Okay, first, of all, on my fourth day here, this is my premiere opportunity to have the combination of free time and internet access, which is the reason I haven’t posted before this. With that said I will now begin the dictation of how my life has drastically changed in just over three days…
I left Wednesday evening at 9:30 at night on Swiss Air flight LX 53. International flights are awesome, truly an experience in themselves. Because I was flying into Zurich, which is in the north of Switzerland, every comment from the pilot and command from the crew was said in English, German, and French. The people were also as diverse as the languages suggested. Next to me on the right was a German-speaking Swiss family (from what I could gather) and to the left there was an American, stopping over in Zurich on his way to Africa to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, talking to a Dutch woman who had just passed the last two weeks visiting a family friend in California. At any rate, all this was so cool and new to me there was no way I was sleeping on the overnight flight, which of course came back to haunt me later. When I arrived in Bruxelles, I met up with a friend from the program and we walked around the city together, discovering the centre de la ville at our own leisure. It was an uncharacteristically warm day, and the lack of sleep and sun had taking its toll on me, so after a few hours of ambling I decided to retire to my glorious digs at a nearby youth hostel.
A bit separated from the downtown area (about 1 km away) the hostel was rather large, four floors and numerous rooms per floor. I checked in at 8 o’clock with a multilingual receptionist who was complaining to me in French about how some Spanish-speaking Japanese woman was yelling to him about the bathroom situation in the hostel? I am not completely certain, as I was barely awake by this time. So I took my room key and found my room, where I met one of my roommates Neal. Neal was originally from New Zealand, but has since moved to Scotland and finally London, where he teaches inner-city children in middle school. (The more I meet people in Europe the more stories I hear like this, the idea of a person being not tied to one or two nations but simply being truly international”) After Neal and I had conversed for about a half hour, I tried to sleep, but the excitement and the fact that the sun doesn’t set in Belgium until about 9 pm at this time of year kept me up. I awoke early in the morning to a complimentary breakfast and my first look at Belgian rain…uhg. It only lasted for about an hour, but it’s the cold nasty rain you don’t want to recon with.
Friday was much of the same of Thursday afternoon, walking around the city with the student who had arrived, and eating a bit of local cuisine (a friend of mine tried frogs legs, like they just took the slimy skin off and cooked the legs, haha it was kind of nasty). At 5 we met up with everyone in the group and started our orientation first with a brief meeting with Professor Jerome Sheridan, our teacher and guide throughout the semester, and also with Benedict, our housing coordinator, a native Belgian who speaks francais, flammond (the French word that I much prefer to its English equivalent Flemmish) and English. After the meeting we ate dinner at La Grande Café near La Grande Place, and at night we did a bit more wondering and exploring around the city.
Saturday we arose at 9 and ate breakfast in the hotel, it was our first experience with a Belgian breakfast and there was not the waffles that we expected. Instead there was toast, bananas and cold cuts. Cold cuts are very popular in Belgium, used at breakfast lunch and dinner. After our breakfast, we took a tour of the famous “Grand Place” in downtown Brussels. The square was originally built in the early 1600s I believe, but during a siege by the French it was all destroyed in the 1690s. In 4 years following the siege, all the guilds of the time (i.e. the brewers guild, the carpenters guild, etc, there were 40 in total) rebuilt the magnificent square, with statues proclaiming the glory of their ideals and also those resenting the French and Louis XIV, “The Sun King”. There is truly an abundance of history in Brussels, as the city was founded in the 10th century, and the people hear of whom I’ve conversed with are proud and knowledgeable of their past.
By far, the most exciting, invigorating, and amazing event that has passed since I have arrived is the situation with my homestay. It literally couldn’t be better. My host mother is of 59 years of age. She lives with her son, Sebastian and her daughter Melanie, they are 22 and 23 respectively. She is very involved with the church and her community, and it appears as though she lives with a lot of joy in her life, as friends and family frequently stop in and out of the house to visit. The house is all francophone, in my first 36 hours there, I spoke not a word of English, but already I have seen massive improvements in my comprehension and ability to talk with a bit of fluency because of it. So, while it is draining, it is what I’ve dreamt of doing for the past 3 years and I couldn’t be happier. Sebastian takes me out with his friends at night, we went to a Spanish/Brazilian Festival downtown, and then also to an outdoor party at a communications school, both of which I have never seen the likes of in the US. They were almost hilariously European: techno music, French and Spanish everywhere, excellente biere, and eccentrics dotting the crowd. My room is very similar to mine at home, a twin bed, a desk, but it also sports a grand window that looks over the yard, so not only do I get a nice breeze if I so choose, but also I get a lot of sun, its great.
Again sorry for taking so long to post (especially to you mom and dad) but I have been very busy and wanted to take time to write an inclusive first post. I don’t believe the posts après this one will be as long, so thanks for bearing with it all the way through! I hope everyone back in the states and at their respective semesters abroad are doing excellent, et a bientot!
