AFS Year and Semester High School Abroad in Belgium French

There were a couple of days in May that my school had off. So often when I had school off, I would take day trips with Belgian friends or other AFS students. That day, my host mother had asked me to go to the beach with her. Since my host family was large, it wasn't often that I had time alone with either of my host parents. It meant a lot to me that she wanted to take this day to go to the beach with me so that we could have some time alone together. The beach day ended up being very nice. It was cloudy most of the time but it didn't rain which allowed us to walk around the beach and city. We had a nice lunch together and at the end of the day, I think we were both happy to have had a day together. There is a kind of closeness that comes between a student and a host family that develops very subtly throughout the year. For me, it was moments like these that proved how much I cared about my host family and how wonderful of an experience I was having- even through all the trials that were inevitably part of the year as well.

I was amazed by the people in the exchange program in Flanders. When I arrived, I was picked up at the airport, and brought to a beautiful monastery where all of the other exchange students were. There were many fun activities and opportunities to get to know my cohort as well as learn about Flemish culture and language.

During my year in Belgium, some days after I got out of school I would take a bus to the nearest city called Arlon which was about 20 minutes away. I would walk to meet some friends outside of their schools or walk to wherever I felt like. I could go to the market and buy a bar of Belgian chocolate and then walk up to my favorite church or viewpoint and just sit and enjoy my chocolate. It gave me indescribable freedom to be able to do small things like that with my time.