My Flyer for the HC Student Fair

Recipe

milan's recipe for a tasty pasta dish:

1. Cook the pasta. 2. Take some salami/sausage and stir-fry it until it's crispy. 3. Mix the pasta with tuna in oil (one can), the salami/sausage, some cheese (gouda, emental, eidam, green cheese etc.) and with Mexican vegetable (you can buy a special mixture of Mexican vegetable, if not, just use some red beans, peas, corn and baby-carrot). 4. Put some sour cream on it. 5. Put some basil on it. 6. Serve the pasta a la Milan to the hungry Ryan :)

Hergé Museum

i went off on a solo trip today to Louvain-la-Neuve (a confusingly named sister city to Louvain (which is the French version name of Leuven)). reason for going to Louvain-la-Neuve: the super fresh Hergé museum that was officially opened just last month. it was so so so nice, such a pretty building and nice museum. i'm glad they put so much money and effort into the museum, considering how great Hergé was.

not allowed to take pictures inside but here are pictures of the building itself (so cool, in my opinion):

Tintin 4 life.

http://www.museeherge.com

Exams

i'm currently studying for an exam and it makes me SO excited to go home. which is sad cuz this has been great and it'll be super sad to leave. especially leaving my new friends, and i know they all feel the same way about leaving. it's a bummer. but i do miss nashville and everything it entails.

it's gonna be such a good feeling to finish my exams.

tomorrow it's medieval mysticism in the low countries (my first oral exam) which i'm not extremely worried about but it'll be relieving to walk out that door after finishing.

friday it's myth & symbolism, an anthropology course. could be difficult cuz most of the course i was confused, but while i was writing my paper for the course things came together. hopefully it'll be decent. it's oral too, and that stresses me out, so again, it'll be amazing to finish.

the next monday is theology & hermeneutics of the new testament. this has been looming over my head for the past 2 months, intimidating me hardcore ever since i realized i would be talking one on one with the professor, trying to sound intelligent. oral exam. i'm gonna have to study pretty hard for the few days i have before it. this will feel SO good to finish. especially if i don't crash and burn.

after that all i have is an oral for film & literature, but it's basically a conversation about the paper i wrote with my partner, so i'm not stressed about that. don't really have to study or anything. but that's the very last thing so of course it will be cool to be done.

i'm getting so close. so so so close. i will be done with the hard stuff one week from today. can't wait. and i'll be home in a little over two weeks. hello home and family and friends and good ole summer timez. i look forward to seeing y'all.

Mustaches

picture of our mustache party at the beginning of june, capping off mustache may

zach won "creepiest mustache"

jeff won "most sinister mustache"

and i won "cutest mustache" -- what? oh well

...and then there's bianka who does not have a mustache

...i finished comparative european literature, had the exam this morning. not bad. glad it's done.

Glasgow, Scotland

oh yeah, glasgow was fun, too.

Glasgow, Scotland

saw luke and stayed with him and saw lots of cool things like necropolis and one night music festival and science center and star trek in imax and loch lomond and a pie pint and play and sterling w/ the william wallace monument and more! it was a good time.

London, England

I'm gonna be honest-- I'm a little tired of maintaining this blog. I guess that's because I tell stuff to mams and paps and, if anyone else wants to know, they can just ask. But, I went to London a few weeks ago. It was fun. Met up with Amy which was a huge reason for me wanting to go (I miss my friends from Nash and Hanover). Anyways we met up, went to the National Gallery (museums are free, cool), saw Trafalgar square and all that stuff with Parliament and Big Ben, ate some Indian food, went on a fat tire bike tour around London, went to a cool area of shopping called Camden, went to Buckingham Palace and saw changing of the guard, saw Chinatown, Salvador Dali museum, British Museum, and that's about it. Spent a lot of time walking and just looking at stuff. Nice weather.

London, England

Thoughts

pictures from brussels, sometime in February.

sample question from an oncoming theology exam: "Sketch the development of the concept of inspiration in the Catholic magisterial teaching, beginning with the Council of Trent."

i'm scared.

london was good. glasgow on friday. i'll explain them later.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

i just got back this evening from amsterdam. we went for queen's day. well, we went for queen's day eve, queen's day, then left this afternoon (today is may 1st).

it was me, zach, torben, jeff, doug, and chris. we took the train to antwerp because torben knows a girl who is studying there, and we went with a group that she organized to amsterdam. we met up with that group (20+ strangers but they were nice, although i didn't talk to them much) and took a charter bus to amsterdam. once we were there we checked into our hotel then went on a canal boat ride. couldn't hear much of the commentary above but it wasn't that interesting anyways. it was pretty all the same, though. boating through canals in amsterdam is neat, i just wish we had a smaller boat and that it was open air rather than window covered and filled with old people. after that we wandered the city.

theme of this trip: wandering and standing around. queen's day itself was pretty crazy. everyone wearing orange. so many people in crowds, walking past booths of people selling whatever they have. walked through the park. amsterdam is a pretty city but i went on an overly packed holiday so it left a unique impression. there was a huge stage set up in "museumplein", filled with thousands of people. crappy music being played. we heard dj tiesto (a very popular dj) was playing that night so we decided we'd go to that. we also heard that some crazy guy drove his car at the royal family's bus during a parade. five people were killed and more were injured. we didn't think anything of it besides thankfulness that we weren't near it and outrage that this guy did that. unfortunately it also meant that festivities were cancelled. we got to the huge area where tons of people were earlier, expecting it to be more crowded, and it was completely empty of people and full full full of trash. so we spent the rest of the night just walking around, finding that places were closing, people were gone or leaving, and things were generally over.

it seemed like the apocalypse. lots of people being crazy, somewhat empty streets, and trash EVERYWHERE. so much trash. at first it was amusing but it started to get on my nerves. never seen so much trash on the streets. unfortunately i didn't take pictures of that because i left my camera at the hostel. some pictures to come.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Easter Break

i just got back last night from quite the trip. i had a little over 2 weeks break from school here in leuven for easter. so, i spent that time travelling for a solid 17 days with john and his friend, now-my-friend-too, jed. they had an even longer break from their study-abroad semester in manchester. it was a good good good trip, very refreshing to get away and see all the stuff we saw. i don't know exactly how to go about explaining the trip effectively without writing an uninviting amount of text. i kept a journal the whole time but it can be detailed and monotonous but i can outline each city. we went to: rome, san vincenzo, pisa (for maybe 3 hours), florence, venice, budapest, and vienna.



lots of songs were sung, lots of jokes were made, lots of bread & cheese & tomato & pesto were eaten.



rome: i arrived later than john and jed, but met up with them on a wednesday night. it was rainy and they were tired, and i was tired from travelling so we just got to our hostel (which is funny in and of itself-- it's basically a condominium converted into a hostel, the guy at reception seemed angry and weird, the reviews of the hostel included awful raves saying they have bedbugs, etc.). but we were okay at the hostel. we saw the st. peter's basilica, then i headed off on my own to see the roman forum, palatine hill, and colosseum (because they had already seen all of those). beautiful and ridiculous to imagine the old romans actually living there. hard for me to wrap my head around history. pretty overwhelming to listen to the audioguide and see all of it. i still feel like i have no idea about the place, but it was quite the sight to behold. went to a beer place/restaurant and then to the trevi fountain for a relaxing night-ender. then we spent about 5 hours in the vatican museum the next day. so much to see. saw the sistine chapel. too much to comprehend again, but beautiful and wonderful to see. the artists astound me-- so much time and talent and energy put into their works. life achievements are hanging and displayed all around you.



san vincenzo: beautiful little coastal town in italy. we came at an unusual time of the year, although the weather was beautiful and perfect for what we did. jed even went into the ocean, but john and i decided not to because the water was definitely pretty cold. anyways the highlight of our time in san vincenzo was simply being near the beach and staying in a wonderful little hotel right on the beach. i believe we were the only people staying at the entire hotel, so that made it all the more amazing. the woman who owned or ran the hotel was an outstandingly nice woman. we had a free breakfast in the morning which was 3 or so long tables filled with foods. she was in there waiting for us both mornings. made us a coffee of our choosing. amazing. our time in san vincenzo was spent reading, writing, relaxing, and skipping a lot of rocks. took some long-exposure night photos and played a homemade game similar to horseshoes, but with a stick of bamboo and stones. i dropped my camera in the water and it stopped working and it freaked me out.



pisa: our train from san vincenzo to florence required a connection in pisa, so we decided to walk around and see the leaning tower. i didn't take any pictures because my camera wasn't working unfortunately, but it was really neat. john took some. look forward to seeing those. i was in a sour/upset/depressed mood on the train because of my camera, but i cheered up in pisa.



florence: such a beautiful place. first night we stayed in a hostel that was just down the street from the duomo (the huge and breathtaking cathedral with such a ridiculous dome on the top). pretty nice but gladly we were able to stay with ann laurel the remainder of the days. she's studying in florence (which is ridiculous because of its beauty, but it's an american program so it seems less integrated and i'd be worried that if i studied in florence my eyes would stop seeing the beauty that it offers and it would get mundane). she lives in what i think is the more attractive part of the city, across the ponte vecchio (beautiful bridge). in florence one morning i tried my camera on a whim and it started working! so exciting and relieving. jed and i went up in the duomo. lots and lots of stairs but you get to see the terrifying painting of the last judgment plus a great view of the city. went to the accademia museum. small museum but that's where michelangelo's statue of david is. pretty amazing. just killed goliath. what a guy. went to piazza michelangelo, a place a little ways away from the city and above it, perfect to see the sunset. saw the sunset. beautiful. ate at a place where you buy a 5 euro drink then get free food to go with it. saw an italian beatles cover band at a crowded venue. the last day in florence, jed and i took a bus to a town that's above florence on the hillside. it's called fiesole and it was a relaxing way to end out the florence times. nice day, we just walked around looking over the entirety of florence. got some food from the grocery and ate in a little park. relaxed. then we headed out.

venice: we got a pretty nice hotel outside of venice the island. first night just stayed there. next day headed to the island, walked around in a pack of tourists at first. the city is enchanting because of the canals. who could resist that? it was so cool. once we got away from the feel of tourism we started enjoying ourselves more. most of our time in venice was spent wandering around. didn't do a gondala ride because they're expensive and it didn't appeal to us. got some good coffee at a place called cafe del doge. wandered around more. watched the sun set on the ocean. ate some pizza our guy at the hotel recommended. delicious. brie on a pizza? great idea. next day jed and i went to see the peggy guggenheim collection while john just hung out in a piazza/plaza/square to read. i'm glad we went, it was a nice small museum in what was peggy guggenheim's old house. quite the collection she had. pieces of surrealist art and names i actually recognized! so exciting. especially excited to see some magritte, although i didn't get to snap a picture. we walked around venice a lot, and although it doesn't seem like we did/saw much, we got a good feel for the city and wandered around the maze-like streets a lot.

budapest: to get to budapest we took a 13 hour train ride, overnight. i slept for a lot of it but we were woken about 7 times to get our passports checked. pretty frustrating. john thought it felt like a david lynch movie because it was so disorienting and bizarre. when we finally got to budapest, john's friend anna met us at the station. we got money from the atm, which is the currency of hungary, forintes. 20,000 of them equal 92 u.s. dollars. weird. budapest seemed like the u.s. more than any other city we were in, although the language was the most unfamiliar. strange. anna took us back to her family's, which is a nice apartment/condominium style thing in a suberb of the city. good place to stay. we ate lunch there then went out to see the palace. then walked around the city more with anna. hung out in a grassy area that has an area for skaters and an underground club/restaurant. pretty hip place. lots of kids hanging out there. watched rebel without a cause when we got back to her home. everyone fell asleep. went to budavari labirintus the next day. people used it for shelter from bombings in world war 2. now its a strange attraction that seems to appeal to kids and people who don't mind sacrificing historical importance for a joke. i liked it. jed and i checked out the citadel above the city. cool place, good view. walked around more, stumbled upon a horn band playing in a square. got a video, you'll see. ate some traditional hungarian food. went to a bar that is converted from a big old industrial building. like a legitimate and adult-themed rocketown. next day went to an art gallery with an exhibit on hungarian impressionist painting. saw heroes square. went to a coffee shop when it started raining. anna had a friend that knew of some band playing in some club. turned out to be the ruby suns! (whom i like). went to that. pretty nice surprise. next day we packed up and got ready for our next and last leg. anna was a good host and her family was very nice to us and i'm grateful for all that.

vienna: had the best hostel ever. vienna was just nice. clean and it seems like it has it's act together. saw one homeless person the whole time i was there. we went to joseph haydn's old house which is now a museum about exactly that. then we walked a longer route to get to the belvedere museum, which is an art museum and used to be a palace. two art museums actually. lower belvedere featured an exhibit on alfonse mucha, of whom i am now a huge fan. known for his posters. wonderful style. also went to the upper belvedere, of which their klimt pieces are probably most popular. then we ate and got to a performance. string quartet that performed 3 pieces: i think it was haydn, mozart, and dvorak. we got really cheap seats that couldn't see a thing, but the place wasn't sold out so we could move and actually peak over the balcony. it was pretty amazing. they were insanely good. well worth the price. after that we got some ice cream at the most delicious place ever, it was better than all the gelato we had in italy. might have been the best ice cream i've ever had. next day we checked out stephansdom, the cathedral. then went to the graveyard where beethoven, strauss, brahms, and more famous people are buried. got a quick lunch before we all split ways. i got a bus to the vienna airport, then flew back to brussels then took the train back to leuven.

so that's the past 17 days. phew. good time. lots and lots of sights and moving. walked so many miles. so many kilometers.

Rome, Italy

San Vincenzo, Italy

Florence, Italy

Venice, Italy

Budapest, Hungary

Vienna, Austria

Recognition

one cool thing about paris was recognizing lots of the areas from the shorts of Paris, Je T'aime. i definitely want to re-watch that one. and Amelie. supposedly our hostel was in an area where parts of Amelie was filmed.

and i want to re-watch In Bruges now, too. i think all of these movies will have an extra charm now.

also, one weird thing in paris: all the homeless people have dogs. is that a way to get you to give them money? what you're supposed to think: "oh well that homeless guy has a dog to take care of and i doubt the dog has a drug problem so i'll give him a euro or two to take care of the dog" ?

Paris, France

paris is huge. i didn't even think about it before going. but it's massive. used the metro to get everywhere-- not used to that. went with a big group (me zach mallory jennifer ali cari, then a few guys we met at the hostel). it was fun but probably could have been better. i was feeling a little sick, got so exhausted from walking around everywhere, and sort of just followed the group to each destination. all the same, i can now say i've been to paris. lots of beautiful stuff. my personal favorites were the eiffel tower (of course) and the sacre coeur. catacombs were pretty sweet, too. we had some great weather, to boot. list of places we went:

1. notre dame 2. sacre coeur 3. louvre (for free!) 4. eiffel tower 5. catacombs 6. arc de triomphe and champs elysees 7. chateau de versailles (but not inside b/c the line was huge and it was 17 euro) 8. musee d'orsay

good.

Paris, France

Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

torben, chris, doug, and i went to luxembourg city for 2 days and 1 night. we all agreed that it was a great trip. had a really fun time. played pool for the first time in so so so long, that was nice. at a "rock" bar that played katie perry and poppy stuff except for a lot of songs by the offspring. not really rock. paid 8 euro for a long island iced tea. oh well. then we went to an irish pub type place, that had actual irish people in it! cool. then got the most delicious kebab in the world (so good, basically just like a gyro...they're everywhere here and cheap). next day walked around and explored. went to a museum of luxembourg history. it was cool. they had an exhibit about religion, as well. then spent the rest of the day just perusing the city. went to a souvenir shop with the most anal owners ever, yelled at torben for touching things and then pressed an alert button (for the cops? really?). another group of people from jr. house went to luxembourg city just yesterday, they didn't like it, but we really did. they went to the same souvenir shop and had a bad experience with the same owners. terrible.

Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

Visiting Ina

thursday march 5th
first of all, mechelen train station gets a big thumbs down from me (because i have to turn my aggression somewhere). reason? to get to my destination of nijmegen i had 2 connections, the first of which was a 4 minute gap, which became a 2 minute or less gap because the first train was slow, so i missed boarding it while running to catch it. waited an hour but the next one was cancelled, so i arrived in nijmegen (the netherlands) 2 hours late to a patient ina (who, to my credit, i called from a payphone several times but she left her phone in the car by accident). anyways, she took me to her apartment in kranenburg, germany. tiny town but better living conditions than in nijmegen (where her and her 2 roommates go to university). nice roommates. settled in and hung out, ina made dinner and one of her friends came with her boyfriend. we played a game called bluff and michel (one of ina's roommates) shared his birthday beer with me. lots of german conversation that i didn't understand but lots of fun anyways (are they actually saying words or just making noise and sending mind messages to eachother?). then the 2 friends left and we played "flour cutting"(or is it cocaine?)which is a game sort of like jenga where you put a toothpick in flour and cut away until the toothpick falls and if it falls on your turn you have to get it with your mouth which leaves flour on your face and run-on sentence. then a few rounds of poker then went to bed.

friday march 6th
ina showed me around her school in nijmegen, then around the actual city part of nijmegen. nice parts with lots of shopping and stuff. walked around with her roommate who met up with us. went to a cafe and played rummikub. went back to ina's apartment then headed to wesel (ina's mom's house). ate delicious mom-made food with her mom and bro, then walked around wesel with another one of ina's friends, maerle (sp?). went to a heavy metal bar. went to the rhine. went to bed.

saturday march 7th
we had a breakfast with ina's direct family then headed to düsseldorf where her boyfriend and another friend judith lives. toured the city which was very nice. expensive shops (i.e. tiffany and gucchi and stuff like that). saw the rhine again, except in a better environment, better weather, and better lighting. tried the "old" beer of düsseldorf, which is good. ate falafel. went to the top of the rheinturm tv tower which was huge and a very nice view. walked around a little bit more then headed back to daniel (ina's boyfriend)'s apartment. ate dinner, watched german idol, then went out and about with ina. we had a beer at an outdoor place and met 2 german guys that bought us drinks and wanted to hang out with us all night. so we went to another bar where it was only old people and the 2 guys started dancing and being just kind of strange but enjoyable to watch. after long enough at that one bar where the guys were singing and dancing to every goofy song, we went to some danceclub sort of place where the guys dropped their drink expense card on us and ran. but we danced then went home and slept.

sunday march 8th
headed to cologne, germany with ina and daniel. saw the massive cathedral (biggest/most impressive one i've seen so far). saw the rhine in the rain. went to an art museum called museum ludwig, which was fun. first time to an art museum in a while. ate a wienerschnitzel for lunch. nice. twas good. then met up with a few more of ina's friends for a very brief time before i had to get on my train back to leuven. such a very good time.

Nijmegen, Wesel, Düsseldorf, Cologne

Mary Visits

mary's studying in france but she has a break currently so she's visiting for the weekend here in belgium before going to glasgow. thursday night she showed up and we luckily coincided in the streets outside of the leuven train station. we went out to experience some belgian nightlife, cuz that's really all there is to do, especially on a thursday night (which is the big night because all of the belgian students go home on the weekends). first place super packed so mary and i split from the group and got a beer and sat outside at a different place. super drunk guy that only said the word "amigo". talked to some guy in a punk band that was with him, he was actually coherent enough to talk to us for a bit, and in english, too. then met up with the other people for a bit in another bar before heading back here. bas (one of the belgian guys who lives in jr. house (which is the house i live in)) is such a character, and talked to mary in french, and just seemed all around into her. funny. but he repeatedly said how he "loves his life" and that is just an uplifting thing to hear. and i told him he could cut my hair in two weeks and he's so excited. good person to be around. so that was thursday.

friday we had another daytrip thing with the bigger group, so i went to that and left mary here. gave her a map of leuven and my keys, which she was fine with and ended up enjoying. relief. the daytrip was cool. not the best one because of several reasons (girl threw up on bus, cold and rainy, etc.) but fun anyways (for me at least). chocolate factory was a smaller tour than i expected but we got cheap delicious chocolate at the end. then we ate at an overpriced and not delicious place before seeing the three border thing (which is a small stone monument signifying the border of belgium, germany, and the netherlands). that was cool i guess, nothing that special to me. i guess i kept thinking how the borders were manmade anyways. last we went to a word war 2 american soldier cemetery. that was cool, the guide knew his stuff and told us stories about specific soldiers. it was cold, rainy, and windy so i wanted to just get out of there, but it was neat anyways. then we came back, made dinner, and watched old school. and part of the patriot before going to bed.

today (saturday) mary and i took a little daytrip to a place called Dinant, a small town in belgium. a guy on the train from brussels one night told me he was from there and it was pretty. i looked it up in google and decided that i agree. we got there, walked around a bit, and realized we wouldn't be there very long. it was beautiful beautiful but so small and not much to do. that's okay, though. it's on the river, has a beautiful church, and sweet cliff faces. there is a citadel on the top that you have to pay 7 euro to walk up to, so we decided not to. tried to find our own route to the top (we didn't think we would-- it's very high up). but we did. randomly went through a parking area, went up some stairs, then just didn't quit even when the stairs ended and the going got rough. it was fun. pretty much climbed a mountain. well even at the top there was an entrance to the citadel for 7 euro so we didn't go anyways. but we had fun. went back down to the town by road, looked around for a little while, then headed back.

pictures.

Abdij Van Park & Daytrip to Eupen, Trois Bornes, and Henri Chapelle

Dinant, Belgium

Bruges, Belgium

the pictures i took in bruges are in the post right below this one. i didn't have time to write anything, so i'll go ahead and do that now. luke visited for a week, and although i put him through pain and misery and caused him to lose some money, i think he hopefully had a good time? pain and misery = giving him bad directions and he wandered leuven for around 4 hours in the rain and dark. lose some money = the people were lame at ryanair and didn't let him board his original plane, so he had to rebook for the next day which cost him another ticket. which isn't my fault, but the bad directions bit was my fault for sure. still feel bad about that one. we didn't plan ahead...at all. but anyways, he just hung out here and we did usual business as i was going to class and feeling a little under the weather. then, on thursday, we went to bruges. we took a train sometime in the afternoon and arrived in the little town. we are both fans of the movie, so that's basically why we wanted to go. it's a nice little place. we both agreed that it would be a nice romantic getaway for two kind of place, like a honeymoon deal. because there are lots of nice little scenic spots and fancy little restaurants (expensive, too). so we wandered around the town, taking pictures whenever the spot looked worthy, and ended up walking all the way across town. small place. in a very hungry, despairing attempt to find cheap and filling food, we ate at pizza hut. so what. it was satisfying. then we found our hostel, which was pretty sweet. it included a bar and restaurant. we put our stuff away, hung out at the bar for a little bit, then explored a bit more. saw some of the same stuff we saw earlier but at night time with pretty lights and whatnot. found a very hidden little beer restaurant bar-ish kind of place called de garre that had their own beer, and you can only get it in that place. neat. finally got back to the room and went to bed. next day, free breakfast at the hostel, went and saw more sights. best sights: going to the top of the belfry tower. awesome. and also going to bruges' last brewery for a tour and a free beer. the tour wasn't amazing but it was a cool little place, and the beer was good. so was the beer and cheese soup. probably not the same as you would guess, it was different than i expected, but it might have been the best soup i've ever tasted. then we walked around seeing if we missed anything (which i don't think we really did), then hit the train back to leuven.

saturday we had a brief trip to brussels which involved wandering around, seeing some sights, visiting delirium cafe for a little bit, getting a delicious belgian waffle, then hitting the train back here.

sunday we were lazy except for a long walk into leuven, seeing a new place i had never seen that is a little park, pond/lake, and a nice little abbey. very serene and nice.

Bruges Pictures

luke and i went to bruges. i'll write about it later. this is a test to see if the link to picasa works.

bruges, belgium

Antwerp & Breendonk

they took the seats out? in antwerp

antwerp's grote markt/grand place

antwerp's city hall, valentine's day balloons, there was a wedding going on as well

splendid cathedral in antwerp

fort breendonk, became a prison camp when germany occupied belgium

during world war 2

antwerp was neat, although it would have been more fun just to stroll around rather than have a 2 hour guided tour. it was sooo cold. fort breendonk was insanely cold, too. but it was neat to see a piece of that history. that's about all i have to say about it, i like the pictures well enough to just show them and run.

Still Existing

since last time i posted stuff not much exciting to talk about, although i've had lots of fun that i cannot convey through words. finding and going to classes has been interesting, but i think i'm getting the hang of it. hopefully i have it figured out this week. other things that have happened involve hanging out with people in the kitchen (which is the social place of this house, when everyone's making dinner and hanging out, watching tv, talking, etc.). also, going to some random pubs/bars and enjoying more belgian beers. and one night was very special as the belgian guys from our house made us all tons of belgian stew and delicious fries, as well as sharing stella artois. amazing of them to do, and it turned out amazingly. it has been an interesting week for me...i'm very excited about everything still, it's so fresh but normal already. also i'm so excited because i booked a train ticket to go see ina. boss, i can't wait. and luke is coming tomorrow! yeayy. we are going to go around leuven and he'll get to try some fancy beers, and we're going to bruges and hopefully i can convince him to go to dinant also. a guy on the train last night told me he was from dinant, and i looked it up, and it looks like the most delicious place. last night we went to a place called delirium cafe in brussels. we (me zach jack anna bianca abbey mary ellen allison rachel becky vincent) took the train and went over there, where they have like 2000 (?!?) beers to choose from. http://www.deliriumcafe.be/ it was cool. i'm going to do a separate post with pictures of antwerp & breendonk, which was where we went for our daytrip yesterday.

Soulwax

i found out who the band was that the one guy said i looked like. the place was loud when he told me, i thought he said the "koala brothers" which is a little kids show. i don't look like an animated koala. but i asked some of the belgian guys last night and the clarified that the guy meant the "dewaele brothers" who are in soulwax.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Music/Pix/pictures/2008/08/29/Soulwax276.jpg

i'm assuming the one on the left. i guess a little. i get compared to people so often. man.

Owl Video

this is a remix of a highly trained owl that was at the castle of bouillon. classes are frustrating to figure out what to schedule!

Nice Belgians

belgians are nice. i say this because on saturday night they were nice to me. so i would know. a group of us followed the leader (which in this case was an RA from one of the other buildings, who is from idaho but has studied here for 2 years) to a club place that was FULL of people dancing (which in this case just swaying and touching eachother kind of thing). not my thing. so i started talking to a group of belgians, who then invited me to come with them somewhere else. it wasn't their cup of tea either. so we went to a small bar that plays only jazz over the speakers. it was closed but the bartender let us come in for one drink. my new friends bought me a kwak, which is like a tourist trap of a beer. it was good but the glass is rigged so that it spills on you if you drink it too fast. i didn't, so that's good. before i left they wrote their names down so we can be friends on facebook. noice. on the way back to my house, i walked with one of the guys who lived in the same direction, and i found a bike in the middle of the street that a drunk high schooler threw there. i took it home but it's terrible. so i left it outside yesterday. yesterday was less exciting, just woke up late walked around town figured out classes, etc.

Bouillon

today we had another group trip to bouillon, which is very southern belgium. it was very pretty. it's a really small town but the castle there is what makes it stand out. we took a 2 hour bus drive until we stopped for a weird museum experience, lunch, and a tour of the castle. the castle was amazing, it's unbelievable to imagine people making it however they did it. also there was a falconing thing where a guy showed the birds flying around and obeying him. it was pretty sweet.

view of bouillon

looking up at the castle's bridge

zach and vladimir behind me as we walk up to the castle

statue, i assume of godefroid

inside the castle

view of bouillon from on top of the castle

Lookalike

i look like a member of some belgian band, at least according to a belgian guy at a pub tonight. i searched it in google to no results. i'll take his word for it. he said, "exactly alike." i'm curious though.

Extra

a video in brussels

Extra Pictures

extra pictures

leuven's old city hall, evening right when we returned from brussels

street in brussels

old part of a castle? i forget what this is, but it's in brussels.

that guy was our gnarly tour guide.

Brussels, Belgium

yesterday we had a meeting about registering for class, then a few of us went grocery shopping at an international market and a butcher. had homemade burgers for dinner that 2 of our girls made for us. then we just hung around and were lazy.

today our PECS program and other international students from the Erasmus program had a daytrip to leuven. we took a bus there, then went straight to the European Union building where a guy gave a lecture about the EU in general. i learned more about it than i ever knew, so that's cool. then we ate lunch (i ate a belgian waffle with strawberries, chocolate, and whipped cream on it) and had free time to explore a little before our tours. brussels is sweet. it's bigger and more touristy, but i felt like less of a sore thumb cuz of that reason. that was nice, and also it was nice to hear/see some french besides just dutch. the tour was good, the guide was hilarious, good time. like the city. might be able to see deerhunter there? and girl talk? a guy from my program says girl talk is playing in brussels in march (i think) so i might go with him. here are pictures. man these are out of order. oh well. pain in the butt. click for full screen.

mural on random alley wall/door in brussels

we thought this was a guy pretending to be a statue but it wasn't.

someone was making easy money though.

street and building in brussels

me with pig graffiti on a brussels wall which i enjoy.

his name is Friezen.

some of our group after eating lunch.

"manneken pis" is an important monument in brussels

of a little kid peeing into a basin.

tintin

old old school indoor mall. fancy shops in there with quality

products. people have apartments above, which are

surprisingly cheap. unfortunately the waiting list

is so long that my kids might get an apartment

before they retire if i signed up now.

city hall in brussels

grote markt/grand place in brussels

pictures don't do it justice unfortunately.

Hastily Shot Photos in Leuven

ginormous library which i have not been inside yet

a monument i guess you'd call it, in the courtyard in front of the library

inside a ginormous church

pretty sure this is the aforementioned ginormous church

view outside our room window