Things are really starting to get going for me. Between the French classes, daily exploration, and night time adventuring, it is all coming together.
I am absolutely loving the French class I am in. It is from 9 am to 4:30 pm every day and the instructor only speaks French to us. She is very engaging, in incredible shape (a ridiculously sculpted upper body!), and is doing a fantastic job of teaching the basics. The universal language of the classroom is English though so if someone gets completely stuck, she will revert and say just enough English words to make the understanding occur. It is so neat though! She loves to take opportunities to have people demonstrate what things are like in their culture/language. For example, the picture below is a lesson on numbers. She had a both a Taiwanese and a Korean student right the numbers in their native numbers. Check out the zero in Taiwanese!
Another great moment occurred today. I got to hear tongue twisters from Italy, Mexico, India, Taiwan, and Turkey.
On Friday and Saturday night I went out to "Le Carré" or "The Square". It is literally a square made up by four streets. These streets are nothing but bars, clubs, and restaurants. Because there are no lines, no cover, and alcohol is legal in the streets, not only are all the venues overflowing with people, the streets can be outrageous crowds too. On Friday, the summer students had just written their final summer semester exams. It was absolutely packed. Saturday was surprisingly not nearly as jam packed and we got to see a live band in a cowboy themed place called "Far West". People definitely like to get rowdy and stay out late. However, Liege is not known as a particularly safe city... not that it is downright dangerous, or at least not during the day, but everybody insists on walking each other home at night. Safety in numbers!
On Sunday morning I went to the "Marché de la Batte" - one of the longest outdoor market in Europe! It is full of all sorts of fresh fruit and vegetables, clothing, live animals (both for pets and eating), and just about anything you can think of. The weather was unfortunately rather unpredictable and I got absolutely rained on. At least it kept the market from being even busier; it is a very popular place for locals and tourists alike.
Sunday afternoon was spent climbing at a local indoor climbing wall with a new friend from Missouri. He is a far more accomplished climber than I am... it was really rather embarrassing! Especially because I was so completely thrown off by the style of the gym. The walls have no texture, the harnesses are different, the difficulty (grade system) is nothing I've ever seen before, and the routes are marked out in a completely different manner. That being said, there were some AMAZING climbers in the gym. Some of the most impressive climbing I've seen live to date. Definitely gives me something to aspire to once my hands heal from the absolute shredding they feel like they took. The rocks are almost gritty feeling. You can tell I am not a laborer in the slightest just by the pathetic softness of my hands and how one rough climb upset them. Oh well!
Sunday evening was a really neat opportunity. The student from Taiwan, we call him TK, invited a group of us over for Chinese food. He did an excellent job of demonstrating some basic Chinese dishes. The best part was probably watching the student from Iran use chopsticks for the first time. It was quite the sight and he was quite a trooper! Our dinner group included an American, 2 Italians, a Korean, a Taiwanese, an Iranian, and 2 Canadians. It was a lot of fun and we have all volunteered to host dinners of foods from our native lands in the near future.
More pictures to come but here's the link to the ones I have posted on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150778773995414.742006.619530413&l=3b589064e3&type=1
Love you all,
Jacqueline
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