Bonjour!

It's about six o'clock here in Brussels (17:42 to be exact, I'm still getting used to the military time). The past few days have been VERY eventful! I've met a lot of friendly people, gotten more familiar with my area of the city, and taken care of some important things for school. I'm having a lot of fun already and I'm actually excited to start class on Monday! There's so much to talk about and share with everyone at home, I don't even know where to begin! I suppose I should start by talking about the beginning of our orientation at Vesalius College (VeCo) this past Wednesday.

Orientation here was not too different from what you might expect from a college orientation in the states. At a building called "Maison du Bois," study abroad students were mixed in with freshmen who were starting at VeCo. We were given a lot of information in a little amount of time about classes and registering for residency etc... The Vesalius Student Government (VSG) introduced themselves and explained what they do, which mainly consists of organizing parties and other social events for the students. There are only four students in the VSG! The student body is very small though, so it sort of makes sense that the student government is too. After our introduction to the VSG we were separated into groups and taken on a tour of campus by our specific "buddy," who is a student currently enrolled at VeCo. We got to see where some of our classes will be held and were treated to a free lunch in the cafeteria! I had spaghetti, soup, and a mini waffle for dessert, all of which was pretty good. After lunch the study abroad students returned to Maison du Bois for some information about managing our finances, and for those of us with host families, some extra information about what is expected of us and from them. Shortly after, we activated our computer e-mail accounts and we were done with all the boring stuff for the day!

Later that night we met up with some students from VeCo and the VSG at KultuurKaffee (The KK Bar) on campus for a "meet and greet." My roommate Mallory and I headed down together, had a few beers and got to know some really cool people from the college and from varied study abroad programs. It was lots of fun to meet so many friendly students, but the night was short lived and eventually everyone went their separate ways. In my case it was to Central Station by way of the metro so that I could catch a train to Leuven to visit Toni!

This was my first adventure on the train and it was very exciting. I bought a ticket and waited at platform 3 for it to come. Once on the train, I found an empty seat and made myself comfortable. My car was almost empty, which I assumed was because it was just late on a weeknight. The ride was nice, the train is a little more shaky than trains back home, which can be scary sometimes but not too bad, and it's only about a 25 minute trip from Central Station in Brussels to Leuven which is nice! As I drew near the station in Leuven however, a conductor approached me. I gave him my ticket and he looked at me with a slightly cross expression on his face as he said something to me in Dutch. "Is this the next stop?" I asked in English. "Yes, but you are in first class!" he replied! I was embarrassed but I apologized and explained that it was my first time riding the train and I didn't know. He said it was alright and told me to move up a few cars. The strange thing about first and second class on trains is that there's really no difference besides the price of your ticket haha

Either way, I made it to Leuven without a fine for being in the wrong class. Toni met me at the station and we took a bus to a little pizza place that had some pretty good thin crust pizza! I had my first Coca-Cola in Belgium, which is different because it's made with sugar instead of corn syrup. The difference is hard to taste at first but it's easy to notice that it is less carbonated than Coke at home. After our dinner we met up with a few of Toni's friends from Loyola at this quiet little pub near her dorm. We had a drink and chatted for a while, then headed back to her dorm so I could meet a few more people and turn in for the night. All of Toni's friends are very nice, but they were all very stressed out from the finals they have to study for and take until the end of next week. 

In the morning Toni took me around Leuven. The city is beautiful! We went food shopping at Delhaize, which is the European version of Food Lion. Toni showed me how she shops for her groceries and explained how walking can be dangerous in Leuven... There is a bike path that you need to stay off unless you want to get run over by angry bikers in the town! After food shopping we went back to the house and made some tuna for lunch, and then walked around Leuven some more. We saw the Stadhuis, which is the old city hall and is a beautiful and GIANT building. There were construction workers taking down all the Christmas decorations with a cherry picker and there was a wood chipper that they were loading Christmas trees into. It smelled nice! Then we toured around the shopping area for a while before heading back to the train station so I could return to Brussels.

Once back home, Mallory, Heidi and I went to Colruyt, a BJ's kind of store here in town, to pick up some cereal and PB&J for lunch. After eating dinner at the house Mallory and I went back to the KK Bar to meet up with a few people from the night before. The bar was much less crowded but it was nice to be able to make conversation with everyone and get to know them better. This dude Joey was there, who I met at orientation and is from Jersey and goes to Rutgers, a girl Micole (yes, Micole, not Nicole) from Suny New Paltz, and this guy Roman who was born in Russia but has lived most of his life in Livingston, New Jersey! All very cool people, I'm excited to spend more time with them over the course of the semester.

Today was another day to get some things taken care of. Registered for classes, got some lunch with Joey, Mallory, and Micole, and opened a bank account with ING bank. They had this awesome coffee/espresso/cappuccino/hot chocolate machine in the bank that served us beverages while we waited for some of our documents to be copied, it was cool!

Now I'm back at the house waiting for dinner. Tonight at nine is "Brussels Night Life with the VSG" on our orientation itinerary. It is described as "a tour of Brussels' finest pubs," so essentially it's a pub crawl, and everyone is very excited for it! I'll be sure not to drink past my limit, and I'll definitely take a lot of pictures!

Sorry for the wall of text! I know these past two entries have been very long, I hope it's not too much to read haha  I'll see about keeping them a little shorter but maybe more frequent, I just have so much I want to share! Hope all is well back home, feel free to send me letters or e-mails! I'd love to hear from everyone.

Until next time!! Much love from your boy in Brussels, Belgium