Bonjour! Merci! Merci beau coup!

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Antwerp on Wednesday was great (minus our group of 15 getting on the wrong train, which postponed things about an hour). Anyway, if that was the worst of it (which it was), we did great. Our site visit on Wednesday was Ecover---everyone should use their products!!!! Their mission is to produce household cleaning products that are environmentally friendly, from the raw materials through production, use, and discard/recycling. We were given a tour of their production plant (see pictures!), and even went into the lab where they test products!!! Chem peeps, they use an HPLC to determine if the 100% 'green' raw materials sent to them are indeed that (and not synthetic), which was very exciting to know what he was talking about. They gave us free samples of some of their products...you can find Ecover products in Whole Foods in the states. They are an honest genuine company that is being gentle to our planet earth. After our site visit, we went to the harbor for a boat tour. Now, this wasn't like a harbor boat tour you would initially expect...it's a shipping harbor so we saw HUGE cargo boats with crates stacked beyond belief. Our group of 15 had the booze cruiser to ourselves along with the captain and his wife (who was also the bartender). We enjoyed a wonderful glass of sparkling wine atop the boat with a cool breeze and warm sun to make the evening wonderful. We were all able to do some unwinding, which we haven't really been able to do with everything that has been packed into the last week. Once we returned to the dock, we went for dinner to a beautiful restaurant for dinner. I had lamb (Dad, the picture is really for you), which was to die for. We had to run for the last train back to Brussels, so it was certainly an adventurous day. Yesterday was more lecturing in the morning and an afternoon site visit to Umicore, a natural metals recycling firm. We went to their headquarters here and the presentation was very informative. The rest of the evening consisted of scrambling to finish our 2nd group presentation that we gave this morning. On little sleep and lots of caffeine, we did a great job as did the other groups. Today was our last obligation and it feels WONDERFUL to have everything complete (until we get back to the states). We are about to head out to do some touring of the city, which we sadly haven't really been able to do until now. Tonight will probably be crazy because most of us will be leaving tomorrow...some to Bruges (Natalie, Jenny, and I are going there), some to Amsterdam and some to Paris. I could not have asked for a better group of peers to be here with...I'm sure this evening we'll "let it all hang out", as was stated in class today. This will probably be my last post...I'll be back in DC on Sunday evening. WHOOHOOO!!! Time to let loose!!! Not to worry, Ma!!!

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