I feel like a little hipster in good ol’ Brussels now-- now that everyone knows where the good local breakfast place is after Ryan and I found them, I am slightly less interested in them. Okay, that's a lie. Kind of.
This morning, Ryan and I went for breakfast at the Cemetery. It’s called that because there’s a cemetery nearby. But asides from that there are also quite a few cafes that are good for breakfast (or coffee, which is what I needed this morning) as well as a second hand bookstore, and everyone goes there at some point. I got a latte and a chocolate croissant, which I split with Ryan and it was absolutely divine; finishing off my Carrefour croissant will be a rather tragic experience tomorrow morning.
But after grabbing a bite, we explored the cemetery. It was a really beautiful place, filled with sarcophaguses and mausoleums. It was quite different from the cemeteries I’m used to seeing back home; they’re much better well kept here and the views are quite incredible. I’ve been snapping pictures away with my ‘new’ toy camera and hopefully they turn out because some of the wonderful views I saw that morning. I don’t think I will ever get tired of seeing how Brussels is staggered—it takes my breath away every time I see it and, if I’m crossing a street, I will inevitably slow down.
We walked for several more hours after that—first a tour of campus with Clara and Gus, our two program coordinators. They’re both quite young; Clara has stolen (and broken) the hearts of all of the straight men of our trip while Gus quickly won the affections of everyone with his goofiness. Afterwards, we took a grand tour of Brussels with a tour guide. He was full of opinions about everything, and after several hours of walking and hearing his snide comments everyone was rather testy; however, he did take us to a lot of interesting places or places with interesting side streets so it was still a worthwhile experience. Now we know where to go if we want to explore a little more, buy postcards or buy chocolate. Also, I finally got to experience my first liege waffle-- delicious and the best part is there are even better ones in the city!
We were all rather exhausted when we arrived back at ULB for yet another orientation, but everyone perked right back up during the reception. Zierler had vaguely mentioned to us something about ‘snack like foods’ but what we found instead was endless glasses of champagne and wine as well as an endless supply of fancy hors d'œuvres; I for one felt incredibly classy for those couple of hours as I nibbled on salmon seviche and feeling thankful for the free meal.
The highlight of the day was to come afterwards, however. Everyone agreed on going home for a second and freshening up before meeting up at the Cemetery to hang out. The cemetery itself was closed, so we had to switch from plan A (splitting a bottle of wine in the cemetery) to plan B (going on an impromptu beer crawl). Everywhere we went, we were that group (Still. We'll get over this phase soon. I hope.) and all the locals tended to laugh at us rather unkindly. But I didn't mind too much at that point. I mean, it is Saturday night. It was rather fun, learning about the different ways beer is brewed and stealing samples of other people's drinks. (Gus: Have you tried that one yet? It's my favourite. Here, try some-- it's not mine but I'm sure he won't mind)
My bad for the dull post; I don’t normally plan on updating along the lines of “First we did X, then we went to Y and then we ate Z.” Well, I'll probably talk about food quite a bit but otherwise it’s boring for you and it’s boring for me. However, I am a bit tired right now, please forgive me.
Pictures up once I get internet in my apartment (so soon!)
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Friday, July 1, 2011
Surviors
I love airports.
Which sounds weird due to how nervous I was the day before my flight. After listening to my mom’s unending stream of nerve-racking questions (such as “Did you bring the right passport?” and “Are you sure you’re leaving today?”) I arrived at the airport in a state of extreme agitation. But once I checked in my bag, got through security without a hitch and arrived at my boarding gate with a little less than an hour to spare, I found myself thoroughly enjoying waiting for my flight in solitude. I alternated between reading snippets of The Plague and people watching, making up brief stories about the people I observed—why the lady in the white dress stopped her brisk walk on the walkway so abruptly and dashed in the other direction as soon as she got off, what competition the guy sitting across from me was participating in and how successful he would end up….
The flight to Atlanta went smoothly, even I couldn't botch a flight that short. Atlanta, however, was on the the other end of the spectrum when it comes to 'smooth flights.' I headed to my next terminal immediately once I got off the plane. After exchanging weary nods at one another, Ryan informed me right off the bat that he wanted to get his shoes shined. I agreed to accompany him as w still had some time to kill. We went up several flights of escalators when all of the sudden, we found ourselves at the arrival gate. “Not a big deal,” I thought to myself. “We have plenty of time to make it through security again and back to our terminal.” Ryan, however, was less calm.
“I left my boarding pass with Katie…” he said, half in disbelief, half in panic. After we were severely rebuked by the airport official for our carelessness, he attempted to re-check-in with little success. As he figured out his boarding pass problem, I went and got shoes shined for the first time. I felt quite classy, sitting up in that chair; all I was missing was a tweed suit and a fedora. Luckily, Ryan got everything sorted out and we had enough time to go through security once again before meeting up with the others again, me setting off the alarm and all (It's been quite an exciting first day).
It was a slightly ridiculous flight—I was comfortable yet not sleepy, the food was ‘vegetarian’ but also worse for you than the hormone filled meat we normally eat (what does it mean when you get a chocolate brownie that contains less than 2% of chocolate?) But we made it! We (6 people with 50 pounds of luggage each, then an additional 6 halfway through the commute)navigated the airport, the train station and the bus system and, despite being laughed at by quite a number of well dressed (and possibly good looking, I don’t remember the faces as much) male students when we got lost on the ULB campus, we eventually found our way to Zierler.
I’ve only been in Brussels for a day and it feels like forever already. After our orientation, I spent most of the day exploring our section of the city with Kristen, both by foot and by bus. While I still don’t know street names and find myself getting odd looks whenever I open my mouth in public, I would say I am fairly familiar with the area now. I know where I can find good bakeries, cheap sandwiches and Laundromats within a five minute walking distance. And I had my first encounter with pommes frites—quite delicious and oily, even if the line was ridiculously long. We got it with aioli instead of the traditional plain mayonnaise, but I’m sure I’ll be back around Flagey soon enough. Brussels is an odd city, both ugly and beautiful. The pieces by themselves, whether it’s a railing on a balcony or a dilapidated, abandoned garage, don’t look nice; but put together, layered on top of one another or paired unexpectedly with a corner marketplace, looks beautiful. Lots of pictures taken with the toy camera so far and some with the digital—fingers crossed that the pictures on the toy camera will actually turn out!
Think I beat jet lag—it’s 11 PM local time and I’m finally going to bed after not sleeping for… too long. I can’t bother myself with trying to figure out just how many hours with time zone changes.
Which sounds weird due to how nervous I was the day before my flight. After listening to my mom’s unending stream of nerve-racking questions (such as “Did you bring the right passport?” and “Are you sure you’re leaving today?”) I arrived at the airport in a state of extreme agitation. But once I checked in my bag, got through security without a hitch and arrived at my boarding gate with a little less than an hour to spare, I found myself thoroughly enjoying waiting for my flight in solitude. I alternated between reading snippets of The Plague and people watching, making up brief stories about the people I observed—why the lady in the white dress stopped her brisk walk on the walkway so abruptly and dashed in the other direction as soon as she got off, what competition the guy sitting across from me was participating in and how successful he would end up….
The flight to Atlanta went smoothly, even I couldn't botch a flight that short. Atlanta, however, was on the the other end of the spectrum when it comes to 'smooth flights.' I headed to my next terminal immediately once I got off the plane. After exchanging weary nods at one another, Ryan informed me right off the bat that he wanted to get his shoes shined. I agreed to accompany him as w still had some time to kill. We went up several flights of escalators when all of the sudden, we found ourselves at the arrival gate. “Not a big deal,” I thought to myself. “We have plenty of time to make it through security again and back to our terminal.” Ryan, however, was less calm.
“I left my boarding pass with Katie…” he said, half in disbelief, half in panic. After we were severely rebuked by the airport official for our carelessness, he attempted to re-check-in with little success. As he figured out his boarding pass problem, I went and got shoes shined for the first time. I felt quite classy, sitting up in that chair; all I was missing was a tweed suit and a fedora. Luckily, Ryan got everything sorted out and we had enough time to go through security once again before meeting up with the others again, me setting off the alarm and all (It's been quite an exciting first day).
It was a slightly ridiculous flight—I was comfortable yet not sleepy, the food was ‘vegetarian’ but also worse for you than the hormone filled meat we normally eat (what does it mean when you get a chocolate brownie that contains less than 2% of chocolate?) But we made it! We (6 people with 50 pounds of luggage each, then an additional 6 halfway through the commute)navigated the airport, the train station and the bus system and, despite being laughed at by quite a number of well dressed (and possibly good looking, I don’t remember the faces as much) male students when we got lost on the ULB campus, we eventually found our way to Zierler.
I’ve only been in Brussels for a day and it feels like forever already. After our orientation, I spent most of the day exploring our section of the city with Kristen, both by foot and by bus. While I still don’t know street names and find myself getting odd looks whenever I open my mouth in public, I would say I am fairly familiar with the area now. I know where I can find good bakeries, cheap sandwiches and Laundromats within a five minute walking distance. And I had my first encounter with pommes frites—quite delicious and oily, even if the line was ridiculously long. We got it with aioli instead of the traditional plain mayonnaise, but I’m sure I’ll be back around Flagey soon enough. Brussels is an odd city, both ugly and beautiful. The pieces by themselves, whether it’s a railing on a balcony or a dilapidated, abandoned garage, don’t look nice; but put together, layered on top of one another or paired unexpectedly with a corner marketplace, looks beautiful. Lots of pictures taken with the toy camera so far and some with the digital—fingers crossed that the pictures on the toy camera will actually turn out!
Think I beat jet lag—it’s 11 PM local time and I’m finally going to bed after not sleeping for… too long. I can’t bother myself with trying to figure out just how many hours with time zone changes.
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