Weekend

So this weekend was the first weekend where we were actually comfortable traveling around in smaller groups exploring the city. I can't believe how long my weekends are here. I was out of class at 1 on thursday and I'm done until tuesday morning. It's pretty great, I think I could get used to this.

Friday night the student government of Vesalius college rented out a floor of this local (pretty popular) dance club. It was pretty interesting to experience a european dance club. Pretty different than the US I would say even though they play almost all of the same music. I'm wondering where all this foreign music is? I'm finding it hard to believe that the US's music is really that great. The clubs here don't close until 7 am because thats when the metro starts running again so many people stay out the entire night...which I think is crazy. That requires some kind of endurance or something. (I took a cab home instead of waiting until breakfast time to leave).

Yesterday (Sunday) was probably one of my favorite days here so far. We got up and went to this flea market that we had heard about that happens every sunday. It was huge! It spanned for many blocked off streats and there were tons of people there. They had everything there, and it is not really like the flea markets in the US. Most of the stuff is new, and its not random junk, every vendor has a pretty specific item which they sell. There was a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables and also clothes. I bought a long red button up pea coat for only two euros! (Thats about $2.30). The buttons were all on very loose but I've kept them all and will sew them on better. The rest of it seems pretty well made. I was really excited about my find. I also bought a green pepper ( I had been craving one) and a sweater.

After the flea market we headed out to get lunch. The "fast food" of Brussels are these 'snack-friteries' where they have french fries, meats, cheeses, veggies, and bread for sandwhiches. They have those huge legs of lamb where they cut off the meat. Anyways you get these huge sandwhiches for really cheap where they put any crazy sauce on it you want and they also put the french fries on the sandwhich. Many of them have falafel so I have something to eat too. I really think the United States needs some places like this. When we finished our meal the owner says 'oh i forgot to bring you your tea (in french of course) and he brings us out this mint tea made with fresh mint leaves and other things on a silver platter. We were all surprised but I guess we were at the restaurant during their traditional "tea time" and it was unheard of that we wouldn't have tea during this time. It would be like going to the local fastfood deli and having them serve you tea on a silver platter.

After our over-filling meal we headed to the Belgian comic strip musueum. They had a lot of original pieces of art from stuff like the smurfs and tin tin, both of which i love when i was a kid. Many of the comics I had never heard of before but it was still interesting. We got to take pictures with statues of a bunch of comic characters.

hopefully some pictures will be forthecoming.

Hope everyone is well. It would be great if people could either e-mail me or comment...I just like to hear how everyone else is doing. It makes me not want to write in this when i dont get to have some sort of dialog with other people. I dont want to sit here and give lectures about my trip. =) . If it doesn't work out I'll go back to good old fashioned e-mail, then perhaps people will feel more inclined to give responses and tell me how their doing. (It's funny that I'm calling e-mail old fashioned).

-Bailey