Jeff's Blog

Merry Christmas everyone!

I can't believe that I've only got 6 months left here in Belgium. The timie is just zooming by, soon I'll be back to real life on good old PEI. It's been a great month, with lots of traveling and fun. I was lucky enough to see "Mum" in concert at Hasselt on the flemish side of Belgium a few weeks ago. They're a rock band from Iceland, the band that opened for them, "seabear," was also really good.

I've been doing a lot of trips this month. Last weekend I was in London, and last Wednesday I was in Disneyland, Paris. London was great, we visited the British Museum, the Tower of London, the Hard Rock Cafe and many other sites. Disneyland was awesome, I felt like I was 10 years old again! The rides were crazy, especially space mountain.

Christmas is only two days away and I miss everyone from home very much, especially my family. On the bright side, this year I'm going to experience Christmas in a completely different way, of which I'm very excited for. I'm also pumped for my trips taking place after Christmas. I'm going to the french alps with my host family from the 27th to the 29th and to visit Pilgrim (former exchange student in Canada) in Austria from the 31st to the 6th. I'll be thinking about you though, it's impossible not to.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Hello everyone, sorry I haven't updated the old blog for a while. I quite simply haven't had the time. I've been doing so much awesome stuff, the time's flying by. I guess I should start with 3 weeks ago.

Nov.9-11 was a great weekend. Our school had a fair, but not just some low budget one afternoon fair, this was an all weekend, bumpercars in the courtyard extravaganza! It was a lot of fun. I went to a rock concert on Saturday at the school which was part of the festivities. On Sunday, Rememberance day, I took the train for three hours with my Canadian friends to go to Ypres for the afternoon. It was really cool, there was a huge ceromony in the town. We went to the Flanders Fields Museum and saw a war cemetary too. I had to leave pretty early cause I was singing at a talent show back at my school that night. I took the train for another three hours to get back into Liege and headed straight for the show. It was really sweet, I played one song from my band last year, Casacade, as well as "Angels" by Robbie Williams. All in all I was happy with my performance. It was so good to get up on stage again.

The following weekend Nov.16-18 was even better! I was able to use my go pass (this sweet 10 train rides anywheres in Belgium ticket that's only 45Euros!) to go and see Jon Millington for the weekend. He's currently on exchange in Lille, France which is only about a 10 minute drive from the Belgian border. It was so good to see a familiar face again. We actually celebrated his birthday on Saturday. His family made us a wonderful dinner, and after, we watched Boondock Saints on a big projector. Everyone that was at the party stayed the night in Jon's attic. The next day we had a "do absolutely nothing day." It was so good. We got up, had breakfeast with everyone, helped them pack their things, saw them to the door and relaxed. We watched two movies. One of them being 300, which Jon's host family had given him for his birthday. After an afternoon of hanging out with one of my best friends from home I jumped on a train and headed back for Liege.

You'd think that things can only get so good, but the week that followed after was even better! I'd have to say that the awsomeness started on Thursday when I went to my friend John Brambley's house for an American Thanksgiving Dinner! It was sooooo good, and it tasted just like it did at home. That night, John's host mom Patricia, who is my second host mom, asked me to come with her and John to London for a weekend after I finish my exams, I'm pumped! Don't get overexcited yet, cause the best started on the actual weekend. Friday after school me and my friend Vinicius from Brazil caught a train to Antwerpen, one of the diamond capitals of the world. It was fascinating, jewelry shops everywhere. Not to mention the incredible arcitechture. We saw two beautiful cathedrals and a castle on the river! We caught the train to Liege later on in the evening where we met up with John Dexter, a good friend of mine from Australia to celebrate his 19th birthday. We went out to a couple of bars and then called it a night, but not before I tried Guiness for the first time in an Irish pub.

Okay, now you're ready for last Saturday, probably one of the best days of my exchange, or even my life! It started in the afternoon when me and Vinicius caught a train to Brussels for the day. We spent the afternoon near the Grand Place which is a large square in the center of the city. We went to church in the evening at Cathedral st. Micel et St. Gudule. It's this massive church the looks a lot like Notre Dame. After mass, which by the way was totally in french we went to this cool arts center/botanical garden appropriatly named Jardin Botanique where I saw THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS LIVE! and since not very many people in Europe know them which meant there were only like 300-400 people there allowing me to stand at the front of the arts guild PEI like stage no more that 2ft away from AC Newman.

Now, here's the part where I even have trouble believing what came to pass. When the New Pornographer's played my favorite song, "the bleeding heart show" and came to the climatic 2 minute ending, I mounted the stage and sang it with AC! He even moved the mic between us so I could be heard on the PA! It was the best thing ever Oh my god it was so awesome! I know most of you don't believe this actually happened lol but feast your eyes on the video below taken on my camera by Vinicius and you'll see! PS sorry about the crappy sound.

After the band finished and went back stage I snuck back, congradulated them on a great show and got their autograph's on my ticket! My ticket now read's "Hey Jeff, great singing!" Katherine, and "To Jeff, our #1 backup singer," AC Newman! After chatting with the band for a bit I returned to the lobby where I met some other Canadians who were like "Hey, you're that guy who jumped onto the stage!" and I was like "yeah." We quickly became friends and went to the bar "Delerium" which is famous in Brussels for serving over 2004 different types of beer. After drinking a glass of the Delerium Tremus, the bar's own beer which was voted the best beer in the world in 2001, I caught the tram to an all night techno concert called "Skynet Groove City," I met up with some of my other friends and we technoed the night away. It was everything that you'd imagine a European techno party to be and more! So awesome. I caught the train to Liege after the concert and the took a bus to get home at 8:00AM. I than proceeded to sleep for 7 hours. I spent the rest of the day relaxing around the house and reflecting on the amazing events that had come to past. I can only hope that things stay like this for the rest of the year.

So I've just come off of a one week holiday from school. Surprisingly the holiday was not for Halloween but for All Saints day. I did a lot of travelling over the break, as well as a lot of resting, but a lot of partying as well.

I guess I should start at the beginning. Friday night I worked at a fundraiser dinner put on by Rotary. It turned out to be a lot of fun, I met a lot of interesting people and the food was great too! I stayed the night at the house of my third host family where the other exchanger in my club, Vinicius is living now.

Saturday was a day for relaxation, me and a few of my friends just kinda stayed in the city for the day, it was great. On Sunday I went for a hike with my friend John from New York and his host family (my second host family.) It was really cool, the hike wasn't very long but it ended inside a cave where we unexpectedly were served a lovely three couse meal for lunch. I ended up staying at John's place for the night, we watched "Shaun of the Dead," and made very crispy chocolate chip cookies cause nobody in Belgium cooks with baking soda.

I'm being quite honest when I say that Monday and Tuesday I didn't really do much of anything other than rest at my house. It was really nice though, I never had the chance to do that back in Canada. I never had the time. I think one of my favorite parts of my exchange so far has been having the time to give some hard thought to what I want to do with the rest of my life.

Wednesday, I went to Brussels with my friend Sean from Texas. We had a great time just walking around the city discovering beautiful parks, beers, gardens, and cathedrals. It was strange, not many people in Belgium put up decorations for Halloween, I only remembered it was Halloween because I went to a birthday/halloween party that night as Batman.

We stayed the night at the party, sleeping on the floor we had danced on for the whole night with our sleeping bags. After about 4 hours sleep I woke up, helped clean up, gathered my own things, left for the train station, and caught a train for Liege. Usually when you get home from a big party you go to sleep right away. However, I'm an exchanger and we simply don't roll that way. I got home, took a shower, and went with my family to a museum about prehistoric peoples. It was really cool, I learned a lot. We even went into these caves behind the museum where cave people once lived! I slept really well Thursday night, going to bed early in preparation for the trip with my host family on Friday and Saturday.

We got up around 7:00AM Friday morning and headed for the OCEAN! I was so excited, I hadn't seen the ocean for over 2 months. It was about a 2 hour drive from southern Belgium to the Northern tip. The beach was beautiful, it was a little cold and cloudy, but it's almost always like that in Belgium. There were these really cool carts at the beach that you could rent for an hour. They were like go karts except they were operated by pedal. Me and my host siblings had a ton of fun with those. It was really nice to spend some quality time with my host family. We spent the whole day together and that night we played cards.

On Saturday we packed up our things and headed to Bruge. It really is the Venice of the North. All of the houses are so beautiful, and there's water everywhere. We took a boat tour of Bruge. Our guide was excellent, he had perfect French, English, Spanish, and Flemish, I couldn't believe it! We headed home after the tour. That night I went to Liege with my friend John Dexter from Australia. We met some friends, had a drink, and then went for a huge walk around Liege. After that we came back to my place where we watched "Superbad," it was hilarious. On Sunday I woke up, went for a run, and came back for the birthday lunch of my hostmom. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. It was my host mother's birthday on Saturday. All of the family came over to the house to eat cake and drink coffee and tea. It was a great day, and an incredible week. I think I'm still tired from it all, my eyes are slowly closing as I write these last words.

Wow, I think this is the biggest article I've written on this blog so far, and there's so many little details I've left out. If you'd like to see pics from my week I've posted a lot of them on facebook.

Missing you all,

Jeff