A Year In Belgium: September 2011

For those of you who did not hear about my New Years trip to Belgium all I can say is that I have never been so cold in my life. During that trip there was only one day where I saw sunlight and that was only for about 15 minutes. That sunlight was so remarkable that I actually did take a picture of it, in order to prove that it was there. This last trip left me with a rather negative opinion of Belgian weather. HOWEVER, now I have to apologize for all the negative things I said, because there actually is sunlight in Belgium.

In the last week I have not had to put on a single scarf, coat, or the usual two pairs of socks to stay warm. In fact, I have been in short sleeves for most of it. I'm LOVING the sun, but the Belgians assure me that it will be gone next week and then I will freeze again. Sometimes I think they like watching me freeze.

We have been taking full advantage of the good weather. On Saturday we went to the Ardennen, which is the "mountains" in the south of Belgium. Although I still don't think they qualify as mountains they are extremely beautiful. We spent the day on two different hikes. The first one took us through the woods and over the bridge to... a brewery. Very typically Belgian. The second hike did not involve a bar and was gorgeous. We topped out on some very tall ridges and got some nice over views of the Area. Of course the Ardennen is in the French speaking part of Belgium, and so although I wasn't surrounded by dutch, I still had no idea what anyone was saying all day.

Also yesterday we took advantage of Sepp's free day, and the sunlight, and went to Brussels. I must say its not my favorite city. It has some very beautiful buildings and great art BUT its very dirty. There is lots of trash in the streets, you don't want to lean on most walls or sit on most benches cause you have to worry about if someone peed on it and there is graffiti everywhere. I did enjoy the trip, but its not somewhere I want to spend a lot of time. If you do end up in Brussels though drop by the Cathedral. It is beautiful! Also with all of the stained glass windows it is a wonderful place to take photos because all of the light. Below are a ton of pictures from the last week. It was a fun time!

Hiking in the Ardennen. This was about the time they told me
that we were going to a bar. I thought they were joking.

The Ardennen: Notice the hiker about
half way down.

Beautiful river in the Ardennen

Cathedral in Brussels

Outside of the Cathedral in Brussels

Over view of Brussels from the top of the tree tower.

See I CAN ride a bike. :p

Lounging in the sunlight in Sepp's back yard

At the peak in the Ardennen

Another peak shot

Ardennen

This is a chocolate representation for the
most famous statue in Brussels. The actual
statue is tiny, but people travel from all over
to take pictures of it. The real statue does not
have a waffle.

If you have been to Belgium you should
know they have lots of beer. This store
boasted 250 beers.

A shopping center in Brussels

Our last adventure of the day in Brussels was
to climb to the top of the "tree tower." Its a giant
metal tower in front of the Cathedral with a live
tree on the top... I have no idea why its there.

Hello Everyone!

So I know I have said this on my past adventures but this time I really mean it: I will actually post on here on a regular basis! I will be updating this blog AT LEAST once a month, but hopefully more like once a week. That way everyone will know what I'm up to while I am gone for the next nine months in Belgium! If you are interested in my past adventures to Malta and Ghana follow the links at the bottom of this post!

Ok, now that all that business is done lets begin! I left Durango Colorado on September 12th but didn't arrive in Belgium until 2 days later. This is because I had the WORST FLIGHT EVER. Some highlights of this trip included a 6 hour layover in Phoenix (which was actually pretty nice owing to the fact that Taylor Heimann took me to dinner! THANK YOU!) I left Phoenix at 10:45pm and arrived in Philadelphia at 6:00 am. At that point I had a 12 hour layover in Philadelphia. SO 24 hours into my trip I still had not left the United States. This was also all punctuated by lovely security pat downs, explosive chemical testing, full body scans, and a full security baggage check. Maybe flying the day after the 10th anniversary of 9/11 was not a good idea. However I did finally make it to Brussels 36 hours later and customs was blessedly not a a problem.

From there I reunited with Sepp, which was wonderful. It was, however, a bit of a shock to realize that once again I am in a country where I can't understand the conversations around me. For those of you who don't know much about Belgium let me catch you up. Belgium is an itty bitty country located between Germany and France. The country has 3 languages: Flemish (a dialect of Dutch), French, and German. I am located in the Flemish part of the country in particular a town called Leuven, which houses the most important university in Belgium founded in 1425. If you couldn't tell EVERYTHING HERE IS OLD. The people in Belgium are very proud of their country and their languages. To give you an example of this: the applications for residency visas in Belgium only come in French, Dutch, or German. This makes complicated paperwork, even worse. The country side however, is very beautiful. Its very green, with rolling hills and huge fields broken up with little story book villages and small cities with amazing gothic architecture.

When we left the airport we went to Leuven, where our little apartment is located. The apartment is great. It does have a few quirks: The light switch for the study room is 2 rooms away in the bed room, and two of the rooms have these strange plastic stars embedded on the ceiling, but it is cute, clean and pretty centrally located in Leuven. Most of our furniture was donated by friends and family of Sepp which means we didn't have too much to buy for ourselves. This fact did not stop us from going to IKEA, but I will talk about that trip a little later in the post.

My first night I was still bordering on the usual "start of the trip panic." How will I deal with the language issues? How can I afford the trip? Will anyone hire me for an internship? What if I can't learn Dutch? But many of my fears were laid to rest after we went out for a drink with some of Sepp's friends that night. Leuven is host to the largest bar in Europe (which is actually a collection of several bars all spread out on the street) however, that first night we passed that party scene up and instead went to a quiet pub next to the St Peters Church (very beautiful) which was founded in 986 but burned down in 1176 and was then again rebuilt. We had a nice evening at this pub and I met some great people that i think will be excellent friends while I'm in Leuven. They all speak English and will hopefully help me learn some dutch. This certainly eased some of the worries I'd been having so far.

My second day in Belgium was taken up by IKEA. This store is HUGE. Seriously it must be the biggest store I have ever been in. Luckily Sepp and I came prepared with a list of things we thought we needed and that luckily acted as an anchor point so that we didn't get swept up in the madness that is IKEA. After 3 hours of wandering the store we did ring up a hefty bill but now I can say that our apartment is fully furnished! All that is left is some decorating and then my Belgian home will be put together!

The last two days we have been in Meerhout (Sepp's hometown where all of his family lives). This was different for me because I was finally somewhere I recognized. For those of you who don't know I spent two weeks in Meerhout with Sepp and his family over New Years last year. It was nice to see everyone again. Sepp's family is wonderfully welcoming and they are all very supportive of this trip.

One thing I was less than excited to see again was a bike. Belgians use bikes to get around everywhere. For those of you who know me well you understand why this is a problem. For those of you who don't know me well lets just say: Bikes = injury. However, I have already gone on two bike rides around Meerhout since I have arrived and so far it has gone well! No broken bones and not scrapes! Hopefully it will stay that way although I am skeptical.

Tomorrow we are going to the Meerhout Fair (apparently very different from the county fairs we are used to) and then it will be back to Leuven to sign me up for Dutch classes, and continue my internship search! I will post pictures to this post as soon as I get a chance! I hope everyone is well and feel free to email or facebook me to keep in touch! Below is a link to my Ghana Blog and my Malta Blog as well as a link to a youtube video with some good information explaining Belgium (check it out its a really entertaining video)!

Malta Blog: http://katedorrellphotography.blogspot.com/

Ghana Blog: http://ewb-naughana.blogspot.com/

Belgium Explained: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ceg6NQKHd70