Let's see... the biggest thing that's happened so far has probably been St. Nicolas. Man, oh man, I wish we had this in Oregon!! Well first there's the traditional holiday part: St. Nicolas (different from Santa Claus/Father Christmas) is the patron saint of a lot of things, but in Belgium, he is known as the saint of children and students. There are a lot of different legends about him but the big one here is him traveling on a steamship from Spain to the Netherlands/Belgium (even though he was originally from Turkey) to deliver gifts to children. The night before St Nicolas day, the kids put their shoes in front of the fire place and if they were good that year, then St Nicolas puts little gifts and chocolate inside... Santa Claus is modeled after him, I think.
Anyway, so I didn't think we were really celebrating St. Nicolas day because nobody said anything about it. But the morning of, my little brother came and woke me up, saying to come downstairs and the entire floor of the living room/dining room was covered with candy! And the table too. I mean COVERED! I've never seen so much candy in my life. It definitely made up for their lack of Halloween here.
So that was pretty fun...but even better was the friday before. "St Nicolas des rhétos". This is when the seniors (rhétos) all dress up in crazy costumes and literally ambush the rest of the school with silly string, shaving cream, confetti, hair gel etc, etc! It was insane! At first I was a little hesitant to attack strangers, but I'm really glad I did it because I had a blast!
So other than St Nicolas, not a lot more to tell you about... Last week was finals week and that (and a few other things) kinda put me in a little depressive funk.... I'd rather not talk about that though, as I am feeling loads better now. It's amazing, the difference talking to great friends can make...
Here's some pictures! (I'll put them in a another post)
:)
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