I thought it would be cool to publish my journal on Facebook notes so that people could read my experiences from my year in Belgium. I must first say that I am not a good journal keeper and pretty much only 1/3 of my whole year was recorded in my journal! There are lots of experiences that I will remember forever but that I didn’t record in this journal. I’m going to write my journal word for word even the French parts (which I will translate) but I’m going to use the exact French that I used in the journal to show you my progress through out the year! Enjoy!

NOTE: I will mark present day notes in parentheses with the acronym PDN:. I will put translations of French in parentheses immediately following the French passage.

24 August 2002

When we arrived in Brussels everyone was excited. After I got my bags, Kate and I decided to go ahead of everyone. So we went and we looked for customs but they did not check our bags we just went on through. We saw hundreds of people with signs with Rotary and Names on them. Her family was right there but I could not find my family. I told them that I would have my State (Ohio State) Flag out but it was buried deep in my carry on bag. Finally Bernard Bleus (PDN: my Rotary counselor) saw me and said, “Derron?” I was glad to hear that voice! I met my first mom and brother and my second host family Les Bastins. After I helped a gentleman find his exchange student we were on our way. We stopped at a little restaurant where they ate breakfast and I just drank orange juice. After we ate I said good bye to the Bastins and we were on our way to my new home. Bernard speaks really good English. The house is big and my rooms is nice. I was tired all day yesterday and I took a nap. We went to Jean-François’ sister’s house where I used the computer (PDN: the keyboard was hell…it took me like 20 minutes to write a small paragraph to my mom and dad!). We came home and I watched Harry Potter in French. After that we ate chicken nuggets and French fries (PDN: Belgian Fries I should say…Belgians are the ones who discovered the “fry”…and Belgian fries are amazing…especially with mayonnaise or this cocktail stuff they have…mmm!). I drank wine with my meal, big culture shock for me! Before dinner JF (PDN: Jean-François) gave me whiskey and it was absolutely horrible. I went to bed at about 11 then woke up at 3, went back to sleep at 5 and slept until 11. (PDN: From 3am to 5am I sobbed. I began to have second thoughts about what the hell I was doing in this strange country. I sobbed and cried and made a decision that I was going to go home the very next day. That decision was totally forgotten when I woke up the next day!) I got up and did nothing for an hour then we went to Chimay where I saw the Bank, the post office and other things. We went to the house where Karla is staying (PDN: Karla was the other rotary exchange student in my town) and I met her and her host family. Her host sister Elaine went to Ohio on foreign exchange.

25 August 2002

Today I went shopping with Patricia (PDN: My host mom) and JS (PDN: My host brother). I took a tape of the house (video tape) and I went fishing with JS and a friend of his. The water was cold! I actually walked in France today it was cool! Tomorrow I leave for Ardèche, France at 5 in the morning so I need to go. I caught two fish today and Megan (PDN: An exchange student from Australia living near Liege. She knew Kate who was doing her exchange back in Ohio and I had talke dto her on MSN before I went to Belgium) and I finally got to talk so all is good. I cannot wait to understand the language and to have friends!

This post is stored in the category of Made in USA, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: 1st Host Family, Belgium, Brussels, Chimay, Exchange, Rotary

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I thought it would be cool to publish my journal on my blog so that people could read my experiences from my year in Belgium. I must first say that I am not a good journal keeper and pretty much only 1/3 of my whole year was recorded in my journal! There are lots of experiences that I will remember forever but that I didn’t record in this journal. I’m going to write my journal word for word even the French parts (which I will translate) but I’m going to use the exact French that I used in the journal to show you my progress through out the year! Enjoy!

NOTE: I will mark present day notes in parentheses with the acronym PDN:. I will put translations of French in parentheses immediately following the French passage.

June 6, 2002

My friend from Belgium once said, “Exchange does not start from America, it starts from Belgium!” Well, my exchange is the other way around. Mine will start here in America and I believe it will never end! I sent my Rotary Application in like 3 days before December 1, 2001 (the deadline). That is when my exchange started. I was not excepted right then. It was not until I got an e-mail inviting me to come to Belmont (a county near Wheeling, WV) that I did find out that I was going to Belgium. I had received my first choice place. My first thought about the weekend was so scary. I was nervous and I was not sure what was going to happen. I wasn’t sure who was going to be there and what I would have to do but mom and dad and I drove the 2 hours to Belmont to the February weekend. The first person I met (that I actually cared meeting) was Haley. Haley is American and going to the Czech Republic. She seemed very shy and sheltered but I probably came across the same way. I also met Kris Wilson, my district chair person. She said she was not sure where I was going but I found out that I was going to Belgium, I think it was the next day. I met the most wonderful people at this meeting. From Germany: Katarina and Veronica, Austria: Sophie, Switzerland: Claudia, Hungary: Dora, Belgium: Olivier, Sweden: Carina, France:Tristen and Pierre, Italy: Lorenza, Spain:Pol, Bosnia:Dina, Mexico:Emmanuel, Columbia:Andrea and Tato, Brazil:Gustavo, America: Ian and Haley, Australia: Kate, Japan: Chiaki, China: Chad (Chien-Liu), Turkey:Isil. I also met a girl named Erin Moore who was American who had already went to Belgium on foreign exchange, so she was a lot of help. That weekend we went to Big Bear and hung out while the manager flipped out. We also went and saw a hockey game. It was my first hockey game. I was in love with this new life that I had just discovered. We sat around and talked and listened to music. At like 4 in the morning I finally went to bed (sleeping bag and pillow). Kate (from Australia) slept on m pillow with me and we talked about Australia and laughed until we finally fell asleep and slept like an hour. I went home and I really felt like I was going back to my old like. My friends seemed “boring” haha. I could not stop talking about all the people I had met. The next weekend in March was in Dublin (Ohio). I met two more people, Nelson from Brazil who is here for 5 years staying with his uncle and the other person was Berliot from Costa Rica. She was with Rotary also. We were all in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin. OMG I forgot Prachi! Prachi is from India and I met her at Belmont. The St. Pat day parade was sooo cold. We stayed in their rec center, it was awesome. I grew closer to all the foreign exchange students. The next weekend was down at camp oty-okwa. I and the rest of the foreign exchange students thought it was only going to be us, but then when we arrived there were other Americans and other foreign exchange students from different programs (AFS, etc.). The weekend got boring at times but other than that it was awesome. I met some more people who will probably be my friends for life too (PDN: how I was naive). There was Johanna, Dace, Marianna, Hanai, Gadi, Iavor, Ana, Leo, Thiago, and Anette. There others but I am guessing we did not become good friends. After the Globaly Issues weekend Neslon a eu une boum. Il y avais beaucoup de personnes là!(Nelson had a party and there was a lot of people there) (PDN: I sucked at conjugating my verbs then!) I met Ines from Brazil there. Nous buvions une bois qui s’appelle capirinya (I don’t know the spelling! C’était awesome!)(Literal translation is “We were drinking a wood which is called capirinya” it should have been Nous avons bu une boissons qui s’appelle Caipirinha (it was awesome!)). Iay otgay runkday (PDN: Pig Latin figure it out!). haha! The weekend after that I was in Cambridge at Salt Fork Lake. It was I thought my last weekend but it wasn’t. This past weekend I went to Chad’s house. The past two “weekends” were the last for me to ever see my FES (PDN: Foreign exchange student) friends ever again. I never ever thought it would be like this when I was filling out my application. I have been having fun already and I ahven’t even left yet! After the Global Issues weekend I received my first actual letter about foreign exchange from my Belgian contact her in Ohio, William Linkhorn. He is SOOO old! He talks so slow and he cannot hear anything! He told me in my letter that I was going to the French part of Belgium in District 1620. Soon after that letter, I got a letter from my counselor from Belgium. He said I was going to the Flemish part!!! AHHHHH! It was awful! I called Mr. Linkhorn and he fixed everything for me but I have been waiting for my visa and last week I received my visa application and I am working on it now. I have never ever really written a journal but I guess I need to for this trip so I can remember and savor every detail. Someday I hope to be able to write in this in French! Hopefully!

July 12, 2002

I received the name of my family about a week ago. Since my guarantee form had not come in yet I was unable to contact them but as soon as I got an e-mail from It’s Your World Travel saying they received my guarantee from I called William Linkhorn to see if I could call them. He said that I could and it would be ok to do so. I bought a calling card and I attempted to but unfortunately it didn’t work. So William gave me the name and e-mail address of my counselor in Chimay (oh yeah, I found out that I will be living in a town called Chimay). I e-mailed Mr. Bleus and told him to tell my family that I tried to call but it did not work. The next day I received an e-mail from Nathan Fleshman. He is an American staying with my first host family. He told me about them, Patricia Collignon-the mom, Jean-François Salmin- the father and Jean-Sébastien-the son of Patricia. He told me to bring an erasable pen for a thing called a go-pass. I guess I will find out when I get there. Tuesday the 9th of July I got a hold of my host family. Well, it still was not working but some how my dad got a hold of them. I thought he was joking cause he said “Bonjour” but there she was, Patricia on the phone. It was hard to understand her but she was very nice and spoke very slowly for me. I also talked to Nathan and he told me that Jean-Francois and Patricia were not married so I was kind of like WHOA! He also told me that Patricia had a daughter also and Jean-Francois had a son. I enjoyed the conversation immensely. I called again today and I talked to Patricia for a while. I had so much fun I love talking to them! They do not speak any English so it is great! Also, today was the first day of my conference for all the out bounds. It is pretty cool. I have met 7 other people going to Belgium, it is fun! I got my cards and my name tag today so I am excited about that too! Well I will write more tomorrow I am sure!

Me at the Otterbein weekend pointing to where I will be living in Belgium!

14 July 2002 (PDN: Notice I start writing the date like they do in Europe)

Today I got up too early and now I am hot and tired. I talked so much today to everyone and I met more people it was so cool. I have to not let myself get too attached to these people here because a lot of them I will never ever see again. Some of the French people (PDN: This means people who are going to France) I want to see again. The Canadians are really cool. Today Mr. Linkhorn flipped out on me it was like so crazy. I do not want to even talk about it! Ohwell, I shall write more later I need to go to sleep now!

22/23 August 2002

I just spilled my water and had to rip out the wet pages. (PDN: In my journal there is a big water stain and some of the writing has washed away and there is about 5/6 pages missing out of the journal that got wet). It is now exactly 3h15 (PDN: 3:15 AM) Belgian time and I have been on the plane for almost 4 hours. We have like 1952 miles left to go. I am hoping I can survive. I am sitting with Chris from my region. He speak both Spanish and English. He is all interested in these movies so he isn’t really that fun! The people next to me are like talking amongst themselves and let no one join in. I am really bored so I am writing. Well, last night Sarah Dennis came over and visited me and she cried but I did not. I cried last night when or after I talked to my grandparents. I cried today when I said goodbye to my mom, Steph, and dad. I cried all the way through security. Beth Gorby (PDN: My neighbor) was on the other side of the security check (PDN: she worked security in the airport). I sat with the people that are going to Costa Rica until my plane started to board. The plane was like a 30 passenger propeller propelled plane. It was an uncomfortable trip when I arrived to Washington I was almost afraid of what to do but I found my flight and I got on a shuttle to take me to where I had to go, “Gate C6″ and there was everyone (PDN: All the other people who were going to Belgium. There was about 30 other people there)! We got pictures and pretty much talked. well I need to use the potty so…

This post is stored in the category of Contains Photo(s), Made in USA, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Belgium, Exchange, French, Rotray

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