So it's been a while, let's see...
Wednesday was orientation at the school. We had a tour of campus and I'm pretty sure I'm going to get lost on my first day of class because all the buildings are spread out, not like Creighton where they're all in a row. Apparently the classes will switch from one building to another on different days of the week...we'll see how it goes. Allison and I met some new friends too, Rachel, from Dallas who goes to SLU, Regina from Chicago and Kreesta born in Texas lives in Colorado goes to school in Hawaii. Sabine has adopted them into out ISA group, I'm glad because they're all the only person in their programs so it's good we found eachother. After orientation we went to the super market by school and I got my toiletries and then we went to Sunshine cafe, good hot chocolate.
Wednesday night the VSG (Vesalius Student Government) hosted a bar "tour", or a get on the metro and go to Delirium tour. Delirium is a bar with over 2,000 kinds of beer (at least that's what they tell me). We sat in the upstairs part which only has 20some, but that was more than enough for one night. I had two beers, Snake Dog, which tasted like the bitter white part of a grapefruit, eh, and Delirium Tremens, voted Best Beer of 1998, it was pretty good. This legal consumption thing is pretty exciting, it's not going to be fun waiting for my birthday when I go back home. Anyways, two beers is plenty for any one time.
Thursday I had a day off. So I slept in, took my time, and then went for a walk because it was the first sunny day since I've been here. That was nice, I love walks. That night we went to Sabine's because it was her birthday, it was nice.
Friday there was more orientation at school, I had to register for my classes and do computer orientation. But first we had to get monthly rail passes, we had to wait 2.5 hours for them, blah, but I never have to do that again, we just renew them each month from now on. Registration went well, apparently they want study abroad kids to register for 5 classes, but I only wanted to take four. My advisor was like "eh, that's fine, I'm on tenure anyways" so I have what I wanted. I only have class on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and I'm taking Elementary Dutch I, Lobbying in the EU, History of the Middle East and European Modernism and the Avant-garde and I already know two girls in the class. History of the Middle East is the only class I need to transfer back and I almost didn't get it, thank goodness the instructor decided to just let everybody in even though the class was full. Computer orientation was a bust, they told us to bring our laptops but that was useless and the network was not working so we didn't even accomplish what we were supposed to at all and I have to do it later on my own. After all that we went to the Museum of Musical Instruments which Sabine has been trying to get us to for awhile. It was really cool, especially since I'm a band geek. That night VSG hosted another bar event, but the bar was awful, overly crowded and loud and I got way over charged for my drink which is not cool...sigh. At least we met Chi from China, she's living here with her parents, they lived by DC for a few years too. I think Americans are the only people who don't go live in other countries for a few years, and maybe Canadians.
Saturday we had the tour of Brussels led my Madame Delsemme. It started out nice and warm, but then got cold and rainy. It didn't bother me though, I'm so enchanted by this city, Europe is amazing. However, there was this obnoxious kid who just kept making all these comments that made me want to kick him in the shins. If you don't want to be here, why come? Go back to America.
Allison, Regina and Rachel had to be on the tour for a class, but Kreesta, Chi and I left early to go have lunch during which I had my first waffle! SO delicious, I can see why they don't eat them for breakfast here, they're much more dessert-like, mmmmmmmm. My new housemate also arrived Saturday morning...she's already revealed that she's been proposed to twice and that she wrote a sex column for her college newspaper, she also had some feminist book in her backpack and loves men, a LOT, she even brought a stash of condoms. I'm a little afraid, but I might go to London with her now because she knows people to stay with and that saves me money...I'm a bit wary. Anyways...after lunch, Kreesta and Chi went home and I stayed downtown to look around a bit. I decided to go to the Grand Place so I wouldn't be lost and then decided to go to the Museum of Brussels because it's in one of the buildings in the Grand Place, can't get lost in there. They had these laminated sheets in some of the rooms in French, Dutch, German and English, so I could learn all about Brussels. They had sheets about the Maison du Roi and Town Hall and guides for the models of Brussels in the 17th century and in the 13th century, or some time close to those. There isn't much left from either century because of the Bombardment of 1695, I don't know who did the bombarding, but they were destructive. As I was learning about Brussels during these time periods, the tour group walked in the room, I felt like a geek, some people go to museums for class, I go for fun, oh well. After we finished looking at the Manneken Pis costumes, my favorite part of the museum, we found a cafe to sit in for a while since we had dinner plans for 7:30 and it was maybe 5:30. Then we had a fun time trying to read this map and find the restaurant we were supposed to go to, instead we ended up finding Sabine and Dallin and then Becky and ended up right back where we started. We still had a while before dinner, so we went to a pub and Sabine bought us drinks, mine was half beer, half hard cider and black currant and it was tasty. Then on to dinner at a nice and not too expensive Italian restaurant which was pretty good. Afterwards we stopped by the Grand Place, it is amazing afterall, and headed home.
Today I slept in, my favorite thing to do. Allison wanted to do laundry so we did that and got some frites while waiting, mmmm. Allison is an Eagles fan so she wanted to see the game tonight. She found an American bar that was supposed to be playing it, but it was not where it was supposed to be. We looked for a while, no sign of an American bar anywhere. It probably shut down because apparently it was awful. After that I suggested going back to the pub we went to last night, and after going the wrong way on the metro for a while, we got there and lo and behold they were playing the game! Allison was very excited. So it was a nice ending to the night.
Tomorrow is officially the first day of classes, but I don't have any classes on Mondays or Fridays (heck yes). I do have a lunch date with Kreesta and Allison though. Maybe I'll get my computer stuff done after that.
I suppose this post is long enough for now, maybe I'll do another one on my day off tomorrow. Also, if you have skype, let me know because I have nobody to skype with and that's no fun.
Good night
-Lauren :)
No comments:
Post a Comment