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

Belgium!!!

i'm in belgium now, neat. 8 hour flight which i didn't sleep on, time change made it 7:30 am when it should have been 12:30 am if you ask me. that was tiring, then we trained it to our house where we unpacked and met the RAs. ate lunch which included a tasty beer, and we were unsure if were doing things correctly and if we were the obvious americans. oh well. then we walked around exploring, then i took a 2.5 hour nap which didn't help, then we went out for a meet and greet thing to meet the other people in the program. free all you can drink of stella artois and hoegaarden. after that for a while we went to 2 different dimly lit pubs with the belgian RA guys. fun time, stayed out too late considering how tired i was.

today we woke up early to go register for school and stuff like that. ate a belgian waffle for breakfast/lunch. we had a guided tour around Leuven but the woman was quiet and i couldn't hear her and it was cold and and and it wasn't too spectacular. then we ran back to our house and got bags then went to Aldi and bought cheap groceries then ran back to a campus coffee place thing where they served dinner and offered a free drink, i got a duvel which is somehow notorious, i guess cuz its 8.5% alcohol. anyways after that we came back here and i'm typing this and i'm tired but i think we're going to do some ting.

i wonder how much longer i'm gonna get lost in this city, and if all the dutch that i can't understand is gonna bother me. time'll tell, boobheads.