My flatmate, Amanda, and I went to London for the weekend to visit two of my friends from Queen's who are supply teaching there. We arrived in London on Friday night and we made our way to my friend's flat in Ealing, which is just outside of London and takes about 40 minutes to get there on the tube. When we arrived at their flat, we just had some dinner and started to plan our next two days in London. On Saturday morning we first headed over to Leicester Square to buy cheap tickets to a musical for Saturday night. We [View Full Entry]

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November 11th is Armistice Day (also known as Remembrance Day) in Belgium and it commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning — the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" 1918. The date was declared a national holiday in many allied nations, to commemorate those members of the armed forces who were killed during war. I attended the Armistice Day ceremony in Brussels that occured at the Place of Congress at [View Full Entry]

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This past week during my October break at ISB, myself and three other teachers, Mona, Rana, and Lucia, decided to go to Prague! We started our first day in Prague with a free tour of the Old Town. Our tour guide was quite eccentric and opinionated, but she managed to bring us to quite a few places and point out some great places to eat. She first brought us to Wenceslas Square, where there was a statue of St. Wenceslas (same as Good King Wenceslas from the Christmas Carol) and the National Museum of Prague. This square is quite a busy [View Full Entry]

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This past weekend I took the train from Brussels to Marbehan, which is a small town in the Belgian Ardennes. My uncle and Sylvie, who live in Paris, came for Brassigaume, which is a beer festival in Marbehan, and they rented a house and invited me to stay for the weekend. The Belgian Ardennes consist of several small towns that are all quite close to one another, and the house that my uncle and Sylvie had rented was in Rulles, which was about a 10 minute drive from Marbehan. When I arrived on Saturday, we took a quick drive around the [View Full Entry]

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My Thanksgiving in Brussels was tons of fun! I decided to cook a huge Thanksgiving dinner for the other interns from ISB, two of whom are from Belgium and had never celebrated Thanksgiving before. We had dinner on Sunday night and I made chickens (I searched all around for a turkey, but its impossible to find one in Belgium unless you order it well in advance!), stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, gravy, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie for dessert. It was my first time cooking the entire meal by myself and it turned out quite well! On Monday, which [View Full Entry]

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For the past few weekends, I've been staying in Brussels and enjoying the wonderful autumn weather we've been having! One weekend I went to St. Gilles, which is a region of Brussels that is quite nice and has a lot of Art Nouveau architecture. I visited the Horta Museum and then went to the Musée d'Art Fantastique for the Festival de la Biére Fantastique. My uncle had suggested this beer festival to me...and it was quite interesting, to say the least. Basically, it was this unusual art museum that was in a small 3-storey house, and they called it a beer [View Full Entry]

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I had a great 23rd birthday in Brussels! On the Friday before my birthday, my kindergarten class threw me a surprise birthday party! We had popcorn and cupcakes and they made a huge banner that they all decorated. I was really surprised and the whole class did such a great job keeping the secret! On Sunday it was no car day in Brussels (yes, my birthday was such a big deal here that they even stopped traffic for the day! hahaha...) so it was really peaceful and quiet in my apartment. I spent most of the day relaxing and reading at [View Full Entry]

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On Saturday, I went with Magali and Ludger to Namur (which is about 30 minutes south of Brussels) for Fêtes de Wallonie. Fêtes de Wallonie is a huge party that takes place all over the French-speaking part of Belgium. It is celebrated on the third weekend of September and usually runs from Thursday to Monday. It commemorates the participation of the Walloons in the Belgian revolution of 1830 and is a huge celebration of the French-speaking regions of Belgium. Since Namur is the capital of the Wallonie region (French-speaking region), it has the biggest celebration. We arrived in Namur around [View Full Entry]

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On Friday evening, the other interns and I went to Brussels Midi Station to depart for Paris. We arrived in Paris around 7:30pm and by the time we found our hotel it was close to 8:30pm. Our hotel was really close to the Gare de Lyon and to tell you the truth, I was a little worried about what our hotel would be like because it only cost us 20 euros a night to stay there...but it was actually pretty decent! That was a nice surprise! After checking into the hotel and dropping off our bags, we took the metro to [View Full Entry]

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This weekend there was a huge beer festival held in the Grand Place. There were 44 Belgian breweries participating in this event and you can try more than 270 Belgian beers. On Saturday afternoon I went with a few friends to the beer festival. First, you have to buy bottle caps for one euro each and then you use these at the tents to purchase your beer. I tried a Blanche de Namur (white beer similar to Hoegaarden) and a Lindemans Pecheresse (a peach beer). They were both quite good. The beer festival was really busy though and there were some [View Full Entry]

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