Culture Shock?

The team practices on Thursday, but it was the last day of school for most students and most of the Belgium Guys that are not in school have jobs so we only had 6 people show up for practice so we took ground balls and took batting practice. Later on my roommate and I went to downtown Antwerp to meet up with the other Americans in the league. We met them at an outdoor concert that was just finishing up, but everyone was out hanging out. The people do not buy beer at the concert but they go to what they call a Night Shop and get beer there and then bring it to the concert. I was talking the one of the other Americans and we were discussing that we would probably have more of a culture shock but it helps that we have this small community of Americans to be able to work our way in the the Belgium way of life. After people started to move from the Square where the concert was we moved along and took a short 15 minute walk to the club, "Cafe Local" This is where the Americans go every Thursday. We walked up and people already have come to know the people that I was with. We got inside and it was everything that I thought a European club would be. Techno, Dance music, fog and bright strobe lights with people dancing. In the U.S. I do not like to go to clubs because I do not dance, but I had a good time and I did dance... ALOT. It was great until I realized when I was walking out that the sun was coming up. We had danced all night long. Had a quick bite to eat at a local place and we took the first tram of the morning back to the house at 6:16 am. We were greeted my my host mother (she was up for work) who laughed at us and asked me how I liked Belgium now. I grinned and said that they were crazy! She laughed and laughed. She wished us a good sleep and we went to bed.
I was woken by shouts from the backyard at 2 in the afternoon. The young ones had their last day of school today and everyone was out in the yard playing futbol. I came out and joined them. It was really fun and to see the whole family interact was really neat. We played for along time and then the little ones decided that they wanted to play baseball so we changed the playing field, laid down some mats for bases and played some more. Junior did not seem to like me much in that game, only for the reason that I tagged him out to many times. He likes to cry when he does not get his way. It was neat to see Sebas the oldest working out the problems between the two little ones. He would give lessons on what the two were doing wrong or he would solve the arguments between the two. He had to sit them down when Junior took a bat to Sander's back. Even though Sander probably deserved some of what he got since he threw a ball at Junior. No matter where you are at families still interact the same way. I am signing off since dinner is minutes away.