My dreams

So, I understand that blog title looks a bit strange, but that is going to be the main focus of this blog. I realized that this week has contained nothing really all that exciting. I could go into about 5 different stories, but only a couple of you would appreciate the stories because they are only funny because they are a reference to an obscure inside joke. So, instead, I will recount all of the dreams I have had, and remembered, in the past week.

This is actually really exciting for me, because I rarely remember my dreams. Like, there are probably 2 dreams that are memorable enough for me that I remember from before I got here. One to do with a porcupine, from when I was like 5, and another having to do with weed whackers, from just last year, which is probably the most vivid and memorable dream I have ever had. If I am in need of another thing to talk about on a post further down the line, I will just recount this story. It is one of my favorites.

Anywho, this whole thing came about because I was having an extended email conversation with Erin, and for some reason we got started talking about dreams, and I was frustrated that I never remember my dreams. I have always seen sleeping as a waste of time because you are just comatose, lying there, doing nothing (obscure XKCD reference for the day), and if I remembered my dreams I would not consider it such a waste of time. So I did some research (googled "remember your dreams") and was introduced to the following site: http://www.lucidity.com/NL11.DreamRecall.html. I took there advice, and have been able to remember about one dream a night. Some times I remember the waking up bit and knowing I had dreamed, but I didn't write it down and forgot the specific dream, and just knew I had dreamed and remembered it at one point. That is the most frustrating. (BTW, my handwriting is bad at 2 in the morning... like really, really, bad. Like worse than me writing with my nose. Worse probably than me writing with my toes. (Of those two mentioned, I still can't decide which would be worse. I should try them both some time.))

Oh, and sorry I didn't date them. I am too lazy to do that. But they are in chronological order.

1. iTunes worked
     -This is significant because on my computer iTunes doesn't work, and it is a bit frustrating. I think I was using my computer here, and I just clicked the iTunes thing, and iTunes popped up. All I can remember.
2. Chocolate cubes.
     -This is my yummy dream. It was about little cubes of chocolate, the same shape as older, fat keyboard keys. They were a beautiful black, and were really shiny and smooth and cool. And I can't remember if I made this up because of the connection with keyboards, or if it was actually part of the dream, but these chocolate keys might have had white chocolate letters on them. Doesn't that just... sound... wonderful. I would do quite a bit for chocolate like this right now, and I am living in Belgium... Ah well, will have to just be happy with my Côte d'Our. Yumm...
3. I was actually related to my host mother.
     -This one was probably my favorite of all of them. My cousin Matthew, who actually grew up for 2 years (I think, might have just been one) was a star appearance in this dream. He was chatting with my host mother, and they were talking for some reason about her wedding and it came up that Matthew had been at the wedding (just for the record, Matthew was not born when my host parents were getting marries). For some reason all of this conversation was in English. I think I stole the keyboard from my host mother and started to type to Matthew that I was their host son for the year. We got talking and some how Matthew was related to her, I remember knowing how he was related, but I have forgotten. I want to say he was her nephew by marrage, but I don't know... But somehow his relation meant I was related.  Also, I have written in my dream diary that Annick, my host mother's name, was spelled differently. I don't know why I thought this was important, but I did.
4. Explained my necklace.
     -This one was a very sharded one. I didn't actually write it down at night, I just had a random thought that I explained my necklace (one from Sarah. Thank you Sarah. I still wear it) to someone, and I remembered doing it, and explaining it in English. But thinking back at that time, I didn't remember ever doing it. And then I was like OH YEAH, it was a dream. so it got a little note.
5. I had really big floaters of back wash in my water bottle.
    -Pretty self explanatory. Not really a story here. Just had chunks of chewed food in my water. Moving on.
6. Found my other sock.
     -For a while I have had just this one loner sock, and so in this dream I was ecstatic to find the second sock, even more so because I was running out (like I often do). I eventually found the missing sock, stuck in the bottom of the cloths hamper here.
7. Soccer goal.
     -This was a strange one. There was a big group of us, I don't remember who, but I do remember it was a mix of people I know from back home and Belgians I have met here. There was a soccer goal, and we played 3 different games with the goal. The first was just one person a goalie, and everyone else was throwing stuff at the goal and the goalie tried to block. If I remember correctly I was the goalie. Maybe not the whole time, but for part of the time. I have written we played a game with "sobreds" If anyone knows what a sobred is, please tell me. I have no clue. But then the third game was the strangest. I didn't see the objective or the outcome. All I saw was someone lowering down one end of the goal, so the left post was like 2 feet tall, and then people started climbing on from that side of the goal. I don't know what was going on, and I had not yet gotten on the goal. I was woken up at about that time, so I got no more of that dream. Was a little sad...
8. Man in black robe.
     -This was one of those dreams where not a lot happened, but the image was very vivid. Very clear. It is probably my second favorite, behind being related to my host mother. It was just this image of a man, in a black cloak, gliding through a forest. Everything was very detailed, but it was a bit blurry, almost like someone painted the image. It instantly reminded me of the Village when thinking back on it. It was very creepy, and I very much want that image from my head in the form of a painting. Too bad I can't paint.
9. Guy in a af is ass
     -Yeah, have no clue on this one. Wrote it down at whenever in the night, and then waking up later and reading it, that was all I could get out of it. The first a might be a 9, but all the other letters are pretty clear. That is all I got and I have no clue what it means. But it must be true. Those nine guys in af must be complete jerks.

So those were my dreams for a little over a week. I hope to keep up this dream diary and keep on trying to remember everything that happens. Maybe instead of all of them I will just share my favorites with you every once in a while.

So yes, that is a taste of what Westons do in Belgium for a year. We wake ourselves up in the middle of the night to scribble on paper about what we might or might not have made up. Fun times.

Miss you all terribly. And congrats to all at the most recent NAC. I heard it went smashingly for all, and I heard about some top 16 finishes. Congrats ;-). I am glad everyone is doing so well. Keep it real for me back in the states.

~Weston Halberstadt

Party in Jemelle

     So, for all of Belgium high schools, Wednesdays are half days. So, many of the exchange students here go to Liege to get drunk after school on Wednesdays. This is something I haven't done up to this point, and I don't really plan of attending, but the Kanzinians and I had a party of our own last Wednesday. Washington has to go home early because of issues with her school here and at home (credits are not going to be able to transfer and she needs 3 credits to graduate) so it was required that we had a going away party for her. The problem with this was half of our group lives in Arlon, which is way south of where Washington and I live here in Hamoir. It would take 2 hours and 2 trains to get from one location to the other. But luckily, there is one station in the town of Jemelle with a direct train to from each of our towns. So we each boarded our respective trains and met up in this town.
      Let me tell you a bit about Jemelle. This town is pathetic and scary. There is really no other way to describe it. Getting off the platform, the first thing we see is some sort of gigantic industrial building. I think it was probably a quarry. The second thing we saw was an abandoned building with rubble coating the floor and every window broken.
     I would like to point out how our first impressions did not involve people. That is because there were none. Honestly, we saw no more than 2 people in the whole time we were there, and they were in cars driving away from the town. I can't get my stupid camera to upload the pics, but just believe me, there was nothing in this town. It was like this was the place where the zombie apocalypse hit, and all the zombies were scared inside by the sunlight.
     I was perfectly content exploring this town, possibly because I have no concept of self preservation, but the others were a little afraid of being raped, so we took a train one stop south where there was actually something to do. I don't remember the name of the town, but there were visible people, so it was for sure an improvement. We found a random mini grocery store, bought some drinks and bags of chips, and then sat under a tree, talking, drinking, and eating chips. It was a lot of fun actually, and we avoided being raped or killed, so in the end I think it was a success.
     I want to take this last part of this post to say Washington, we will miss you! I no longer have an excuse to go to your house and eat you host moms waffles (so good!).
     I hope everything works itself out. Good luck with everything Kelsey.
~Kansas

Weekend in Namur

Washington and I in the car, super psyched for the day at the beach.

Found these creepy things...

I was a fan.

I'm on a boat and...

It's (not) going fast and...

I have a new found obsession with stairs... And even though the pic is crap, I really liked these stairs.

And port holes too. Expect I liked how this picture came out.

Look at that anchor! 

I loved it. Those were fish fillets, being sold on the side of the street.

A caption isn't needed I don't think...

I like the beach.

My blog is called Barefoot in Belgium. I feel obliged to provide some feet pics.

Look at that spoon!

Have you ever seen a more awesome spoon?

And now for pictures from this last weekend.

The Wallonia Flag/Coat of arms.

Idaho eating some sorbet by the river.

Washington and I.
On a boat and, it's going fast and!
(It was actually a moving boat!)

We were really tired and wanted to sit so we went running for this bench.

They were bike racks... :'-(

So that is what I have been up to. Miss all you guys. How everything goes well.

~Weston Halberstadt

My last week

You guys are lucky. I want nothing other than to just pass out right now, because I just got back from fencing practice and I feel dead. But, because I love you all I will take the time to write a blog post for you all before I loose conscientiousness.

But I won't take the time to put my new pics on here (I actually have pics this time, it is exciting.) I will be sure to get them on here sometime... I feel like a bad person for not staying on top of this.

So anyway, my last week here. It has been a really good week, but at the same time it sucked. It sucked because for pretty much the whole week I was sick. I recently found out that Cedric was sick the time I met him, and I am pretty sure I picked up what he got. I felt pretty bad for the school week, but I made myself get up and do stuff. But then on Saturday I didn't have to get out and do anything, so I didn't. I was wearing my pj's (just sweat pants and a t shirt, but I had slept in them the night before) and a bath robe until 4 when my host dad got home, and then I lost the bath robe... Yeah, that was pretty much the low point of my week...:-/

But Sunday was for sure the high point of my week. I got to go on a trip with another exchange student, Kelsey, and their family when they went up to the coast of Belgium on a day trip. It was awesome. We got to see this old ship that used to be the King's, we got to see the sea, I got to eat muscles and friets (so good!), we got to walk around this random town, and I got a bunch of really long car rides which was a very nice change of pace and very relaxing. And I got to have some Nutella ice cream, so it was all great! I have a ton of pics from that trip but they take forever to upload and I already told you all of my plan to pass out, so later, I promise.

So that was pretty much my week: feeling sick and then going to the beach. Oh, and I got to play some monopoly... I won :P It was great.

Oh, and in the beginning of the post I lied. I'm the lucky one. You guys are awesome. Having such amazing people reading my blog makes me happy. I miss you all.

~Weston Halberstadt

I know, lame right?

Ok, so I have all sorts of wonderful things to tell you all about that happened this last week, but I haven't had the time to type them all up or make a video. And right now I have to memorize a presentation for French class. So I promise I will have an update within the next few days, but for now I will leave you with the presentation I am working on memorizing:

 Ordre ou désordre ? Systèmes ou confusion. Ma tâche aujourd’hui est expliquer mon choix, ordre ou désordre. Mais ce n’est pas un choix.

Vous en doutez ?  

Réfléchissez une seconde. 

 En ce moment, votre cerveau est utiliser un ordre neuf  pour créer votre pensée.

 Tout votre corps a un system. Si le system est trop changé, vous mourez. Essayez de vivre sans cet ordre. Vous n’y arriverez pas.                  / J’ajoute pour que ce soit plus clair./

Toutes les matières  physiques utilisent un systèmes. Le même system. Si on a suffisamment d’information sur une particule,  on peut connaitre la position de la particule. Notre monde est construit sur ce system.

L’Ordre n’est pas seulement vos livres rangés dans une pile alphabétique.

L’Ordre, ce sont les règles qui définissent notre monde.  

(all the red is the corrections my French teacher made for the sake of clarity. It really isn't that read, if you think about how bad it could have been. I am actually sort of proud of this little 1 min speech. Now I have to memorize it... :-/)

 Thank you all for putting up with me. (not part of the presentation, but I feel it might be fitting)