Things That Are Weird In Belgium

1. I speak my school's foreign languages fluently and can only read children's books and comics in the native language.
2. I managed to sing my way into school.
3. People are way easy on me because I come from a foreign land and whatnot.
4. Teenagers carry tobacco in their pockets and roll cigarettes on the street. If that happened in the states, they'd get cuffed right there, no questions asked, followed by hours of intense interrogation and a night in prison.
5. Ghent is a city. Like, a BIG city. It doesn't look like one at all. It's all castles and bicycles, no concrete in sight, and people smile and drive carefully.
6. I have zero concept of time. Jet lag is a bitch.
7. I'm pretty sure my host parents are hippies.
8. I had a staring contest with a rabbit today.
9. There are snails everywhere.
10. The food is pretty confusing. I eat bread at every meal, sometimes with chocolate sprinkles(hagelslag). My host parents serve me alcohol without wondering if I can handle it like a responsible person. I'm used to people thinking that teenagers + booze = pregnancy 100% of the time. Don't worry, it's just wine. Oh, the beer, obviously. I can't very well talk about Belgian food without mentioning beer. It's not bad. Then again, my host parents only buy organic, fair-trade, eco-friendly, Oxfam-sponsored light beer, but it's certainly tolerable. The strangest food-related Belgian fact is that maple syrup is only sold in health-food stores. Yep, Belgians consider it a natural sweetener only used by freaks.

How to Pack a Suitcase

1. Buy the cheapest and lightest luggage you can find. Sure, it'll fall apart mid-flight, but at least you won't exceed the weight limit.
2. Recruit a friend to tell you that all of your clothes are ugly and you need to leave most of them at home.
3. Roll your underthings into your shoes.
4. Get those cool vacuum pack bags and flatten your folded clothes into suctioned oblivion. Use that to line your suitcase.
5. Roll everything else into little clothing burritos.
6. Sit on your suitcase until it obeys.
7. Weigh, unpack, repack, lather, rinse, repeat.