Trent for America

I agree with Ellen
But it also depends on the language you want to learn...
If you're interrested with french than... GO BELGIUM *lol*

For Agathe who d'like to meet you there, well of course it depends where she lives in Fance and where your french host family would live. But once again, Belgium is so small that you can meet anyone almost anywhere around...

Agathe, you better live north side though

EDIT : I was wondering something, can the exchange students choose between north and south Belgium ? (different language) I bet they do but ... :/

Welcome Trent

France is such a nice country, I live in the southwest next to the sea (Bordeaux, do you know the wine ? ), Belgium seems to be great too, but I don't know it so well.

That's true, the South is wonderful !

Quentin, I live in the South of France ! lol

Southeastern France is clearly the best area.

(a)

I live close to Toulouse

Welcomeee =D . I hope this forum will help you to find all the informations you need

Théo wrote:Southeastern France is clearly the best area.

(a)

I agree ! =P

T__T
Are you all from southern France ? :O
At least it's HOT

Yes I'm also from Southeastern France Near from Marseille ^^
Well, in Summer, it's hot. But actually .. we can't say that xDD (-2°C in my town today lol)

Welcome!

Hi ! Belgium's great =D

Leeya wrote:Je savais pas que les Belges étaient les premiers producteurs de bierre

Et si ! La Belgique ça gère ! ....Enfin je vais arreter sinon je serai HS

Welcome Trent!
I can give you some informations about countries around here but knowing i'm from belgium will sure make it seems like belgium is the best choice haha, but anyway i'll try not to. So Let's start with MY best choice :p

- Belgium : as people said it before it's a small country and we are so lucky to have a great public transportation system (especially trains are awesome : every week-end i'm going back home from College which is in Brussels). It's just awesome. Right now, i'm involved with some echange student who are in belgium this year. They are quite happy and they meet every wednesday either in Brussels or Liege to go drink at a bar. It's quite fun for them. Not to forget, Belgium is close to a lot of country : france, the netherlands, germany,... It's quite easy to go visit other countries. (I live 5 minutes away from france, and it only take me 2hours to go to Germany...) Needless to say : fries, chocolate and beers...

- France : it is NOT only paris... You could go anywhere in france (and that's more likely)... But from what i visited in France, the best place is south of France. It's akways sunny and people are really friendly (doesn't mean that people from the north are not haha). When you're there, it's quite easy to go to Spain or Italy. You can find good food too! I love going there

- Spain : LOVELY country, i go there for my summer vacations. People are so friendly and the food is amazing (especially if you like seafood). It can get pretty hot there in the summer, but do not imagine that spain is only beaches. If you get lucky you'll go somewhere not too far from the beaches and i think it looks kinda like Miami, with the palm trees and all that Spain is a really big country so depends where your family is, you can travel to france, to portugal or maybe Morocco.

- Germany : I lived in Cologne (so western germany) for 12 years and it was awesome. People are really kind, and really friendly. They'll help you a lot. One thing pretty amazing about germany is that they have a great school system! In most of the school, you go at school only in the morning (from monday to sometimes saturday), and you get off for lunch. You sometimes have PE in the afternoon but that's it. It's pretty nice! Also, germany have Burger kings (yeah never know if it's a matter for you or not haha). They also drink a lot of beers! (so this is for WESTERN germany...)

- Finland : One of my friend went there on exchange... she told me it was quite hard to live there because people are not open/friendly. They hardly say hi or even smile to you when you see them in the street. Not forgetting that in the winter, you don't have the sun. But she also told me they had a few fun stuff to do there, and they were really developped in art schools over there. An other really big important point : the language is really hard to learn and even after a year you can't speak very well. My friend told me she had to fight with herself to not come back home.

- Switzerland : From what i remember, it was awesome. It's the snow country. But if you really want to pick a language i wouldn't tell you to go there because they are 3 mains languages. But it's a really lovely country and people are sooooooo nice over there! And if you there you can travel too : italy, france, germany,... all depends where you're host family is...

So there ya go, i hope i help you just a little, but the most important is to find where YOU wanna go... See first, what language you wanna learn, that's the most important step and then select the countries you wanna go to. And even though you don't get the one you wanted, it's not a big deal. I know/met a lot of people who didn't get their first choice and had an amazing year abroad!

I wouldn't necessarily pick my host country for the language i wanna learn... Some people choose their host country for the culture first. I personally think learning the language end up not being that important, at least for me. It's something that counts of course, but i think you could pretty much get away with it when you choose your host country

Thanks for all the suggestions. After hearing what you all have said about these countries they all sound wonderful. I'm leaning towards Germany just because for some reason when I was little I was fascinated by it the only thing is it's going to be hard just because I know basically nothing in German. But yeah if any of you want to get to know me better feel free to message me.

another thing the country needs to have really good beer

Don't worry about the language, you'll pick it up REAL quick

Ellen wrote:

Hardone wrote:another thing the country needs to have really good beer

Go to Belgium then

Agree! haha
But yeah don't worry about the language, i have a friend who left for taiwan and couldn't speak a word of chinese, now he's totally fluent

I've always heard that Germany has had the best beer. I hate American beer it lacks flavor and it taste really watery.

haha yeah come to belgium, we just have the best beer an our drinking age is 16

Haha all the exchange students who are here in Belgium say:
-well i wanted to go to France but it was full, so they told me i could go to belgium or to Switzerland, an i've chosen Belgium.

btw, welcome in here

Is there any like cool architecture in Belgium??? like old monuments and statues and stuff like that.

yes, i think in nearly every city or town there is, but that's in every European country i think...