263!

heya reader! today was another AWESOME day in belgium! such lovely weather, and tons of nice people to go with it. this morning i woke up a little late and eventually got ready and met some people from language class for lunch! actually, we were going to meet for coffee..but i didn't have breakfast, and it was noon anyways..so we drank something then ended up eating soup too. its cool that i've met so many nice people from my language class! us outside landers gotta stick together eh! haha..so i made them take a self-timer picture with me...

representing Lithuania, the Philippines, Brazil (haha manuella the other exchange student in this town with me!) and myself of course. then we went on a sort of walk and look what i found..

the little professor of turnhout! i remember when my mom and i googled "turnhout, belgium" once upon a time this little guy popped up, and we found it funny that brookings where i come from also has a little professor! hahaha definitely ironic. so i finally got a picture with him, and i think it made my mom happy. after that i came home and actually worked on my presentation. i read it out loud a few times (thats awkward...especially in another language, talking to yourself in your bedroom..weird) and i thought it was going to be soooo long but really its only like 9-10 minutes. oh well. thats because i talk too fast. you would think that it wouldn't be a problem the whole "talking fast" thing, especially in another language. but somehow i manage to mush up the words and talk fast to the point where nobody can probably understand me. so needless to say, i'll have to keep practicing tomorrow. a lot. tonight was really cool though! i'm home late, as you can tell if you see the time when i'll publish this blog post, but its for a good reason! i was at the birthday party of manuellas 2nd host mom vicky. she's a cool lady, actually their family is actually pretty cool too! so the theme was like safari/tropical/african and it was a neat party! not only did we walk in and instantly receive pina coladas in hollowed out real coconuts, but then there were these crazy cool african drummers and a dancer that came and loudly started playing and eventually taught us to dance!

it was really neat! the photo doesn't do it justice. picture it with loud drums, tasty appetizers, and lots of tropical clothing. here's manuella and i at the party, looking bright and ready for the tropical safari night!

tonight i really felt like i was leaving for the first time ever, i think. i still don't realize it, trust me when i say that. i can hear the question "when do you leave" 50 times and still not feel like its in under 10 days. buuuut tonight manuella gave me the first in apparently a series of two going away presents. gosh she is so nice! she gave me a photo book from pictures of her and i this year. like one of those cool ones you make online! there are funny ones from way in the beginning up until now. we've done a lot here together as exchange students and friends. its just....really nice. i definitely appreciate it. i'll try to post pictures of it tomorrow :) well, seeing as its late and i might get up early and go to a quilt thing with my host mom tomorrow, i'll probably leave it at that for tonight. thanks for reading, hope you had a nice day as well!