topic suggest, I went to Amsterdam last weekend. We (me, Nana and my hostparents) took the evening-train on Saturday so I had time to go ice-skating during the day with other exchange students. Some of us were on ice for the first time of our lives while others were masters at it. It was really gaie :)

Here are some pictures from what we were up to on Sunday. We rented some bikes from the hotel and were pedalling around Amsterdam the whole day.

We're so Belgian that our cards have pictures of Manneken Pis on them xD

We went for a canal cruise and I got some pictures from the window 

And my bike

That's all for now I think.

À tantôt

-Emilie

Elle me dit~

Before you start reading, put your headphones on and start listening to this song. It's "Elle me dit" by Mika and has become my song for this exchange year. Thank you.

Nothing really important and life-changing has happened after my last post but I thought you all who read my blogg might want to know how's life.

You know you're an exchange student when:

-you forget you own language

-miss food you never even liked back home

-need to learn all the states of the USA in French (and you've never learned them in English either)

-think that Belgian food is normal

-can't stop smiling when you hear a small child screaming in the supermarket because the child is screaming in FINNISH!

-you suddenly realise that you are doing a presentation in French. The picture below is from when I held a presentation about Finland to my Rotary Club two weeks ago. Some day soon I'll take part in a presentation in French class about Thor. It has been postponed for... two weeks now? At least my pronunciation is better now. I'm still scared to do anything without the paper since the text isn't written by me.

Since there was only one question on the last post, I'm going to save it for another time. I don't really have time to do research about the royal family at the moment, sorry brother. The one thing you need to know is that they have a black sheep in the family.

I went shopping last week for the first time since I arrived here. I even bought a skirt. Those who know me are used to me using only pants/trousers etc. but I have decided that this fact of me is going to change. Be warned :)

I had my first tennis lesson this Monday. I'm a danger to everyone else on the field but I liked it. That's all.

I have been taking French lessons in the evenings, but now I also have "special French" at school instead of Dutch. It's nice, but I get a headache from the teacher's voice. She's supposed to be a librarian but has no what-so-ever kind of indoor voice. We're now reading "Around the World in 80 days". My teacher doesn't know it, but I've been reading it in English afterwards just to understand something.

My French is improving, it's just really difficult to understand people in school. Answering in French is a nightmare. In Art History I might even say something but otherwise I'm quite silent during class. My History teacher was surprised when I told him why I hadn't done the homework (no notes=no clue whatsoever what we're talking about). He's one of those teachers who preach all the course and the students never really say anything.

Next post is going to feature more pictures, I can't find my GSM-cable at the moment.

bisous

Emilie

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 :)