St. Nicolas

This weekend was by far one of the best weekends I have spent in my lovely new home, Liege. If you are reading this right now, I must warn you I plan on going into specific details just so I will be able to remember all of this when I read it later.

Friday-
One of the biggest advantages of being an exchange student is that I do not have to take all of my end of the year exams. So luckily for me I did not have to go to school Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday. I'm only taking three exams (English, French, and Social Sciences). So Friday night I go out with some friends to the square. It is one of the best places in all of Europe to hang out with friends and have a good time. It was surprisingly empty for it being a Friday night and I was originally a little bummed out because it was not crowded like usual. Come to find out, people were just waiting until Sunday to head down town. All in all, Friday was a normal night on the town for me; but, I did get to talk to some new people and hang out with my host brother, Ben.

Saturday-
We celebrated my host mom's birthday Saturday by going to an awesome restaurant called LA CHARBONNADE. The way it works is that you order a protein and they serve it to you raw on a plate. Then they bring out hot coals and you grill your meat right at your own table. So not only was it delicious but it was also a little "hole in the wall" kind of secret place only Belgians know about. I gave Christine a cute little black hat for her birthday and I think she really liked it.

Sunday-
By far the best day of my weekend and maybe my whole month. The feast of St. Nicolas is celebrated in Liege as not only a day for giving friends and family lots of yummy chocolate, its also an excuse for university students to harass local citizens. Every year students wear and decorate white lab coats and wear them throughout the week. These white coats may seem silly. but are very useful for an outer layer of clothing protection against unwanted materials. The tradition of St. Nicolas is that every year students wearing these coats are able to ask people throughout the city to give them a little money, only a euro or less for the most part. If the students ask and do not get any money from the selfish citizen, they are not only allowed but also encouraged to throw flour on said person. This results in both the student either earning money or feeling extremely justified. The money that the students earn is used to buy beer for that night. Since I am technically still in high school in Belgium, I was not really supposed to be at the St. Nicolas celebrations; however, exchange students can get away with things that Belgians can't. So my awesome host sister Virginie gave me the needed white lab coat, I decorated it and had my friends write fun messages on it, and off I went to have one of the best nights ever. I did not feel right asking people for money since technically I shouldn't have been there in the first place, so I just went to have fun. I ended up meeting some of my Belgian friends and I also got the chance to make some new friends too. There were so many people in the square that at one point I did not have my feet on the ground, but was still standing. A few of the highlights of the night included: meeting a random Belgian girl in the bathroom, dancing on a table with my friend Ana, meeting some really cool Belgian guys who were easily the tallest people I have ever been around, chilling with Canadians who were backpacking through Europe, being told I was a good dancer by a Latina in a Cuban bar, not being robbed, thrown up on, or peed on, and only spending five euros all night. To say the least, St. Nicolas will be forever in my memory.

Sorry if you read that whole thing. It was very detailed and I only wish I could more adequately describe how truly awesome it was. Pictures to follow soon.