au revoir Bruxelles...je te manquerai

like all good things in life, study abroad does too come to an end. I cannot express what studying abroad has meant to me, and how living in Brussels has changed me both personally and professionally. College is a time to learn about yourself and what it is that you want to do with the rest of your life, and studying abroad, no matter where you choose to do so, is just one more thing that will help you create your professional image and inspire you in your chosen path.

My experience was made special not only because I had the opportunity to study the European Union, because of the people I got to meet, the opportunities for travel I had and the chance to get to know and live with a fun Belgian family. So to all of those who made my experience abroad wonderful...thank you so much!

If anyone takes anything away from this blog, it is that studying abroad is really the best way to learn about another world and expand your horizons. And studying abroad is now more reachable to more students though scholarships, financial aid and other means that get you to where you want to be.

So a special thanks to the folks at the Gilman Scholarship Foundation, who helped me finance this trip. For more information on how to apply for a Gilman Scholarship, please visit there website at www.iie.org/Gilman/. For more information on my specific study abroad program, please visit, http://www.aub.be/ or the American University website.

there's stuff to do in Brussels too!

So I realized that whoever reads this blog (ahem Daniela) might accidentally think that I spent no time in Brussels at all...so in honor of my host city, this blog entry is dedicated to all the fabulous things you can do in Brussels!
-Mannekin Pis (Gare Centrale metro stop):for a typical Brussels landmark, everyone must make a stop at Mannekin Pis. As an added bonus, the waffle shop next to Mannekin Pis is the BEST in all of Brussels!
-Grand Place (Gare Centrale):see the old guilds, the town hall and the center of Brussels!
-Atomium (Heizel)built 1958 for the Universal Exhibition this great metal structure is amazing to behold!
-Royal Palace(Parc): self explanatory. The best part is being in Brussels in September when its open to the public
-Le Sablon et Petit Sablon (either Parc or Porte du Namur): monument to two great Protestant leaders in Belgium as well as very close to the artsy area of Brussels
-EU Commission and Council buildings (Schuman) for the full Brussels and EU experience, take a look at Berlaymont and Justis Lipsius buildings right off the Schuman metro
-Le Cinquantaime (Schuman) build in commemoration of the 50 anniversity of Belgian independence during the reign of Leopold II, the Wars of Europe museum is free of charge and allows for visitors to climb to the top of the Cinquantaime for a view of Brussels
-EU Parliament (Maelbeek): in front of the Parliament is Place Lux, where you can enjoy a beer while talking to members of parliament and their staff.
-Celtica and Delirium (De Broukere) two great places to get a drink after a long of touristing. Celtica offers a great Irish pub feel with dance floor upstairs if you wanna keep going at happy hour prices until midnight and Delirium is a one of a kind place, with over 2000 types of beer available for you to sample!
-and much much more!!!!! Brussels offers many opportunities to see and do many incredible things...so go and have fun!

Becoming legal in a country where the drinking age is definitely before 21

Super long title folks but I was trying to be funny and failed. Oh well. As you may have surmised I turned 21 last weekend and in honor of this momentous occasion my friends and I traveled to the land of pubs (read Dublin) to celebrate in style. So although I'd been in Europe for three months now, I have my first official "legal" drink by U.S. standards at the Guinness factory among my still underaged (by American standards) amigos.

But I'm jumping the gun...first I should explain how we got there. Several months ago it was decided we would all meet up in Dublin... okay not much explaining needed to happened. Basically my friends are awesome and we went to Dublin to freeze our butts off on a walking tour, followed by Guinness (which is disgusting) followed by dinner at an authentic Irish Pub...Irelend's full of them (another attempt at a joke...please laugh) and dancing. Basically it was a very memorable day and I'm very grateful to everyone who came out to celebrate with me. No more typing... visual aids will now be provided... enjoy!

Rollin' through the Balkans

This post is going to set up a little differently. Normally I go through day-to-day on what I did and what happened but for this post I think I'll just right about my general impressions and what I learned because a) I took too long to enter this post and b) I think it makes more sense.

As part of my abroad program, we took a 12-day tour of the Balkans, traversing Nuremberg (Germany), Vienna (Austria), Budapest (Hungary), Belgrade (Serbia), Sarajevo (Bosnia), Zagreb(Croatia), Ljubljana (Slovenia), and finally Munich (Germany) before making it home to Brussels. Th purpose if this trip was to teach us about the experiences of the Balkans, potential for EU membership, and how ethnic divisions are contained within these territories.

Although I had a good time on the trip, it sadden me to see the state of some of the Balkan states. The turmoil of 1992-1995 has not yet left the streets of Belgrade or Sarajevo, and daily reminders of the war do not help the collective memory of these countries pull together and overcome their obstacles. In Belgrade, you can still see the destruction done by NATO missiles on the facade of buildings, and in Sarajevo, sarajevo roses color the sidewalks to show where bullets and bombs torn up a life. Additionally, ethnic tensions amongst the Orthodox Serbs and Muslim Bosnian continues to plague the political and social lives of many in Bosnia, especially internal conflicts over Repulbika Srpska and Kosovo for Serbia.



At this rate, I don't see either country belonging to the EU for some time. The EU won't allow internal and external conflict to enter within their "club" and the international dilemma that is Kosovo has put the EU and Serbia in quite a standstill. Talking with the office of the foreign minister, they seem to indicate the Kosovo takes presidence over EU membership and as for Bosnia, potential for violence is too great to result in the development and security it desperately needs.

Unfortunately, Bosnia and Serbia are yesterday's wars and conflicts and without international oversight, progress in these nations seems to move a snail's pace if that.

On another note, it was such an amazing opportunity to visit these locations and hear from local residents about their feelings and attitudes towards their neighbors and the EU. We also got a chance to visit Srebrenisa and the tunnel built by Bosniaks suring the seige of Sarajevo to provide supplies for those in the city. Experiencing the war from a soldier's and genocide survivor' perceptive helped put the conflict into tangible and realistic terms.

For those of you with the opportunity to ever travel to the Balkans, I suggest you do so and learn about the cultural conflict that has driven so many to fight and keep fighting for their homeland and territories.

Den Haag + Amsterdam + Daniela = awesome weekend ever!

By now my most loyal readers (Daniela) know that my abroad program spends as little time as humanly possible in Brussels and instead we go to a million other places. This past weekend, we got to go to Den Haag (the Hague for non Dutch speaking folks) home of the International Criminal Court, Eurojust, Royal Palace and other wicked cool and awesome stuff. After that we headed over to Amsterdam for the weekend because what's a visit to the Netherlands without a visit to Amsterdam?



To commence then, on Wednesday we left Brussels via the 18:22 train to Den Haag were I had a jolly good time on the train laughing it up with Becca, Ben and Adrienne (and Flo for the 10 minutes she was there). Once we arrived to Den Haag two hours later, we were greeted by Jerry who took us to our hotel (we got off at Gravenstraat...that's right ppl i remember). We put our belongings down and headed out to see the locals. However, the locals won cause we were wicked tired and called it an early night.

Next morning we headed to the ICC and had two speakers tell us all about it and current cases they are working on. I t was totally awesome as well as a tour of one of the court rooms. It was totally legit although here's some advice... try to not end up here (unless you're a kick ass lawyer). Anyway then we had lunch and then back to the same building where we had a meeting with Eurojust. Again super awesome to see the institutions we read about in practice and hear from the professionals. That evening we again stayed up chatted and tried to interact with the locals but they won again.

On Friday we bested the awful weather and made it to the Netherlands Defense College for a lecture on...you guessed it defense and then lunch followed by a Jerry Tour....which was AWESOME as usual. Some of the highlights include the Royal Palace, seeing some embassies and learning where the prime minister lives (its nice let me tell you). Later we rendez-vous over to the OPCW for a lecture on chemical weapons and as soon as that was over it was officially the weekend and that meant...AMSTERDAM!!!!



By super awesome timing Daniela arrived at the train station at the same time as we did so after several months of not seeing each other we did and it was VERY EXCITING! I think we scared some of my Brussels peeps by our hugging...oh well. We all located our bus and headed our to Hotel Slotania (laugh here....go ahead) and promptly headed out once more! Becca, Ben Daniela and I made our way to Leidseplein (Led Zeppelin lol) the cool bar scene in Amsterdam to await the arrival of everyone else... I would say good bonding tome for all involved. Later, the four of us found this bar/club called News Cafe where we parked it for the rest of the night and had an AWESOME TIME!!!! We really did... more bonding and dancing and singing but especially bonding!

The next day the original four walked over to Central Station (took us two hours) to go on our walking tour.... we did lots of walking. On the way Daniela and I were able to catch up on lots of things...it was so much fun! Later we grabbed some lunch and met up with several other Brussels ppl for the walking tour which started at Dam Square. Tour took us through the the important Amsterdam sites including the Red Light District (yes I did see ladies in windows), occult churches, several "coffeeshops", the old Jewish Quarter, Rembrandt's casa, and lots and lots of canals. It was awesome and very educational (see even on our time off we get educated). Our last stop was the Anne Frank House were 4 + Erin stepped inside to visit the annex.... Completely worth it.

Sunday morning Daniela, Autumn and I rose early and headed to the Van Gogh Museum which was very interesting. I learned a lot about him. We later chilled at Museumplein (park right next to Van Gogh) for several hours before it was time for Autumn and I to head back to Brussels. Daniela dropped us off and I cried a little (I hate good-byes...even if they are see you laters) and off we went. Autumn and I chatted for a bit before falling asleep and when we woke we were home in Brussels once again.

Kiev.....that's in Ukraine

Soooooooooo for my internship I was given this totally awesome opportunity to go visit Kiev for the 55th General Assembly. After months of prep at the Brussels office, the time had finally come to go off into the world unknown (its a very exotic place.. no joke).

So i woke up at 5:30am on Tuesday to get myself all ready, set, go and made my way to the bus station at Schumann to catch the bus that goes to the airport... after getting lost (but only a little bit)I paid for my ticket and was off! I made it to the airport before any of my co-workers and stood in line waiting for them to arrive. Finally Charlotte and Miriam arrived and ditched Pawel who was M.I.A. and stood in the wicked long line for security. (Never again will I complain about airport security in the States). Anyway, we met up with everyone at our gate and boarded up to our first stop :Prague.

I wasn't doing too hotly in Prague(read: I became sick) so the original three hour made five hour layover was AWFUL except that a) this creepy Italian man was making a bad job of hitting on me and b) I meant Lucy who was one the Canadian reps on her way to Kiev as well. Lucy was very entertaining and she chatted with me the entire way there which is when things got interesting. We arrived at the airport which looked more like a bus station and nobody from ATA was there to pick us up. Lucy used her famazing Russian skills to ask around but still nada... so I called Pawel and Charlotte to see what was going on. They managed to get us a car and we drove the 45 minutes into town. By this point neither one of us had eaten since breakfast and were famished so we ate the the hotel's restaurant where I proceeded to get insulted by some locals for being American and wanting to take over everywhere.It was so fun to be insulted...not. Anyway no biggie but I was wicked tired to I called it a night.

Next morning Miriam and I got dressed and were ready to help but Charlotte told us she didn't need us right away so we thought we'd take the morning off to see the city. However, Pawel did so we went straight to work...... and that's what I basically did the remainder of my time in Kiev. I sat in on lectures, meetings, helped out board members, took notes and everyone's favorite....distributed reimbursements. I got to meet some awesome people, namely those of the Slovakian and Canadian delegations and on Thursday but it failed mostly cause I wasn't feeling it and then again on Friday and that was a huge success.

On Saturday morning we got to go on a hour and a half tour on Kiev before boarding the bus back to the airport. What I did get to see was absolutely gorgeous and a great incentive to go back someday to see it properly. I made it back to Brussels without a hitch and rested up the following day after my five-days of non-stop running around...but it was totally worth it!

Benelux + Germany= fun fun fun

so I'm officially wicked behind on posts because I've been running around like a mad woman but two weekends ago I was in the following cities... ready? Luxembourg City, Trier, Maastricht and Liege (and I hope in that order).

In Luxembourg we got to go visit the European Court of Justice and the European Investment Bank which were both extremely educational and really cool to see what we learned in class in action and what not. Everyone at both institutions were extremely friendly and I'm so glad we had such an amazing opportunity to go. That evening, we ventured towards "nightlife" and after several failed attempts where tensions rose a bit...lol, we made it to BANANAS...lmao. It was your typical European bar with background American music and we promptly made it a very loud place to be.

Next morning we headed off to Trier to see an ancient Roman city in Germany. We headed to the museum where the security guards followed us around the ENTIRE time we were there. It was a bit unnerving, especially since we were the only group dignified with a personal body guard.... it was bizarre and I still don;t understand why we were followed so closely. After that, Prof. Sheridan took us once again on one of his awesome city torus and we saw the PorteNegra, the Imperial Baths, the old Throne room (now a church), the old Jewish ghetto and many more awesome sites.

Next day we were in Maastricht for a bit to see some of the Netherlands but unfortunately couldn't stay the night because nobody could accommodate us so we drove into Liege and it was the first city without a Jerry Tour. Although as luck would have it we met up with him at an Irish pub so it was good fun and an awesome time.

The next morning was a somber one as we headed to the American WWII cementary and then museum. It was difficult to see all the fallen troops and it puts into perspective all the lives lost during the Second World War. After our long and reflective day we headed home to Brussels to see the start of a new week.

Next blog...Kiev!

Leuven and Antwerp and Ghent oh my!

So this past weekend we stayed in Belgium and had a three-day three city tour with none other than Dr. Prof. Jerome Sheridan. Our tour of Belgian cities took off with a 45 minute bus ride into the city of Leuven (but before this we had our first exam and let me tell you if was draining....actually not really it wasn't so bad but still exams are lame).
Anyway, we made our way into Leuven where Prof. Sheridan or "Jerry" once again impressed the class with his vast knowledge of all things Belgian. Leuven is home to the Flemish counterpart of UCL (the university where AU's Brussels Center is located) and so we took a tour of KUL's facilities and various colleges. Plus for them...there dorms are sooooo cute! (at least on the outside they are). We also visited Pater Damiaan's crypt and display, where they talk about his various charity works in Honolulu working with a leper colony and his canonization by Pope John Paul II. After the official tour, the gang headed back to a local brewery where most of the table tried the local beer. (I had a sip and it tasted awful but what do I know... thanks Becca for the sip!) Anyway whilst I sipped on my Coca-Cola Light (aka Diet Coke) we had a grand old time being extremely loud and obnoxious (this is mostly my fault for laughing...A LOT) After this some of the girls and I went scouting for dinner and then later that night some of us met up at Stokkel for more fun and adventuring...expect that Stokkel closes wicked early so we only adventured for a short time but it was still awesome and a major group bonding activity.
On Saturday we made our way to Antwerp which is one of the diamond capitals in the world. Some ridiculously high percentage of the world's diamonds at some point pass through the Port of Antwerp and into the Antwerp Diamond District (for exact figures please see Jerry). We then made our way through the city and saw some amazing gothic architecture (the famous church beloved by Monet and Manet to paint is located in this city) as well as some very famous Flemish art. One of the best parts of the tour was the Statue of Antwerp, were Jerry told us about the legendary meaning of the name Antwerp. According to legend, a Roman sailor fought the water demon of Antwerp, cutting off his hand and tossing it into the sea.... Antwerp=hand toss (I'll give you a few moments to laugh now...especially if you are British). However, this is a legend and obviously more exciting than the true possible meaning cause I can't remember those. Anyway Antwerp was so much fun and I think my favorite city of the weekend.
Sunday saw us in Ghent which was a cute little town full of medieval architecture and canals that passed through the entire city. We went to an actual castle and it was soooo cool (Expect for the torture tools room which made me queasy and the little steps on the stairs). We saw some more Flemish art and then we left (by we I mean Becca, Ben and myself) it was a long and exhausting three days but super fun and educational!

What a cute bear!....Berlin!

I'm at my internship writing this...but seeing as how the boss isn't here yet that's okay. This past weekend, five of the girls (Victoria, Becca, Autumn, Adrienne and Erin) and I made our way east towards the city of Berlin.
Being on a student budget, we booked our trip on Eurolines (a bus) so it took a fun 11 hours to arrive on an overnight bus. Most unfortunately, Becca and I weren;t able to sit together for a great part of the trip but seeing as how we were sleeping it really didn't matter to much, until we got to the rest stop and speaking over the lady sitting next to me I implied that we were seat sharing (if this has ever happened to anyone with a total stranger you know how awkward it can be). Most unfortunately this lady spoke not only French, which was what I had been using to speak with her but crystal clear English. Oh man!!!!!! Anyway she got off at Hanover and Becca and I were able to share a seat next to each other until we arrived in Berlin.
When we arrived, we were looking quite fabulous, coming from an overnight trip with little/uncomfortable sleep, and proceeded to find the S-bahn metro station, which according to Autumn and Victoria's directions should have been very near. We finally found it, brought tickets and away we went!!!! We found our hostel no problem and left our luggage there until official check in time and went in search of food. So what to you eat in a German city...Italian of course!!!! We ate some very delicious pasta by a restaurant near the hostel and made a game plan (because I'm a huge fan of them).
Next, we made it to Bradenburger Tor which was the only monument on Parisier Platz to survive bombing during WWII and took fun pics. Becca made friends with some guys who were posing with flags for money and we then walked over to Reichstag or parliament and waited in line (or as the Brits say queue) to get to the top of the glass structure. It was sooooooooooo beautiful!!!!! A must do for anyone going to Berlin. It provides a great view of the entire city and (as we later learned on our free tour) looks down into Parliament so that they may always remember it is the German people in charge not them...they work for the German population.
After the Reichstag (which included some embarrassing attempts on my part to do a jumping picture) we decided to be lazy and get ice cream and chill on the glass in front of the Reichstag....basically a good idea. It was a lovely day in Berlin and the sun felt very nice (especially after chilly Brussels). After we lazed about of a bit we saw another monument and then headed to the hostel for happy hour and to meet fellow travelers. We ended up chatting with 3 Brits, 1 New Zealander and 1 American that evening and it was great fun.... all on day one!
On Saturday we left for a free tour of the city and our tour guide was awesome (fun fact: these free tours are available in London, Amsterdam, Madrid, Paris). She told us that people think the name Berlin comes from cute little bear- Ber=bear and lin=cute/little but REALLY it means swamp land. So really Berlin is a city built on top of a swamp!!!!! We saw Hitler's bunker, the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, old Nazi buildings, several monuments and museums and the Jewish Memorial which was truly spectacular. This gave us great ideas of places we wanted to return to on Sunday and see more in depth. After the three and a half hour tour, we headed back to the hostel for dinner and then to scope out some fun places to hang out. Before that though, Becca ran into the MAN WITH THE GREEN PANTS and we found out that he was a perfect francophone (so our sneaky device or speaking French about him was not clever AT ALL) and he would not give her his awesome green pants. We were disappointed because we thought Becca's persuasive skills would have won out at the end of the day. After the GREEN PANTS mission, we headed out and that was a bit of a failure. We made it to Prenzlauer Berg where several people had told us there were several fun places to dance but either a) we are blind and didn't see them b) Saturday is not a dancing night in Berlin or c) we were misinformed. We did however find kauf dich glücklich which was a very delicious waffle place and I recommend you go there. With luck not on our side we headed back to the hostel for sleep.
On Sunday we headed back to the Jewish Memorial and Checkpoint Charlie for pictures and to see the exhibits. We saw part of the Berlin marathon which was madness...people everywhere although major props to the Danes for representing.... I saw Danish flags everywhere it was impressive. We tired going to the East Side Gallery but the metro that would take us there was closed :( so we returned to the hostel's neighborhood for a snack a.k.a. ice cream and then to grab our stuff and head down to the bus station. At the station we bought dinner and boarded. On the bus, we "read" and after that was over and done with we head the Berlin Convention and drafted the Treaty of Berlin. (See we are using our new knowledge while on vacation...majority impressive). We made it to Brussels 30 minutes ahead of schedule so of course a creeper decided to have a not so friendly chat with us but all in all Berlin was AMAZING, if you get the chance you should definitely go!!!!!

First day as a Belgian Intern!

Today was my first day at the Atlantic Treaty Association (ATA), where I'll be interning for the remainder of the semester. I got off to a fabulous start...aka work up late and took the quickest shower known to mankind to make up for lost time. After rushing rushing rushing to get there, I ended up getting to work 15 minutes early....yeah I'm that good at freaking myself out.

Anyway, once at the office I met all the important peeps I'll be working with (Mirimam, the Slovakian intern, Pawel, the Canadian-Polish Project Director, Charlotte Peters the Belgian Director, Troels Frøling the Danish Secretary General and Edmond Poullet the Belgian Treasurer) it was wicked sweet to meet the entire staff even though they won't all be there every day.

I was promptly set to work on editing the newsletter that will be distributed at the Kiev conference.... and that was wicked time consuming. Editing became more of interpreting because I had to try and understand what the original message was and where it was going. For lunch, we had a mini birthday celebration for Edmond at the office and it was very nice to be included on my very first day! After our one and a half lunch it was back to work work work!!!!! But it's a great office to work in and I'm really excited to see what I'll be doing in the future.
(at least tomorrow will include more editing but this is all for the Kiev conference which is less than three weeks away!)

First free weekend=Lille, France

It's amazing what an internet search and the want to get something accomplished can yield. So a few days before our free weekend came up, some skillful maneuvering of the web landed us on the Eurolines website booking bus tickets to Lille France. Victoria, Autumn, Supriya, Adrienne Becca and I met up with Erin and Ayumi at the Gare du Nord stop and found the pick up local for our adventure to begin! So of course the bus was wicked late in getting there but alas we made it to Lille which is about 19 km from the Belgian border. When we arrived, Adrienne and I got separated from the group within two minutes from arriving...but in our defense a really cute French boy was asking us for help (but we couldn't help him out). After Autumn 'found us' we left on the metro towards the hostel. When we arrived at the stop, Supriya and Victoria's awesome mental GPS skills got us in the right direction towards the Hostel which was of course closed until 1600 (we arrived around 1330). So off we went for Chinese food in France. When we finished eating the other group caught up with us and we started checking out the local churches and monuments until we could enter the hostel.
The hostel was not at all as bad as I was imagining.... actually I think if most hostels are like this one they are pretty cool. We were handed a key and sheets and we went upstairs to claim beds and make them. It was great fun (as fun as making your bed can be) and we departed again for the city. We saw many sites, including La Place de la Republique, a statue dedicated to M. Pasteur and la Porte du Paris. Lille is such a lovely and quaint city with very friendly people. Later that day and into the evening, we had some down time before some of us deciding to explore the night life. Lille, for being a small city, had lots of options and we had a fabulous time dancing in what may or may not have been a gay club. It was very good times.
The next morning we ate breakfast at the hostel and then set out again to finish our sight-seeing. We ended up at La Grand Place and later we walked towards the northwest? part of town where we stumbled upon a restaurant advertising 2euro crepes...a must stop and must have if in France! We entered the restaurant and ordered crepe au chocolat and to our dismay they didn't have any!!!! :( We ordered coffee instead but the disappointment must have been to great for the staff for they promptly made a batch of crepe for us! They were delicious!!!!
Alas it was time to make our way to the bus station and bid adieu to the ville of Lille.

Oh the places I've seen....so far

So I'm really bad at this blog business. Mostly cause I've never kept one and therefore am really really bad at making sure I update at timely intervals. Anyway, so for the past several days I've been busy with school starting, getting my interview locations (more on how that went later this week) and beginning my studies. As quickly as the semester started, so have our adventures in the city of Bruxelles and the greater Belgium area.



On Saturday, we took our first official field trip with the enclave to Brugge located in the Flemish section of Belgium. This ancient city was originally a harbor town but eventually was filled with slit and by the 1500s it no longer could serve its original purpose. Instead, lace began its major export, and to this day, Brugge lace is a very big commodity (according to Professor Sheridan) with some apprenticeships lasting up to 10 years! Anyway, Brugge is a BEAUTIFUL city, filled is typical 15th century Flemish style buildings and overall atmosphere....almost as if time stood still. It's a great day trip with plenty of amazing sites for those lovers of history or beautiful things in general. Also, FUN FACT,one of the only Michelangelo pieces found outside of Italy can be found in Brugge; it is a Pietra (sculpture of Virgin Mary and Child Jesus). If I recall correctly the church is called Church of our Lady and it's really magnificent. Also in Brugge for beer lovers is a beer brewery tour and for those of a more religious or spiritual nature, you can visit the convent of the Benedictine nuns. Brugge was really beautiful and I hope to be able to visit it again!


On Sunday I went adventuring by myself in the morning to scope out where in the world my interview locations were and at noon went to the Grand Palace for lunch. I sat down to have a sandwich when a young man asked me "is this seat being used?" I replied it wasn't expecting him to take it but he promptly sat down and starting eating. It was slightly awkward....as I was covered in crumbs :( Anyway after this fellow left and I finished eating, I met up with Victoria, Autumn and Adrienne and the Parc metro stop and we walked to the Royal Palace! We took a free tour (as part of the week when certain important Belgian sites are open to the public) and tested our newly learned history of the Belgian monarchy as we saw portraits of Leopald I and the various royal family. Afterward, we met up with Flo and after chatting for a few minutes I took the tour again with her! Flo and I later had a cappuccino a the Sablon (a very boho-chic neighborhood in Brussels) and found ourselves wondering about the streets of Brussels for several hours, coming upon a vintage clothes store, an antiques furniture store, a skateboard park and finally the Porte du Hal which was apparently an old fortress and point of entry several centuries ago. It was a fun day and I'm glad the girls came out with me!!!

Belgian chocolate, waffles and beer oh my!

The three things any visitor to Belgium must consume at least once are chocolate, waffles and beer. In that order (well at least for me but i love chocolate). Anywhere you go in Belgium, and particularly Brussels, especially in the touristy places, these three things (and pomme-frites or fries) assault your nose in ways you wouldn't believe. Personally, I've found that the best place to eat a waffle is by the Manneken Pis, in the Grand Place. For two euro, you get a pretty substantial waffle drenched in dark chocolate..... it's amazing. The beer I'm still working on. I'm not a fan yet but seeing as how everyone and their mother tells me Belgian beer is the best, I will take there word on it and keep plowing away (mind you I've only had one thus far of the almost 2000 variations that exist in this country).
So please remember.... when visiting Belgium do not leave without enjoying a chocolate covered waffle with a typical Belgian beer down the streets of Grand Place.... you'll be glad you did. :)

es-tu Stefania?

Oui c'est moi!!!!!! Sunday afternoon rolled around and my stint at my first host family was done and on to the one where I would be staying for the rest of my time here in Belgium. I was picked up by M. Laurent and his five-year old son, Lois who promptly informed me that he didn't speak English and that therefore I should speak en francais. I arrived at Rue de l'Orient, to what used to be the Peruvian embassy and that is where I find myself now typing this blog. My host family is comprised of the aforementioned host dad (Jean) his partner Milena (who is Italian in origin) and there two boys Lois and Cyril.
Everyone is really nice and the best and worst part of the house is that the metro is a 15 minute walk away... so I feel very justified in eating Belgian chocolate!!!!!! Although I managed to get myself lost this morning on the way to school and on the way back, the people here are very friendly and helped me find my way AND I'm near the European Parliament, Council of Ministers, and European Commission.
I hope that once all the orientation ends and classes begin I'll have a chance to get into a more regular schedule but for now.... c'est ma vie en Belgique!

Bienvenue a la Belgique

After an eight hour flight to London, a four hour layover in Heathrow airport (when Victoria found me and we chatted for a but) and the subsequent hour flight, I finally arrived to Brussels! I made my way though a crowed baggage claim and was able to retrieve my luggage sans probleme which is always a marvelous sign. Next, I acquired a taxi which took me to my hotel but before arriving I saw my first sites of the city in which I will be living for the next several months. Although there was plenty of traffic (even here they cannot avoid rush hour) I found the commute to be enjoyable as I took in the historic buildings and young and old walking along the streets to get to there destinations. Once at my hotel, I waited for Victoria and we made our way through the Grand Place and into a little restaurant with very affordable prices for dinner. Later I was able to contact the US and then bedtime!!!It was a good end to a very long day.
The next day, Victoria and I again ventured out into the Grand Place but had very little luck working the metro system and decided to wait for instruction by our professor. We had lunch and at 17:00 (or 5pm lol) met the rest of the EU in action enclave group. Brief orientation was followed by a typical Belgian dinner and then my first time at a bar....it was quite interesting. For although smoking is technically banned no one seems to pay any attention to this and the streets and bars were full of not only Belgians but tourists making there way to a good hang out place for the night.
The next morning bright and early we headed to the Grand Place yet again for an official tour by Professor Sheridan (pictures will be posted soon!) Perhaps the most famous thing we saw was the little peeing boy fountain. It was much fun. We later headed to the Universite Catholique de Louvain where AU Brussels Center is located and had our first orientation about our host families. It was here that I was informed that I would not be going home with my family right away because they are out of town but with Victoria and her host family. I am currently in Victoria's host family's house awaiting until 18:00 to meet my host family... once I arrive there I will post more.

gah!!! the night before departure

So thanks to hard work, a long application process, and much panic I am sitting here typing this blog instead of packing before my flight which leaves in 22 hours. I can;t stay it's hit me yet.... but it will when I'm on the plane tomorrow and freaking out because I not back in sunny Miami or in DC prepping to trek to Ward or the library for work. Language barriers, host families and class/internship aside, I have to admit I'm excited for this adventure. I know I'll be signing with my host family while my French slowly trickles back in and the usual homesickness will kick in but of the dozens of students I've spoken too, those who didn't do study abroad wished they'd had and those who did wish they could do it again... so here we go!!!!!!! boone chance à tous