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. :)