Wow, so I said I was gonna post more but here I am a week later with too much to say. At least now, I have unlimited internet :)
The rest of Orientation was fun. More touring around Brussels and meeting lots of people in the program. We started Orientation for my actual school (Vesalius College or VeCo) on Wednesday. Their equivalent of OPAs are VeCo Buddies. Mine was pretty cool and started off our campus tour with a visit to the campus pub. I must say, I think I would have been a much better OPA if I could have taken my group out for a beer before the start of every program. The campus bar has Chimay (one of Belgium's famous Trappist beers that are brewed by monks) on tap but I have never received a beer with more foam in my life.
*Beer side note: Foam is much less frowned upon here than in America. Most beers have their own glasses (similar to America but here they actually care about serving the beer in the right glass) many of them are substantially larger than the quantity of beer that is to be served in them to allow room for foam. That being said, I still think the campus bar ripped me off. The foam started well below the line marking the amount of beer I was supposed to have. This actually creates quite an interesting dilemma: enjoy beers on tap because they are tastier and trust to the skill of bartenders or stick with bottles to ensure that I get the right quantity of beer? I guess I'll have to continue studying...
Anyway, the rest of the tour was good although I will be getting lost a lot. VeCo itself is all in one building but many of the classes are at VUB (the free Dutch university in Brussels) which is much larger and all of the signs are in, you guessed it, Dutch! It's a beautiful campus though and I am sure it won't be too hard to find my way around (just start from the bar!)
Thursday I took my French placement test. I placed into 103 (Intermediate I) which technically I have already taken but it is much harder here than at UMBC and they said that it is usually not a problem to convince most schools to accept the credit as a higher level french. Thursday, I also had an interview at Fulbright Belgium and was offered an internship for the semester. I am still kind of deciding whether or not I want to take it. It sounds like a really cool job but I am not sure that is how I want to spend a lot of my time abroad. I think I am leaning towards taking it (partially because it allows me to drop a Military approaches to Security class that sounds pretty awful) but I have to decide by Tuesday so I will keep you posted.
Friday I registered for classes. The system here is super inefficient. It's all done on paper and so many people register simultaneously that it seems like it would be impossible to keep track of add/drops, waitlists, etc. Luckily all the classes I wanted/needed are open. So in addition to my French and required Belgian Culture course, I am also enrolled in Development Economics and The European Union as an International Actor. Should be a good semester :)
My housing turned out great. I am in a house that has been converted to 7 different apartments with 8 people. I have a single apartment with a big living area and a lofted bed. The kitchen, laundry, and bathrooms are all shared with 6 of the housemates so it can be a little tricky. 5 of the people living here are in my program and 2 of them share the apartment on the ground floor (floor zero in Europe) and have their own bathroom and kitchen which we used last night to make a house dinner (some gourmet grilled cheeses and lots of wine). I live on the first floor and have a balcony (EXCEPT THAT I CAN'T GET TO IT BECAUSE THE WINDOWS ON THIS SIDE OF THE HOUSE DON'T OPEN!) The bathrooms also leave something to be desired. The showers are quite small and the shower head is not high enough to get my head. All in all though, I am very happy with my housing. I like that I am living with other students and the other people in the house are European and have been living in Belgium for at least a year so we have some of the inside scoop.
*Housing side note: Going on a tour of our house, our landlord says, "All of the books and things in the rooms have been left by previous residents to anything left behind is yours now." The last person who stayed in my room left half a bottle of vodka. Win!
Our neighborhood is very nice but we are still getting our bearings. Yesterday one of my housemates and I went to a grocery store and on the way home found a grocery store that was much closer. Would have been nice to know so we wouldn't have had to drag groceries as long but everything's a learning experience! We are very close to Avenue Louise which is kind of like the 5th Avenue of Brussels. It's really nice but absolutely out of my price range. Luckily there are some nice discount stores in the area too so it shouldn't bee too bad.
Last night the VeCo student government sponsored a bar hopping event (take notes UMBC) and it was pretty fun. Kind of hard to manage because there are a lot of new students but still a good time. I went out almost every day last week except for Wednesday (since I had a busy day on Thursday). I've been trying a lot of different beers and trying to get all of the Trappist beers. Chimay is a pretty popular one and is pretty tasty. I think the best value I've found is the Westmalle Triple. It's another Trappist beer that's about the same price as the others but a 9.5% and very good. I think I tried an 11% beer the other night but it was a little strong for me and I think the Westmalle is a good union of alcohol and quality. Beer is soooo cheep in the grocery store so I think we will be practicing pre-gaming a little more in the future to save some Euro. All in all though, the beers at the bars are really not that bad. I've just heard not to order beers at clubs at all. Seems like an average night is going to bars to pre-game and then maybe going out to a club later.
Tomorrow, I head to Waterloo with the program and then classes start Monday (I only have one class Monday and nothing on Thursday or Friday). This weekend, Josh and his uncle will be here and the Belgian Beer Festival will be going on around the city. Not quite as exciting as an earthquake followed up by a hurricane but it's not too bad I guess :D
Ok that seems like enough to keep you busy for now. I am going to go switch my laundry and then work on posting pictures. Happy Trails!
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