World's Biggest Fail

I suck. I really do. While today had its successes, overall, I failed.
It wasn't that grievous of an error, in retrospect, I suppose. But man, oh, man, was it scary at the time. Now, I'm just kind of embarrassed. My host sister's boyfriend wanted to walk her home after school. "Not a problem," I said when Auriane expressed concern about leaving me. "Ammie and Sam wanted to get a Coca after school today anyways. And I went home by myself on Wednesday, it's an easy route."
"What bus do you take?" she asked, testing me.
"One-thirty-two," I replied. "I get off after Place de Carnieres. I have my key."
"You have hockey today," she reminded me.
"I know, at six o'clock. I'll take the four-thirty bus, get home at five and we can leave at five thirty." Satisfied, Auriane left me to my own devices.
It was a good plan, I swear to God. I knew the route home. After taking it twice with her, it'd be hard to not know the route. It's honesty simple. Walk down the stairs over the train station after school. Wait for the bus under the big yellow sign that says BUS. Get on one-thirty-two. Ride it for approximately seven minutes. Boom. Rue de Roujuste.
I should have known it was a bad sign when, after getting drinks and talking with friends at the corner pub, the bus was fifteen minutes late. It finally arrived, right as I was getting nervous about where it was. I got on... And the bus driver got lost. Hand to God. He got out of the bus and asked for directions. Then, at the next stop, he told us the bus was ceasing to run. Everybody out. Luckily (I guess), we were at Place de Carnieres, but by then it was five o'clock, and I was supposed to be at home. While I know that I ride the bus past this stop to get home, I didn't really know where I was. The next bus would be an hour, and it couldn't be that long of a walk, one bus stop away? All of the tiny, winding streets look the same to me, houses pressed together, cats everywhere and the strange absence of people. A lady walking her dog began to pass me.
"Excuse me," I interrupt. She turned to me. "Do you speak French?" I felt like I had to ask. When I was visiting Brussels, my host-mum asked someone for directions in French, only to have them reply, somewhat offended, in Néerlandais.
"Oui," she replied.
"Do you know how to get to Rue due Roujuste?" I asked. Her eyebrows shot up.
"On foot?" she demands. I nod sadly, my arms still clutching my ridiculously big, blue binder.
"The bus isn't running there today," I tell her.
"You're not from around here?" she guesses, no doubt noticing my still-foriegn accent, although I hadn't stumbled on my French yet with her.
"I'm a Canadian Anglophone," I brag. "It's my second week."
"And here you are," she laughs. "Lost in Carnieres. How to explain this... See this road here? Go all the way to the top of the hill. You'll pass one, two, three streets. It's the third street, on the right, OK?"
"Thank you so much," I say. "Third street."
"On the right."
And off I go. Three blocks, then. Expect in Carnieres, streets are really freaking far apart. I pass an unlabelled road. One. I pass rue André. Easily two... By this time I'm halfway up the hill, and it's nearing five thirty. The third street, I can see it! Rue Saint-Eloi. Not my street at all. Shit. I'm lost.
I'm freaking lost in Belgium. I didn't even know I lived in Carnieres for the first week I lived here. Now I'm lost? How is this not the street? Did I walk past it? Did the lady say it was the third street? The fourth street, maybe? I thought she said it was on the right, did she say it was on the left or the right? Should I go back? Keep walking? What do I do? What do I do?
Why am I the only person for as far as I can see walking? It's not even raining outside. Shouldn't an errant jogger be able to explain to the lost Canadian where she is?
Whatever, I think, totally pulling off non-chalance and dropping all sense of "holy-shit,holy-shit,I'm-lost-in-a-foreign-country-panic" (sarcasm), whipping out my phone. I should have just done this in the first place.
Unhappy beeps meet my ears instead of a dialtone leading me to Vero's cell. Do I have signal? Yes. Maybe she doesn't. Call the house. Unhappy beeps. Uh-oh.
Maybe I'll just go back to the Place de Carnieres. Double back, figure it out...
At six o'clock, I'm walking down Rue de Roujuste. I can't figure out how I got there. I saw the street sign, rounded the corner... And discovered I lived on the world's longest road. It takes me nearly ten minutes before I start recognizing the street. A beep sounds behind me.
It's Vero.
"Were you lost?" she asks, rolling down the window. I hop in the car, trying to not cry. It was pretty scary, in the middle of nowhere without a working phone or any clue as to where the hell I am.
She's told the story to a dozen people so far, talking about her silly Canadian. So as an ambassador to Canada, I've made us all seem like loserish lost dolts. At least I explained my bus and phone troubles before dissolving into released anxiety in my host-mum's Fiat. So it was the world's biggest fail.
And I was late to hockey.
I really want to end this post here, simply because it seems really complete to end on that line. But I did say that this day had some successes, and I just want to tell you about them.
The bartender where we got Cocas afterschool asked where I was from. I told him all about me and the other exchange students and he said we should come in next Friday and have Cocas for free, if we promise to brag about him back home. I agreed we'd do just that.
I had a conversation with my French teacher, the one of whom I'm kind of afraid. He wanted to know where in Canada I was from, since when I'd introduced myself, I left it at Ontario. He's since figured out Ontario is a province, not a city, and wanted to know more about Thunder Bay.
It's easy to explain Thunder Bay to people who know what Lake Superior is. That's how I've always done it. "You know Lake Superior? Thunder Bay's right on the tip of the Lake." But no one in Europe has ever heard of Lake Superior. It's bizarre.
But in Spanish, we were given a map of North America, and I drew Thunder Bay on the map. I carry it in the outside pocket of my purse now, ready to whip it out to point to my hand-traced provincial boundaries of Canada, and the little house I drew to be Home.
Then after hockey, I explained to a girl on my team how school works in Canada. I'm getting better at French, I swear. Everything is starting to click, and I'm even going to hang out at a friend's house on Sunday. So today was a rollercoaster. It tired me out.
One last thing, then I'm actually going to bed this time: I love getting comments on my blogs. I've read every single one I've ever gotten, and they make me so happy. I can't reply to them, because I can't comment on my own blog, but I love knowing that you guys back home are reading this. I love knowing that I haven't simply faded from your lives like a tide, out of sight and out of mind. I miss you all too. I can't wait to share my next story.