Day 81

Woensdag, 26 Oktober 2011

Woke up, and wasn't completely tired.  Whoo!  At school, I first had my listening class, though today we "performed" versions of blues songs we wrote (well, my group wrote it as I was gone last week :P).  I, of course, did terribly because I suck at singing, but the one guys group was HILAROUS and totally made my day.  Someone got a video, so I'll have to link to it if she puts it online.  :)

Went to Latin next, and of course I was like 25 minutes late because the listening class went long AND they were working in the market in such a way that blocked off my normal route AND I'm usually like 10 minutes late on Wednesdays anyway.  Got to class right after a test, oh darn.  :P  Understanding more and more of the Dutch words used, so hopefully that'll streamline the learning process a bit more.

English next, and I thought I had to give a speech with my partner.  I even stayed up late last night revising it.  Of course, we didn't have to go today.  But it's for the better; now I can actually take some time to care and do it.  Then Science, went to the library.  The teacher didn't have me do anything, so I just read random wikipedia articles.

Marcela was feeling really sick (and I was starting to as well - remember, we share everything), so it was with great reluctance we got on the bus to go to our Dutch lessons in Hoogstraten.  Of course, we didn't know the correct stop, we were just told to get off where there was a lot of buses.

There was no place with a lot of buses.  We ended up staying on until Meerle, which is actually the town of our second family.  We got off because the one person we knew on the bus (a classmate of Marcela's) got off there.  They told us that there weren't any more buses that would come to the stop today.  Oops.  We had her friend call our Dutch tutor, who picked us up, and then showed us where the bus stop was.

Lessons were nice - she was much better at explaining things than the last lady was, and she did a great job of making us repeat it so that it'd stick.  Left her house at 4 because our bus to Lille was at 4:20.

This is where the fun begins.

We walked to the bus stop she showed us, and realized the bus we needed didn't stop there.  We walked to a few more, still didn't see it.  We finally just found a bus that would bring us back to Turnhout, so we hopped on that, even though it took us like 40 minutes to get to Hoogstraten via that bus.  But, lo and behold, the first stop the bus went to had a sign for the bus we needed to go to Lille!  Hooray!

That was at 4:16.  The bus we needed didn't show up.  So, we got off the Turnhout bus for nothing.  Seeing as it would be at least half an hour for the next Turnhout bus, we decided to walk around and see if we could find any bus stops that had a bus going near Lille, so we could just get on that.  Of course, there was nothing. But whatever, there was a bus to Turnhout at 5.  Or, there should have been - it didn't show up.  Finally the 5:30 bus showed up, but that was a bit of a problem.  See, seeing as how it took us like 40 minutes to get to Hoogstraten, we thought it would take that long to get back to Turnhout.  And, the bus from Turnhout to Lille is at like 6 - I think the next one after that is around 7:30.

So, when I was texting some people, I happened to mention that.  One of my friends graciously offered to pick us up which I of course accepted, but of course, the bus made it back to Turnhout just before 6, so Marcela and I were able to get the bus.  Seriously, every time you make arrangements for something besides the bus, the bus will magically show up on time.  I felt pretty silly about asking for a ride then, so I was frantically texting back telling them not to waste time showing up to get us.  :P

Got home at like 6:30, and of course, at 6:30 I needed to be where the fanfare practices to get fitted for pants for the concert apparel.  Biked home quick to drop off my bag, and went there to get fitted, thinking it would be a fast thing.  Nope.  Got home around 7:30, famished, and proceeded to devour a bunch of food.  That made me even more tired than I was, so I had to lay down for a bit before doing anything else.  Got ready for bed, talked to a few kids online, and now I think it's time to sleep.  Slaapwel!


tl;dr: I hate busses