So I am going to try and update this on a somewhat regular basis from now on to keep anyone who is curious updated on my semester here across the sees in Brussels, Belgium. I'll also post pictures. The picture poster is a little confusing so I'm sorry they show up unaligned and such (it shows up different when it publishes from when I go in and edit it, I'll work on it, sorry dad as a graphic designer it will probably drive you nuts).
Anyways my trip here went fairly smoothely even though it was extremely long. The airplane had tvs in every seat and you could choose what you wanted to watch and even play video games so I thought that was very neat. It was very wierd to loose 6 hours of nighttime, for when we arrived it was morning and my body was confused where the night had gone (I didn't sleep at all on the plane). Exhausted, we were all bused to a parking lot where we waited for a van to bring us and our gear to our host families. I am living with 3 other girls and a host mom and host father. Two of the girls are civil engineers with me at Lafayette College and the other girl came from another study abroad school but she is also from Pennsylvania. We all seem to get along really well and so far it is really fun living with three other girls. Our house is very nice. The houses here are very different. They are very tall and skinny, and all the houses touch; theres no space between the houses. Although we are not in the center of town we are in an urban environment with banks and restaurants right down the road. There is also a park nearby with the second largest church in the world (I think thats what my hostparents said) at the end of a long greenway. The house has so many floors, 5-6 I'm not even sure because there are some things on half floors. We each have our own room. Our parents are very nice. They insist we eat with them on the weekends and for lunch even though they dont have to feed us for those meals, which is great because it saves us money. They have hosted students for 10 years i think, they have 4 daughters who have all moved out so they have plenty of room for us. Two daughters came to dinner last night and one brought their baby, vikktor. Little dutch babies are adorable. My family is native dutch speakers, by the way, but they speak english just fine, communication is not a problem. They also speak french and Spanish.
Anyways more about my arrival here and such....When I first arrived it took me a while to adjusted to the time schedual here. I took a nap the first afternoon we got there (because I hadnt slept at all on the airplane) and that was probably a mistake because then that night I didn't end up feelign tired until around 3-4 in the morning (Brussels time). But then the next day after forcing myself to stay up I went to bed fairly early and ever since then I havent had any trouble adjusting to Belgium time. The food here is also a little hard to get used to. My host father got his certificate to be a chef so he is a very good cook. The family is understanding of my vegitarianism but they do not understand why I won't eat meat stock. Also, the first night he made spaghetti with mushroom suace. It wasn't just a few mushrooms, it was all mushrooms. I felt really embarrassed but at the same time I couldn't bring myself to eat them. It's ok now though, he knows I don't like mushrooms. Since then the meals have been great. The Dutch used to have many Indian colonies so a lot of dutch eat a lot of food from these regions. This means a lot of curry and Indian food. I like it a lot but my stomach can still only handle little bits at a time. The food outside of the house is great. Belgium is famous for a few food items: waffles, chocolat, french fries, and mussels. So far the first three have been great, and I don't plan on trying the mussels but apparently their good. Many street vendors sell waffles (or gaufres as the dutch would call them (pronounced like gofer, the animal)). They put toppings on them such as sugar, chocolat, caramel, and fruit. I think I've decided to restrict myself to a two waffle a week diet or else I think i could eat one everyday their so good. The french fries are interesting. Last night was my first time having street vendor french fries. Everyone here eats them with mayo or some other mayo based sauce. I was afraid I'd like it...and I did.
For my first few days here I had orientation for Vesalius College. The college is a very small (400 people) english college where we study abroad. It's a part of a much larger university, the VUB, which is the dutch university for Brussels. The french have their college too, which is also nearby, called the ULB. Brussels is a bilingual city,by the way, they speak french and dutch. Many people speak at least some english but certainly not everyone. Sometimes communicating is difficult. My french is pretty rough but it has been enough to get by in all situations. Dutch is just impossible to understand but I havent met anyone who doesnt know french.
Public transportation and walking are about the only ways to get around here. Luckily the public transportation is pretty good. We are about a 5 minute walk to the nearest metro station. It is then about a 25 minute metro ride to shool. Luckily the morning commute won't be too bad. There are also trams (which are similar to trolleys, they ride through the roads on tracks and have to stop with traffic so they are slower) and also buses. Metro tickets are fairly expensive, 1 euro 50 for each ride. When you ride 5-6 times a day it adds up. Once January passes we will be able to get transportation passes which allows to ride unlimited.
This weekend was interesting and fun because we finally had time to explore and learn about the city. On friday the school took us on a bus tour of the famous sites of Brussels, it was good to get my bearings and just see whats out there, before that I only knew the area around my house and around the school.
There are so many things to get used to over here, just cultural differences that we as Americans are unaware of. Doing simple things like going to the grocery store or using the ATM can become extremely difficult. For example, in the grocery store you have turn all of your groceries so they can scan the bar code quickly. Also, one morning I quickly made myself a sandwhich and thought I'd eat it on the metro on the way to school. I was wondering why I was getting dirty looks, well apparently eating in public is a big no no. I certainly won't be doing that any time soon. Today I went to the mall with the three other girls I'm living with. The mall was actually fairly similar to an American-style mall. We decided that we wanted to look more eurpoean. Looking american here is not exactly the best first impression, unless your in a touristy area, then they 'love' you. The sneakers, jeans, sweatshirt, and ski coat give away instantly that were American. Hopefully over our stay here we'll slowly aquire clothes that don't make us stand out so much. But shopping today was great, all the styles are new and different. All the girls here wear long skirts, sweaters, and high boots. I don't think I'm quite ready for that but perhaps I can get rid of some of my sweatpants.
Another thing that we have found funny here is the music. There is a lot of American music and it is really funny to see what music has made it here. Sometimes I don't understand why. Twice yesterday I heard Brittany Spear's song 'Hit Me Baby One More Time" (Which was popular here when i was in 8th grade). We all had a laugh about that. Most of the music was popular in the U.S. about a year ago.
The social life here is very different than in the United States. Basically the student social scene revolves around the pubs. It is very different drinking situation than in the united states though, all the people sit around and talk while they have a few drinks. It's not like your typical college party where frat boys are trying to drink as much as possible and only end up making fools of themselves. I find it much more comofortable. Brussels is famous for their fruit beers. The most famous one is called kriek (pronounced like 'creek' and it means cherry in dutch). Dad you would be glad to know that they have an extremely low alcohol content, they taste more like carbonated juice, and all of the guys are embarrassed to admit that they like it.
The only real bad thing I can think of that has happened here is 3 out of 16 people in our group have been pick-pocketed. One guy had his wallet in his back pocket and some guy at the metro station came and started shaking his leg between his two legs and while Dave was confused he stole his wallet. Dave yelled after him and he took the money and through back the wallet so luckily he did not lose all of his ID but he did lose 115 euros. Then one girl lost a camera and another a phone while we were dancing at a dance club. The moral of the story is don't keep anything in your pockets, expecially the back one. Hopefully there won't be any more incidences like that. So far I haven't really felt unsafe anywhere. The thing is though that the police don't patrol the streets, especially at night. I've seen a few police, but they just walk around in twos, you can barely tell their police, their not all dressed up like ours. They look very unofficial. But if you get robbed or something their not going to show up in 5 minutes and investigate. I don't think they really care. I don't think violence is a real big problem here though, no one owns guns. People just want foreigners money I guess.
I'm sorry this entry is so long and probably fairly boring but hopefully now my entries will be much shorter and more often.
Tomorrow starts school so we'll see how the classes are here. I have class from 8:30-4:40 with a small break for lunch but it will be a long day.
