First of all I'd just like to say I'm really really sorry for not writing in such a long time, but I've been really busy. I guess that's a good thing though because being an idle exchange student is definitely not fun.

Well, on with my report. I have been living in Belgium on a small farm in Sugny for almost three months. These three months have been some of the hardest, most educational, enlightening, and bizarre months of my entire life. Ahhhhh c'est la vie of an exchange student. Being on a farm basically completely scared me to death my first couple of weeks here, but it turns out by living in a place where no English is spoken I have picked up French extremely quickly. I have long ago begun to dream in French, think in French, etc. There are days when I do not speak one word of English. Ok, enough with the whole language thing, I'm sure you are all experiencing very similar things, as strange as it feels.

A little about the exchange student life in Belgium..... Belgium is an awesome country to be an exchange student. I mean, when I first discovered I was going to Belgium my only reaction was, what is in Belgium, aren't there waffles there or something? Yes, it is true that Belgium is an extremely small country, but it is also one of the most densly populated in Europe. Thus, there is a huuuuuuge population of exchange students, all within a two hour train ride of each other. There are over 250 of us, in three different districts. ROTEX organizes a little outing for us each week, but the exchange students basically all get together themselves. Our host families invite each other to do things, we go on mini vacations together; it's like one huge exchange student family. We are all really close. There is rarely a weekend that I don't see at least three other exchange students. At the end of Spetember we went kayaking together down the Lesse River, it was freeeezing cold, but a lot of fun.We were all supposed to go to London together, but Rotary cancelled that because of the war. That was pretty disappointing, plus we might not get our money back, which makes matters even worse. We have a Halloween "soiree" this weekend with all 250 of the exchange students, which should be fun. It's supposed to snow, and I'm freeeeeeeeezing cold. It is really really difficult to get used to this weather. It makes me homesick sometimes and makes this hole experience much harder than it is. I would give anything for just one little glimpse of the Miami sun and warm rays.

Speaking of the war.... did everyone know that Belgium is the center of  Europe, being the headquarters for the UN and NATO. Yes, well because of this many exchange students are not allowed to go into Brussels because their parents are afraid of terrorist attacks. Well, I've been going anyways, and I saw something one night that was extremely unnerving. I was with about 10 other exchange students and it was around 11 at night. We were all at a friterie stand, buying frites, when we heard a car circling and blaring it's horn. At first no one really paid much attention, thinking it was some Belgium dude who might have had a little too much to drink. Well, about 3 minutes later it persisted and he kept on coming back. We all turned around to see four men circling around in their car with a huge Afghan flag hanging out there car. None of us could say a word for about 15 seconds, than the friterie lady starting yelling at us in French to stop speaking English and go get inside a building of café of some sort. We all decided to go home after that, since all of us were a bit shaken up and shocked. I guess that just shows that while abroad we all need to pay attention to what we are doing during this time in history. We all need to be careful.

Well, on the upside I have been traveling a lot. I have been all throughout Belgium, which is more like two countries since there is the Flemish part and the French part. The Flemish part is closer to England and the North Sea, which I have visited twice now. After the North Sea I went to Brugge which is this amazing, magnificient midevil city in Belgium. It's a lot like Venice because it has canals everywhere. It is absolutely gorgeous, and only a 2 hour train ride away. I also went to Bastogne which is where a major part of World War 2 was fought. Belgium has a lot of war memorials devoted to the Americans, but Bastogne is the biggest. I went to Luxewmbourg with my host dad three weeks ago, Germany two weeks ago for 5 days and to Paris last weekend for 4 days.

Going to Germany and Paris was actually on my own to visit some family friends who live in both places. Actually in Germany I visited my dad's old host family (he was an exchange student with rotary too), pretty cool, huh.

Paris is amazing. I brought a fellow exchange student with me to visit one of parent's American friends who lives there. I fell in love with that city. It is completely enchanting. I would not be surprised at all if I end up living there in 5 or 6 years. I AM IN LOVE WITH PARIS. It's really difficult to exlain, I was just totally drawn in by every aspect of that incredible city.

On the farm............ I went to a cow judgine contest after staying out till 7 30 in the morning!!!!! Do you know they actually have a contest to judge who judges the cows the best. Yeah, I lost, actually I think I might have beat this old lady, but she might have been blind, I dunno. Anyways, yesterday I helped my family herd the baby cows into the barn for the winter, pretty fun, huh. By the way.... It's freeeeeeezing here, I don't know what Sarah is doing in Finland, because It's 0 degrees celsius here  and I am dying.

My school here is so different than school in American (well of course it is, this isn't the states). We are taking a class trip to Italy in March and to raise money we had a huge dance or "bal" as they say here. Well, this was not at all what I expected. Over 900 people came to the dance, and about two weeks beforehand the teachers and students and teachers were arguing about what alchohol to sell at the dance. Hmmm, that definitely would never happen in the US, huh. Anyways, I ended up having to work at the bar from 1 to 3 in the morning. Hehe, that was pretty funny. Little miss Joy Harrison, working at a bar, trying to understand what all these semi_drunk people were trying to order in French. I thought it would be easy enough since they were just ordering drinks, but no no no no no . I had never heard of one drink that I sold, and half the time I gave the people the wrong thing. Oh well, we still made more than enough money to send us all to Italy, which was our goal, right? On Fridays I have cooking class during school which is pretty fun, but definitely not good for the weight. That's ok though, I started a major diet on Monday and have already lost 1 kilo, yay!!!!!

Ok, I guess that's enough out of me. I hope everyone is having a wonderful time and no one is too homesick. If they are, don't worry, as all the exchange students say here, C'EST NORMAL. BYE BYE.

LOTS OF LOVE,

JOY