I hate visas.

Seriously.

After researching how to get a visa online, it started to sound like I needed to go to New York, which just seems completely ridiculous.  So, I called the honorary consulate in St. Paul - no answer.  I went to the building where the honorary consulate was, during office hours - no answer, and the door was locked.  I could see someone inside, so I called again.  This time, she picked up, and when I asked if I had to go to New York for the visa, she simply said "Yes", and hung up.

Fast forward a week or two.  After telling the padre about this, he told me to schedule a meeting with her.  So, I did, and when I went to the meeting, she said I was filling out the wrong form (even though it says long term visa on the top), but that I didn't need to go to New York.  Obviously, now I'm having trouble believing basically anything she says, because it seems like every time I talk to her (if I can get a hold of her), it changes.

Anyway, as you can probably tell, the visa process isn't going that well.  Besides that, I haven't learned too much more.  My first family does indeed live in Lille.  I'll have a sister (until she leaves on her exchange), a brother, and another exchange student living with me!  The other exchangee, Marcela, seems soo nice.

That's basically all I've learned between the last entry and now.  I still don't have my travel dates - I emailed my travel rep, so hopefully I can arrive in Brussels the same day and time as Marcela (August 7 in the evening), so the family doesn't need to travel twice.  So, hopefully two months from now I'll be in Belgium.  I honestly cannot wait to get out of here.

Well...

It took quite a bit longer than 4 days to get some more information (heck, it's been almost a month!).  But, information has slowly been trickling in.  This is what I know so far:

- I'm being hosted by District 1630 (North), and my host club is Hoogstraten/Kempen

- My first family (I think...?) lives in Lille
- I only have two host families the entire year!

- My school is Heilig Graf Instituut, and it has a music program!  I may be able to keep playing trumpet!

Aaaand, that's about it.  I'm still clueless about my departure date, how to get a visa, and every other little thing about the exchange.  Thankfully my Dutch is getting better; I've been going to tutoring for around 2 months now, and I think it's starting to help a bit.

I can't believe how close it's getting.  Two weeks from tomorrow I graduate with my AA, then about three more weeks until my high school graduation, and then it'll only be like a month or so until I leave.  And I still can barely say anything comprehensible in Dutch!  Once finals are over, I'm going to dive headfirst into studying.  I want to be able to at least greet and thank my host family in Dutch when I first meet them.

Oh yeah, our facebook group for all the Belgium-goers for next year (or for people from Belgium on exchange, or who did an exchange recently) has 36 people now!  Everyone on it is so nice - I've already started making great friendships with quite a few of them.  It makes me even more excited to go, knowing that I'll finally be able to meet the people I've been talking to online.  =3