The first two weeks

---

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 up sitting my two British girls, 13 and 11 I think, who wanted to talk to me the entire way to Brussels. I probably got about an hour of sleep on the plane, so I was exhausted when I got to Brussels. Since I showed up on the wrong day there wasn't anyone to meet me at the airport. I somehow maneuvered over 100 pounds of luggage, a laptop bag, a duffel bag and my purse to where the cab pick up and took a cab to Leuven.

20 minutes later we're pulling up to Junior House. This is where I'm living for the semester- more on this later. So I get to Junior House and see all the people I'm living with walking out the door to go to register with the University. I dropped off my bags and went with them to registration/tour Leuven/go to a new student meeting. I think this was a Thursday, so everyone went out for dinner and then to Oude Markt where all the bars are. I was so tired by the end of the day, and then I had to wake up for Dutch class the next morning.

So a bit on where I'm living. Leuven is a really small college town 20 minutes outside of Brussels. I think it has a population of 50,000 with 30,000 of those being college students. There are a lot of cute shopping areas, but the best part of the city is Oude Markt where all of the bars are. I'm not sure how many bars are there, but they all kind of blend together. Everyone sits at tables outside and drinks lots of delicious beer. Inside people are sometimes dancing... although we usually go inside and start dancing even if no one else is. There are also a few dance clubs in Leuven. I've gone to Oude Markt almost every night since I've been here. Most of the Belgian students aren't here yet, so it should be even more fun in a week or so.

Junior House is like the farthest you could possibly get from the center of town. It's about a 15 minute walk to the stores and the center of town. It's a three story house with about 30 students living in it. It's also a piece of crap as everything is falling apart around us. That aside, it's still a lot of fun, and I'm living with people from the US, Canada, Japan, Korea, Belgium and The Netherlands... so cool!

OK so back to the update- We started Dutch class the next day. We had class for 5 hours a day plus an hour lunch break in the middle, so really it took up a majority of the day. We had 9 days of class in all , and then a final exam. It was basically a semester worth of language in a week and a half, and it was nearly impossible to keep up. Usually I had to spend at least 1-2 hours studying after each class just to learn all of the vocabulary. I just took my final last Wednesday so I've really just gotten to start enjoying Leuven.

To back track a bit, I took a train to Luxembourg City my first Saturday in Belgium. I went with a bunch of people in Junior House, and we stayed the night in a hostel. Luxembourg City wasn't terribly exciting, but we had an amazing time anyway. We went into the Casemates which are these underground tunnel things. We also saw the palace and a cathedral. There happened to be a huge carnival going on the night we were there which was so much fun. We drank beer and I did my usual holding everyone's stuff while they went on rides. Overall, a great first weekend.

Since then Ive only traveled within Belgium, but I went to Gent, Antwerp, Brussels, and Breendonk which was a Nazi Detainment/Concentration camp.

Gent was beautiful. It's a city in North Belgium which is in the Flemish speaking part of the country. The whole city is built around a network of canals. We took a boat tour around the city, and then had an hour to look around and eat lunch. There was also some celebration of the anniversary of Belgium's version of the Boy Scouts, so there were all kinds of performances and random sports competitions (inflatable beach volleyball?) going on. There were also lots of boy scouts walking around in matching decorated uniforms. We ate chocolate that cost a euro per piece, but it was so amazingly delicious/totally worth it. We also saw a very short man walking the biggest dog I've ever seen.

Antwerp- We didn't have a lot of time here. I plan on going back, so more on this later.

Brussels- I also plan on going back to Brussels. While we were there the weather was awful, so it was hard to enjoy the tour. We saw Mannequin Pis, which was much smaller than I thought it would be. We also went into the cathedral and toured the city's main square. There were lots of buildings (previously owned by the guilds I think) with gold plated statues and decoration and the most intricate stone carvings I've ever seen. There's a whole section of the city with the most delicious smelling food from all over the world.

Visiting Breendonk was a pretty indescribable experience. I really wish I had done this before visiting Israel, because going to the actual concentration camps definitely gives you a different perspective then visiting memorial museums. I'm hoping to go to Poland and tour the concentration camps there as well.

To come: Brugge, Amsterdam, Munich, Paris, Venice, Milan, Athens, and then either Warsaw, Barcelona, or Berlin depending on how things go.

I'm having an AMAZING time! I'll post my pictures soon, but my internet is really slow which makes it difficult.

I left out describing all the people I've met in this post. I'll get to that later, but I really like the people in my program a lot. I'm also getting to meet people from all over the world.

Tot Ziens. Ik zal jullie in Januari zien! (This is supposed to mean Good bye! I'll see you all in January... but my Dutch is niet zo goed. Good think everyone speaks English!)

I miss you all! I hope everything is going back in the states!

---