Beste familie en vrienden/Dear family and friends: One of the nice bonuses to this exchange is having the opportunity to do things like catch up on my reading and exercise for fun--things I didn´t have the time or motivation to do last year. I have read Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer, the 2nd and 3rd Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books by Ann Brasheres, Adrian Mole: The Lost Years by Sue Townsend, Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman (I don´t know if that´s been published in America) and I´m in the middle of The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. Our school [View Full Entry]

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Having never kept a blog before, when I started this one I wasn't sure how it would go. I've never really been comfortable with the concept of sharing day-to-day personal reflections on the LiveJournal model - what would I say? Would I keep up with it? Despite a couple of big gaps I'm happy to say it has been kept up, and in the end has been a good way for me to process and digest the trip. I've been so thankful for everyone's messages and comments, thank you. A journey like this one is certainly one to be shared with [View Full Entry]

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Dear Readers: So I know it is going to be a bit hard to update this as frequently as I´d like, what with homework, posting pictures on Facebook (which I still need to do! yikes!), keeping up with correspondence (Lexi, you´re next) and actually living life in Belgium, but I really want you guys to be able to read this so I will do my best! I am really grateful for my host sisters Annemie and Liesbet. We went to the Leuven Kermis (fair or carnival) last Saturday night with Annemie´s friend Caroline and they won me two stuffed animals! Liesbet [View Full Entry]

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Dear friends, I have been in Belgium since 8 August, but this is my first opportunity to post a travel blog entry. I am an exchange student through Youth for Understanding (YFU), and I am from New Jersey, USA. I am in Belgium until late December (semester program). I am living in the town of Heverlee, which is a municipality of the larger city of Leuven, in the province of Vlaams Brabant (Flemish Brabant) in Flanders, (the Dutch-speaking part of) Belgium. I graduated high school in the States last year, but I have wanted travel to Europe ever since I was [View Full Entry]

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There's a lot of evidence to suggest that I don't understand the concept of blogging. Aren't blogs supposed to be a regular thing, the blogger posting weekly or even daily during the some event or trip so others can share the experience? It's been more than a month since my last post - in fact there's been nothing since I got on the train... I apologize. As things turned out, it was harder than I'd expected to find internet cafes along the way, and all those I did find lacked the Java plug-in I need to post pictures to the travel [View Full Entry]

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Hi guys! I'm so sorry I've been MIA for the last few weeks. I hope you didn't think that I's forgotten about you, I've just been so busy! So hopefully this will update you a bit on my first two weeks, and I promise from now on I'll be better about keeping in touch. So after my flight got canceled, I took a second trip to the airport on the 27th. My first flight landed in Dulles Washington, which I thought was supposed to be Dallas, so I was a little confused at first. Anyway, I found my plane and ended [View Full Entry]

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De voorbereidingen voor mijn reisjes naar Japan kunnen starten. Het belangrijkste is reeds gebeurd en dat is het boeken van de vluchten. Binnen welgeteld 16 dagen zit ik voor de eerste keer op het vliegtuig naar Japan (van 8 augustus - 19 augustus). Twee maandjes later ga ik voor een tweede keer, maar dan voor een volle maand (25 oktober - 25 november). In augustus zijn we (Jerome en ik) van plan om naar het Noorden te reizen, wegens te warm in het centrum en zuiden van het land. Het schijnt daar nu boven de 35 graden te zijn, met een [View Full Entry]

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Certainty The thing about traveling is that it gives you the change just to lay back and and do the things you want to do through escaping our daily, serious lives. For me and Mathias, my friend that will be joining me, it means no more cost accounting (me) or making complex engineering designs of apartment blocks(Mathias). But is it just that, running away from life? Well, for some people it actually means leaving the very lives they chose to live. Relaxing at the poolside, sipping a Mai-Tai from a coconut through a bent straw while the umbrella won't stay [View Full Entry]

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Inter-exam-Pre-Pre-Pre-Pre-vacation-day dreams For weeks a friend and I have been thinking about going on vacation somewhere in the world. Restrictions for this endeavor are: *budget( travel+expenses)=approx. €700 * location: somewhere hot; *purpose: pleasure by culture and relaxation Unfortunately, at this time, in the present day, now, we are experiencing a period in our lives that every of my fellow students despise: EXAMS Our first thoughts wondered towards a formula issued by our national airport in Z [View Full Entry]

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Some pictures from earlier travels. [View Full Entry]

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