A Belgian Blog

Spring Break 2011

2011-05-02T11:53:00.002-05:00

10 days

4 ladies (Me, Janice, Kelly, Katie – this number fluctuated, but 4 was our core number)

4 countries (Belgium, Italy, Vatican City, Greece)

18 cities (Brussels, Charleoi, Venice, Trevisio, Mestre, Florene, Pisa, a town that I can’t remember the name of, La Spezia, Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore, Rome, Vatican City, Athens, Aegina)

10 means of transportation (boat, plane, train, walking, bike, car, bus, metro, tram, running)

3 nights without a bed

10 gelato (with 2 scoops each time)

2 painful feet

1 unforgettable spring break

My spring break began at 4am. I ate breakfast quickly and then my host mom, who had very kindly offered to take me to the airport, were off. After checking in, I met up with my fellow travelers (who had spent the night in the airport) to wait for the plane to depart. They told me stories of their night in the airport and we discussed our travel plans for the next 10 days with much anticipation. We then hopped on our flight to our first city...

:::Venice, Italy:::

As we began to descend into Italy we saw, to our surprise, snow-capped mountains! This was not exactly what we were hoping to see. We wanted lots and lots of hot sun, not snow. But Venice was still farther away and so we hoped the weather was drastically different there.

We landed and realized our minimal knowledge of French would do us no good in this new country and so we all went over the Italian words we knew- grazi, prego, pizza, spaghetti, ciao… Okay, that’ll do. We then took an hour-long bus ride into Venice (Ryan Air inconveniently never has their airports in the actual city they say it is in; it’s usually about an hour away). We decided we didn’t want to carry our luggage through the cobblestone streets, up stairs and over bridges and so we put it into a luggage storage place for the day.

Venice isn’t a very big city and so our game plan was just to wander throughout it and we figured we would just happen upon all the main “touristy” things eventually. We began to follow the crowd and the signs towards St. Marc’s Square. We wandered through the city getting side tracked by the numerous masks and wooden Pinocchio’s. Katie was continually in search of the perfect Moreno bead.

One of our first things on the agenda was finding some gelato! We did and it was delicious. We quickly became addicts of this creamy, flavorful frozen treat. Throughout our travels we would all suddenly crave gelato and begin to find room in our stomachs and money in our budgets for it. With all of us combined we must have tried most of the flavors offered. We had chocolate flavors and fruit flavors, scoops in cones and scoops in dishes. Marvelous.

After walking some more we decided it was time for some of the infamous Italian pizza and a glass of wine. They didn’t disappoint. We continued to walk and came upon a protest of some sort in a square. We couldn’t understand anything and so we moved on. We found the Rialto Bridge, which is the only bridge in Venice that has stores on it. I think it may be the widest bridge in Venice, too. It was beautiful, but so were many of the small bridges throughout the city that weren’t as filled with people.

We went into random churches and took pictures of cool statues and then finally arrived in St. Marc’s Square. It was very large, but very full of people. Unfortunately, like many of the other well-known tourist attractions throughout Europe, it was under construction and had scaffolds around part of it. Nonetheless, it was amazing. There was also a Campanile in the square! I think that I like ISU’s better…

We walked along the water and headed back into the city to continue wandering aimlessly. We stopped for some more gelato and found a type of music museum. Then, in search of a bathroom, we stumbled upon an Ernest Hemingway Museum. We continued to walk around and then decided we had seen pretty much all of Venice that we were going to/wanted to see. We wanted to be warmer and so we sat in a café sipping on coffee and chatting for about three hours. We then moved across the street to a less expensive restaurant for dinner. We all tried pasta for this meal and enjoyed a couple more hours of conversation. We had an interesting encounter with some Italians and then headed to get our luggage and catch our train.

My summary of Venice in a day is that it’s pretty, but pretty repetitive. As you walk you see the same style of buildings, bridges and waterways. Many times we felt as though we had already been to places, which we had not yet been to. Vehicles are non-existent in the city, which is nice. You could walk through the streets not worrying about looking both ways before crossing it. The only means of transportation are on foot or via gondola.

Venice was also filled with people walking around, majority of which were tourists. Even though I, too, was a tourist, I didn’t like being surrounded by people taking the same pictures as I and following the same path as I. It almost felt like a fake city just because everything looked similar, everyone was there to take pictures and the only “real” Venetians were the store and restaurant owners and sometimes even they were not even Italian. Also, Janice had been getting very excited to bargain with the Italians. However, they (at least not in the big cities) do not bargain. They actually get quite upset when you do try to bargain with them. Janice said that she saw something for a few euro cheaper at another store and the lady said, “Well why don’t you go buy it there then!?” Oye! Fussy, fussy.

Also, not as many actual Italians spoke English. I thought that in a very touristy city more people would, but I guess I should never assume. Finally, the men in Venice, and Italians in general, are not afraid to blatantly stare. If we wore shorts or dresses where our legs would be showing some then they would look at our legs as if they’d never seen a leg before. It was quite uncomfortable and we were always uncertain of where to look and what to do when they were staring so intently.

:::Traveling Interlude:::

We got to our train station which was a little outside the city. We still had a couple hours before our train left. We were thinking about where we could sit that’s inside so we weren’t so cold. We found a hotel and smiled with big eyes at the receptionist and politely asked him if we could sit on his couches for a couple hours because we felt unsafe sitting at the train station since we were all girls. He agreed to let us stay and took us to a lounge area on the second floor, which was nice because that way we weren’t being watched by him the entire time and so we could spread out. We all started in a vertical position and ended asleep in a horizontal position. Luckily we had set alarms and so we woke up in time to catch our train. We thanked the receptionist and headed for the station.

We got there with tickets in hand and tried to figure out which platform we were supposed to be on. Fortunately we met a girl who would be taking the same train as us. She informed us that we were to put our ticket into this box that stamps them with the date and time. If we had met her we would have never known this. She then led us to our platform.

Our train arrived and we were looking forward to sitting down and falling back asleep. Much to our disappointment, when we got on board we found that the Harry Potter style train compartments were full of sleeping people stretched out. We walked around looking for a place to sit and found nothing. Finally a train lady came and woke up people who were lying over two or three seats so that other people could sit down. We did and had some uncomfortable hours of semi-sleep. We arrived in Florence where we got breakfast at the train station and then caught our connecting train to Pisa.

Yes, we were those tourists. We arrived in Pisa, ran to a taxi, drove to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, ran to the tower, held up the tower, took pictures, ran back to the taxi, drove back to the train station and hoped on our train to Cinque Terre. We hadn’t had our tickets checked at all up to this point. We had been in a few different trains already and this one from Pisa to Cinque Terre was especially nice we noticed. A lady appeared and asked for our tickets. She told us we were on the wrong train and that we could either get off at the next station or pay the extra 50 euro and stay on until Cinque Terre.

We got off at the next station. It was a random stop in a town that didn’t look too enticing. We sat in the little café of the station with a giant Obama head, mouse head and clown head. It was an interesting experience. We played some card games and then all of a sudden one of the workers of the café place came up to us with what looked like the lid of a giant tin can and began to tap on the tin lid and just stare at us playing cards. We had never been so into the game as we were at that moment. Nobody knew what was happening, nobody knew why and nobody wanted to make eye contact with this man and his tin can lid. He mumbled a few things in Italian that were not one of the 5 words we knew and so we continued to pretend as though the card game was immensely intriguing. Finally he walked away and we all let out a breath of relief.

We considered eating lunch and then realized it was only 8:30. It seemed like half the day was over with and it was only just beginning! Our train wasn’t supposed to be there until 11:30. We still had quite a while to wait. We played more cards and chatted and then went to the platform to wait for our train. Katie and I decided we would go to the bathroom quick as we still had about 20 min before the train came. As we were climbing up the stairs to return to our platform we see our train pulling away with Janice and Maisah inside and Kelly standing outside the train with our bags watching the train pull away in disbelief. At all of our other experiences with the trains they would wait for 5-10 min before pulling away from a station. Janice and Maisah went on board to save us all seats while Kelly waited for Katie and I. All of a sudden the doors shut and the train pulls away without us. We looked to see when the next train came… 1:30. We couldn’t take this train station any longer! We were trying to figure out what we should do when another train unexpectedly pulled up. Someone said it, too, was going to Cinque Terre. So we hopped on and hoped for the best!

:::Cinque Terre, Italy (Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore):::

We did end up at the same station as the other 2. Phew! We headed for our hostel, by train once again, in one of the 5 cities along the coast of Italy. We were on the train that was going through the mountain and so it was dark. All of a sudden we simultaneously gasped at the sight of the glimpse of a blue sky and a blue sea and then back into darkness we went. When our train stopped we looked over the edge of a cliff and into the clearest water we had ever seen. It was beautiful, and this was just one small part of Cinque Terre.

The city in which our hostel was in, Riomaggiore, was all uphill. We slowly began to hike up the hill with our luggage to our hostel. We walked in, out of breath, paid and then he told us to follow him to our rooms. Back down the hill we went with our luggage and then up a couple flights of small, very steep stairs to our hostel room. It was 5 single beds bunked and then one double bed. He gave us the option to take all the 5 or 3 in the bunk beds and 2 in the double. We opted for the bunk beds. We all enjoyed a much-needed shower and then headed to spend the rest of our afternoon in Vernazza.

Unfortunately when we had arrived in Cinque Terre it had been overcast, but by the time we reached Vernazza the sun had come out and the cardigans came off. The city was beautiful. Colorful houses lined the cliffs next to the blue ocean. I couldn’t take enough pictures of it all. We quickly got gelato and then sat on the beach. Janice, Katie and I climbed up stairs all the way to the top of one of the cliffs where there was a small castle and an amazing view.

We went back to our hostel’s city and enjoyed a wonderful dinner. I ate some pasta and Janice and I tried a raisin wine that was supposedly the wine to try in Cinque Terre. It was interesting… it was very strong and potent at first sip and then it was nice. You could only have small sips at a time. No gulping allowed when you drink that wine. It would be too overwhelming. We bought some bread, cheese and honey for lunch the next day at a grocery store.

We decided to climb up even farther than our hostel to get a better view of Riomaggiore. We found one. We also found a bench where we could watch the sun set over the ocean. It was beautiful and relaxing. We got back to our hostel and found that two girls had been placed in the double bed. They said they weren’t expecting them to share a double bed! They were from America, ironically studying in Rome, where we were off to next. We were able to ask them a lot of questions, which was really nice.

As we hadn’t really slept up to this point once we fell asleep (around 8 or 9 I believe) we were out cold until about 9 the next morning. We had to check out of our hostel by 10am and as we didn’t want to carry our luggage with us the next day we, once again, put it in a luggage storage place at our train station. They told us the storage place closed at 10pm. Unfortunately our train didn’t depart until 1am and so we would have to hang out at the train station for a while that night.

We went back to the start of the 5 cities so that we could hike through them and see them all. The coastal walk was gorgeous. We just couldn’t get over how blue and how clear the ocean was. We walked from Riomaggiore to Manarola. Manarola was picturesquely placed on the cliff. It was the most beautiful of all the cities. The houses had the most variety of color and the colors were more vivid than any of the other cities. We indulged in some gelato and then headed to a picnic area overlooking the city. We ate our bread and cheese and drank wine from a juice box. A couple sips in we realized that they were actually cooking wine. The idea of juice box sized wine was funny; the taste wasn’t too spectacular, however.

Unfortunately the rest of the walk along the coast was closed and so the only other options were to take the really long hiking trail, which we considered and then opted for the second option, which was to ride the train between the cities. During this train ride we heard an American girl loudly declare a ‘shocking’ and very inappropriate remark. Oh, Americans. Even though I am an American tourist, every time I walk by one I roll my eyes. I always just catch a piece of their conversation and it’s always covering a highly intellectual topic… or not. Also, Americans always seem to wear clothes that advertise their beloved country. And they seem to think that since they are in a country where the main language isn’t English that nobody around them speaks English. So wrong. I hope that when people walk by me they don’t laugh and roll their eyes at my topic of conversation.

The next city, Corniglia was the least exciting of them all. Once you got off the train you had to walk up numerous steps and then the city was pretty anticlimactic. It was small and didn’t really have anything to do there. By this point we all had to go to the bathroom and figured Corniglia would have one available. All we found were squatty potties. One of which someone didn’t understand that they were squatty potty’s and not squatty poopy’s. It was an experience…

We then went to the final city, Monterosso al Mare. We walked around for a bit, sat on the beach, in which the sand was replaced by rocks, climbed to the top of a giant rock and ate yet another delicious Italian dinner at a restaurant by the water. It was then time to catch a train back to the luggage place to make sure we were there before it closed at 10pm. The train there took much longer than expected and we were there at about 9:56. We sprinted to the luggage storage place only to find that the doors were shut and a chain with a pad lock on it was placed around the door handles!

We HAD to have our luggage! Our tickets for our train that was leaving that night were in there! All of our necessities for living were in there! We banged on the doors for a while hoping someone was still in there. No answer. We ran to an information desk; it was closed. We ran to the train station desk; it was closed. We ran to a policeman. He told us we’d have to wait until the morning. We explained that that simply would not do. He somehow found a janitor or someone that had the key to the place. We had never been so relieved!

We then trotted off to yet another hotel to bat our eyes and ask if we could sit on their couches. Once again, they agreed and we once again, fell asleep for a little bit. We ran to our train as we had done with pretty much every other train we’d been on up to this point and this time found a seat right away. We were in and out of sleep once again and then finally arrived in…

:::Rome, Italy:::

It’s difficult to navigate at 6am. We tried to do so but ended up going the wrong direction. We finally found our hostel, which was, once again, up a ton of stairs. This time the stairs were normal sized and inside a building though. We made it to the top only to find a sign outside the hostel door saying “please do not ring the bell between the hours of 12am and 7am”. So there we sat for about 30 minutes until the owner of the hostel heard us shuffling about outside her door and opened it to find 5 tired and dirty college students sitting outside the door. She asked why we were sitting there. We pointed to the sign and she just shook her head and let us in. We were able to shower and leave our luggage there while we explored Rome for the day.

Our first stop was the Vatican as it was Palm Sunday. We sat and watched 2 hours of a mass that we weren’t sure when it started or ended. It was hot in Rome. The hottest weather we had felt yet. We were slightly sunburned after the day was over. Next we ate. Pizza, gelato and a coca-cola for an energy boost. We then went to the Coliseum and Roman Forum. Palm Sunday was the last day in which certain attractions, such as the Coliseum and Roman Forum, were free. We decided that since they were free then we would pay for a guide to take us around both of them and that way we’d be able to skip the waiting in line part as well.

Our guide told us all about the Coliseum and then set us lose to wander and gave us a time and place to meet up to go to the Roman Forum. The Coliseum was amazing! I wish I could have seen it in full force… minus the killing of people and animals though. We left the Coliseum and met when and where he told us to meet and he was nowhere in sight. Scammed. Bummer. It wasn’t too expensive though so it was okay. We then met up with 2 friends and walked through the Roman Baths and part of the Roman Forum. We also saw a woman making spray paint paintings of the Coliseum that were very impressive. It looked like digital artwork.

We kept catching glimpses of this giant white building in the distance and so we set off to get a closer look. The closer we got the whiter it became. It was a fabulous building. People weren’t even allowed to stand on its steps for fear that it might not be as white! We headed back to the hostel to freshen up before dinner. We met our new roommate, Joe, and invited him to join us in search of food. He did, as did another Vesalius student, which we found while we were heading to the metro. We all went to the Spanish Steps and then the Trevi Fountain just as it was getting dark. They were both as beautiful as I remember (I was in Rome for a chorus trip in high school) and I was able to make yet another wish by throwing a coin into the fountain.

We found dinner of which I had gnocchi for the first time, and then found gelato, of course. We happened upon the Pantheon after gelato as well as other random old things throughout the city. When walking around in Rome you just seem to happen upon something old and just kind of say, huh, I wonder what this is, take a picture and move on. It’s a city filled with plenty of old as well as new. The streets, for instance, are part of the old. They are awful! They are cobblestone that are spread war too far apart and so after walking on them for a couple hours your feet are in immense pain.

The following day we got a late start and so we started with lunch and then we all wanted to go to the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Museums. We took one look at the line and said, nope, we are not getting in and then a guy came up to us and asked if we wanted to pay more and skip the line. I had already seen the Sistine Chapel and so I didn’t want to pay that much to see it again so I just wandered around for 2 hours while they went inside. It was another nice day and I enjoyed getting some sun. I found some more old things as well as a nice view of Rome from on top of a hill. I also got some gelato.

We met back up and took a metro to the Piatza del Popolo to have a looksie. It’s a big open area with big buildings that were cool to see. We then ate gelato (I don’t know if you’re seeing a trend here… but we ate a lot of gelato). We then were trying to find the Pantheon so we could see it in the day and not having such good luck. We made it eventually, but before that we found the best gelato place ever! It’s called Gelatti and they have 70 flavors of gelato. It is a mad house in there! But it was worth it. It was SO amazing! If you’re ever in Rome, go to it!

We headed to the Republic, which is yet another big open area with beautiful buildings. It’s really hard to appreciate such amazing things when you see so many amazing things in a short amount of time. We were on a time schedule obviously and so we could never just sit and appreciate something for too long. I wish I could have just sat in the Republic area for a while reading a book or eating lunch. But it was a kind of look, take a picture and go on to the next attraction type trip instead of the sit and appreciate type one. Quality vs. quantity. We went for quantity. I’m glad we did because we were able to see and do so much, but I do hope to have a quality type of trip abroad someday, too.

The restaurant we choose for dinner was full and so they just said follow this guy and so we did. He led us down an ally to another restaurant they own we assumed and we enjoyed pasta and wine once again.

The next morning we were up at 4am to meet our personal shuttle that would take us to the airport, which, once again, was outside the city. We began to check in for our flight. I was first in line so they checked my passport and ticket. He saw I was with 3 other girls and he just said, “Are you all together?” And when we nodded then he didn’t even check their passports but just let them through! Good security, Rome. Janice ended up getting through without having her passport looked at once. They just kind of held it and rubbed it and let her go through. She just looks so trustworthy, I guess. We were then off to the presumably very hot…

:::Athens, Greece:::

We arrived in Greece ready to start sweating! But when we stepped outside, we began to shiver instead. We were dressed for warmth and we got high 50’s low 60’s instead. Rome was 75! Why couldn’t Greece be? Apparently, Greece isn’t warm all year around. Even people who were studying abroad there didn’t know this. The summer gets to be like 120 sometimes but the winter actually is winteresque.

We rode a bus into the city center called Syntagma Square. We immediately noticed that there were dogs everywhere. Big dogs, too. They were just wandering, or lying on the sidewalk or doing what ever they wanted. We were a bit hesitant to get close to them, as they looked a little… rough. We then found Janice’s friend who was studying in Athens for the semester and she led us (in a sort of round about way) to our hostel. We freshened up and then went in search of food because we were starving!

On our way to food we saw a ferry place so we stopped inside to get some price and time estimates on islands we wanted to go to. Our original plan was to go to Santorini (where Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was filmed) for one day and Crete for the other day. After talking some with the ferry lady we found out this was simply unrealistic. So we began to devise a new game plan. But we decided we needed food in us before we could decide on anything.

In Europe restaurants have their menu outside so that people can see what they have and what their prices are before going inside. We looked at a couple restaurants, not liking the prices, and then finally I made an executive decision and walked in one without looking at a menu. “Eight euro! Two euro each.” the lady behind the counter said. We all hurriedly handed her two euro and walked inside a little farther. Janice asked, “What did we just pay two euro for?” I didn’t know. Nor did anyone else. We didn’t see a buffet or anything and so we just stood waiting for food to magically appear. The wait staff stared at us and tried to communicate what we were supposed to do. We still didn’t understand. We also still wanted food.

Finally we figured out that we were supposed to get a gyro (not pronounced guy-ro, but more like ye-ro by the way) out of the whole deal. Fabulous! Just what we wanted! So we got one and sat down and then the wait staff was like, “So you sit in?” And we said, “yes.” And then they made us pay 50 cents each for that. Every restaurant in Greece (or at least Athens) charges you more if you sit in the restaurant than if you take it to go. Still, 2.50 for lunch was a pretty good deal, I think.

We then found a bakery type place and had to have some baklava. It was delicious. It was the early afternoon at this point and so we decided it was time to start doing what we do best- sightseeing. We went to the Parliament just in time for them to announce that we could now take pictures with the guards. We weren’t planning on capturing that moment, but since they were offering we took advantage of it. Along with dogs being everywhere, they had fearless pigeons in search of food! I accidentally kicked one while I was walking. That’s how audacious they are. Then Janice and I tried to purposefully kick them because they were so annoying.

Next, we went through the National Gardens to the Temple of Zeus Ruins. We got in for free since we were students. This was the case for pretty much everywhere in Athens, which was nice. After being there for about 10 minutes someone came up to us and told us it was closing in 10 minutes. It was only 2:50! Apparently all of the major things to see in Athens close at 3pm, which we were unaware of. So, not too much sightseeing for our first day. But we found out that the Acropolis Museum was open and so we headed there.

We got in for free once again and joined up with a guided English tour group of older people, so we blended in well. It was better to go with a tour guide because she was telling us certain things to note about specific statues and such that we would have just skimmed over and not noticed before. We also saw how the statues, which have a brownish tint to them are restored after being exposed to pollution.

On our way back to the hostel we realized we had a craving for some gelato. We got some and enjoyed it, but knew that nothing could compare to Italian gelato. We meant to lie down just for a bit, but ended up being completely out for over 2 hours. But if you remember, we hadn’t slept hardly at all at this point, so it was allowed. We then met up with Janice’s friend once again for an amazing and truly Greek dinner. We at so much and it was all so good! Then we walked around the city at night for a bit and saw a dog attack a man! Maddy, Janice’s friend, told us that they dogs are generally nice, but occasionally they will attack what they think is an aggressive or threatening man. This man was just walking by a dog, which was lying on the sidewalk and the dog started barking really loud and running towards the man. We just stood there in shock and eventually the man got away. New rule: don’t look threatening.

We went back to the hostel and back to bed. Refreshed the next morning we hit up the ferry place once again to ask some more questions. They didn’t really like our questions and thus were not too helpful. Our ferry plans changed about 25 times that day but we finally had a plan. The next morning we would go to Paros for one day and then Aegina (Maddy had recently been there and loved it) for the next day. Both were much closer to Athens than Santorini or Crete.

To the Acropolis we went! It was pretty cool. By this point in our journey we had seen so much that we were on the “look at for a second, take a picture, move on” setting. Everything in Athens was cool to see, but I don’t feel like I appreciated it as much as I would have had I not been traveling for so long. Anyways, still amazing to see! We then marched up the many stairs to Parthenon, which was, surprisingly under construction! We were thinking, “Isn’t the thing that makes this amazing that it hasn’t been reconstructed at all?” But we found out that it’s pretty much under construction all year around because otherwise it would actually fall apart because of the weather and pollution. Aside from the giant cranes, it was pretty spectacular to see. I wish I could have seen that in it’s prime, too. Next to the Parthenon was the Temple of Nike, which honored the goddess Athena.

Next, we made our way through the Agora and to another mini Parthenon looking place called the Temple of Apollo Patroos; it was in great condition. It was a lot nicer weather-wise this day than the day before so we enjoyed the sunshine. We saw the old Hadrian’s Library and saw 2 dogs hunt down and almost eat a cat. We walked to the Zappeion and then saw the Olympic Stadium, which was quite impressive.

Luckily all of the main things to see in Athens are all within walking distance. On our way back to our hostel we walked through the National Gardens once again. We found a giant cage filled with peacocks, geese and one duck. We decided to rest and watch the birds for a while. All of a sudden, we saw a goose jump on top of the duck and start viciously pecking at it. We went a little closer and saw other geese join in on the action. The geese began to slowly murder this poor duck right in front of our eyes! I tried to save the little guy by throwing rocks at the geese but it didn’t help much. The duck would randomly break loose and we’d all start cheering! Then the geese would jump on it once again and resume pecking. The poor little duck was bleeding and running out of energy. We couldn’t watch any long. Kelly was on the verge of tears and there were men peeing in the bushes behind us. Time to go.

We needed food, but not duck. We found a nice restaurant and I ordered a Greek salad and a frappe. Yum. Halfway through lunch Janice went to the bathroom. I know these details usually aren’t important, but this particular instance was of great interest. She came back a while later looking as if she’d seen a ghost. She informed us that she had walked into the bathroom and found one of the waitresses standing there with no bottoms on. Awkward! The waitress just said, “Opa!” and she went into a stall. Janice did the same and decided to stay in there for a while just in case.

We then headed for the Monastiraki flea market area, as Kelly so desired a pair of authentic Greek leather sandals. There were plenty of souvenir shops down this street and Kelly found a pair of sandals she loved. They were a bit pricey so she decided to not be spontaneous but to really think about if she needed/wanted these sandals. We went back the last day we were in Athens because she decided she did need/want them. We all agreed it was a good buy, though. Katie ended up finding a great pair as well!

We spent the night at Maddy’s and made a late night decision to just go to Aegina for two days instead of Paros for one and Aegina for one. It would finally be a time of complete relaxation and we wouldn’t feel rushed to see and do everything on the island. We were able to sleep in a little bit and then took a taxi to the docks where we would take our ferry to…

:::Aegina Island:::

While we were waiting for our ferry to arrive I ate a sort of giant ham and cheese hot pocket. Also, a little gypsy girl came up to us and gave us a personal accordion concert and then looked sadly at us with her hand out asking for money. We declined and wondered where her parents were and why they were just letting her wander alone through crowds.

In every large city in Europe you’ll be sure to find gypsies of every age. Sometimes it’s just a woman or just a child, sometimes a woman and a child (who looks very bored), sometimes an entire family and sometimes a person with a deformed body part. They just sit there without making eye contact holding out an open and oftentimes empty palm longing to feel the weight of a coin or two. I think they would be better off spending their days trying to get a job than just sitting on the street. There are street performers, too, which I like seeing a lot more. I still don’t usually give them money (because I’m poor) but if I were to give someone on the street money it would be people who were actually doing something and not just sitting there looking sad.

Anyways, eventually our ferry, the Flying Dolphin, arrived and we set off for our hour and a half journey to the island. We reached the warm and sunny Aegina and set off in search of a hostel to stay in because we hadn’t booked one before arriving. We found a tourist office and asked them a few questions about the island and then asked which hostel he recommended. He made a phone call and seconds later an older man with dark, leathery skin appeared in the doorway. “Girls! You looking for a place to stay?” We smiled and nodded and he said, “Let me call my nephew, Takas and he will show you to your place! He is the best looking boy on the island!” He led us to his nephew and the nephew led us through the unmarked streets to our hotel. When we reached the hotel Takas cried out, “Mama! Mama!” Apparently this was a family run business.

We settled in and then went to find Uncle and Nephew again to ask them where we could rent some bike. We originally were going to rent mopeds to ride around the island, but Greeks are crazy drivers! We thought bikes would be much safer, cheaper and better exercise. They, of course, had bikes to rent out to us! They even had baskets for our purses. We rode along the water and got more of a taste of what this beautiful island looked like. The water was 10 shades of blue and ridiculously clear. It held our attention for most of the bike ride. We found a beach about a mile away and grabbed a seat in the sun by the water. We ordered some drinks because we felt we deserved a day of relaxation, sipping on strawberry daiquiris and piña coladas. Unfortunately, our bill of relaxation caused stress. It was a great day until that bill. Then we started to realize that we were sunburned and had little money left.

We rode back into town and went straight to the grocery store. No nice dinner tonight after such expensive drinks! So we got some Greek yogurt, honey, granola, bread and some giant water bottles and headed for our hotel room, exhausted from the sun. We had a lovely dinner on our hotel beds watching The Bucket List (not a fan) and MTV music videos and Made. Classic. Just so you know, they were the only things on in English. Sleep was nice and the shower, which had no curtain, was painful as the sunburn was fresh.

The next day we decided to check out early, even though we had paid for two nights. We realized we could just stay at Maddy’s for free instead of staying in the hotel for another night. We ran into Uncle again (he was everywhere we turned. He was definitely the guy to know on the island) and he continued to refer to us as, “Girls!” and said it would be fine if we checked our early. The island is known to have the best-preserved Doric temple, the Temple of Athena Aphaia. There was one bus going there and one bus coming back. We sat by the blue water for an hour or so and then rode the bus to the temple. It was beautiful, especially with a bright blue sky as its background. We ate lunch by the temple and sat in the sun some more waiting for our bus back.

When we returned we bought some pistachios, as Aegina is known for having good pistachios. It’s true they are quite good. We then walked so some other ruins and then went back to Uncle to get our luggage from him. He said, “It’s upstairs. You can take anything you want from up there. Takas is up there.” Was he insinuating something with that comment? We just took our luggage and headed to the ferry. The one back to Athens was a lot bigger than the one from Athens. We started on the deck and moved inside once that became chilly. We started brainstorming cheap meals that we could make this summer since we wouldn’t have any money. We came up with quite a few good ones!

We arrived in Athens around dinnertime. We were dropped off in Syntagma Square once again in the middle of the Easter mass festivities. It was the Good Friday evening and people were all heading to mass. We were craving a 2 euro gyro and, since we already knew the drill, we headed there. We were wearing shorts, holding luggage and eating meat. Woops. Not really the proper Good Friday attire or activity. We then got McDonalds milkshakes to add to our out of placeness.

As we were walking to catch our bus back to Maddy’s apartment we noticed that the road was blocked off. A crowd was gathering in front of Parliament, too. We were sure what was going on but we were sure that we didn’t want to miss out on any of it! We joined the crowd and waited to see what happened. We finally asked a Police officer, who wasn’t very helpful. He did inform us that it had to do with Easter and it wasn’t something we wanted to miss.

All of a sudden we could hear music, and soon after we could see people marching through the streets. Some were priest-type people, some soldier-type people, some instrument-playing-type people and some were normal-type people. We still weren’t sure what was going on but we watched anyways. They all went to this stage in front of the Parliament and then, what appeared to be the main priest guy, gave a speech in Greek. We still didn’t know what to think of it all. After the speech they all started marching back where they came from.

Maddy’s roommate told us that it was something like all the people from the churches start on top of a large hill and walk all the way down it to Parliament and then to their churches (or vise versa). So we just saw a piece of that processional. Huh. The bus back took extra long because of all the traffic. We managed to find the apartment and then quickly went to sleep.

The next day we went to this giant hill that has a good view of the Parthenon. We were all exhausted in every way possible and so the hike up the hill was kind of challenging. But we made it, and it was a lovely view of not only the Parthenon, but also the city of Athens. We walked back to Maddy’s and got some groceries to make a pasta stir fry dinner with.

The whole day I was thinking that my flight back to Brussels was at 10, but I found out just in time that it was actually at 8! We all had separate flights home and I was the first one to leave. I was ready to go home by this point. I was tired of living out of a suitcase and just tired. I don’t know how people do months of traveling at a time.

Greece wasn’t what I expected really, but I still enjoyed it! There were some stereotypes that I was expecting to see in Greece that weren’t actually true. Yelling “Opa!” and smashing plates, for example, doesn’t happen (except for American tourists). I thought it would be super hot there, but it wasn’t. I was expecting to visibly see the Greek family life (similar to that of My Big Fat Greek Wedding) play out before my eyes, but it didn’t really. Seeing Uncle and Nephew and Mama was a small bit of the family life I was hoping to see I suppose.

Some more fun facts about Greece… Their septic system isn’t very good and so you’re not allowed to flush toilet paper down the toilet; you just put it in a trashcan. I didn’t always follow this rule. Putting the palm of your hand towards someone as if to say stop means the same thing as flipping off someone does in America. I realized I habitually do this a lot more than I thought. Moped driving is crazy! They drive not only in between cars, like it’s a lane made just for them, but they also occasionally drive on the sidewalks. Red lights mean almost nothing to the Greeks. Hardly anyone has a dryer; they just use the hang out to air-dry technique. People were wearing thick coats and scarves even though it got up in the 70’s at one point. The old women in Greece are really old. They had gelato, but it was no Italian gelato. Men stare in Greece, too.

Brief Update

2011-04-13T06:02:00.000-05:00

It’s lovely here.

It’s warm and sunny and something new blooms every day.

I love spring.

I went to the Natural History Museum.

There were dinosaurs that were actually found in Belgium.

We saw a lot of animals that were stuffed.

They had lots of interactive, touch screen things, mostly for children I think.

But Alison and I enjoyed the interactive things, too.

There are a lot of parks throughout Brussels.

We sat in one that had two guys playing guitar and singing “Sweet Home Alabama”.

I ate real sushi (not sushi from the ISU Dining Center).

I watched a tango competition in the Grand Place.

The dancers were from Latin American, the orchestra (they were so amazing) was from Russia, the audience was probably mostly from Belgium and then lady who introduced everything spoke in English.

We danced the salsa.

Let me rephrase… we tried to dance the salsa.

I want to learn how now.

It looks like so much fun.

I have a 15-page paper, 3-page research paper and a 3,000 word paper due after spring break.

Some progress has been made.

I found a website that lets you watch movies and TV shows for free.

It's my favorite.

My friend was in a bike accident and had to have surgery.

She’s okay, but her host family and roommates aren’t at home.

I’ve visited her a lot to help her out and keep her company.

My other friend had hemorrhoids.

I didn’t know how to help.

My other friend was sick with the flu.

She’s better now.

One day I went into 4 H&M’s in about 2 hours.

I bought something from each one I went into.

I love that store.

I went to Liege, Belgium.

There’s not too much to do or see there.

What was supposed to be a one-hour train ride turned into a 4-hour train ride.

Kelly and I got free Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream… twice.

We met people who were hitchhiking from England to Poland for charity.

They were stuck in Belgium.

Primark. We say pry-mark, they say pre-mark. Nobody understood where we wanted to go.

It was sunny, cloudy, sunny, rainy and then it hailed.

We made it back to Brussels in an hour.

I’ll be in Italy in less than 24 hours.

I’m not completely packed.

How do you pack 10 days worth of stuff into a small carry-on?

Roll each item of clothing up as small as you can and put a rubber band around it.

I have a ticket home from Greece, now.

Pray for great weather and safety, please.

Happy Easter!

A Collision of Events

2011-04-04T11:26:00.000-05:00

Apparently there was a horrendous car crash right outside our house a few nights ago! I didn’t find out until someone told me the next day because I slept right through it! But Mechthild is on the ground floor and it was right outside her window. She said she and Jerri (the cat that sleeps with her at night) shot out of bed as fast as an arrow from a bow. She said they thought the world was ending and that they weren’t going to be in bed when that happened!

So a guy was driving down the street at 4am (nobody has figured out why exactly) and they are guessing he fell asleep at the wheel. He somehow managed to twist the car so hard that he ran into the neighbor’s car, denting it and pushing two of its wheels onto the sidewalk and flipping his own car! There is also a chunk of the sidewalk that came off and flew into Mechthild’s window! So she ran outside and helped the guy out of his upside down car, yelled for Sam to come downstairs and called the police. In the meantime, I was sleeping soundly. The neighbor’s car was totaled, but thankfully nobody was seriously injured.

The other morning, I made a crepe with speculoos spread on it. There are these delicious speculoos cookies here and someone decided to make a spread from the cookies, which is delicious as well! It was my first taste of the spread, and my first time making a crepe, too. I also tried the speculoos on apple slices and they go together quite well.

Last week Mechthild invited me to a concert at the Bozar music hall. It was about a 10-piece orchestra with a small group of tenors singing the book of John chapter 5 from the Bible from the beginning until Christ’s death all in Latin. Some of the tenors had roles- one was the narrator, one was Jesus, one Judas, one Mary Magdalene and we weren’t really sure who the others were since we didn’t speak Latin. It was beautiful music, though.

This weekend I went with three girlfriends to the Cantillon brewery, the only brewery in Brussels. It’s also unique in that it only brews during the winter months because the humidity in the air ferments the ingredients better or something. Also, the brewery makes cherry and raspberry beer and it is the only brewery I think that actually uses real fruit as opposed to syrups. We had a free tasting afterwards and it was pretty good.

On our way to the brewery we kept hearing loud music coming from somewhere. As we got closer we became more curious. We eventually stumbled upon the loud music and found a band performing in the middle of this large parking lot and people doing the same dance and waving flags with some guy's face on it. We were so confused and curious as to what was happening and why! We finally asked someone and they said there is a conflict right now in Kurdistan and they were protesting it. Interesting… We happened to come upon another protest later on in the day. It was more of a stand and shout while holding bright posters with bold words on them type protest. But we didn’t know what that one was about at all. Lots to protest, I suppose.

We soaked up as much warm sun as we could the rest of the day by sitting in a park for a couple hours by the blooming daffodils. We walked around Brussels some and then went to our very first movie theatre since being abroad. It was big and loud and great. We watched the Adjustment Bureau, which was pretty good. There were both French and Dutch subtitles throughout the movie.

This week is the final week before spring break starts and it looks like it’ll great weather! I hope to spend lots of time outside helping Mechthild garden and exploring more of Brussels. For spring break, some girls and I are going to go to Italy – Venice, Cinque Terre and Rome, and then to Greece – Athens, the island of Santorini (where the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was filmed) and Crete. (My ticket home was cancelled unexpectedly and so as of now I'm not coming home from Greece. I'm sure that'll change soon, though.) I am really looking forward to it all! It’s going to be chaos because we’re cramming so much into a short amount of time, but it’s going to be a very beautiful chaos.

Ireland

2011-04-03T10:03:00.001-05:00

A few words you should know before I begin my blog post:

Rubbish – nonsense or trash; it depends

Fancy – what you say when you like something

Spit and saw dust – authentic

Q – a line

Okay, now that you’re all caught up on the special Irish terms, we’ll get to the trip. So first of all, getting to Ireland wasn’t easy. Ryan Air, one of the cheapest airlines in Europe, says it flies out of “Brussels”. What it means by that is that it flies out of Charleroi, which is nearly an hour outside of Brussels. For me to get to Charleroi, I had to take a tram, a metro, another metro, walk a couple blocks and take a shuttle (that you have to pay for) that takes an hour to get to the airport. It’s rubbish! So When Alison and I finally made it to the airport and got all checked in we celebrated.

On the flight with Ryan Air they attempted to sell us lottery tickets, perfume, cigarettes and other things, which was kind of amusing. This was also the first place I heard rubbish. The flight attendant came down the aisle and asked, “Does anyone have any rubbish? Any empties?”

We ended up staying with the perfect hostel in Dublin, Paddy’s Palace. They had reasonably priced, clean rooms, provided a free shuttle to and from the airport, provided a free breakfast, were in a great location and if you stayed for at least 2 nights then you get a free bus tour to Glendalough and Kilkenny, which are just south of Dublin in the Wicklow Hills and beyond. It was great!

The first night we were there, Alison and I went to the well-known Temple Bar area. We tried our first Guinness that night! It looked so good and after the first sip we were like, oh, this isn’t too bad! But after the third sip, we were wondering how we were going to be able to finish the entire pint! Luckily someone told us to get a snakebite. You just ask the bar tender to put in some black currant, which is like a raspberry syrup type thing,. It was much easier to drink after that.

We were excited to talk to some Irish people our first night in Dublin as I was planning on getting really good at the Irish accent throughout this trip! Unfortunately the Temple Bar area was mostly well known by other tourists. We didn’t fancy that. We met some people from London, Germany and even Miami. We ended up going with some people we met to another place that happened to be more of a dressy dance club and not at all like the place we pictured ourselves to be at the first night in Ireland! We did meet a guy who owned a pub outside of Ireland that he said was a spit and saw dust kind of place. We never made it to his pub though. Maybe next time.

The next morning Kelly arrived. She had a test and had to come later on. We then set off to explore Dublin! We walked all the way to the other side of Dublin and back. Fortunately, we had the most amazing weather! I think that so far, it was probably their best weekend of the year weather wise. Dublin has double-decker busses for public transportation. People in Dublin, unlike in Brussels, are very good at waiting in very straight, well-organized Q's. Also, at every crosswalk they have and arrow and “look left” or “look right” written on the street. It was helpful. I just ended up looking both ways before I crossed every street, though. Multiple times I caught myself looking up at a car to find that a 7-year-old was driving it, or a sleeping woman or a guy with no hands on the wheel. Then I would remember that they drove on the opposite side of the road and that those people weren’t actually driving the car.

As far as the city of Dublin goes, it’s not that unique from other cities. There aren’t many “tourist attractions” or beautiful sights or anything. We got a tour in an old jail, Kilmainham Gaol, and heard more about Ireland’s history, we then walked by the Guinness Storehouse but didn’t really care to see how it was made. We saw the St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but you had to pay to go inside and we are cheap so we didn’t go inside. We somehow stumbled upon a small fish and chips place where a lot of famous people have eaten (or so this board outside their restaurant says). I had never had fish and chips and we decided this was the place to do it at! It was so much food! But oh, so delicious. We then found the Dublin Castle. I was very unimpressed. It was pretty small as far as castles go and in the middle of all these other buildings in the city. We walked to Trinity College (ISU is prettier) but didn’t see the book of Kells, because, like I said before, we’re cheap and it was 8 euro.

We wandered through this beautiful and huge park and found a nice grassy place to sit and rest from all our walking. On our flight to Dublin, Alison and I had seen this group of free spirited people that all had strange clothes and unique hats. After we sat down in the park, we looked up and saw the same group of people juggling and doing crazy hula-hoop tricks! It was so ironic! They were still wearing their unique hats, by the way. Also, while in the airport to fly to Dublin, we met some Americans who were studying in the Netherlands. We talked with them briefly (because we were both excited to speak English with someone else) and headed to our separate flights, Dublin and Madrid. When we landed in Dublin, we met another group of Americans who were studying in the Netherlands. Alison asked if they had friends going to Madrid. They did! We had somehow met both friend groups. Ironic, again!

At first, being able to hear English all around us was weird because we are so used to not hearing English and not being able to eavesdrop on conversations and understand what’s going on. For the first day I kept saying bonjour and merci to people just out of habit. But we quickly got used to hearing and speaking English again.

Katie arrived that night because she had a class she didn’t want to skip. We all got ready and went out. We first found ourselves in a pub with live music. It was a guy on guitar and a girl who played the fiddle and the recorder (not at once time) I think. They both sang as well and it was really great! There was a little bit of Irish dancing going on there, too. When that band was done we went to a couple other pubs and found some Irish people to talk to, which was fun. To our disbelief though, lots of Irish people wondered why we wanted to visit Ireland. They would then tell us they didn’t like it that much (I think mostly because of the not so great weather). I was always under the impression that Irish people loved their country! But apparently I’m wrong.

Our day trip to Glendalough and Kilkenny left the next morning. We all hopped on the Paddy Wagon (oh, yes) and headed south. We saw so many adorable baby sheep in the rolling hills! We all wanted to stop and hold them, but we never did. Our first stop was the ruins of an old monastery in the Wicklow Hills.

We were given over an hour to explore the hills around the area. We started hiking as fast as we could so we could get as far as possible into the big hills/small mountains. It was all so beautiful with the lakes at the bottom of the hills. We stood in awe for too long and realized we were going to be late if we didn’t hurry back! We took a loop around the area and came across a couple sheep and their babies along the way back! We of course had to stop and take some pictures. The closer we got to them the farther they went away from the fence. I tried many things to get them to come back. I called them like I do my dogs with a “baby voice”, I baaed at them, and I told them to sternly come. But in the end, I think they didn’t come to me because they didn’t understand my accent. They all baaed with an Irish accent and so when I baaed at them in my American accent they looked confused and didn’t know how to respond. By now we were really running late and so we began to run the rest of the mile back to the Paddy Wagon. We made it! But one lady did not, and we drove off without her.

We drove through some more beautiful scenery, apparently through parts of where Braveheart was filmed, and ended up by Ireland’s Stonehenge. It was an old burial tomb that consisted of giant rocks on top of one another. Must have taken quite some time to put together. We then went to Kilkenny where we ate, saw the longest cathedral in Ireland and saw the Kilkenny castle. The lovely weather continued.

We arrived at the hostel, made some pasta and bread and then went to a near-by pub to watch Ireland play in a football (soccer) game. We were anticipating a full pub with crazy fans all wearing green! What we found were people casually eating dinner and a few randoms actually watching the game. We grabbed a cider beer, that’s actually quite tasty, and decided to be the dedicated fans Ireland needed. They won in the end (mostly because of our intense focus on the game) and we enjoyed watching the game.

It was there that we decided we were sick of being American. When you say you’re from America people hope you’re from New York and when they find out you’re from Iowa they are disappointed and sometimes uncertain of what that means. Then it’s a series of questions like why are you in Dublin? They find out we’re studying in Belgium. Why Belgium? What are you studying? What does a Communications major mean? What do you want to do with that major? (I specifically hate this question because I have no idea). Etc. Essentially it’s the same questions/conversation topics with everyone you talk to. I decided I wanted to be from Iceland. What do people from Iceland look like? What do they speak? What do they sound like? What’s the capital? I don’t know. And I hoped nobody else knew either. Alison decided on being Columbian, Kelly, who was losing her voice at this point and has red hair, went for being Irish and Katie was from the Netherlands.

We were very anxious to meet people with our new identities and see how it would all play out. Our first chance came on the way out of this pub. We started talking to a group of guys and, naturally, they asked us where we were from. I proudly announced that I was from Iceland! And then I asked where they were from. One of them said they were visiting from Wales because their friend was getting married. The rest began to giggle in the background. After talking with them a bit more and hearing what sounded like Irish accents I realized they, too, knew how to come up with a story on the spot. It was no bachelor party (or stag party as they call it here). They could somehow tell I was not from Iceland right away (odd, right?) and decided to make up a story, too. We moved on to try our newfound identities elsewhere. Unfortunately, we had about the same luck with everyone else. One guy, however, was pretty excited about meeting someone from Iceland! So I fooled at least one person… I think…. It’s just easier to be American though. So I guess I’ll stick with that story from now on.

So our final day was spent sleeping in, then shopping at this wonderfully cute and cheap department type store, Penny’s, and then taking the train to some towns a bit north of Dublin along the coast. Howth was first, and it was a cute coastal fishing village. We walked around their Sunday market for a bit and then walked to the end of the pier where we saw seals along the way! They were so cute! People were throwing fish to them and they started to clap at us when they wanted more! We walked along the shoreline and enjoyed the beauty for a couple hours.

We then headed farther north to Malahide where there was a huge castle. We walked through trails to reach the massive open field surrounding the castle. We took pictures and did cartwheels in the field for a while and then wandered back to Malahide to explore a little. We found out there wasn’t much else to explore. So we went back to Howth to eat a seafood dinner (I had calamari and seafood soup, which were delicious) and then hike up this trail to the lighthouse, which we had found out about as we were leaving Howth the first time. We started hiking in the pitch black and kept assuming we would just come upon a huge light from the lighthouse. We could hear the waves crashing against the cliffs as we walked and knew we were missing out on some gorgeous scenery. We never ended up finding the lighthouse or any resemblance of a huge light for that matter. So our nearly hour-long walk in the dark was purely for exercise in the end.

We were up at 4:30 the next morning and on the Paddy Wagon back to the airport. I came back to town just in time to go straight to my internship and then to a group presentation meeting that night. I spent the rest of the week catching up on sleep, working and planning spring break, which is coming up soon!

I really really wish I could have made it to the west coast or the northern part of Ireland because I hear great things about both! But it just didn't happen this time. I guess I'll just have to go back someday!

New Hair, New Hat, New Tram, New Taste

2011-03-24T04:34:00.001-05:00

In other news, I finally ate the infamous mussels in Brussels! My friend, Janie, and I were exploring Brussels and had both never had mussels before so we decided to share a bucket. They were weird looking, but pretty good. That same day I had my first Manneken Pis and Janneken Pis sightings. For some reason Belgians like statues of peeing children. There is also a peeing dog somewhere, Zenneken Pis. I’ll have to find him before I leave.

Mechthild, my host mom, knit me a lovely blue hat! I love it! And it goes well with my new hair cut I think. Yes, I got a Belgian haircut. I had been debating for a long time whether to do it or not. I was like I’ll just get a trim, but instead a got a whole new do! It’s much shorter, much less hair, much less tangliness, much less conditioner used, much less time spent brushing it (it only takes like 4 seconds as opposed to the previous 10 minutes). I think I like it.

Spring has arrived here. Over the last few days warmth has come and flowers have bloomed. I know it’s only going to get better! Also, throughout our time here, along the tram 44 line workers have been putting in a new tramline. Since the beginning of the poject we’ve had glimpses of the progress as we drive by to and from the city, work and class. It’s been interesting and, at times, frustrating because the tram would be slower in that area. But it’s exciting to see the finished product!

The tram today, however is not very exciting. There is what the call “heavy disturbances” because massive amount of people from all over Belgium met in the streets early this morning for a demonstation because the government (oh wait, we don't have one) wants to cut costs or something. Due to the people in the streets, pretty much all the buses weren’t working (which doesn’t really affect me) and many of the trams were much slower (this does affect me). So it took me a while longer to get to class but because I’m just SO dedicated I didn’t skip (and I didn't know it would be that bad. But mostly because I'm a good student).

It seems that at some point every night the two cats, Blair and Jerry, decide to get in a catfight. They growl and attack each other. Blair, always feeling the need to be superior, jumps on top of counters, chairs, anything he can find, so that he can be taller than Jerry and thus appear to have more power. There is never really a winner because before they can get too into it Mechthild shoos one of them into another room or outside. They get along at all other times of the day, though.

One of my classes has about 15 people in it. Of these 15 people, there are about 7 or 8 different nationalities, including German, French, American and Dutch, among others. It’s a class about language use, so it’s interesting to get perspectives from so many backgrounds.

I would also like to say that I am not the least punctual person in the household, believe it or not.

Paris, France

2011-03-23T11:37:00.001-05:00

This song was stuck in my head a lot throughout the weekend because I think it’s the only song I know that’s about Paris…

Paris was amazing and cliché and just what I expected, yet so much more. Pretty much wherever you go you’ll find a tourist, people walk around with giant baguettes all the time, there’s plenty of people watching taking place, wine is their favorite and most popular drink, the Eiffel Tower is beautiful.

My friend, Kelly, and I ventured off by bus to Paris with high expectations! This city was definitely the most surreal of all my travels thus far. When we finally exited the metro and got our first glance at one of Paris’s masterpieces–the Arc de Triomphe, it hit us; we were in Paris! It was big a beautiful and I loved it right away. We took lots of pictures at the Arc, as we did with nearly everything we saw, and then realized we weren’t really sure why the Arc was built. I had brought along a handy book about Paris that my host mom had. We opened it up and read a paragraph about the Arc de Triomphe, felt much more knowledgeable, and decided we were now prepared to climb the steps to the top.

The climb was long and we were out of breath due to the drastic change in sea level (at least that’s what we blamed it on), but the view was worth it. This is where we had our first sighting of the Eiffel Tower.

When we got back down we decided to walk down the infamous Champs Elysees. Unfortunately, we realized that it would be more difficult than we thought. The Arc de Triomphe is located in the middle of this giant turn about where traffic never ceases and crosswalks don’t exist. We had followed a group of people through the traffic on the way over but going back across the road we were on our own. We ended up playing a little frogger and made it without being smashed.

We enjoyed a delicious sandwich at a random café and people watched for a little bit. We then set off in the direction the Eiffel Tower! Or so we thought… We decided that of all the things to find in Paris, the Eiffel Tower (ET) would be the easiest, for obvious reasons. This was our one chance to not look like a tourist with our maps out and our mouths open trying to figure out where we were and where we should go. We started walking and walking and walking and then after we had walked for quite some time without seeing the ET we decided it was time to stop trying to be someone we weren’t, embrace our true tourist self, and whip out a map. So we did, we had two, in fact. We assumed we were somewhere near the ET so we started looking for street signs somewhere along there. No luck. We then looked in another area where we were sure we had actually, accidentally wandered off to. No luck. After about a half hour of this confusion, I asked a man with a massive mustache, “Where are we?” (In French of course) and he pointed to the far north of the map- just the opposite place we needed to be. Fail. We couldn’t even find the ET on our own! From then on, the map became our best friend.

We took a metro to the ET and when we finally came upon it we were in awe. It was so big and so wonderful. The only thing we didn’t expect was that it was painted a flat brown color and we both had remembered the ET having a much nicer, brozeish color to it. But we weren’t complaining. We spent a good chunk of time in the area taking lots of pictures of each other and for other people because everyone wants an ET picture! We were pro photographers by the end of it all; we knew all the good angles. For some reason, some people just don’t understand that when we ask them to take a picture of us that we don’t mean just us. We mean mostly get that giant tower in the background and then get us in the bottom corner. But no, some people thought our shoes were the most important part of the picture. Luckily, not everyone thought this way.

Everywhere around the ET there were guys selling mini ET, flying things that light up, and little toy puppy dogs that walk around and bark. Typical ET souvenirs, of course. There were hoards of them, though! They were set up right next to each other, so I don’t really understand their logic. But oh well. The people trying to sell us stuff go rather annoying throughout our stay in Paris because they were at every tourist attraction, and so were we, and so we saw them a lot.

We then walked along the Seine River for a bit, were able to get pictures of the ET from another angle, and went to a contemporary art museum called Musee de Tokyo. It was very… interesting… We tried to interpret it all but I think we just didn’t fully understand it. We walked by the Grand Palace on our way to the metro to Kelly’s friend’s apartment where we stayed for the weekend.

I thought the apartment would be small. But small would’ve been much better than the size of this apartment. You walk in the door and there’s a little bathroom to your right. You go down this tiny hallway, oh, and the tiny hallways is also the kitchen with a sink, a stove top, two cupboards and a mini fridge. It's like 1/3 the size of my kitchen last semester. Then you enter the bedroom that has a single bed for her and her husband. The room is also the dining room, the office, the living room and whatever else. I was amazed. The location wasn’t even near anything touristy and yet it was still so tiny for the whopping price of 850 euro a month! Ridiculous! Kelly and I were curious as to where we would sleep, but they pulled out two mattresses from underneath the bed when the time came. So we all slept right in a row and nearly filled up the room.

Before bedtime though, Kelly and I went to the St. Michael area and ate dinner. There was a giant fountain in the area that was pretty. We had had our backpacks with us up to this point and it felt nice to not have the extra weight. We walked down a restaurant-filled street and a waiter offered us a free cocktail if we ate at his place, so we agreed and sat down. We ate cheese fondue (three kinds of cheese) and potatoes and played the guessing game, “Who’s the Tourist?” It was a fun and pretty easy game and the food was great. We walked around there for a bit longer and headed home for some rest, as we were getting up early to get to the Louvre right when it opened so we didn’t have to wait in line.

We were a little late because sleep was nice and we grabbed a couple baked goods along the way, but we still didn’t have to wait in line. We headed straight for the Mona Lisa, once we bought our ticket! She was nice. Small, protected by bulletproof glass, but nice. We didn’t really know what else we wanted to see and so we went to the starred items on our Louvre map and saw lots of things along the way. Lots of paintings, sculptures, items from long ago. I think things in museums seem to blend together after a while. But it was still a sweet museum! And massive, too! One of the cooler things was the Napoleon Apartments. It was set up like his house (was or was guessed to be) and it was beautiful and luxurious. The colors were rich, the decorations were refined, the wallpaper was cloth and the chandeliers were the biggest I’ve ever seen.

We spent nearly two hours in there and found that the hardest part was trying to get out of the Louvre! We walked around it and saw the glass pyramid and it felt surreal all over again. The pyramid has been in so many movies and it made me feel like I was, too. We then headed towards the Notre Dame via St. Germain Boulevard, which is supposed to be known for it’s cafés and people watching. It’s also supposedly the best place to spot a celebrity (that’s what my book said at least). We didn’t find one though. We stopped at a café and enjoyed our first croque madame, which is the Parisian way of doing a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s meat and cheese in the middle with melted cheese on top and a fried egg on top of that. I loved every bite. I made one for myself a couple days after I got home, too. Another thing I really liked about Paris was that they gave us a giant pitcher of water with every meal we had – for free! I’ve missed free water.

We left the café and headed for the Notre Dame. We followed our usual patter of lots of pictures and then sit in awe for a bit. The Notre Dame was cool, but I felt like the church in saw in Cologne, Germany was much more amazing. The only unique thing about the inside was the intricate and extensive stained glass throughout the cathedral. Otherwise it was just like any other European cathedral, which is still great. We got in line to head to the top to be with the gargoyles. There was a crepe stand nearby (how convenient) and so we got a hot crepe with Nutella on the inside. So delicious! My purse was feeling left out at first, but after a dollop of Nutella fell into it, it was much happier.

It started to get overcast and sprinkle and so we decided that it wouldn’t be the best day for a view from the top of something. Aside from the little bit of rain, we had pretty good weather. It wasn’t always sunny skies, but it was a good temperature and not too overcast. We stopped at a café for some hot chocolate, went home for a couple hours rest, grabbed a cheap bottle of wine and were off to visit the ET at nighttime!

The ET was great during the day, but it was amazing at night! It’s lit up with a golden glow and sparkles every hour on the hour. We thought we had taken a lot of pictures of attractions up to this point, but we went crazy here! We tried every setting on our camera and every angle we could think of. We saw it sparkle twice. I loved it.

After enjoying the radiance of the ET and the wine, we went to the Bastille area. We found a nice looking bar, grabbed a beer and sat down. We were there for a while watching this foursome interact and coming up with dialogue for them. Our version was probably more amusing than what they were actually talking about. We went home relatively early again in preparation for our final day in Paris.

Our first destination of the day was the Catacombs. They are these underground tunnels all throughout Paris. One section is closed off for this tour. Apparently, back in the day the cemetery in Paris filled up and they didn’t know what to do with the bodies. So naturally they took the bones and lined the walls of these underground tunnels with them. It was crazy and creepy but quite interesting. There were so many bones! It was unreal.

After that we went to an outdoor market with Kelly’s friend and husband. They had scarves (I bought one), fresh food, shoes, jewelry, art, random nick-knacks and lots of other things. We decided to buy three kinds of fresh cheese- goat, brei and something else, and a fresh baguette and head for Montmartre. We got there, and ate our delicious cheese and bread and then hung out there for a couple hours. There was a guy who was doing crazy juggling for like an hour! He was so amazing! After he finished Kelly and I went and told him he was really, really good. We chatted for a bit and he gave us his card. You should watch him by either Googleing him or going to his website: http://www.iya.fr/en/iya_traore.php

There was also a guy who was playing guitar and singing and so we sat, along with over 200 other people, and enjoyed his show for a while. Because there were so many people there, some guys decided to buy a couple 6-packs of Heineken and sell them to the crowd! So funny! We then saw the inside of the church briefly and walked down this street that had a bunch of artists working on and selling their art. It was so cute.

We took the metro back home (we became quite familiar with Paris’s metro system in the short time we were there) to grab our stuff and then went to the bus stop to head home. The weekend was wonderful but I was quickly forced back into reality when I got home as I had a test and a 3,000-word paper due along with many hours at the internship. All is peaceful for the moment as I’m outside enjoying the warmth of the sunshine and I head for Dublin tomorrow!

Incomparable

2011-03-08T13:21:00.000-06:00

Tonight we had Chinese food from the place across the street. Let's just say it was no Chuong...

Seeing the Sights

2011-03-06T09:49:00.000-06:00

This past week was the dreaded mid-term week. It’s especially awful here because most of the classes consist of a mid-term, a large paper and a final exam. So you pretty much have to do well in everything. Hopefully the tests went well!

Mechthild and I took the afternoon on Friday to go to Leuven, the next town over, and walk around, eat crepes (mine had ice cream and chocolate sauce on it!) and get lost in the city (this part wasn’t planned into our day). The trams were on strike and so I wasn’t able to go into my internship. This time the metro announced that they were going to be on strike so we could be prepared. I think the fact that they announce when they will strike is kind of an oxymoron. The point of a strike is to kind of say that the workers have the power to be in control if they don’t change what the workers want. I think it’s meant to be unexpected and be a nuisance so they have no choice but to agree to your demands. The metro not running is a nuisance, but the fact that they alerted us prior to the strike makes it far less a nuisance because there is time to plan ahead. Also, they are allowed to strike, but only for one day. This, too, coincides with the whole oxymoronness of it all.

I finally made it to the Atomium! It’s one of Brussels main tourist sights. It is an impressive and unique structure. It’s way far away from anything else in Brussels and it’s pretty much the only thing out there worth seeing. My friend, Kelly and I went, took pictures, sat in the warmth of the restaurant and left. We can now check it off the list though.

We then went to the Museum of Music, which was really cool. You get headphones and when you step in front of an instrument in the museum then the music that it makes plays through the headphones. There were so many different kinds of instruments- most of which I have never seen before. They usually resembled something that I was familiar with, such as a guitar or a trumpet but there were so many different variations from different people groups and time periods. I was amazed at some of the instrumental creations! I don’t know how people came up with some of them! I realized how limited my knowledge of instruments is. When I think of instruments I usually think of the basics- the ones I’m familiar with, but there are so many other things that make music! All shapes and sizes and sounds. After my eyes were opened to the various types of instruments that I never knew existed I was briefly inspired to create a unique instrument of my own. That inspiration has faded now...

Mechthild is in Berlin for the week visiting a friend. We’re on our own! She cooked and froze a bunch of food so I think we’ll survive!

Verbier, Switzerland

2011-03-05T15:21:00.001-06:00

I skied in the Swiss Alps!!!! …In jeans… It was so amazing though! I’m really glad I was able to take that trip. We flew into Geneva, Switzerland last Friday night and rented a car. Sam drove (in a manual car), Ryan worked the GPS (it was in German) and I sat in the back (with all the coats and such). We drove through the mountains and tunnels and were always in awe when we would unexpectedly come across a city’s lights in the valley.

We reached our hostel, which was an old bomb shelter in the early hours. There was nobody else there when we arrived so we were alone in the hostel for the first night, which was a bit creepy. There was also a distinct smell about the hostel that wasn’t exactly pleasing. But it was a bed to sleep in and we all wanted sleep! Sam unfortunately realized when we got there that he forgot to pack his sleeping bag. We found some sheets, hoped they were clean and fell asleep.

The next morning Ryan realized he forgot his gloves. I was feeling good about not forgetting anything too important at that point. We rented boots and skis (with Franks- the Switzerland currency) and walked a couple minutes down the rode to where a there was a gondola lift that took us to the top of the mountain! As we were putting boots/hats/gloves/etc. before getting on the gondola I realized that my gloves had fallen out of my boots at some point. So I ended up being in the same boat as Ryan- no gloves.

At the bottom when we looked up at the mountain we couldn’t see the top, partway through the ride up we were in fog, and once at the top we could see many mountain peaks, a line of clouds and the valley below. It was a beautiful sight! Unfortunately my camera died halfway through the first day, but I still got a lot of great pictures, as did Sam and Ryan.

Sam and Ryan are both great skiers! Before Verbier I hadn’t skied in a couple of years. My family and I have been to Montana and Colorado before on ski trips and so I figured that after a couple times down the mountain then I would be used to skiing again and be able to keep up with the guys. I was mistaken. The slopes seemed steeper and icier than what I remembered past slopes being like. I think that in places in America the slopes are groomed so that they’re mostly flat and even. In Verbier there was powder right next to a patch of icy snow right next to a bump of snow and so it was difficult for me to find a good rhythm of skiing. Sam and Ryan were doing great and I didn’t want to slow them down so I told them to go wherever they wanted to go and we picked a place to meet up later on.

The rest of that day I’m pretty sure I fell at least once every time I went down a slope. Fortunately none of my falls were painful nor did a break anything- bone or ski. I would usually just slide for a really long time until I stopped and then people would look at me and think, “Oh, she’s in jeans. That explains everything.” And they would help me get my skis back on and stand up and such. More people than I expected spoke English, which was good! Thanks to the amazingly nice weather I was never cold! Even though I fell multiple times and didn’t have gloves the sun and adrenaline kept me warm!

We were all exhausted after day one. We ate dinner at a nice restaurant in Verbier, which was tasty and went to bed fairly early and were up again the next morning for some more skiing. I stayed with the guys throughout day two. I was slower than them, and as the runs were all quite lengthy with many forks in the road, they had to wait for me at different points but it was fine I think. Many of the trails we were on were wide enough for twoish skiers and then it would just drop off on the side. I was always extra cautious on these trails for obvious reasons. There was one gondola lift that we took which held over 100 people! It was a little scary.

Our flight left for home at 6am on Sunday. We drove back to the airport Saturday night and attempted (and kind of succeeded) to sleep in our car for a few hours. We then hung out in the airport for a while longer and came home extremely exhausted, but it was well worth the exhaustion.

Antwerp - Antwerpen

2011-02-23T09:39:00.001-06:00

Congratulations, Belgium! You did it! You now hold the record for the longest time a country has gone without a government! Over 250 days… impressive. I’m glad I could be here to partake in this record-breaking extravaganza.

This past weekend I tagged along again with class to travel to another Belgian city, Antwerp. It’s just a short train ride away and it’s pretty cool! There are a lot of diamond stores there, and just stores in general! So some girls and I decided we’d head back there some day just to shop since Saturday was dedicated to museums and such. We did the typical guided tour trek. Sometimes I forgot to listen to what the professor was saying. We walked around the city a lot, which was unfortunately very cold (unlike Iowa from what I hear! 60 degree weather? Unreal!). We went into some museums; saw some cool old paintings, books, statues and such. I ate frites and a kabob for lunch. We went into the church in Antwerp, too. It seems like every city has a huge church in the center of town. It makes it easy to find people if you get lost. Game plan: meet at the church!

One of the museums held the first two printing presses Gutenberg made as well as one of the first ever printed Bibles off of a Gutenberg printing press! Who knew Belgium had that? Not I! Antwerp is also the 2^nd largest seaport in Europe and the 4^th largest in the world! Belgium continues to surprise me. Speaking of surprising me! I just looked out the window and it’s snowing right now! Now that’s crazy. What odd weather the world is having this winter.

In Antwerp some girls and I were talking about the bells on bikes and we decided that the bell sound just doesn’t do the bikers’ rage justice. The cute, “ding-ding,” of a bell is more of a polite, “Hi, would it be okay if you moved over just a little bit so I could ride by? Please and thank you!” We think there should be an alternative bell sound; something like that of a semi truck so that bikers can express their road-rage a little better. It would send more of a, “Get out of my way or I’ll hit you!” type message. There could be different pitches for different ways the rider is feeling towards the people they are about to hit. Perhaps I’ll look further into this new bike bell invention. I’ll keep you posted.

Last weekend we also watched the movie, In Bruges. We were literally “In Bruges” the previous weekend! It was cool to see things in the movie we had just seen in real life! My host mom and I also finished the first season of 24. She purchased the second season online and it came today! Guess what we’re doing tonight…

Sunday I was also able to go to church for the first time! It was wonderful. I managed to find it after a tram, metro, bus ride there. It was small, maybe a 100-150 people, but very good. It was a two-hour long service. Those two hours consisted of worship, announcements, a time for people to share what God’s been doing in their life, coffee/tea break, something else and the message. During one song they sang the chorus in English, then Dutch and then French, which was pretty cool. Also, for the people who couldn't understand English, there were headsets that they could wear that would translate what people were saying! I also met two girls there who go to Vesalius, too! I hope to go back, but not this weekend because this weekend I’ll be skiing in the Swiss Alps! Woop!

I really like Belgian chocolate. I eat it a lot. The last couple of times at work my boss has had chocolate eggs. I usually have 1 or 2… or 5. I’m drinking hot tea and eating chocolate now actually. I drink a lot of hot tea, too. I’m afraid that when I return to America I’ll find my taste buds have adjusted to many things here and eating some foods at home (not my mom’s cooking though!) will be strange. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to eat Hershey’s chocolate again. We’ll see.

I’ve taken note of a couple of other things that I’ve found interesting about Belgium.

1. There are no squirrels here. At least I haven’t seen any.

2. Cafés and restaurants have tables outside all year around. They have little heaters out there too. No matter what the weather, you’ll usually find a couple people sitting outside. The heaters don’t help that much. I still haven’t figured out why people choose to sit outside when they can sit inside, but I can’t argue that fresh air isn’t nice.

3. Sandwiches here are eaten frequently. In America we create sumo-sandwiches that have as many things on it that can fit like 3 kinds of meat, 2 different cheeses, lettuce, tomato, avocado, mayonnaise, etc. But here, they have the most basic sandwiches. They are fine with just salami or just one type of cheese on their sandwich. I always find myself wanting more ingredients. However, I’ve found that a meat and cheese sandwich is quite delicious.

4. Oftentimes with dinner we have this spinach-mashed potato combination dish thing that’s so good. It’s called stoemp. You pronounce it like Shtomp. I just like saying that word.

5. PDA in Belgium is more normal and accepted than it is in America. It happens at every level from holding hands to a little make-out session in the middle of a metro station. Generally it’s not over-the-top, it’s just the cute stuff.
6. It's common to see people who are riding their bikes or children walking around in bright road-constructionesque jackets so that they can be easily seen by drivers.
7. Round abouts on the roads are quite popular here.
8. They don't usually have street signs on poles at the corner of every road here, but rather on the side of buildings that are on the corner of streets.
9. There are menus outside most restaurants and cafes so that you can see what food/drink the place has to offer and at what price before ever entering the restaurant! It's nice!

Bruges - Brugge

2011-02-15T03:39:00.001-06:00

I anticipated a long, busy day today! My plan was to go to class from 8:30 – 11:30 and then work from 12 – 4. This has all changed since the tram/metro system decided to go on strike today! Oye! I waited for a while at the tram stop. I suspected a strike when no trams rode by in either direction for a while and when people would leave the tram stop to catch a bus or go home. But it wasn’t until a guy in a car driving by waved his hands and yelled at me that there was no tram today did I finally fully catch on.

Yesterday I received a wonderful Valentine’s Day package from my family! It was filled with homemade cookies, chocolates, Girl Scout cookies, mints and chai tea! What perfect timing. I realized that since I’ve been here I’ve communicated with people via blog, e-mail, cell phone (only to those in Belgium), Facebook (wall posts and messages), Skype (video and chat), letter, and now, package! I think I’ve covered just about every angle. Anyways, in case you’re wondering… Belgians do celebrate Valentine’s Day. I saw many young students carrying flowers with them on the tram ride home from school. I’m assuming they received them from people at school. Vesalius also gave the option to buy people flowers for Valentine’s Day. There were also chocolates in the shape of hearts and such and store windows displays dedicated to yesterday’s special day of love. Yes, America gets a little more hyped up about it, but then again, what doesn’t America go all out for? We (or they? I don’t know how to refer to America right now) tend to get a little out of hand with things such as Valentine’s Day sometimes.

I want to take a paragraph to let everyone know that my Valentine is in the process of growing a protest beard. Yes, he’s protesting my being away. The growth started when I left and he says he’s not shaving until I return. I’ve heard it referred to as “ferocious” and “glorious” among other things. Burrito gets caught in it sometimes. That’s how you know it’s a real beard. I have been able to see it via Skype numerous times but I do feel as though I’m missing out on so much of its ferocity (ferociousness?) and gloriousness (glorocity?) as I’m not able to see it in real life. If you have a chance, you should check it out and provide an adjective you deem fitting.

This weekend I trotted off to Bruges, Belgium. By trotted I mean I took the train. My host mom uses this word a lot and I wanted to use it, too. There is a class offered at Vesalius that does day/weekend trips throughout the semester. I decided not to be in this class, but they allowed me to go with them on Saturday to Bruges! I think I’ll join them again this weekend in Antwerp, Belgium.

Bruges is an adorable city! Nearly every building had a Dutch front. It was quaint and peaceful, but still bustling with people. As we walked around we heard the clip clopping of horses hoofs as carriages rode through the cobblestone streets. There were canals running through the city, too. They have cute chocolate shops all over. There is even a “lover’s bridge.”

We walked throughout most of the city, I think. We saw many a museum and painting, mostly paintings of Jesus and Mary. I saw a statue that Michelangelo himself made! I saw Jesus’ blood, too! Well… “Jesus’ blood.” In one of the churches this was a relic they had. People on pilgrimages apparently go to all the churches with relics. So I guess I’m partway through my pilgrimage. I signed a petition against animal testing or something. We climbed the Belfry clock tower (as seen in the movie In Bruges apparently) all the way to the top! The stairs were narrow and winding. If ever we came across people going the opposite direction as us we all had to get really skinny and hope nobody fell down the stairs. The view at the top was so amazing!

We barely caught the train on the way home! We had to run to get there in time and then we ended up on the wrong platform and had to run to the correct platform. We arrived at the top of the stairs for that platform just in time to hear the beeping sound the doors make when they are closing. Luckily there was one door still open and we all hopped inside just in time to drive away! Talk about a close call.

I arrived at home just in time for my host mom and I to go out for a late dinner. We went to this wonderful restaurant in the Grand Place where I enjoyed a delicious steak with a creamy white sauce served with, you’ll never guess, frites (fries)! I wouldn’t suspect a fancy meal to be served with fries, but Belgians are all about their frites and they have reason to be! Mechthild enjoyed some kidneys for dinner. I debated on whether or not I should get mussels as Belgium is known for their mussels but I eventually decided to try them another time. As we were sitting there, our neighbors ordered though mussels so I was able to see what they look like and how you eat them. After they left, new neighbors came and ordered brain and snails. So while we were sitting there we were able to see many unique meals. I don’t think I’ll ever try brain. Mussels, yes. Brain, no. I love trying new things, especially new foods; but I don’t think I could ever eat brain. We drank wine and tea/coffee and shared a crème brûlée, too. It was a lovely evening for us girls. We chatted and ate and walked around for a bit.

On my days off I find that I keep myself very busy. However, I somehow manage to do hardly any homework amidst all the business! I’m not even sure what I do all the daylong on my computer! This habit I’ve become so used to needs to change. I have my first test on Thursday and papers due soon! I hope/need to get some studying done today. The motivation is just sort of lacking. I think I’ll eat some chocolate instead.

It's Phil! This is an example of his beard via Skype from a couple weeks back.

Tram 44

We swipe our metro pass on the red thing

The entire group in Bruges

Nuns live here. It's a quite zone.

The horse and carriage coming down the street

An ambulance from a few years back

A really old book

This piece of art was in the hospital museum. I don't think I'd want him as my doctor.

Some of the tools they used in the past in hospitals

Yep, we sign petitions against animal testing

Belfry Clock Tower

Our tour guide (and their professor for the class) for the day. We always looked for the umbrella if we got lost.

Making our way to the top

View from above

We took lots of pictures while we were up there

They were kind of excited they made it

So were we

Curious as to what cities were in which direction? The curiosity can be put to rest. You now know.

And back down we go

Clock tower conquered.

They were all eating Subway! I deemed it picture worthy.

I don't know what it's used for. I do know that it's really sweet.

Martine (our leader) would stop and chat to us at points throughout the day about what we've seen/seeing, what's next, important things to note, etc.

During the chats (that were more like lectures) people got a little distracted... they put on chap stick...

They looked at the pictures they've taken...

They made really serious faces...

These people were standing in a very nice and straight line. Nobody could figure out why.

A frite museum! We didn't go inside.

Jan Van Eyck. He's a famous artist.

I thought this was rather ironic. This sign was in one of the churches.

She's kind of in awe.

We got a cool souvenir after looking at Jesus' blood

I find the bear to be quite amusing. Don't you?

Weird Tree Lane. Apparently it's not just Brussels that has these trees; it's all of Belgium!

Lover's Bridge. We got a little out of hand, but it's okay because we're Americans. That's what we do.

Michelangelo's Madonna and Child

A pulpit

This is what happens at European bachelor parties...

Oh, yeah, there's the groom! He's the one whose rear end you have a nice view of

I wasn't sure what this was but it looked delicious! My guess? Fudge or some kind of chocolate log that you can slice up.

They had dragon benches all over

We just made it on the train! Phew!

Belgiumized

2011-02-09T14:11:00.000-06:00

The weeks here go by just as the weeks do in America. I go to class (only Tuesdays and Thursdays though!), eat, sleep, do homework, Facebook, check my e-mail, work, watch TV sometimes, consider going for runs, don’t go for runs, read, hang out with friends sometimes, check Facebook, check my e-mail, eat, etc. But it’s different. Why? Because I’m in Belgium, and not in America. I go to a Belgian school, and eat Belgian food and sleep during the Belgian time zone and consider going on runs in Belgium and use the Belgian Internet and yeah, you get it. I’m still quite amazed that I’m in actually Europe for an entire semester! It’s pretty neat. You should try it.

Today was the THIRD day of sunny blue skies! I didn’t know Belgium was capable of this kind of weather! But it is! I’ve forgotten how lovely a blue sky is. It was warmer today than it has been and there was a nice breeze, too. I’m looking forward to spring in full force! I’m anxious to see everything in bloom (especially the weird trees they have here). I have high expectations as it rains so much here. I think it’d be nearly impossible for it to not be green to the extreme!

I had planned to go to an outdoor flea market today with my friends Alison and Kelly. Unfortunately, the trams decided to go on strike today! So my usual way into the city was unaccessible. So I instead had to take an out-of-the-way bus to the metro to another metro, but I eventually got there! We finally arrived at the market, which was located in a big, open square area. There were tarps and tables set up, covering it entirely. People were selling anything and everything you can think of- jewelry, clothes, furniture, violins, dishes and silverware, shoes, odd household decoration trinkets, paintings, rugs, African masks and other random things. It was pretty cool! It reminded me of a giant garage sale. I bought a purse for 7 euro (I bargained down from 10!) and a ring for 3 euro (bargained from 4). The guy whom I bought my purse from first started speaking to us in French, then Dutch and then Spanish! Luckily a girl I was with spoke Spanish and so was able to communicate that way. He also apparently knew German, Arabic and some English. I was pretty impressed by his extensive repertoire of languages and pretty embarrassed by my puny repertoire. I hope to attend many more markets while I'm here. It makes me feel like a native.

We hung out there wandering in and out of the aisles for a couple hours and then made our way to a shopping area. The street we were on has shops along it for blocks and blocks. There are conveniently no cars allowed on this street. It is here, on this street that I indulged in my very first Belgian waffle! It was warm and had melted chocolate on top of it. So good! I’d be down for having a couple more of those before I head back to the U.S. A waffle and a flea market in the same day!? I'm becoming so Belgiumized. Although I did finally have a waffle, I sadly did not find a pair of boots. Still hunting…

The internship has still been going well. I’ve been working on getting photos of the artists and their paintings along with a bio of each artist. I enjoy looking at photos of the artwork and seeing the variety of painting styles each artist presents.

I went with Mechthild the other day to visit her son, Edward in his apartment. She is such a mother. The first thing she does when we get in the door is check the plants to see if they’ve been watered recently. Then she notices there are towels hanging out to dry and offers that he bring them over so she can dry them so that they will smell good and be soft. She’s very concerned not only for him, but also for us, which shows how caring she is.

Recently, I was perusing through her DVD collection and noticed she had season one of the TV series, 24. I asked her if she had ever seen it and she said no, so I demanded that we must start it at once! Ever since then she’s become addicted. She’s looking into buying the second season already so that we’ll have it when we finish the first. I haven’t seen this season in a long time and so I’ve enjoyed watching it again with her and still find myself being surprised by the twists and turns in the longest day of Jack Bauer’s life. Time to start another episode now!

Some friends and I hanging out a the Salsa bar

I just like how the buildings here look. They're all squished together but each one has it's own architectural uniqueness

The flea market!

One of the examples of the massive piles of clothes

Kelly and Alison and the flea market

View of Belgium

The Palace of Justice was massive

We eat wonderful waffles

My Bed

2011-02-02T07:47:00.000-06:00

I love my bed here. It’s a twin. It has a firm (not bouncy or springy at all), but comfy mattress. My comforter is my favorite part. My room is so cold as it’s all the way on the third floor and I’m usually freezing when I jump into bed. However, in just a couple minutes the comforter has somehow trapped my body heat and provided a very warm, cozy spot for me to sleep.

I find my mind comes alive when I lie down to go to sleep, which can get rather frustrating. But once I’m asleep, rarely do I awake until I hear the loud, fast paced beeping of my annoying, but necessary, alarm clock. Too many adjectives? Perhaps.

I stained a piece of furniture for Mechthild the other day. I have no previous experience in this but she let me do it anyways! I just wiped some stuff on and let it dry and wah-la! It turned out good, I think. The TV is now occupying the freshly furnished stand. They look wonderful together! It’s like they were made for each other. Speaking of furniture, Mechthild has a giant piece of furniture that’s over 500 years old! Ridiculous.

Cute, right?

Cologne - Köln

2011-02-01T08:08:00.000-06:00

Some background music for you to enjoy as you read the blog:

I miss three things about America so far:

1. Smoke-free bars and restaurants

2. Drinking fountains and free water at restaurants

3. Being allowed to pee for free

Okay moving on now. So I started my internship! I went for an hour on Friday where we basically just went over what we’ll be doing this semester and met everyone. Everyone consists of the boss lady, Stephanie, the French PR guy, Louis and the other intern, Dylan. Monday I went in for four hours and started working! I made some changes on contracts for the artists and e-mailed some of them about getting photos of their artwork, etc.

She works from home (from the kitchen table to be more specific) and so jeans are allowed and it’s a very relaxed setting. We drink tea. This Wednesday I get to work from home! The tram ride there is about 40 minutes so it’s nice that I can work from home and skip out on that commute. Growing up in a smallish town I never realized how nice it is to not have to deal with commutes and crazy traffic in the mornings and after everyone gets off work at night. It makes the day much longer. On my commute I usually listen to my I-pod or read or both if I’m feelin’ crazy!

I went to Cologne, Germany this weekend! No big. Our first sight out of the train station was this massive, amazing Cathedral. I took pictures of it but I could never quite capture its amazingness (kind of like when I try to take a picture of my boyfriend, Phil). It was so detailed; not one wall was flat (kind of like Phil's abs). We went inside and walked around with our mouths open for a couple minutes and then headed to our hostel. It was my first time staying in a hostel and it went fine! It was fairly clean, nothing was stolen and I don’t have lice! I call that a success. Our roommates (there were three others in the room with us) were asleep when we got back Saturday night and gone when we awoke on Sunday so we didn’t meet them. But from our detective work we deduced they were from Korea.

We headed out to explore and eat. We followed our noses to a bakery type place where we got sandwiches (mine was covered in nuts) and I couldn’t resist a baked good, too. We then went to the Roman-German Museum. Cologne, or Köln, was a Roman city first and so there were a lot of cool old items from Roman times that people had found and put into a museum. We touched a couple things we weren’t supposed to touch and took a few pictures of things we weren’t supposed to take pictures of. We’re basically rebels.

We then went to the Ludwig Museum, which is an art museum. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a pure art museum. It was actually pretty sweet. We didn’t realized how many rooms and pieces of art there were when we first began and so we started of slow so we weren’t in and out of there in 20 minutes. Little did we know we’d spend a couple of hours wandering up and down stairs and in and out of various rooms looking at art. There were paintings, sketches, sculptures, art that had sounds or video with it and more. They came in all sizes and styles. Some art work I liked a lot and some I wondered what the artist was thinking or if the artist was a 4 year old. We attempted to interpret the art (Ryan was actually pretty good at this) and we even became the art a couple of times because we were tired and so we’d sit down and people would walk by and look at and try to interpret us, too. Actually, I don’t know German so they may have been discussing the white wall behind us. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the experience.

We were all pretty tired from the night before. Friday night we went out with Vesalius students to a fancy no-jeans-allowed pub/club and stayed out pretty late. It was fun and I got to wear a dress! I just wish it were warmer out. Drinks at this place were about 10 euro, which I think is just unnecessary but whatever. Vesalius provided some free drinks to get us started, but that’s all I ended up having the whole night. I'm cheap.

Back to Cologne. After the museums we decided to grab some food. We walked around for a while trying to find a good, authentic restaurant to eat some German food at and ended up dining at this very fine restaurant called McDonalds. That’s pretty much German food, right? The menu is slightly different from the American McDonalds, actually. We had more luck with German food on Sunday for lunch. I had a German sausage with potato salad. T’was delicious.

Saturday night we walked to this bridge where there are hundreds and hundreds of locks chained to it. This bridge is where couples “lock up their love.” I like to say they keep their love locked down. Kanye likes to put it this way, too. We then grabbed a couple drinks here and there and headed to bed fairly early.

The next day we showered packed up and headed to the chocolate museum. It was okay. Honestly, I was a little let down because I was expecting a lot more free chocolate than what they gave me. We read the history of chocolate and watched the chocolate making process. They aren’t too big on guided tours at the museums in Europe, which is understandable as there are so many different languages floating around at any given time, but still. I appreciate a guided tour because you don’t have to read a whole bunch of stuff the entire time but you’re just told about it. You can listen to the stuff you want to listen to, block out the rest and you can also look at the things around you at the same time. I’m all about the multi-tasking!

We walked around more of Cologne- to the less touristy more real-life parts, and then to a park and back to the centre where we enjoyed some coffee drinks and one euro gelato. We hung out their for a few hours wasting time until our train’s departure. We picked up some German flowers for our German host mom, Mechthild as it was her birthday on Friday.

For a little bit on the train ride home I sat by a woman from Egypt. I was surprised. I never really thought that I’d meet someone from Egypt while I was in Germany. She told me about what’s happening there from her perspective and it was very interesting. Her two kids were eager to practice their English on me, too. Our conversation was cut short as her stop came before I was done asking questions. I feel out of touch with the world as I don’t really watch or read the news ever. Is there anything else that I should know about?

Ryan has a few favorite words that he uses very often to describe events or pictures he takes. His most recent favorite word is “classic.” You’d be surprised how often you can incorporate this word into your daily conversation. Other words he enjoys include serene (he’s picky about this one; the scenery has to be perfect for it to be considered serene), picturesque, drizzy and majestic.

This week my to do list consists of catching up on readings from class and doing some sort of exercise. So far today I'm 0 for 2. We’ll see how this goes…

Part of the massive Cathedral that I could never quite capture.

Check out the detail!

Even the floor was detailed.

My first hostel.

Nutty sandwich.

Yummy pastry.

Notice: the sky is blue!

Which head doesn't belong?

Just hangin' out with his buds.

I took a picture at the art museum. Don't tell!

We became art in this room for a while.

Aren't they just too cute gazing into each others eyes and such?

We paid with exact change.

A night time shot of the Cathedral.

There's a lot of love locked up on this bridge.

It's sausage! Ryan's meal (I forgot to take a picture of mine before I started eating).

The bridge with the locks.

Sam likes to catch blimps.

The driver matches his car.

Tickets!

Chicken Tuesday

2011-01-27T15:15:00.001-06:00

I’m sitting here tonight watching some NCIS (it’s in English!) with my host mom eating chocolate mousse. Yum! Tonight for dinner we enjoyed some curry chicken with rice and broccoli. Mechthild is a great cook! She has cooked many delicious meals including lamb, shepherds pie, meatloaf, soup and other things. She also bakes us homemade bread!

Tuesdays our looked forward to a lot in this household because Tuesday is chicken night! This may not sound very exciting at first read, but let me explain exactly what chicken night means. First, we take the tram 44 a few stops down. There is a stand that has rows and rows of whole chickens and ribs slowly cooking. The juiciness is visibly flowing out of them. There are potatoes sitting in the bottom of it all soaking in the juiciness of the meat. We usually get a couple ribs, a chicken and some potatoes and bring them home and then chow down! The most recent Tuesday Ryan set a house record of 18 ribs in one sitting. We’ll see if I can top that next week…

Since a lot of things are packaged differently than in the U.S. here I often use the "it looks like, it smells like, it must be..." strategy when trying to make myself a snack. Along with being a great cook, my host mom is also a very talented knitter. The first few days I was in Belgium she was appalled that I would walk around on the bare, cold floors without socks on and so she decided to knit me some wool sock/slippers. They’re wonderfully warm! One is a little bit bigger than the other because she just got a little bit carried away I suppose, but it’s not noticeable.

Another fun fact about Mechthild: she served two terms as a Member of Parliament in the European Union. This is impressive to think about considering the time period in which she served. It was during the time that it was quite unusual for women to be in that high of a government position. She was one of few women in that high of power not only in Europe, but also throughout the world.

Update on the weather: it’s still grey 95% of the time. One thing I love about the people here is that they have no shame in running for the metro. At Iowa State whenever I run after a bus to try and catch it before it pulls away I’m embarrassed and feel like everyone is entertained and laughing to them self (at least that’s what I do when I see people running after buses). Here, everyone runs up and down stairs and escalators and through hallways to catch their metro. I appreciate this and don’t feel embarrassed at all when I have to run for a tram or metro.

Lately, I’ve been wondering how families with more than three kids get around. I think I’ve seen two vans the entire time I’ve been here. So there’s either two families with more than three kids, they have to take two cars in order to carry the entire family on trips, they squish together, the smaller kids go into the trunk (this is a benefit of being an older sibling) or they have a secret way of carrying around a family for six or more that I’m not aware of.

I finally have all of my books for my classes! I have a lot of reading to catch up on from the first week but it should be fine. In my classes I don’t necessarily have a lot of small homework assignments but instead a huge paper, a midterm and a final. I haven’t decided if I like this style or not yet. So far in my classes I’ve learned that:

1. Language is arbitrary.

2. The U.S. government has pretty much lied to us about every major war or decision. I decided to not believe the news anymore. I mean, I was reluctant before, but now they’re really going to have to come up with some amazing evidence to get my approval.

3. We have worse memories than people in the past due to the fact that we don’t have to utilize our memory as much as they did in the olden days. We have written copies of everything. In the past they had to memorize books if they wanted to remember them. We can copy and paste information and even store phone numbers in our cell so we don’t have to remember them. I have an awful memory. I wonder if there’s a way I can utilize my memory more so it improves…

4. In two of my three classes we’ve discussed if animals share a language in which they can communicate with the other animals, which I thought was intriguing. It seems the general consensus is that they have ways they communicate but they don’t necessarily have a language.

Saturday morning Ryan, Sam and I are heading to Cologne, Germany until Sunday evening. Should be fun! Tomorrow I start my internship with Accessible Art Fair. Wish me luck!

Edward (Mechthild's son), Ryan, Sam and Mechthild ready to eat our ribs and chicken!

He was the champion; 18 ribs. Household record.

We kinda ate a lot of meat...

My new cute little slippers.

The view of the backyard from my bathroom window.

Amsterdam

2011-01-24T08:01:00.000-06:00

After exiting the train, my first impression of Amsterdam was that they have a lot of bikes! When we first arrived we saw masses of bikes chained up everywhere and masses of people riding bikes. When you’re walking the streets you have to look every direction to make sure you won’t get hit by a car, tram, bike or person. It’s chaos! But a chaos that is familiar to everyone living there. People rode their bikes either by themselves or with a child or three strapped onto their bike. They have a seat in front of their seat as well as in back of their seat. It was amazing. Those Amsterdamians must have some powerful legs.

Like Belgium, the weather was grey the majority of the time we were there. This weather, I’ve realized, doesn’t make for good photos. There are also waterways throughout the entire city, which was lovely! I suppose if you wanted to you could get to most places by boat.

Our hotel was a couple miles from the center of town where we spent most of our time so we did quite a bit of walking. We estimated about 15 miles. Perhaps we’ll invest in a pedometer for our next travel. Luckily, tram 2’s tracks took us pretty much from our hotel directly into town and beyond so we were easily able to find our way around!

We enjoyed a Turkish pizza for 2 Euro for lunch on the first day there. It was an accidental find, but a good one! When walking around that afternoon a guy came up to us and told us about a special event where you pay a one-time fee and are allowed to get into certain bars and clubs throughout the night and have a free drink at each place. We decided to do that on Friday night and had a lot of fun and met people from all over the world! In many of the bars and restaurants in Amsterdam you had to pay 50 cent Euro to use the bathroom, which I thought was ridiculous but had to give into a couple times anyways.

We slept in on Saturday and then ate at a pancake café, which was delicious. There were many museums in Amsterdam and we decided we should go to a few. Unfortunately, they were all too expensive for what we wanted so we decided on the cheapest one- the Torture Museum! It was pretty interesting and there was at one time many awful means of torturing, mostly for witches or people who spoke badly of the king it seemed. After that we did a lot more walking and had a low-key night.

I had been feeling ill all day long but kept thinking it would pass. Saturday night I got an intense shiver attack for about an hour and then threw up once, began feeling a little better and thought that would be it. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop but I continued to throw up about every 20 minutes for the rest of the night, shivering uncontrollably in between. Of course after about the second time it was mostly dry heaving, which, is almost more uncomfortable. I probably ended up having about 20-30 puking instances. I felt bad that Ryan and Sam had to hear it almost every time. Ryan did say that I puked gracefully though. That was nice. I guess if you're going to puke it might as well be graceful! We aren't quite sure what the cause of the puke was but our best guess is food poisoning. I was glad we stayed in a hotel verses a hostel because hostels have community bathrooms. I think that would have made the experience much worse. Sunday night after I arrived home my host mom made me some soup, got some extra blankets, pillows, a puke bowl, some chamomile tea and tucked me into bed early. I slept for nearly 12 hours and thus, am feeling much better today!

Throughout our stay in Amsterdam it was normal to have the smell of weed wafting in the air, as it is legal to smoke there. They have “coffee shops” all over the place where you can buy your weed and either smoke it there or as you walk along the street. This was so unusual. They also had an H&M on it seemed about every other block. They also had a ton of boots! However, Sam and Ryan aren’t too into shopping and I didn’t want to drag them along into multiple stores searching for the perfect pair of boots. I’ll find some soon, I hope.

Apparently yesterday there was a march titled the Shame Protest throughout Brussels. We saw people with their face painted and flags tied around their necks on the tram ride home. Belgium hasn’t had a government for over 200 days now and so this march was protesting the lack of government and kind of telling the politicians to get their act together. I guess time will tell if the protest has made a difference.

The hotel room with three beds squished together

Enjoying the Turkish pizza

This looked very Dutch to me

An example of a bike with three seats

The I amsterdam sign

This guy was just sitting there so I decided he wanted his picture taken, too

An outdoor toilet, or water closet (hence the WC) as they call it

An outdoor urinal

There were a lot of fresh fruit markets along our walk

Dutch clogs lined the walls and ceiling

Our first ice cube sighting!

Gettin' their groove on at a club

There were a lot of people there

Yummy cappuccino!

This is how they serve their water

My peach pancake

A torture device

Boots!

2011-01-20T13:48:00.002-06:00

I got an internship! It’s with a company called Accessible Art. It seems like a fun company to work for. Having an internship means I get to drop a class, which means……… I only have class Tuesdays and Thursdays! I wish every semester was like this one. I have class from 8:30 – 11:30 on Tuesday and Thursday and then again on Thursdays from 1:30 – 4:30.

Before I came to study at Vesalius College I was unaware that the college is actually only two buildings! Students oftentimes have classes in rooms at University of Brussels which is just accoss the street. I saw a map of campus before I left America and thought that all of the buildings were Vesalius buildings, but I was quite mistaken. Nevertheless, I have class in rooms so that’s all that matters.

Yesterday Mechthild and I went shopping at the mall. I bought a scarf and that was all. I was slightly disappointed in myself, but also proud that I didn’t go crazy just because I was in Europe! As I was walking around I noticed that nearly every woman was wearing tall leather boots (not Uggs). Old women, young women, even 7-year old girls! Short women, tall women, women wearing jeans, women wearing stockings, women wearing dresses and skirts. I was wearing my usual flats and feeling quite out of place. I decided I’d start perusing the boot section. There were so many different colors and styles and heel sizes I couldn’t decide what I liked and what I didn’t. I found that most were all over 100 euro! I did decide that that was not the price I wanted to pay. I have hope that I can find a pair I like for much cheaper. If you have any boot stores you like I’m open for suggestions!

I taught Ryan and Sam a favorite family card game, “nerts.” They have caught on quickly and I think they have enjoyed playing. After playing a few rounds last night, Ryan and I spent about 20 minutes trying to teach Sam how to shuffle cards (including the bridge)! He was just so tense when he tried to shuffle! It was pretty amusing. He’s improving with every shuffle though!

On long tram rides to and from school I’ve been able to observe Belgians more. When Belgians greet each other they kiss one another on the cheek/air are type thing. This greeting seems as natural and comfortable as our “Hey, how’s it goin’?” The very few times I’ve been involved in this greeting I have been uncertain of everything about it. Which way do I go? How close do I get? Is there a hug thing involved too? For now, I still am not quite sure. I’m sure I’ll learn. I actually don’t experience the kiss hello often because I am mostly around Americans.

A couple of other things I’ve noticed while in Belgium are that for one, there are no drinking fountains. I have yet to see one. Also, when you go into a restaurant that's similar to a Starbucks or Subway, you don’t pay before you eat, but instead afterwards. This, I think, is very trusting of them. It would be very easy to eat and simply walk out as the workers are often in the back room and not present while you’re eating. This is just the way it is done, I suppose.

Sam, Ryan and I are headed to Amsterdam for the weekend! We’re excited for our first traveling outside of Belgium!

One of the cats, Blair, on one of his favorite seats in the house

Look at the intensity in that shuffle!

Ryan showing us how to shuffle with "swagga"

Sunshine on Sunday

2011-01-17T09:18:00.002-06:00

Before I came to Belgium, I knew that Europeans all dressed very nicely when in public and never wore sweat pants around in public or anything like that. I wondered if they went running outside because if so, they would most likely wear sports clothes. To anyone else who is wondering the same thing as I, I have an answer! They do go running outside in public and they do wear sports clothes. But it is only for this occasion. Also, the sports clothes are very nice, cute, matchy outfits. They aren’t some old sweats with paint on them and a baggie worn out shirt.

I just watched some German TV with my host mom (no subtitles, by the way)! I’ve heard that many people have learned English by watching TV that’s in English. I don’t think I would be able to do it! It must take some time. Perhaps by the end of the semester…

Yesterday was sunny! Cloudless! Blue skies! I’ve haven’t ever seen anything like it before (in the last 6 days at least)! It was lovely. And everyone else in Belgium agreed. Every park was filled with people walking around. Sam, Ryan and I went to a near by field/lake/woody area and threw the Frisbee around. We also found a palace! Apparently King Leopold II of Belgium owned the Congo (yes, just he, not Belgium) back in the day and he forced the people to collect ivory and rubber and diamonds and whatever else was valuable in the Congo. He became quite rich, as you might imagine, and the Congo became quite poor. So he built a palace/museum building in honor of the Congo and we happen to live right by it. We didn’t walk through it, but perhaps another day.

We also enjoyed a wonderful lunch of Belgian frites, or “French” fries and kabobs with Mechthild’s son, Edward/Ed/Eddy (I haven’t decided what to call him yet. He said any of those would do). They have like 15 sauces to choose from to dip your frites in. America isn't very creative. We have ketchup. That's it! We should get more sauces to put with our fries! They eat fries mostly with mayonnaise. Weird, right? It's actually pretty good! Anyways, Eddyward is a little older than us and very informed of the “in” places to go to in Brussels, which will be very helpful! It was an enjoyable afternoon, quite relaxing. Mechthild made lamb for dinner, which was delicious! Today started school at Vesalius, but not for me! No classes on Mondays! I did have an interview, however. Went fine, I think. Now I wait to hear back!

Today on my tram ride a guy started asking me something about the tram! You know what that means! I look like a regular and like I know what's going on! I didn't really understand what he was asking because it was in French... but that's not the point. I told him I only spoke English, so he asked me again in English and I still didn't have an answer for him. But that's not the point either. The point is I look Belgian! Woop!

We heard this song playing the other day. Junior high flashback! Way to be up on cool songs, Belgium!

The frite eating process:

Unwrap

Stick your little fork into a frite

Dip frite in your sauce of choice

Enjoy!

The Tours

2011-01-15T15:38:00.001-06:00

Last night the majority of new students at Vesalius College all went out and we familiarized ourselves with Belgium’s nightlife! It was lots of fun and I was able to get to know more people who will be studying with me at Vesalius! All public places, especially the bars, unfortunately, allow smoking. I have smelt like smoke more times than I've wished to so far. It's a big trend here though. It seems that most people partake in the act.

In Belgium they usually don’t go out until 10 or 11 and, as the bars don’t close at 2am like they do in American, they stay out very late. This didn’t become a problem for Ryan, Sam and I until we wanted to head home. The bars don’t close, but the metro system- our way home, shuts down from midnight to 6am. There is a night bus that runs until 2:30 or so but doesn’t go all the way to Tervuren, the town we live in. The options were 1) hang out until 6am and take the metro home, 2) attempt to walk home, 3) sleep on the street or 4) take a taxi. We finally ended up deciding to split a taxi, which, although it was expensive, ended up being a great decision! Home late and up early for our tour of Brussels! Don’t worry; I fit in a 2-hour nap later on in the day!

Many Vesalius students and I had a 3-hour bus tour of Brussels, which was really great! We were able to see many places in Brussels that we weren’t aware existed which brought about ideas of places we should further explore in Brussels.

Brussels is wonderful! There are massive, old buildings with details that must’ve taken years to complete. All of the buildings and apartments really are very pretty and detailed. It’s enjoyable to drive around and just look even if you don’t know what you’re looking at. We did, however, have a tour guide who was speaking the entire time about buildings to look at and giving the history on them all. She was very knowledgeable, but after seeing many different places the information all runs together.

Along with the old buildings, there’s an unexpected place in Brussels called the “Manhattan area” which is, as you imagine, similar to Manhattan! Tall, glass skyscrapers fill this section of the city and it reminds me of American cities (such as Fort Madison, IA). There are many places to shop in the different parts of town and I’ve also heard of many different markets that take place throughout the week that I’m looking forward to wandering through at some point. People in Brussels are from all over the world, which is cool. You hear many different languages as you walk down the street. It’s exciting when you hear someone else speaking English. I’m tempted to say something to them for the simple reason that they’ll understand what I'm saying.

Today was also the first time that the sun has revealed itself to me since I’ve been here!! It was still fairly cloudy, but hey, partly sunny is better than overcast. At dinner tonight Ryan, Sam, Mechthild and I discussed politics and conspiracy theories. I realized my lack of knowledge about politics in Europe as well as America. I was mostly quite throughout this conversation. But, I am intrigued by conspiracy theories! We talked about the man on the moon one and the JFK one. Any other interesting ones that anyone knows of?

Over the past few days I’ve been more and more thankful that I have roommates. It’s been so so nice to have people to go to events with, plan traveling extravaganzas with and just know right away. Also, Sam has been dubbed the sandwich guy (he’s good at making them), the map guy (Ryan has been this guy, too) and getting peoples cell phone numbers guy so that we have a way to contact people. We went for a few days without cell phones and it’s really hard to try to get in touch with people if you don’t have one. We appreciate cell phones. Sam and Ryan are both great at making sure we’re all together when we’re walking along the street and before we leave places. If there’s ever a rude guy or any sense of danger then they’re close by. It’s made me feel much safer. (Dad, this little bit was especially for you!)

Tomorrow we might Mechthild, our host mom’s, son, Edward for lunch!

Trying to figure out our way home

Where are we? I don't know!

Waving down a taxi

This summer I was a nanny and one of the girls couldn't pronounce "Christy" but instead said Chi-chi! Because of this, I found this restaurant had some sentimental value.

Observations

2011-01-14T06:51:00.000-06:00

A few things I’ve found interesting about Belgium so far:

When people are on trams they are emotionless. They usually just sit there with no expression reading or staring, unless they have a companion. Then, they talk some, but still, with little emotion. I am attempting to copy this trend of sorts so that I blend in better.
It is always either raining or overcast. Because of this, my hair is oftentimes frizzy. But what's new there.
There are these speed bump type things on the roads that are called “sleeping policemen” that cause divers to slow down.
The cereal is in tin containers.
Everyone drinks beer at any time of day.
People are always dressed nicely.
They like chai tea here, too! At least my host mom does.
The heat isn’t ever turned up very high. The house is always chilly.
There are sometimes about a 9-way intersection with a tram attempting to drive through as well. I’m glad I don’t have to driver here.
Houses in the city are usually squished together so they’re touching; making it look as thought it is one big house with different colors and roofs. They’re also very tall and slim.
Taxes are horrendous. Everything is expensive.
Stores are only allowed to have sales 2 times a year- one of them being January! I hope to go shopping soon.
Here, it’s not French fries… it’s Belgian fries. They are proud of their fries and despise it when we call them French fries. They eat their fries with mayonnaise.
So far, the music in the bars has been old American music from like the 80’s or something. The YMCA and the Jitterbug have graced our ears a couple times.
The time in Belgium goes from 12:00pm to 13:00, 14:00, etc. instead of 12:00pm to 1:00, 2:00, etc. It makes more sense because then you don’t have to write am or pm. However, I’m not used to telling time this way and so it always takes me a moment to process what the actual time is anytime it’s after 12:00pm.
It’s always very very dark in the morning. It’s hard to wake up and I find myself questioning if my clock is correct every morning.
They have weird trees. I'm anxious to see what they will be like when they bloom!

I’ve met more Americans than Belgians since I’ve been here and so I don’t have much to say right now about that aspect of the culture.

I have yet to try the famous Belgium waffles or chocolate. I’m sure I’ll indulge myself soon enough, though.

I think I’m getting the hang of the tram system! I’ve successfully gotten to two internship interviews by myself via tram while wearing high heels! Yeah. I'll take the tram to school every day as well as to an internship should I receive one. When we get on a tram we usually have to switch to the metro and then make multiple transfers which can get tricky because you could get going on a metro north instead of the intended south, for example. I'm always so alert when I'm riding the tram or metro making sure I don't miss my stop and that I'm on the right one. Everyone else on board seems to have it down. They hardly pay attention but know exactly when to get off. I’m finally unpacked as well. I found notes from my family members as I unpacked. It was a lovely surprise!

See #10

See #17

See #10

See #17

See #3

Tram 44

2011-01-13T10:40:00.000-06:00

It’s 3:43 on Thursday morning. I can’t sleep even though I’m quite tired. I didn’t think the jet lag would affect me in this way, but hopefully I’m able to get on a sleep schedule soon! I decided to use this time to put some thoughts and happenings to words.

I’ll begin my journey to Belgium back when I first ordered my plane ticket. It was a few months before I was expected to leave and I was set to fly out January 10 to Atlanta then arrive in Belgium on the 11. The day before I leave Belgium I check my flight status to find that my flight has been cancelled due to snow in Atlanta! It was quite frightening at first. However, I was able to switch to another flight that although it had more transfers, would still get me to Belgium in time for orientation on the 12.

My parents and I arrive at the airport to find that my flight, once again, has been cancelled! This time, the cause is a cracked windshield on the plane. So I’m placed on another flight that will leave a few hours later. The flight was then, delayed about a half hour, which, at the time, didn’t seem as though it would be a big deal.

Upon arriving at the Chicago airport, my next hour and a half or so went sometime like this…

Shuttle from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2

Walked all the way down Terminal 2 (which is very long, I might add) to find out my flight was not in Terminal 2

I have to exit security in order to go by tram to Terminal 5

15 min until take-off and I arrive at my airline’s desk to be told that I must be there an hour before in order to get a boarding pass

I freak out because I have missed my flight to Europe

Back to Terminal 2 to speak with Delta about my missed flight

Back to Terminal 5 because I was supposed to pick up baggage from my first flight

Someone sends me to my original Terminal, number 1, because that is where my baggage should be; no such luck

Terminal 2 tells me I must hurry to Terminal 5 to get my luggage and they also give me a boarding pass for another plane set to leave in a few hours

Terminal 5 to the airline who should have my luggage and is close

Stay in Terminal 5 to sign into my airline with no luggage to check

I find it ironic that I flew with Delta originally but was never actually flying with Delta because of all my flight changes. It seems as though most people have one horrible flight experience when they fly and so since I had mine on the way there I’m hoping for perfect travels on the way home. High expectations? I hope not.

I boarded this plane on time and arrived in Zurich where I was thankfully able to quickly find my gate and boarded my final plane on time, too. When I arrived at my final destination of Brussels, Belgium, I retrieved all of my bags of luggage, which was amazing! It’s still not unpacked even though I’ve been here for a day and a half.

As the plane leaving rose above the line of clouds you could still see the mountains, which was quite a sight. Mountains that are on top of clouds… pretty cool. When I was landing in Brussels, I couldn’t see the ground until just before we were on it because of all the clouds of rain. And yes, it does rain here quite a lot. In fact, it hasn’t stopped since I’ve been here. It hasn’t really been too much of a problem though. You just kind of have to deal with it.

My host mom was there to greet me after retrieving my luggage. She’s very nice and we were able to easily find things to talk about on our way home. I think I’ll enjoy living here this semester. When I arrived to my home, I met the other two guys that are living here, Ryan and Sam. They, too, are very nice and easy to talk to and anxious to travel, as am I so that will work out great! The house is much bigger than I imagined. It has three levels. The kitchen, living area type rooms bottom floor. Three bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor and my floor is the entire third with a living roomish place connected to a bedroom and bathroom.

Ryan and Sam were going to go wander around Brussels and so I couldn’t turn that down. Our host mom dropped us off and we were off with little sense of direction! We took pictures of large, amazing buildings even though we weren’t sure what they were. Our goal was to make it to the plaza and we somehow did! We turned a corner (after much walking) and boom! We were there. We then grabbed our first Belgium beers (mine was a fruit beer because I’m not a huge fan of beer, and it was quite tasty… for beer.) and enjoyed a couple hours of conversation.

We needed to catch a tram home and so found a station and hopped on what we hoped was the right one! Thanks to the guys, it was. We rode that for a bit and got off to make a transfer to tram 44, which would take us a block or so from home. The number of that tram is important because I feel like we will have many stories to tell about that tram. This first ride, we were halfway home and it started breaking very abruptly. We looked at each other, uncertain of what was happening. The tram stopped at the driver attempted to fix it. We were off again only to have the same harsh breaking thing happen again. He tried to fix it a couple more times with the same outcome and then, without a word the entire time, simply motioned for everyone to get off the tram. With one arm movement, everyone seemed to understand what he meant and so we followed the crowd off of tram 44 to a stop in hopes that another one would come soon.

We waited for a while and then a guy came over to us and told one guy sometime and everyone, once again, seemed to understand what they were supposed to do. So we followed, once again. We got on a bus that took us close to home and were home at about 11:30, which was a little later than I had hoped. I talked with our host mom for a bit but then quickly headed to bed as I had had very little sleep. I fell asleep quickly.

Wednesday morning we started orientation at our new college, Vesalius. We had yummy pastry things when we arrived and then listened to the expected boring orientation stuff. I’m glad I have two roommates who I’m able to do things with. Orientation would have much different had I gone alone, I’m sure. We got a tour of the campus. It’s quite small. One thing that’s amusing is that instead of names for their buildings on campus, they have letters. Easier, I’m sure, for Americans to find their building, though. Also, there are about 3 bars on campus, which I found interesting. We met some people throughout the day and ended up getting some drinks with them afterwards. It was fun and I was glad to make new friends! I had fruity beers again but I also decided to try a real beer as well. I still don’t like beer. One thing we’ve found interesting about the beer is that each beer has it’s own glass with the name of the beer written on it.

We started to head home around 9:30 I believe, but it seemed much later since it was such a full day. We caught trams again and ended up on our lovely tram 44 again hoping it didn’t break down this time. We were again, about halfway home, and were pulling away from a stop when there was a pounding on the tram door. One lady stands up and begins angrily screaming at the tram driver, in French of course. This made the tram driver angry and so he stopped the tram in order to yell at her even better, I suppose. I imagine it went something like, “You need to stop the tram! Why weren’t you listening? The man wanted to get on but you just drove away! You need to listen better!” “This is my tram!!!! I did not hear him and it was too late. He missed it. It’s not my fault.” Etc. You can make up the rest of it, but that’s the gist that I picked up from my minimal French knowledge and my exceptional nonverbal knowledge (haha. Or perhaps it’s more of my exceptional imagination?). So we’re anticipating some other drama/entertainment from our next ride on tram 44.

I’ve done little unpacking, but tomorrow brings a full day, once again. An hour has passed now. I’m going to try and sleep again. I suppose this is quite a lengthy first entry. However, I guess this blog is mostly for me. I want to be able to have good documentation of my travels abroad this semester. Perhaps it’s too much detail for you, and that’s fine. But I do hope my family and friends will enjoy the occasional update with a story or two from my latest entry. I bid thee fair-well for tonight!

My view leaving Zurich

The Triumphal Arch

They match! Even their hats are the same

Parliament

The Grand Place

Our first beers

Our first tram ticket, which we used improperly for a while