A Kayaking Adventure

This past Saturday, my friend Maeve (thanks Maeve!) organized a bunch of us to go kayaking down in the Ardennes. I was a bit skeptical as to how cool this kayaking trip would be, I mean, come on, we are in Belgium - not exactly the outdoorsmans dream of a country. So I thought. We took an early train to Dinant - the city that I had visited before - and then hopped on a short connecting train to a town called Gendron - Celles, which consisted of....well....a hotel and a fry stand - and a few kayaking places. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, about 75 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.

After we successfully navigated our way to the Kayak place that we had made the reservation at, we assembled into teams, tucked our stuff into every nook and cranny on the kayak, and set off for a 12 kilometer kayak trip down the Lesse River in Southern Belgium. There were twelve of us in total, so we were given 6 double kayaks. These things weren't exactly top quality, but they would make do. One group swapped their kayak for a more luxury edition (for a few extra bucks) but little did they know that further down the line, their luxury kayak would be an upside down kayak...muahahahaha.

Ryan and I were in the same kayak, as he had very little kayaking experience and I kind of know what im doing. We were the only two guys on the trip, with ten other girls, so we were showing off our machoness by ripping by everyone in our kayak and creating as big of a scene as possible. The scenery at first was mediocre, reminded me of kayaking back home. But then we got into some pretty gnarly areas with some huge cliffs and big open fields. The water had quite a strong current, and even some rapids at some points. We came around one corner and BAM, there was a humongous castle just resting on a cliff ahead. WOW. Now it didn't feel like home. This was amazing.

A little further on and we encountered our first obstacle. A dam. Yep, no warning signs or anything, just a 10 foot dam in our way. Seeing a group of Belgian boyscouts ride over it with little problems gave me the courage to do so myself...no problem. Too bad some of the girls got stuck...



We continued on and pulled off at a beach to have some lunch and chill out for a bit. That was fun. And then continued on. By this time, our kayak was carrying about an inch of water in it, and all of our spare clothes were soaked....as well as my wallet and cell phone...whoops. And there it was again, another dam. This one was slightly more intimidating than the first, and there was no one in front of us to show us how it was supposed to be done. There was however, a restaurant at the shore with a bunch of people outside watching the kayakers go by. They all seemed to be shouting "Wrong WAYYY" to Ryan and I, but we didn't know why. Until we were flying off a dam and nearly capsizing. Apparently the one spot we decided to go down was the one spot you aren't supposed to go down, because this was a straight up drop off, not a gradual bump. Needless to say I almost bailed out of the kayak and lost my paddle at the bottom of the river.....

We continued on our way, when our friends in the luxury kayak collided with a rock and flipped over....HILARIOUS. Probably the funniest scene of my life.

We finished up the trip and dropped our kayaks at the rendevous point, which conveniently had a nice cafe where we enjoyed some frys and some beers to celebrate our victory of the Belgian river dams. As for the paddle, I played a smooth move and grabbed everyone we were withs paddles and threw them all on the truck..they didnt even notice :).

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Trier

This past weekend was our final class trip - to Trier, Germany - which is the oldest city in Germany and was once the capital of the Roman empire. Unlike our other trips, we took a bus to this one, which was awesome. We first made a stop in Luxembourg to visit an WWII American Military cemetery and monument. It was truly one of the most beautiful things I have seen. The weather was amazing, about 75 degrees and sunny, so that certainly added to it. But it was amazing to see such a great monument and cemetery recognizing the support of the U.S. military, way out here in Luxembourg. We explored it for about an hour, and then had a picnic and got back on the bus to continue to Germany.

Luxembourg is a beautiful country. Who would have thought. The countryside is all rolling hills with vineyards and valleys and lots of windmills. It was really cool. When we pulled into Trier I was equally excited, because this place looked really cool. We visited many different things in Trier, the highlights include the ruins of an ancient Roman Bath, Karl Marx's house, the Porta Nigra - the old city gate, an old Amphitheater where gladiators used to duel, and a huge hill overlooking the city where our teacher let us get out of the bus and chill for a while. I actually got a sunburn! It was so beautiful out.

For dinner we went out to a real Roman restaurant, and had a more or less preset meal - interesting. When you think of Roman food, you probably immediately think pasta and pizza. Wrong. Romans ate some weird stuff. For an apertif (a "starting drink") we had some strange liquour mixed with honey and anise. No lie, it tasted like crap. I was able to finish it though, in time for our appetizer. Two sausages and some green beans. Sausages = delicious. Green Beans = Not. I have never eaten green beans prepared in a way that I didn't like until I had these. Grosssssss. We got to choose from a few things for our main meal, so I had the lamb steak in some sort of prune sauce. That was pretty good. Then dessert came, and I think one person actually was able to finish. It was literally pears covered in lard. NASTY! I asked the waitress to bring me the best German beer they had, and was disappointed as to what came back. Being in Belgium has certainly turned me into a beer snob. I mean yeah, it tasted okay, but come on, I thought Germans knew how to make beer.

For the night a group of us tried to go out, as it was the night before my birthday and we wanted to celebrate. Well, lets just say nightlife isn't the most important thing in Trier, in fact, there was none. So we went back to the hostel and went to bed, which was probably a good thing because we had to wake up at 8:30am the next day for breakfast.

Slept well, breakfast was good, then we set off for our final day in Trier. This is when we saw the inside of the Porta Nigra and Karl Marx's house. Interesting places. We had chinese for lunch, it was ok. Then we finally got to the part of the trip we were all looking forward to, Wine Tasting!

We took the bus a little outside of the main city, to a huge vineyard with very steep fields. We met this crazy German man who ran the vineyard (9th generation) and he insisted on taking group pictures every five minutes and would just steal your camera and do it. We learned about the process of wine making, and the different grapes and wines that this particular vineyard produced. The steep hills were used to grow Reisling grapes, which produce a sweet white wine. The hills are steep so that there is maximum sunshine on the grapes throughout the day. Under the ground there are rock slabs which break in the heat and release important minerals into the soil. We toured his vineyard, and saw his wine cellars and fermentation tanks. It actually was really interesting.

Then came the fun part - the tasting. Now how many people can say that on their birthday they got to go Wine Tasting in Germany, with perfect weather and a great group of people....this guy can. We first learned how to properly taste wine, hold it up to the sun, swish it, smell it, slurp it, swish it, drink it. We started with their dryest wine, a chardonnay, and then went up in sweetness to their dessert wine, and ended with their red wine. They supplied us with fresh baked rolls to eat between tastings. It was AWESOME. Matt and I purchased a bottle each for ourselves, and one for our host mom whose birthday is today. Great times.

The ride home was long, and the toilet tank was filled so we all had to hold in all the wine we just drank for a few hours - slightly uncomfortable. We watched Spartacus on the way home and all just chilled after a great weekend.

This was by far the best trip of my semester here. And who would have thought, this was the one I knew least about and didn't expect much from.

Kristina visits soon!

Home in less than three weeks - crazy!

Check the pics out.

Spring Break

Four train rides, two flights, four countries, and four different hostels. Spring Break is over. What a great time.


Our trip started off with 5 days in Paris for our Art class. This was the part of my spring break that I was least looking forward to (because we had to follow around our teacher all day) but it turned out to be one of my favorites. Paris is an amazing city, and I now understand what all the hype is about. True, the prices are absolutely ridiculous, I don't understand how anyone could ever live there, but around every corner is a post-card worthy picture or something that belongs in a museum. We spent most of our time looking at art in different museums, the Louvre and the D'Orsay museum most of all, and learning about the history of Paris etc. The Louvre was absolutely insane. We spent over 6 hours exploring it and only got to see about one tenth of the thing. I saw the Mona Lisa - which was probably the dumbest thing I have ever seen but apparently people like it or it wouldn't be so famous.
From Paris we took a day trip to Versaille, which was my favorite part of the Paris trip. The palace at Versaille was nice, but the thing that was most amazing to me were the acres and acres of gardens with hidden statues and ponds and even a small petting zoo. Versaille was an amazing place and thankfully we visited it on our only sunny day in France. We also visited the famous Pere-Lachaise cemetery which was beautiful - we saw Jim Morrisons grave!
One night a few of us with a Bentley Alumn who also studied abroad in Brussels but now works in Paris and learned about his job as a financial consultant for a MIS company. We got taken out to a nice pub after dinner and thankfully it was paid for by my class because my meal was over $45 U.S. dollars. Whoops!
Our hostel was pretty crappy in Paris, but it was alright. We were shoved into an 8 person room in the attic of this hostel - which just so happened to be filled with a bunch of punk ass younger school groups. There were seven of us from class in the 8 person room, but the 8th person just so happened to be an Alumn from Holy Cross in Worcester, Ma (the same school my girlfriend goes to). Small world huh? He was pretty cool and on our last night, before heading to the airport for Krakow with Matt and Caitlin, we ate dinner with him and had a few drinks.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Krakow, Poland - After Paris was finished we were free to go and continue on with our own spring break plans. Matt, Caitlin, and I were heading out to Krakow, Poland, and had a very early flight so we spent the night at the CDG Airport in Paris. Needless to say we got no sleep and were all pretty cranky by the time the 5:00 am check in came around. But everything went smoothly and by 10am we were in Krakow. We had to take a train from the airport to Krakow, and the minute I stepped out of the train I immediately fell in love with Poland. This was my first true taste of Eastern Europe and it was a good one. You really got the feel that you were someplace foreign (more-so than western europe at least) and everything just seemed a bit grimy and mysterious (which I like). We checked into our hostel (which was absolutely amazing) and sat down with one of the hostel workers to figure out the city. She showed us how to get to the good sights, restaurants, clubs and bars, and shopping areas, and we set off for our first day in Krakow. We ate some traditional Polish perogies (sp) at a pretty upscale restaurant, and spent only about 9 us dollars for the meal. The transition from one of the most expensive cities in the World (Paris) to one of the cheapest cities in Europe (Poland) was awesome. We bought some souvenirs at this cool clothhall which had really nice handmade stuff for cheap prices. We explored the castle and the downtown area then called it an early night because we were exhausted.
The following day Matt and I hopped on a sketchy little shuttle to go visit the Auschwitz museum, which was very interesting but pretty depressing. We took a bus on the way home that seemed to stop in every little Polish village, which was nice because we got to see some of the countryside and rural areas of Poland. After we got back we hung out with some of the people we met at the hostel, a few American girls, three cool scottish guys, and an insane Australian. We went to a grimy club and hung out for the evening.
The next day it was a bit rainy so we spent the day just hanging around the hostel and ended up watching a movie...we all needed to relax at this point. Plus, that evening we were taking a night train from Krakow to Budapest so we figured we wouldnt get much sleep.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Budapest, Hungary - One of the scottish guys decided to join Matt, Caitlin, and I on our trip to Budapest, so the four of us bought tickets for the night train from Krakow to Budapest. This was my first night train experience and lets just say it was pretty interesting. We were wedged into a tiny room with two three-level bunk beds on each side and a place where only about one person could stand. Our two other roomates were two american girls who were studying at Cambridge and were on spring break. Lets just say that it was a little bit cramped haha. I managed to get a few ours of sleep but was awoken at about 1 in the morning to the sound of people talking out the window. We must have been somewhere between Poland and the Czech Republic literally in the middle of no where. Outside the window all I could see were army men and some army vehicles. I had no idea what was going on it was pretty scary, but after about a half our the train continued on. We arrived in Budapest after about 9 hours of being on the train, and the time was about 10am.
Luckily we found our hostel very easily. We checked in with Olga - the owner of the hostel - who was really nice and definetely a hippy haha. She was playing some Ben Harper and made us feel right at home. Matt and I had gotten a two person room which was pretty sweet because we didnt need to lock up our stuff. We immediately headed to the thermal spas because we were all exhausted from not getting enough sleep on the train and decided that a day soaking in hotubs and sitting in steam rooms was in order. We went to the Gellert Baths which were absolutely amazing, and cheap too! We killed about 3 hours just getting good and relaxed and then went to dinner. I had goulash soup, a traditional hungarian meal, and Unicum, a traditional liqour. It was a great meal but during it I noticed that I was starting to get a sore throat and head ache. Uh oh. I went to bed early that night in hopes to kick the cold before it came but unfortunately I became pretty sick and didnt venture out too much the next day. We did see some really nice sights and climbed up a hill for a view over the whole city. Budapest is a beautiful place! We spent three nights in Budapest, and then took a day train to Vienna for the last stop on our trip.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vienna, Austria - Caitlin decided to stay an extra night in Budapest with her new scottish friend ;), so Matt and I headed to Vienna alone. One of the most memorable parts of my spring break was this train ride as I got to see the rural side of Hungary. It was interesting to see all of the old soviet communist block houses and really poor villages with dirt roads and self sustaining farmhouses. It was really neat. But as we approached Vienna, things became more modern and I felt as though I was back home in Boston.
Once again we found our hostel with ease, I guess I am just a great navigator haha. This hostel had a much different feel but was very nice as well. We had our own 5 person room with a kitchen and shower (as we were meeting up with Elena and Steph). The beds were unbelieveably comfortable, which might have actually been a bad thing because it made me not want to get out of it. We spent our days in Vienna visiting museums and palaces, and one afternoon we went to the Vienna Zoo! I was pumped to do something different than just sightseeing. One of the evenings we went to a Mozart concert and had a nice night watching the orchestra play while sipping on champagne! A cool place we went to was the Belvedere, which is like a smaller version of Versaille. We saw some cool paintings and gardens there. I also tried some weiner schnitzel which was pretty decent, and of course some austrian beers, which have nothing on Belgian beers at all.
I was amazed at how clean and efficient Vienna was. I didn't see any trash anywhere at all, and the metros and trains were spotless. It was quite a contrast with the grimy eastern europe cities we had just come from.
By the final day of our trip I was tired and ready to head back to Brussels. Our flight was quick and painless, and we got home around 10 oclock at night. All in all, a good trip!

Many people probably wonder what my favorite cities were so here ya go:
1) Krakow
2) Paris/Versaille
3) Budapest/Vienna

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tommorow my mom comes to visit! I am not sure what we will do but it should be fun!

I will upload pictures ASAP!

Day Trip - Dinant

Matt and I had the idea to visit Dinant - a small town in southeast Brussels, located on the outskirts of the Ardennes mountains - so we woke up this morning and headed to the train station at around 11:00am. We took the train to Dinant, took about an hour and a half.

The train ride was sweet. It was my first time heading in this direction and it was real pretty. We first passed through some woods, which I haven't seen since I have been here. Then came the pastures and rolling green hills with horses and lambds roaming about. There were windmills all over the place, and at one point we saw about fourteen parachuters in the sky doing god knows what. It was a pretty cool sight. Once we approached the city of Namur (the biggest city in southeast Belgium), we began to see the Meuse river - the same river that splits Dinant in half. The views were starting to get prettier and prettier, and a little more down the track and we came to Dinant. We had to wait for our friend Chase who took a later train then us, so Matt and I sat down and had a bite to eat at a small restaurant. I had some chicken wings and frites - it really hit the spot. When Chase got into town we walked across the bridge into the main city area. The views were absolutley insane. Dinant is a small town that lies next to a fairly large river. The city is looked over by a huge fort at the top of a pretty jagged cliff. Underneath the fort is the famous citadel with a crazy onion-shaped top. We wanted to go to the fort, so we took a crazy old cable car up. When we got to the top (about 1 minute later) we had an incredible view over the town. It was a little bit hazy out so my pictures weren't as great as I hoped, but they are still pretty sweet. We took a guided tour of the inside of the fortress, and it was really cool. We got to see where they would shoot guns from and the dungeons etc. After our tour we took some more pictures and then went to this playground that was also at the top of the cliff and messed around for a little bit on the jungle gym. I felt like a ten year old. About two hours after we first made it to the top of the cliff we decided to head back down to the town. We decided to take the stairs this time, all 500 of them. It was a good idea at first until my legs felt like they were goin' to fall off. When we reached the bottom we were hungry again so we found a cool little restaurant to eat at with tables outside along the river. I had a nice meal consisting of an omelette with ham from the Ardennes (so damn good), and a nice cold trappist beer. Not a bad cap to a good day. For dessert we went across the street and got waffles with icecream and hot fudge. I think I don't have to eat for a while now.

Chase took off and me and Matt stayed for another hour and walked around the city for a bit. Aside from the church and the fortress, there isn't much to Dinant. But I had a great time taking pictures because the city was so damn sweet looking. The train ride home was nice and relaxing and I zoned out to some music for the majority of it. I noticed a lot of motorcyclists in this city - everywhere you turned people were out on their bikes. I'm not sure if it was just because the weather was nice, or if there is a large population of bikers in this town. I also saw alot of roadbikers, and it finally began to show that Belgium actually does have a large population of roadbikers - something that I always here about. In Brussels it isn't so "biker friendly" so I never see too many. Matt and I decided that we are going to make another trip back down to the Ardennes when it gets a little warmer out to do some kayaking or hiking. It is a really cool place!

One week till spring break! I have to start preparing myself for a crazy trip. Hopefully I will update again by then. Make sure to check out my pictures from Dinant!

Been a while....

Well sorry for taking long between my last post and this one - I have been super busy with midterms/papers/trip planning etc.

Matt and I finally are almost done planning our spring break - should be ridiculous. Our first five days will be spent in Paris, France with our class. We will fly from Paris to Krakow, Poland and stay there for a few nights, take a train to Budapest, Hungary, stay there for a few days, and then take a train to Vienna, Austria and spend the rest of our break there and then fly home.
In Krakow we are planning on visiting the Auschwitz Nazi Camp for a day, and Budapest we are definetely hitting up their famous thermal spas and massage places. May take a day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia when we are in Vienna - not sure yet.

Midterms went alright. I am still kind of pissed that this school feels alot more like school than I expected. Most kids go away to study abroad and barely have to focus on their schoolwork but Vesalius isn't too much different than Bentley. Oh well, I am here to study anyways I guess.

I never actually made it to Barcelona, I came down with some weird virus and ended up being in the doctors instead of the airport. Hopefully I can get down there sometime in April or something.

My mom is coming to visit me in the middle of April, right after spring break, so I will be excited to show her around Brussels etc.

I am sure I am going to have some crazy stories to share after my Spring Break trip, so bear with me if I don't post for a few more days.

Later.
Tom

Amster...Damn

Well lots has happened since I last posted...most importantly, my first overnight trip with my european studies class, a trip to the ever-so-famous city of Amsterdam. We left Brussels early Friday morning, at around 8:15. Matt and I almost missed the train...whoops.

Anyways, we got on the train which was actually pretty comfortable and set off on our journey. The ride took about two and a half hours to Amsterdam Central station - which is one huge station. It was a pretty sweet station, and I have many pictures of it. After we all got off our train and got our stuff together we set off to find our hostel. It was located about a ten minute walk through the city and over a few canals. It was called the Hotel Keizersgracht and was located right on one of the main city canals. It was a pretty humble place but the location was good and easy to find. We checked in to our room; I was in a room with Matt, Garrett, and Tim - who joined our trip at the last minute and therefore slept on our floor. We had a private bathroom etc. so it was not too bad, and we had a pretty sweet view over the garden.

After we settled in Prof. Delsemme hooked us up with some free sandwiches and fruits and then we set off on the beginning of what would be a 48 hour tour of the city.

We visited and did many different things in Amsterdam over the weekend including:

• The Van Gogh Museum
• The Rijksmuseum
• The Anne Frank House
• The 'T Ship Museum
• Canal Tour
• Museum of Amsterdam History
• and the Portugese Jewish Synagogue....

At night time we were free to do what we wanted, so we enjoyed some of the Amsterdam nightlife and took a walk through the famous red light district. Wow...interesting place. It was almost surreal. There were hundreds of women of all shapes and sizes ready to prostitute themselves out to whatever perverted customers wanted. Not for me. But it was cool to see and I am glad we walked through it.

Amsterdam is a crazy crazy city. There are so many bikes that I feel if I spent any more time there I would have gotten hit by one. (Mom - picture Copenhagen and multiply it by ten) It almost felt a little claustrophobic, but it was still a very pretty place. All over the city are the famous "coffeeshops" which do indeed sell coffee along with any type of marijuana you want. It is weird to see stuff that is so illegal back home and even here in Belgium be sold as a legitimate business. Just another strange offering from Amsterdam.

My favorite thing - which was actually the thing I dreaded doing the most - happened to be the Anne Frank House. Something about being in the same house that was talked about in a book that I read back in middle school was really interesting. We got to see the entire house including the Annex in which they spent months living.

We came home Sunday evening, and I was absolutely whiped out.

Overall my trip was pretty good. I can't say I enjoyed Amsterdam as much as I had anticipated, but I am definetely glad that I went. Now I can cross the Netherlands off of my "Countries to Visit" list.

P.S. Check out my pictures on the link at the right!

BARCELONA IN THREE DAYS!

Antwerp, Beer, and Frog Legs...

So I have had quite an eventful last few days. On Friday it was my turn to cook food for the family so I cooked my favorite thing in the world, kielbasa with noodles and garlic sauce. Everyone really liked it so I was happy.

Saturday we had our second class trip, this time to Antwerp which is to the north of Belgium. We visited many different things including Ruben's House and a printing press museum, and the famous cathedral of Antwerp, the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The printing press museum was actually really interesting. We watched a film on how the first printing press came about, and lets just say that it was way to difficult just to print one page. Thank god for printers. We also saw the famous harbor, which reminded my of a less populated Charles river...so it wasn't that exciting. Antwerp had a different feel than Bruges, as it was a little more populated and lively, but certainly not as pretty. The church however was pretty sweet. A few of us ate lunch at a small italian pizza place, and I got a pretty big personal pizza and a coke for 6 euros...score! This was once again another hectic day with Professor Delsemme, so by the time we got back on the train we were all pretty tired. By accident a few of us sat in the first class section, and after about 15 minutes we were told to move...whoops. We spent the night just hanging out downtown etc. with some friends. We met a few kids from Brazil who were studying in Germany and showed them a few things including Delirium Cafe. They were cool.

Today I slept in till about 1:30, and when I woke up I was starving, but broke. So I had to find an ATM that actually worked, which ended up being one downtown. Ryan, Matt, and I went to the ATM then found a pretty cool little Thai Restaurant for lunch. I ordered a chicken and honey dish, Ryan a chicken and curry dish, and Matt got FROGLEGS! I tried some of the legs, and they were suprisingly pretty good. They were like real tender chicken wings (smaller of course). After lunch Ryan wanted to check out a beer store. So we went there and guess what I found...the number one ranked beer in the world, Westvleteren 12. Beeradvocate.com has had it ranked number one for years, and it is extremely rare to find. You can only buy cases of it from the actual monastery, and the monks brew only a small number of batches of beer a year. Yeah, be jealous. I can't wait to try it. It was very expensive though, 7 euros, so that is vitaully a 10 dollar bottle of beer. But whatever, number one is number one :)

During the afternoon we watched a rally of people in front of the Bourse building. We werent sure what they were doing but we figured out that it was a bunch of people from Kosovo who are celebrating their new independence from Serbia. People were beeping horns, hanging out of cars with flags, and dancing through the streets. It was pretty cool to see and I felt happy for them.

This week is going to be hectic, I have lots of work to do. But its okay, because on Friday we are heading with class to Amsterdam for the weekend! I have heard so much about it and can't wait to go.

One Month Down...

So I have survived my first month in Belgium! (Crazy huh). What a great time I have had so far. The food, the sights, the travel, the beer, and even some school has all been great. Except, after a month of me talking about how great this place is, maybe your wondering what I don't like. So here it is.

1) Waking up at 6:00am Mon-Thursday just so I can eat breakfast and start my 40 minutes commute to school.

2) The trash on the streets. It gets pretty gross especially after the weekends.

3) The crowdedness of the subways. At 7:00am I don't want to be grinding with a bunch of business men and smelly homeless people.

4) The expense. Stuff here is way overpriced. Granted, I can buy a few things cheap (chocolate, waffles, rice cakes), but everything else is ridiculous. Not to mention that it first looks over priced (ie. a package of cookies will have the price tag 4E), at first you think "oh thats not too bad," but after doing the conversion from euros to dollars, you realize that the cookies cost 6 bucks.

5) 10 DOLLARS TO DO MY LAUNDRY. ARE YOU JOKING?!

6) The fact that stores close at the most random times, and often for lunch, and it just so happens that those times are exactly when I want to go to them.

7) Getting lost on a regular basis. Though I am getting better, its still annoying.

8) The inability to buy all that you need in one place. Suppose I want to cook dinner, I have to go to the butcher to get meat, the baker to get bread, the wine store to get wine, the pastry shop to get desert. I feel that in order to accomplish any one single shopping trip you would do in the states requires you to visit at least three different stores here.

9) Mayonaisse on everything. EVERYTHING. Just so happens to be my least favorite food. Luckily on day one I told my host family that "mayonaise makes me sick" so they do not use it in my food :).

10) Dog poop. Lots and lots of it.

11) The fact that you can rarely find cold milk anywhere. They sell the milk (and eggs) on the shelf here, and it is always served room temperature, and can last for days. I don't understand how they do it.

12) The homeless people. Im sure I'd say the same if I lived in the heart of Boston, but seriously, get off your ass and get a job.

13) The inability to get a straight answer from anyone. "Where do I need to get my train ticket?" "I'm not sure, try one of the stations."

14) Having both dutch and french signs for everything. I can't speak either. Why do you have to confuse me like this?

Despite this list, I am still having a blast here! This weekend I am heading with class to Antwerp so expect an entry about that.

Champagne for Breakfast?!

So last night Iria and Els told us that they wanted to suprise us for breakfast. They said that we would need about an hour to eat in the morning, and that Els was going to stay home a little longer from work to eat with us. They were both very excited about it. I was up all night wondering what it was going to be.

I don't think I have seen as much food on the table for breakfast as I did this morning. Omelletes, Tomatos, Cheese, Strawberries, Beans, Sausage, Grapes, Breads, Sweetbreads, Fresh Squeezed juice, and... champagne! Apparently it is a common Belgian thing to offer champagne with brunch, so we had a nice glass of champagne from southern Spain which was actually quite refreshing in the morning. Check this out:

After breakfast Matt and Ryan had to go to class, and since I have fridays off I decided that I wanted to go explore this park at the end of a busline near my house. It was a pretty sweet forest, and part of it was full of public gardens. It was nice to get some fresh air, and the weather today finally was cooperating. About 55 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. I took some cool pictures. And then, as usual, I got lost but suprisingly was able to find my way home after about an hour of walking. All in all, a good afternoon.

Review of Brussels

I wrote this review of Brussels for my writing class and figured I would post it so you all can read what I think of the city. It sounds like I am obsessed with the city (which is partially true) but I buttered it up mainly because my teacher lives here haha. I'm always thinking!

Putting Brussels on the Map

Tourism today is a multi-billion dollar industry, and will most likely continue to be so for years to come. Many people love to travel to different places, to meet new people, and to experience new things. However, there are certain cities in the world which see many more tourists throughout the year than others. What makes a city a popular destination is whether or not it fits into some of the many criteria for determining whether or not a certain city is a nice place to visit. Such criteria can include: cost of living, cleanliness, infrastructure, culture, social, beauty, and whether or not the city has an interesting history. I believe that a city can be judged accurately simply by the following three major points: public transportation, social and cultural activities, and overall beauty. Brussels, Belgium is an excellent example of a city that fits, and at some points exceeds, the given criteria. Brussels has a great system of public transportation, an excellent social and cultural scene, and is a beautiful place to sightsee, making it a great choice for anyone to visit.

The public transportation of Brussels is perhaps one of the strongest elements that make Brussels a nice place to visit. The public transportation system of Brussels is excellent, making it cheap and easy to reach your desired destinations in a timely manner. Transportation throughout Brussels is made simple by the use of the metro, the trams, and the public buses. The metro system is divided into only three lines, making it feasible to reach your destination without the hassle of switching trains. But, if you do need to switch trains, you can do it easily by following the signs at the metro stop which will point you in the right direction. Granted, at times the metro trains can be quite crowded, so if you do not want to fight the crowds you can simply wait for the next train, which usually follows in only a few minutes. If your destination is somewhere a bit further away from one of the many metro stops, within ten minutes of each stop you are likely to encounter a bus or tram station. As a bonus, when you use your purchased ticket for any of these forms of transportation (bus, metro, and tram), you have one hour to do as much travel as you want. In other cities, such as Boston, Massachusetts, you are required to pay for each entry, making a quick trip to the market somewhat costly. One downfall of the Brussels public transportation system, however, is that the metro and major bus lines stop running at midnight. They do offer a night bus, called Noctis, but routes are limited and you must pay an extra rate. On a different level, Brussels is at the heart of Europe, and you can reach virtually all of Europe from Brussels either by train or airplane. Brussels is a central hub for travel all over the world. Commercial airliners travel to and from Brussels Zaventum airport, which is located only a few kilometers away from the heart of Brussels. Those looking for cheaper flights can access them at the Charleroi airport, which is located less than an hour south of Brussels, with transportation going to and from all days of the week.

Brussels isn’t just a city that’s easy to get around; it is also a cultural hub that offers many options to soothe ones social appetite. Being the “Capital of Europe,” Brussels is comprised of a variety of people from different backgrounds and countries, which have all come together to offer a mix of opportunities and a taste of their own cultures. Compared to other European and North American cities, the people of Brussels tend to be very warm and accepting, and if you do not speak the native tongue (or tongues), they usually try to accommodate you in your own language. Brussels is also a very safe city, with crime rates lower than most cities in the world, so walking at night time, even alone, is not too dangerous. On the entertainment and leisure levels, Brussels is world class. There are thousands of bars, pubs, restaurants, lounges, and clubs strewn throughout the city, so it is simple for you to find one which suits you. On the weekends, the city nightlife comes to life, and thousands of people head to the downtown area to meet with friends and enjoy their evenings. One downfall is, however, that compared to other cities, such as New York, Boston, and Miami, and Denver, there seems to be a lack of sports entertainment. There are a few soccer stadiums around the city, but that’s about all. For those interested in educating themselves while here, Brussels offers a number of museums, encompassing themes such as comic books, musical instruments, modern and ancient art, and history. Brussels is also home to the European Union and NATO, which are both interesting places to visit. The food in Brussels is fantastic, well crafted, and certainly abundant. There are frites stands and waffle stations all across the city, an assortment of chocolate shops and specialty liquor stores, and the quality of food is very high. It isn’t common for people to eat or make food loaded with chemicals and preservatives, and all meats and vegetables are sold fresh in the grocery stores and markets.

As far as beauty is concerned, you will be swept away by Brussels. Usually beauty is what initially grabs the attention of the traveler and makes them interested in visiting. People want to see beautiful scenes that will make them feel as far away from home as possible, and scenes that they will remember for years. The fact that there are only a few zoning laws in Brussels makes each home unique. Unlike cities such as Boston, Massachusetts, which has streets of houses that are all identical in shape, color, and size, Brussels is pleasing to the eyes because it is colorful and exciting, and really has the feel of a ‘true’ European city. The red rooftops of each building also add a touch of uniformity, without making everything look the same. In downtown Brussels is the Grand Place, which showcases some ancient guild houses that have been greatly preserved over the years. The city does a great job at keeping this area clean and displayed nicely with various lights and illuminations. Even though much of the city has been ransacked by graffiti artists, and trash seems to accumulate in the heavily traveled areas, the overall beauty of the buildings remains untouched. You can get a great view of the city if you travel to the upper town area, where you can look over the city and visit the Palace and its park. Another great aspect of the beauty of Brussels is the displays shown in many of the stores, especially the chocolate stores. Shopkeepers do their best to attract customers into their stores by creating lavish displays of their goods.

When you pair friendly people, beautiful sights, delicious food, and entertainment galore with a city that is safe, central, and easy to get around, it is tough to find a better place to visit. Brussels far exceeds my expectations, and I am finding that the more I live here the more I have come to love it. There are far more things to love about Brussels than to find wrong with it. I have visited many cities so far, and Brussels is sure to rank highly on my list.

My First Souvenir...

And boy is it awesome. Yesterday after class, Matt, Adam, Ryan, and I all hopped on a train at 10:30am to head to the Mardi Gras festival in Binche. It is a really popular Belgian carnival where people dress up in these crazy traditional costumes, parade through the streets with drums and instruments, and throw blood oranges into the crowd for people to eat or throw at other people. The train ride took about one hour, and when we got there we just followed the crowd to the town center. Binche is not a very large city, and it is kind of located in the middle of a bunch of farmland, but it was a pretty cool place. We met up with a group from my school and began to go to the various parties along the street. When the parade started, we all did our best to catch some oranges, and I succeeded and caught about 8 oranges. They were delicious. During the parade we met some Belgian locals who we helped catch some oranges for. I spoke with them for a while, and we became pretty friendly with a guy named Yannick and his friends. They hung out with us for a few hours. We wanted to stay in Binche until the fireworks at 9:00, so once the parade was finished we just kind of stood around for a little while.

And then a fight broke out right next to me between a bouncer and some drunk dude. So, being a good citizen, I held the drunk guy back and talked him out of fighting. He was like "Okay okay okay" and walked away. But then, he bent down and picked up an emtpy beer bottle and smashed in on the ground, started running towards the bouncer again, and I was stuck in the middle. He hit me with the bottle on my hand, making a pretty large gash on my thumb. He must of hit a vein because blood started dripping all over my jacket and pants. The drunk dude never ended up making it to the bouncer because right after he hit me four guys from the crowd came out and laid the smack down on him. I'm talking like UFC type stuff right in front of me. So not knowing what to do, I asked Yannick for advice. He brought Matt and I to a group of medics who were on some random street, and they looked at my hand and told me I needed to go to the hospital to get stitches. Great. I am in some random ass tiny city in the middle of Belgium and I need medical attention. Awesome. So after searching for the hospital with Yannick for a while (who is from Mons, not Binche so he didn't know exactly where to find it) we finally found the little place. SKETCHY...

We had no idea what to do so we asked an ambulance driver, and they brought me into the ER - more like a small warehouse which was pretty gross. As I am sitting there getting local anesthesia injected into my hand, a guy is overdosing on the floor. Makes me feel comfortable...not! Yannick helped us translate anything that they were telling me. So I get my thumb stitched up in about 10 minutes, which was actually kind of nice because for that to happen in the states the whole process would have been over two hours, in Binche - 20 minutes. Mind you, in the US at least you feel like you have credible doctors doing the procedure, here, I had no idea if this guy was even in highschool let alone a doctor. Oh well. It looks like they did an ok job. They instructed me to "remove the stitches myself in 8 days". I don't think so buddy, I think I will go see the doctor at school. So all in all I got three stitches and a good story to tell. I am not even sure if I have to pay for this thing, because all they did was quickly glance at my ISIC card, and didn't ask any questions or take any information from me at all...guess we will find out eventually. My first Belgian souvenir....a sweet scar:

Then we took the train home, and that brings me to the present where I am waiting for french class to start. What a day.

Trip #1 - Brugges

On Saturday we had a class trip to Brugges. We all met at the Central Station at 8:30am to catch a 9:00 train to Brugges. Inevitably, people got lost so this process was a fiasco, but finally, we were all on the train and good to go. It was a very cold, but sunny, day so I was sure to have lots of layers on. First things first, the trains in Belgium are amazing. Being used to the smelly, loud, and bumpy train that I take to work everyday in Boston, this was like heaven. Comfortable seats, smooth ride, silence, and tons of bathrooms in case nature calls. All in all, the train ride took about an hour. It was cool to see the Belgian countryside, and it reminded me alot of Sweden, minus the rolling hills. It was mainly farmland with a few villages here and there.

When we exited the station at Brugges, I immediately took a liking to the city because I saw that the bike racks were full. I'm talking probably close to a thousand bikes were parked at the station. Sweet! Our first task was to walk along the boulevard, which was once a wall to protect the city, to Our Lady's Church. And just like that, Brugges became my favorite city ever. This place is absolutely amazing. Entirely cobblestone streets, horse drawn carriages, old buildings, waterways, bakeries. It seemed as though it wasn't actually real. Everywhere you turned was the potential for a postcard shot. Ridiculous! We viewed the church, which was pretty large, and made our way to St. Jan Hospital, which is now a museum. We also had our first student presentation on the Plague, which was pretty interesting but weird because it occured where we were now touring... After that, we went to a different church, called Onze Lieve Vrouw, to see a sculpture made by Michelangelo, and to see the tombs of Charles the Bold and Mary of Burgundy. We then broke for lunch, and a bunch of us went to a little cafe to relax. I brought a salami sandwich (yeah JJ and Ted, you better be jealous), so all I ordered was a local beer, mainly so I could get the bottle cap from it, but I also wanted to give it a try. It was called Bruges Zot, translated to mean Bruges Fools. Pretty tasty, but not my favorite. Garrett ordered some sort of meat, which he thought was going to be cooked and on a plate etc, but it ended up being the Belgian version of a Slim Jim, guess thats what you get when you don't know exactly what you are ordering haha. After lunch we climbed to the very top of a bell tower, and got a pretty sick view of all of Brugges. It was a pretty ridiculous climb though, up hundreds of flights of narrow staircases. I got some sweet pictures from it. Then we had another student presentation on the cloth industry, but were interupted by a drunk man in a rabbit costume......weird. The rest of the time we listened to Delsemme mumble about just about everything, but finally we made it to the Begijnhof, a community within the city that requires you to be silent when you enter it, as nuns live there and require silence. It was pretty sweet, kind of reminded me of a mix between Harvard Yard and Amish people.... All of the buildings were white and the grass was covered in tulips (which you can't see cause they aren't in bloom yet, but it is apparently pretty sweet.)

And then our tour was done and we headed back to Brussels.

I urge anyone and everyone to go to this city. It is amazing. I can't say anything else about it.

The most famous thing in Belgium...

Yes, beer, chocolate, and waffles are known worldwide as what makes Belgium famous, but do you know about Mannekin Pis? Yeah, pictured below is the most famous statue in Brussels, a little boy peeing:

They dress him up in different costumes throughout the year, and each costume is then put in to a museum, showcasing all past costumes. Apparently the legend is that during some war in the 14th centure there was a little boy who pissed on a bomb fuse, saving the city from blowing up.

Mixed Meats...

Tonight for dinner I ate horse.

The end.

To Spain I go....

Just booked my flight to go visit adam for a long weekend in Barcelona. Im pretty stoked, I got a round trip flight for just 88 Euros. I leave Thursday Feb. 28th, and come back on Sunday Mar. 2nd. Can't wait to hit up the beach!

Living on a Budget

Belgium is pretty damn expensive, so over the past few weeks, I have figured out some ways to make living a little cheaper.

1) Since I have breakfast and dinner provided to me during the week, I eat as much as possible. Im talking like, eat till you feel sick. Usually breakfast can hold me over till dinner, but on the days that I am hungry, refer to step (2)

2) Next to my school is a Colryut (a grocery store chain). Inside the Colyrut, you can obtain free samples of some things. They always have coffee, fruit slices, and nuts. Each day between classes, I make my way up there, drink some coffee while I "shop", sample some fruits, and grab some nuts (yes I know that sounds funny). Voila, there is my lunch.

3) If 1 and 2 fail, you can always buy a one dollar loaf of bread, which is usually good to feed you for three days. If I am really going all out, I may invest in a few slices of salami. But that is just for a treat.

4) Sleep late on the weekends. This way, you can cut down on the amount of meals you eat simply by sleeping through them.

5) Hold off on laundry. Since it costs over 13 U.S. dollars to do a big load of laundry, you gotta do it sparingly. Im talking like, wear your clothes at least three times before washing them. Since everywhere here is smokey, no one can really tell if you smell bad, and even if they do, you are in Europe and will probably not see these people again.

6) Only go to art exhibits etc. when they are sponsored by the school. Chances are you can pull some strings and score some free tickets. No need to waste money buying them yourself.

7) Share things. I do not have one single textbook that I can call my "own." We all share them. This saves me over 200 Euro. Sweet.

I have tried to budget myself to under fifty Euros a week. Can I do it? Probably not but so far so good.

The Egg Incident...

So breakfast here is usually a suprise. Sometimes we wake up and have cereal, sometimes meats, sometimes bread, sometimes omelletes. Today we woke up and Iria had prepared us hard boiled eggs, or so I thought.

Alright, I know how to eat these. Being in somewhat of a rush, I smashed the egg open with my spoon and began to peel off the shell. It felt very soft to me, so I figured she just didnt cook it long enough. I then tried to pick up the egg and dump the contents onto my plate, leaving a mess.

Iria came out of the kitchen and gave me a strange look. Apparently, this type of egg is a famous breakfast in Brussels, called "The egg with soldiers." You are supposed to just take off the top of the egg, and dip your bread into the yolk, and the bread is usually cut into little slices called "Soldiers." So afterall, this wasn't just a runny hard-boiled egg, rather it was a famous breakfast.



Way to drop the ball Tom.

Rubens Exhibit

Yesterday Garret, Matt, Adam, and I went to the Rubens exhibit at the art museum. We got free tickets from this Belgian dude in our class, so we figured we should go check it out. Not being really into art, I wasn't sure if I was going to enjoy this too much. After looking through his paintings, however, I realized the skill possessed by artists of those times. You really have to look deeply at the paintings to understand exactly what is going on and to appreciate all of the fine details. For my class, we are supposed to pick a painting that we see in Brussels and do an in depth paper about it. So far, my favorite painting is called "Massacre of the Innocents" by Rubens, because the history behind the painting is pretty interesting, but not widely known. The painting depicts a bunch of babies being killed by some men. Apparently, after feeling that his reign was threatened by the birth of "Jesus" , Herod the Great ordered that all children under the age of two were to be killed, in hopes that Jesus would be one of them. Thus, the name is "Massacre of the Innocents."

S - CAR - GO

I gave in. I had to try the snails. Escargot. We bought them from a street vendor in the city. Check these bad boys out:

To be honest, they were not too bad. The texture was pretty gross, picture the texture of a mussel with a mucus filling. Sounds nasty, but tastes alright. Slightly spicy. Apparently they are very popular here as I see them for sale throughout the city.

Bon Appetite

Dinner Party

Last night Iria, Els, and Geraldine decided to cook us a fancy dinner and decorate the kitchen and living room. The place looked amazing. There was tons of candles lit, nice silverware and plates, champagne and fine wines, cheeses, breads, and olives. And that was just the beginning. We had a three course meal for dinner. The starter was a delicious shrimp dish made with a wine cream sauce. I don't even like shrimp but there were absolutely amazing. For our main course we had these special french chickens cooked in a wine sauce and another cooked in a red sauce with capers. It also was delicious. For dessert we ate a cherry crumble pie...mmm...i think I put on about 15 pounds by the end of the meal.

At dinner we got into some pretty intense discussions of politics, and I was forced to bite my tounge a few times. But it felt good to hear different points of view on the issues of today. Not saying I agree with all of them, but thats alright. Geraldine (the women who lives upstairs from us) had her step-father over also, a man from France named Louis, and he was very nice.

After dinner we decided to share a taxi ride with Louis so that we could go to our Thursday night Karaoke spot (we are trying to go every Thursday). We met some other Vesalius students there and ended up singing a few songs. Karaoke is so damn fun! We met this crazy German guy at the place who was in Brussels on business, and lets just say, he was interesting.

Speaking of Germany, Matt and I are beginning to plan a trip for the weekend after next to Cologne, Germany, as it is fairly close and cheap, and will be a good first trip for us.

-----

On another note, yesterday I went to the pharmacy with my friend Adam because he needed to pick up some cold medicine, and I wanted to see how pharmacies worked in Belgium. It was pretty cool. All of the pharmacys are owned by the government I believe, so each one is the exact same. Rather than in the United States, where you get your drugs at a CVS type place, the pharmacys here are strictly pharmacies. When you go in you speak with the pharmacist, tell them your symptoms, and they find exactly what you need and tell you what dosage to take etc. It makes life alot easier!

-----

My favorite thing about Belgium so far is the fact that they care about food. In French class, my teacher was speaking about how in most cases people in other countries care more about money than food, but in Belgium, food is the number one concern. Every single thing I have eaten here you can tell takes time to cook. They care about freshness alot too, and rarely will you find packaged or preserved foods anywhere, its all fresh. The food quality here is alot higher too. True, the foods we eat here may pack alot of calories because they rely heavily on creams and sauces, and meats and breads, but the overall quality of the food here seems better. (Don't worry Mom, I still think you are a good cook haha).

Construction

Today we started off the day with a meal of "Lost Toast" aka Belgium's idea of french toast (they obviously don't want to give any credit to the french), and it was pretty tasty. I rushed off to the metro in my usal morning routine and pushed my way through all of the school children to get a spot on the train.

I had my first ART class this morning and my teacher described each of the trips we are to be going on, and explained the sylabus etc. It was a pretty good class and I think the trips are going to be alot of fun.

After class, Matt and I rushed off to meet up with Ryan, Els, and Iria who were working on Els' sons apartment in the middle of Brussels, in hopes to get it renovated for the spring. We spent about four hours hauling debris out of the apartment, taking apart furniture, and lugging the debris to Els' car. It felt good to help them out and do some physical labor to work off all of the waffles, beer, and chocolate! Iria and Els promised us that they were going to suprise us for the help, and sure enough when we got home there were three bottles of rare Belgian beer waiting for us in our apartment. They are too nice! Also, they said that once they finish it (3 or so weeks), that we can stay over there on the weekends if we miss the last metro home. This is sweet because the metros tend to close early, much earlier than the night is done, and a cab ride home costs a lot of money. Therefore, they are letting us use this as a place to sleep until the morning when we can get back on the metro!!!

After that we all had our French class together, where we were put into teams of five and given an assignment to cook a 3 course traditional Belgian meal. We haven't been told what we are making yet, but will be assigned it next week. It should be pretty fun.

For dinner we had spaghetti carbonara, a familiar food that I have made at home, and it was also very good.

Yup, I ate them...

So tonight at dinner we had a cauliflower dish with cheese and eggs, it was delicious. It was accompanied with wine, and a delicious tiramisu dessert :).

However, for an appetizer, what laid before me was just plain gross. Anchovies. Yeah yeah yeah. Tiny little fish. I tried to keep an open mind and try them, so I opened my mouth, dropped in the fish, and began to chew. At first it wasn't too bad, slightly salty, slightly vinegary, but then the fishy taste hit me. It was disgusting. Not to knock Iria's cooking, but I don't even think that these things could be prepared in any satisfying way. They aren't good. Period.

At dinner we met the woman named Geraldine and her daughter who live up stairs from us. She was a very nice french lady who asked us if we wouldn't mind babysitting her daughter a few times a month for 5 euro an hour. No problem, I will do anything to make some extra loot. We spent a few hours talking about soccer, tennis, America, and the subject I try to avoid, politics.

Well anyways, this morning I had my first history class. After taking a few minutes to find our actual classroom (Ryan and I), I was happy to see that I recognized a few faces from orientation, and a few friends that I made while on my adventures through Brussels. The teacher seems to be stuck in the 70's however, so we will see exactly how fun this class will be.

It is weird going to classes now as I am still caught up in the awe of being in a foreign country. I mean, I have only been here a week and I already have to fall into routine. Oh well, I have four more months of this so I am pumped. This afternoon Matt and I decided to just take the metro to a random stop and explore, and we ended up re-tracing our steps from the tour the other day and I took some cool pictures that I will post in a few days. We also stopped by the bakery and had an eclair..mmmmmm.....I love eclairs.

Anyways, tommorow I have two classes and then I plan on getting some rest because all of this experience is tiring!


Lesson of the day...do not eat anchovies.

Classes

So I am now sitting in the computer lab at school, waiting for my french class to begin. This morning I woke up early to travel to class (which wasn't all that bad), and had Managerial Accounting and Writing this morning. My managerial accounting teacher seems to be pretty cool, and we even got him to move class back a half hour so instead of starting at 8:30 we will now start at 9. I'll do anything to get a few extra minutes of shut eye. After a somewhat disorganized introduction to the school, the teachers suprisingly seem to have their stuff together, and I think that classes won't be too bad.

This past weekend was pretty fun, we had that long tour on Saturday, and yesterday we visited the market in my commune of Jette. They had tons of vendors filling the streets selling clothing, foods, flowers, and some other items. We bought a delicious loaf of bread from the bakery, had a drink with Iria at her favorite pub, and picked up some fruits and vegetables. So far it seems as though Belgians do not eat too many fruits, so the bananas and grapes we bought really hit the spot. Fending for ourselves on the weekend is kind of a pain in that ass, because food here is very expensive, and you can't buy anything in bulk, rather, you have to buy small packages of things that always seem to run out. Oh well, we managed off of bread, cheese, and water and juice.

Last night we went to an American Sports Bar called Fat Boys to watch the football games. It is sad to say but it made me realize how loud Americans are...whoops.

Trip Itinerary

We got our list of trips that we are going to be taking with my European Studies class, and it sounds pretty sweet:

1) Day trip to Bruges, Belgium --- February 2nd

2) Day trip to Antwerp, Belgium --- February 16th

3) 3 Day trip to Amsterdam, NL --- February 22nd - 24th

4) 5 Day trip to Paris, France --- March 22nd - 26th

5) Weekend trip to Trier, Germany --- April 26th - 27th

Looks like my birthday will be spent in Germany!

Boy am I tired...

How is it goin' everyone? Im writing this because I decided to sit in on this lovely Saturday night because I am exhausted.

Last night, we kicked off the evening with a traditional Belgian meal called Mussels and Frites, which is a large serving of mussels served with a side of french fries. I was a bit skeptical to eat them, because in the past I have hated sea food etc, but I decided to get rid of my old reservations about sea food and try it. They were steam cooked in a buttery sauce with celery and onions. I was taught how to eat them by Iria, and they turned out to not be all that bad. I still have trouble looking a them when I eat them, as I expect that sometime I will open them and find something gross. But regardless, they exceeded my expectations.

During dinner we talked alot about the different kinds of food that we will find here in Belgium. It seems that alot of the food here contains mayonaisse, which I am not a fan of, but I made it clear to Iria and Els that I am "allergic" to mayonaisse, ensuring that they will not put it in the food they cook for us. Walking around Brussels I have seen such things as "Americaine Sandwiches", and "Americane Wraps." I was warned not to get them anywhere because Americaine is a combination of raw beef and a special sauce, ground up and spread on bread. No thank you. I will stick to cooked foods please.

After dinner we set out with some other VeCo students for "Brussels After Dark," aka a tour of the pubs in the downtown area. This place was ridiculous at night, as thousands of students call it their home for the evening and early morning. We first started off by dancing at the irish pub called "O'Reilly's," which was actually pretty damn fun. I met a kid named Alex from Romania and talked to him for a while, and I met some other people that I think I would like to hang out with more.

We left O'Reilly's and headed for the famous "Delirium Cafe," which offers a menu of over 1,100 different beers, some very rare beers. The place was huge, and packed wall to wall. Though the menu was impressive I couldn't handle to crowds, so we went across the cobble'stone street to the Absinthe Bar, which was still pretty crowded but not as loud and smokey.

And then I got lost...

We were taking a cab back to our side of town when I got a phone call from Susie (from Bentley), who was by herself and lost, and couldn't find a metro or a taxi stand. She read me the name of the street she was on, and it sounded familiar to me so I hopped out of the cab and attempted to find her. Well, one thing led to another, and now it turned to 3:00am and I finally got my bearings as to where I was and started to head home. But I forgot to mention that this was a one hour walk. I made it home around 4:00am and went directly to bed. Next time, I will try no to get lost.

Today was a very long day. We woke up at 8:30 so we could make it to VeCo by 10:00 for a tour of Brussels. The tour is lead by one of my teachers. We walked throughout Brussels for over 7 hours, and saw some pretty cool stuff. Because it was raining I did not bring my camera but I plan on going back to these sites in the future, after all, I am here for four months! We saw the royal palace, the Royal Museum, the Justice Center, and various other government buildings and old churches. We went into two of the old cathedrals which were amazing!

After our tour we came back home to crash, which brings me to now.

An adventure...

This afternoon, Matt and I decided to take a long walk to try and find the famous site in Belgium called the Atomium. The Atomium is a giant, 335 foot tall, model of an iron crystal, created by Andre Waterkeyn for the world fair in Brussels in 1958. We could see it looming in the background from nearby our house, so we decided to try and see if we could walk to it. We set off down the road but after a few minutes lost sight of the Atomium. But, we decided not to give up and after about an hour or so of walking we finally reached the Atomium. Below is a picture that I took of the Atomium:

The Atomium

The Atomium is located in a place of Brussels called the BruPark, which reminded me much of an amusement park without the rides and only the restaurants. Me and Matt were exhausted so we sat down in this small bar called the Toon Land. We had some delicious Belgian beers to warm us up:




We didn't feel like walking all the way back to our house so we decided to try our luck at the Tram system. We did pretty well and within fifteen minutes we were back to our house. A thing that I find to be better here and Belgium than back home in Boston is the public transportation. Though similar in cost, each time you enter a Subway, Bus, or Tram, you scan your pass, and are allowed one hour of use of the public transportation. So for instance, say you wanted to take the metro to go buy a loaf of bread, assuming you are under one hour of time, you only have to pay once. In Boston, you would have to pay for each trip. The one hour covers all modes of public transportation too, so you can use a combo of the metro, bus, and tram during that hour. I like it!

A funny sight...

So I was riding the metro today and looked down underneath the seat in front of me and there was a waffle on the ground. Now if there was a waffle on the ground in the states it would be kind of weird, but since im in Belgium I didn't think twice.

Belgium is awesome, and I already feel as though I have gotten fairly aquainted to the city. Wish I could say that about the school, which has provided us with useless tours and basically no information. I am sure I will understand more about the school once class starts next week, but right now it is simply one large disorganized mess.

A thing I have come to love about Belgium is the colors of the homes. Rather than in Boston, where each block is uniform in color and style (ie. brownstones etc.), Belgium has no zoning laws so each house is a unique shape, color, size, and style. It really makes me feel that I am in a foreign country when I look at the homes, they are quite beautiful.

This is a picture of my neighborhood:

Where to begin?

First I would like to apologize if this entry is not in the best writing that I can offer. Tonight was "Bar Hopping Night" and I am writing this after a tour of some of Brussels best bars. Bear with me.

Today was filled with stuff. This morning we woke up pretty early and had a breakfast of bread and tea, not exactly filling but it was sufficient for me. After breakfast, we had to travel to get to our school. It took in all about 40 minutes (ten minutes of walking and thirty minutes of metro). The trip was not all too bad, it went by fairly quick. When we got off the the metro we took a wrong turn and ended up walking about half of a mile in the wrong direction. After speaking in the best french I could to ask for help, we ended up turning around and walking about a mile and a half in the other direction, finally reaching the school.

At first I was in awe, that my school was in the middle of Brussels. I did not know what to expect. We went to a place called the KultuureKafe for check-in. I imagined this place being organized, but boy I was wrong. After being shuffled around for a few minutes, we finally were assigned a tour group and sat down for a brief introduction to the university. The dean was a very nice man, kind of looked like the european version of Conan O'Brien. He explained to us the expectations of the faculty of Vesalius college, and introduced the various personnel that are to help us with our stay.

Our next speaker was the head of the Vesalius Student Government, a man by the name of Tony who is from Nigeria (and has a striking resembelance to Big Papi David Ortiz), who explained to us the various things that Vesalius students do while not studying. He explained to us the various parties that are thrown by the VSG, and the different organizations we can become involved with. It was pretty interesting to learn about the different programs, and I am planning on joining the soccer club team that plays throughout the area.

After these introductions, we were broken up into groups for a tour of Vesalius College and the VUB campus. Vesalius college is home to about 300 hundred students, 85 being study abroad students and the rest being full time students. The VUB is a large school which we are apart of with thousands of students. Our tour guide was from Southern France, and lets just say that the tour was pointless. He pointed out many buildings, but stated that he "did no know" what went on in them. After our highly un-informative tour, we had a complimentary lunch in the VUB cafeteria. I had some version of chicken pot pie, a waffle and pudding for dessert, and a sprite for a drink. I also tried some of the potato soup which turned out to be pretty good. After lunch we had another meeting to explain to us the various criteria, processes, and options presented to us by Vesalius College. This segment was much more informative than the rest of orientation, thank god!

We finished up with todays orientation at around 3:00pm. I came back to Jette, helped Ryan get his cell phone set up, then took a nap until dinner. For dinner tonight we had roast hen with a mushroom sauce over some sort of baked pastry. For dessert we had a fruit salad. It again was pretty tasty.

After dinner, me, matt, and ryan headed back to the KultuurKafe to meet with the rest of the study abroad students for a night of bar hopping. We were shown many different bars and had a very good time.

Tommorow I have more of the orientation, I will write about that then.

Goodnight!

The city

This afternoon we spent a few hours walking around the main city of Brussels. The weather was crappy, about 40 degrees, raining hard, and windy as hell, but the sights we saw were still captivating enough to make us pay more attention to them and less attention to the rain. We saw the Grand Place, which has some crazy historic guild-houses, dating back hundreds of years. We also saw many of the old cobblestone streets and a few old churches.

Iria took us to an Irish pub in the center of Brussels for a drink, and it was one of the coziest places I have ever been, and is apparently a popular hangout for Americans to watch football on. Looks like I will be spending the Superbowl here. The center of Brussels is very close to where we live, only three metrostops, a total of about 10 minutes of travel time. One ridiculous thing about Brussels is that they have the most restaurants per capita in the world, so everywhere you turn there is a different place to eat.

As far as the food goes, in the center of Brussels there are tons and tons of hamburger places, waffle stands, friterie stands, and pita stands. The pita stands, though supposedly serve delicious food, look absolutely revolting. There is a grill type thing at the window, and hanging above it is a cone shaped mass of meat that they shave off pieces to fall to the grill to be cooked. Picture like fifty pounds of raw roast beef dripping onto a grill, and that is a Belgian pita stand. I sampled my first Belgian waffle today, which lived up to my expectations. Unlike waffles back home, Belgian waffles have almost a sticky sugary coating to them, and the inside is very doughy. I was in a rush so I did not get any toppings, but common toppings are fruits and creams.

After our nice little tour, me and one of my new roomates, Ryan from Chicago, sat down to attempt to watch a movie. I fell asleep pretty early on in the movie, and woke up to the whole family of dogs resting on my lap.

We then ate dinner, which consisted of some sort of meatballs, green beans, salad, and mashed potatoes with cheese. Once again, it was delicious.

This evening we bar hopped with a few of our friends from Bentley and a couple other kids from different schools. It was a good time.

Orientation starts tommorow so I should probably get to bed.

All in all my experiences in Belgium have been amazing!

A trip to the market...

Me and Matt went to the super market today, called Colyrut, in what we planned on being a simple and quick trip. We were wrong. First, we couldn't figure out if we were actually at the right place, as it looked more like a strange version of home depot than a grocery store, but once we made our way up the concrete ramps, we entered into a Costco-esque type place.

The funny thing about the Belgian grocery stores, we came to find out after we had returned home with our groceries, is that just because things are wrapped together in plastic rap, dosen't mean that you can't seperate them and purchase only one of the product. So for instance, we bought a package of pasta, that came with four bags wrapped together. The price label underneath the pasta read:
4 x 1.5e = 6e

So we figured, that this cost 6e because it was four packages in one. However, if you were to seperate it, you could purchase just one back for the 1.5e price. Weird. You can also seperate 6 packs of beer and buy a single beer if you wish.

Another big difference that I noticed was that the store dosen't display its frozen items like we do in the states, rather they have them in closed freezers with pictures of the items above the freezers, I thought this was kind of strange.

After we managed to get out of the store with the items we wanted, we hit up a neighborhood bakery for an eclair, it was delicious.

Today we head out to the center of Brussels to learn more about the transportation etc.

Once it stops raining here I will be taking some photos, but the forecast is for rain the next whole week.