Monday
This was my first day of class, which I was very excited for. My host sister and I drove to school and I pretty easily found my first class: Calculus. I met my first Canadians (except for my host family), being a few girls from Grade 12. One of them is also Romanian!
I noticed immediately how different and more laid-back class is here than back at home. Depending on the teacher, you can listen to music, eat and talk in class.
After Calculus, I got lost trying to find my drama class. This one is so different to my other classes. We mostly sit or stand around in a circle. The teacher gives her explanation and then we go into the game or exercise. We played tons of those, and before I knew it, the lunch bell rang.
The other exchange students and I usually eat our lunch in the cafeteria. If you didn’t bring any food, you can buy some that the students made themselves. It’s actually pretty good!
My next class was psychology, and last of the day, physics. Since a lot of the students didn’t have these classes for more than a year, we did a lot of review. It’s very interesting to see a different way of teaching!
After school, a few exchange students and I went to Tim Hortons and then a small school basketball game. We had quite some fun! I met a couple of other Belgians that were there already for a semester.
Tuesday
Tuesday we started actual lessons. I got my first homework for both physics and maths, and we learnt some new stuff in psychology. Theatre is definitely going to be my destress class this year :).
We had a lot of changes in the people in our class. Some left, some came into our class.
Wednesday
Even during the change of students, the teachers didn’t slow down their lessons. They were all interesting in their own way, but my favourite is still the drama class.
That evening my bus wouldn’t arrive, so a few of us Belgians decided to go home by foot. I didn’t realise there were so many hills in New West! It took half an hour to get home, which in Belgium I’d be able to do it in half that time. At least I had fun with the people I was walking with!
That evening my host dad made spicy food. While they were calmly eating it, I was drinking glasses of water one after another. I thought I was good with spicy food! Apparently not…
Thursday
Because of the long walk in the cold the day before, I woke up that day with a slight cold.
That didn’t stop the day from being the best of the week!
Calculus was a confusing class, thank god I had a friend next to me helping me out. In drama we started working on character development. In psychology we talked about objects that mean something special to us. Physics was preparing for the quiz of Friday.
But the fun started in the evening.
I asked my host sister if she felt like going ice skating, and she said yes. She invited her boyfriend and his best friend to come with us. The moment we got talking, we couldn’t stop.
We got into our skates and got on the ice. I soon realised I hadn’t skated in a looong time and was a bit rusty. I only fell once in the entire evening though, which broke my record :).
In the ice skating ring, there was this activity area, which would bring new stuff every half an hour. We were lucky to have arrived when they brought the mini chairs. The boys sat down in them, and we two girls pushed them around. Of course, on ice, you have practically no control, so we always ended up in a spinning, laughing mess.
We built a snowman, Joey, who even had a face we didn’t mean to give to him, but was appreciated. We also found a hockey puck and ended up playing football on ice with it. All of us, except for my host sister, ended up falling way too many times to be healthy, but it was very funny.
After that we got some hot coco in Tim Hortons, and went back home. I found out that ice skating is pretty exhausting, and fell asleep pretty easily that night.
Friday
Friday was a very laid-back day. I did nothing except for that physics quiz. The rest of the day after school was spent tucked into a blanket and reading. I did however, have enough energy to make some delicious and successfully not burnt vanilla sugar cookies.
Saturday
First day of the weekend was filled with homework, rehearsing some piano songs, and listening to music. In the evening my host parents got me out of the house and we went to a nearby restaurant called the Social House. We ordered spicy chicken wings (which, again, proved how low a tolerance I have to spicy food) and I got a burger with sweet potatoes fries. The food was phenomenal, but I sadly couldn’t finish my fries. It was difficult to say goodbye to them.
Sunday
On Sunday I woke up and decided to go for a walk. I felt like being spontaneous, so I took left and right turns whenever I felt like it.
After about half an hour, I decided I wanted to return home. That’s when my phone shut off and I had no way of knowing where I was. I ended up trying to retrace my steps and found my house back, luckily.
In the evening, my host sister and I went bowling with the same people we went ice skating with. We had lost of fun, I even hit a strike throwing backwards.
After our second round of bowling (which I won!), we didn’t feel like ending the evening yet, so we went to our place. We played a round of Clue (Cluedo for all the Europeans out there 😉 ) and Mario Kart. I fell asleep halfway through the second game, oops.
Overall my week has been the most fun I’ve had in a long time. I can’t help but miss my family just a bit. I also miss my pets, but at least I have tons of pictures of everyone with me.
To anyone and everyone back in Belgium, love you guys, can’t wait to see you when I get back! And thanks for reading my blog :).
Canada school exchange 