Day 3

Sorry about my lack-lustre titles, I'm not that creative, maybe I'll come up with better ones in the future...we'll see.

Anyways...we didn't do much today. We had ISA orientation and lunch at Sabine's house, then went to the Atomium and had dinner at Sabine's house again with my host parents. Orientation wasn't all that official, nothing really has been which is nice. Lunch was mostly cheese and bread, with some tomatoes and brown shrimp and porscuito (which I LOVE) and then Sabine made waterzooi, a creamy chicken and vegetable kinda stew, for dinner which was very good, mmmm. I've been super excited to see the Atomium for a while, it was built for the 1958 World Fair and is some metal crystalline molecule magnified 165 billion times. It's a perfect cube and sits on one of its corners. It kinda reminded me of the St. Louis arch on the inside, or the MN history museum, might disappoint some people but I liked it. We also had audio guides, which were kinda like phones. There were pictures with numbers on them, you typed the number in the guide and then it started talking to you. Thus far, Sabine has paid for everything, I haven't spent a euro yet and that's definitely a good thing because I have limited funds.

Besides daily activities, here are some things I've learned: ISA can't have an excursion to Amsterdam anymore because there was a fatal accident involving drugs (apparently somebody jumped/fell out of a window?). To operate the shower at my house, I turn a knob and press a button and then the water runs for 30 seconds (that's what my host mom said, but it feels like less than that) it's warm water, but then you stand in the cold and lather up. That's probably good for me though, if the water ran continuously I would waste all the hot water and that would be bad. Public transportation is WONDERFUL and should be used everywhere, seriously. The houses go up, not back or out, my room's on the fourth floor, and they're COLD! or at least this house is, probably because it's old. My bed is very firm, and there's just a comforter on top, but that's nice and warm. I have not adjusted to the time change yet, I lied in bed trying to sleep for a lloooonnnggg time this morning, boo, hopefully I adjust so I can get some SLEEP!

Orientation for school starts tomorrow and classes start on Monday. I keep forgetting that I have to go to school while I'm here. I'm only going to take 12 credits though and if everything works out only have classes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The commute to school is about 45 minutes, I'm used to 10-15 minutes, so I'll have to adjust to that.

I have to go to a convenience store or supermarket and get some toiletries soon, and I want to go to a bar, dangit! A pub tour is planned into my school orientation though, so I guess I won't have to wait too long.

But now it's time for bed, it's almost midnight here afterall and I have to be outta here by 8:45 tomorrow and that's early for me. We'll see how good I am at keeping this up once classes start...good night!

Lauren :)