February Part 2: London and Amsterdam

So after Mon-Thursday of class I hopped on a bus that took me straight to Victoria Station in London! That nice I purchased an Oyster Card (the card you need to ride on the London Public transportation including the Tube) and found my hostel before going out to eat at a local pub near my hostel. The next day (Friday) was museums! I started my day off with a croissant and coffee at the local Pret store then filled my day with the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, and the Imperial War Museum (where I stayed until it closed)! I then went to meet my UW friend Brendan for shopping on Oxford Street, dinner at Gourmet Burger Kitchen and a quick trip to go see Big Ben. The next morning I had to wake up early to go spend my Valentine’s Day at Stonehenge and in Bath, UK. Being Valentines Day, the 3 other single women travellers decided to be-friend each other and we all had fun checking out the Stonehenge and Roman Baths together. All in all it was a great long day surrounded by beautiful scenery, really cool mystery of Stonehenge, and the gorgeous Roman Baths, which are still mostly intact! I swear the Romans did everything better! Walking in and around the Roman Baths it was truly remarkable to think that so many years ago these people whom we see as more primitive and less educated than us, had truly everything they needed and more. On Sunday I kept my touring of London going with the British museum then walking over the London Bridge to Buckingham Palace where I went to see the exhibition of Prince Albert’s trip to Africa so it was another full day of sightseeing in London! Plus I got to visit with another UW friend Claire for lunch before returning on the overnight bus back to Brussels! All in all a very fun trip to London—can’t wait to return with my parents in April!

So now we get to this weekend where I did only a two day stay in Amsterdam! Since I don’t smoke I wasn’t as excited about going as some others but it was really cool actually! I did rain all weekend so I never got to hop on a bike or boat but just walking down the canal streets was really relaxing. One of the best things I did was go and see the Anne Frank House on Friday night. I got express passes online so luckily I skipped the 2-hour wait that was there when I arrived. The house itself was interesting: it was much bigger than I had imagined it would be when I read her diary (back in 6^th grade I think!) but still, it was shocking how a family like hers was so uprooted and moved is such a foreign concept to anyone today!  The biggest part of the experience was the movie that played on the way out. It was reflections from all big time world leaders, actors, survivors, authors etc. and many of these reflections were really meaningful. The one that sticks with me the most, even after leaving was one of John Green who said: “The book was turned to the page with Anne Frank's name, but what got me about it was the fact that right beneath her name there were four Aron Franks. FOUR. Four Aron Franks without museums, without historical markers, without anyone to mourn them. I silently resolved to remember and pray for the four Aron Franks as long as I was around.” I think this is so poignant because Anne Frank herself is only one story of millions who had the same experience. While also in Amsterdam, I met up with my roommates Stephanie and Nick to tour the Red Light District and go to a Bar/Café. The Red Light District was quite depressing as well. Mostly surrounded by older men and other male tourists we walked through the side street where many women were standing or sitting in little “cubbies” with glass doors in the front and stairs behind. While we only saw two men actually leaving, many “cubbies” were empty. We then went to a Bar/Café where I first experienced smoking ever. It was weird I have to say but we didn’t stay long and soon enough I was back in my hotel taking a hot shower, giving life back to my fingers and toes, and laying my socks and shoes out to dry. Yesterday I walked around a lot, as it was warmer and less rainy than Friday. I went to the Naval Museum, which was really interesting! I got to learn about whaling, yachts, slave trade, and the Dutch Empire (and how it has collapsed). I ended my stay in Amsterdam with traditional Dutch pancakes, the non-sweet kind that aren’t served with maple syrup like US people are used to.  

So today I am here, back in Brussels doing laundry at the Laundromat before starting homework for the last week before finals. Tomorrow I’ll go shopping for food and hopefully also for new shoes because my favorite shoes did break this weekend…however after all the walking I have been doing I’m not surprised at all! If you made it all the way through these two blog post I'm impressed at your reading ability and how much you love me. Anyway there was also a trip to Binche last Wednesday for Mardi Gras that I'll talk about in my next blog about staying home next weekend to study! See you then! 

February Part 1: Rome and Pompeii

Happy February everyone! So I know I haven’t updated in a very long time so here it goes. Since I last wrote I’ve had 11 days of school and 11 days of travel and it’s been amazing...though inconceivably tiring. So school is going well, not too much to report on except midterms are coming up next week and that is a very frightening thought! But on the travel side, there is too much to report but I’ll try to hit the high points of my travels and post some photos and videos for everyone to try to understand the great sights I’ve seen.

To start off February I went to Rome and Pompeii. This had always been a life goal of mine to see the ruins so at least a couple things were checked off my bucket list that weekend! When I first arrived at the airport, I was so incredibly thankful that English was one of the main languages everything was written in! Plus, with my knowledge of Latin, I can almost pick out some Italian words too so it wasn’t bad navigating the airport and streets at all! I caught a cab to the St. Peter’s Square and met up with my CIEE friend Drew for an AMAZING first meal in Rome. We both had the Carbanara, which the place was famous for and it was truly mind-blowing! It could only go up from there! The next day we met up with Drew’s friend Lincoln also from GWU and started our immense walking tour of Rome.  First up was the Colosseum. It is one of the best-kept monuments from the Roman Empire and it is just stunning! It took about two hours to fully complete the tour of the Colosseum—so massive and so much to learn from the audio guides we picked up. From there we went walking…we got lost...and just kept walking. I swear we probably walked a good 15+ miles on Friday. We saw the Pantheon, the Circus Maximum, the Trevi Fountain (which was still having work done on it but still beautiful), the Forum, Palatine and Capitoline hills, and more. Luckily we had good weather through most of it, and ate a fantastic pizza lunch next to the Pantheon so we were able to go all day! However the night was still young. We quickly returned to our rooms before going back out for dinner and bar hopping. We had another wonderful dinner near the Tiber before going out to a local bar which was very festive yet the crowd was of a significantly older population so we decided to go on to the next bar. The next one did not disappoint! Filled with tons of young college kids from all over the world, we all had fun talking to people who were either studying in Rome or visiting from their own study abroad semesters. It was very fun and had good food around it too! I had gelato and Drew had a gyro as we headed back toward the Vatican City where our B&Bs were located. The next morning was quite early, as we were to tour the Vatican at 9am! The Vatican was truly amazing. It was gorgeous from the outside statues to the huge inside tapestries. Again finding ourselves full of wonder, we toured throughout the Vatican taking in everything during our 3-hour stay. As a somewhat religious Christian I was filled with awe at just how beautiful and how well sustained the chapels and all the relics were. The history too was amazing—the fact that this small, well-sustained building surrounded by a tiny city which could be circled in about 35minutes walking… at one point (really from the collapse of the Romans until the mid-1700s) was the capital of the world! From there we had another great pizza lunch nearby before I broke off from the boys to go and continue to site-see. I hopped on a Hop-On Hop-Off bus and did a 3-hour loop around the city going to the more northern and farther out sides of the city, which was fun. Plus the bus also had an audio guide, so I got to learn and re-learn more history about the city in the past and present. I ended my night with an awesome 3-course meal plus gelato nearby the B&B and prepared for Pompeii!

So Pompeii…the highlight of my study abroad so far!

To get to Pompeii you have to go down to Naples (which is not as beautiful and as nice as many people have said) then you take a tram down the coast, which is absolutely gorgeous as you have Mt Vesuvius on one side and the Mediterranean on the other. Then you get off at the Pompeii stop and even from the tram you can see the city walls. For a refresher, Pompeii was a Roman city back in the olden, golden days of the Roman Empire however in 79AD Mt. Vesuvius erupted and surprised the town completely. No one was ready for the eruption and afterward it was seen as a city with a curse, which is why even today the ruins are in such good shape. One of the coolest yet saddest parts of Pompeii is the casts of Pompeii victims. In the 1970s when they continued excavations, one smart guy realized that there were spaces in the ash that were people and pets so he decided to create casts of these people and dogs and cats which are on display there. These casts show just how unprepared these poor people were and how scared they must have been too. Just touring around I learned so much and got to explore all different buildings and travel back into how these Romans lived. Just walking on the roads (that are still there) looking up at Mt. Vesuvius, I couldn’t imagine how frightening the experience must have been. But, at the same time it has allowed for people like me to live my childhood dream of reliving Roman times and figuring out how such amazing societies lived so long ago. Getting home to Brussels was an ordeal I won't go into here but it was something…. anyway I hope you liked part 1 of my February blog. Part 2 up soon.

The last few busy weeks...

The last few weeks have been very busy. I have started classes, started traveling and have met some pretty great people so far. I've also finally learned how to use the metro and bus lines here (thank you google maps too) so I’m starting to feel more like a local. So a quick, not as thorough as I would have wished, summary of my last couple weeks:

1)    Sightseeing:
So the first weekend, the CIEE group took a bus tour around Brussels and got to see some of the tourist sights. It was raining but still fun. I’ve also had various walking tours and have only gotten once on the metro….so that’s a win so far! I’ve seen a ton of stuff so far and have so much more planned for future travels around Belgium and around Europe. I have also been able to see more of Brussels as I have been between housing places (see #5) so I have really learned how to navigate my way around the city center and how to get from the city center to school even at 6:30 in the morning!

2)    I started classes at Vesalius College!
Vesalius College, or VeCo, is an American-style college not far from the center of Brussels. It’s very small and different from Wisconsin, with just two floors of classrooms and offices in an office building. However, it’s across from the Dutch-speaking national university, Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB), which though still small has more of a campus-y feel to it including a café, a gym, and a dining hall. This semester I’m taking four classes at Vesalius: Introductory French, Government and Politics of Global Powers, European Union Politics, and The United Nations and Global Governance. In addition, I’m taking a core class through CIEE about the history and politics etc of Belgium. So far, they seem really interesting and French isn’t too hard…yet! Plus…I only have 2-3 hours of class on Monday and Wednesday and no class Friday! 

3)    Trip to see Lex!
I went to Paris and had an amazing time chatting and seeing the sites of Paris with my cousin Lex and his girlfriend Kristina. It was so fun to see where Lex has been staying for the past few years and to experience Paris with the help of someone who has actually lived there. I did do some touristy things such as going to see Notre Dame, try a crepe, and eat a macaroon for the first time! But, I also had a great time just relaxing for the weekend, going to a few cool museums especially the History of Paris one and checking out some other nice spots like Shakespeare and Company. Overall, it was a really awesome weekend that I got to spend with family while also checking out the fun spots of Paris! I can’t wait to go back over Spring Break with the parentals.

4)    Day trip to Battle of the Bulge on the 70th anniversary of the end of battle!
Fittingly, our program visited the city of Bastogne in Belgium, on the exact day the battle ended! The Battle of Bulge for those who don’t know was the main site of the battle that took place in January and December of 1944/45 and was one of the key American victories in World War II. It was also the bloodiest battle on the Western Front for American forces, costing nearly 20,000 lives and thousands more wounded. The remains of 5,076 of these soldiers are at this cemetery in Luxembourg. As we whined about our feet being cold from standing outside for an hour, I realize how stupid we all sounded. I mean thousands of men were living through the same or worse weather for months in foxholes with the discomfort of cold feet not being anywhere equivalent to the fear of being killed at any minute. The whole experience was amazing! I feel so lucky to have toured the battle field and the American cemetery with a 80 year old man who was a small boy who had been living in the town of Bastogne when and where the Battle of the Bulge took place. 

5)    Upcoming!
So…what do I have coming up?? Well…I have class on Thursday (today is a field trip to the European Union) and then I leave Thursday afternoon for ROME! I must say I am obsessively excited about this too! After taking so much Latin, I have always wanted to explore Rome and I’m even going to Pompeii on Sunday! Its gonna be so fun. I am also in the middle of dealing with my housing. Why am I changing? Well…I was put with a cat and I am allergic to cats but since I needed to be close to school, I have decided to put up with the cat (vs the 45+min hostel to school commute) until I can figure out a permanent solution.

6)    Almost forgot….FOOD and DRINKS!
I promised my Wisco friends I would put this in here so….yes the food and drink have been amazing! Everyone who knows how much I don’t really go out will appreciate the fact that I have forced myself to go out at least twice a week to a bar and/or club and stay out until midnight. While I still enjoy staying in, I have tried to expand my horizons a bit...which I must admit, may have been kinda fun a couple times. Also if you haven’t tried Belgian frites (fries) or a Belgian waffle …I feel sorry for you because it is heaven! I might have to smuggle back many of the waffles. And while we are talking about food America doesn’t have let me mention the mass amount of difference between the cultures around food/drinks. Its SO cool how much the Belgians really love their beer! I have only seen two American beers ever on a menu! Apparently there is 11,000 types so I’m not surprised but still…very different. So between the beer and fries and waffles and pizza…I will be joining a gym very shortly :) 

So that’s most of what has been going on! Hopefully soon we will actually have a warmer, sunny day but until then I just have to remember that its still 40+ degrees higher than Madison so I don’t have a reason to complain. So I promise this time that I will update after Rome...and then after London....and then after Dublin. Yes that is my travel schedule for the month of Feb! I can't wait! Hope life in the States is going well for everyone!

Day 1, 2 and 3 in Brussels

     Tonight is the last night I will be staying in the Hostel. Tomorrow I will (finally) move into the apartment where I will stay for the rest of my time in Brussels. So far I have loved my time here! It's a very busy city except for sundays--where I have learned that nothing at all is open. I've also learned that for the busyness of the weekdays and Saturdays, all the shops and stores really shut down after 6ish which is going to take time getting used to. I've never not been around a grocery store or a CVS or a restaurant that doesn't stay open until midnight or for full 24-hours. Since I arrived on Saturday morning, I've had fun meeting many different people studying all over the US and tomorrow we all head to Vesalius College to hopefully meet more. 

     It's been a lot of fun so I'll just recap some of the fun things that I have seen and done for the past couple days. So on Saturday after arriving a group of girls took a cab to the hostel. We then went out for lunch at a burger restaurant followed by walking around in the mall that is about a block from the hostel. We ended our night first with dinner at an Italian sub shop and then onto drinks at Poechenellekelder, the puppet bar followed by the more tourist-y club/bar Delirium. Sunday, the real first day, everyone who hadn't arrived yet came and joined us at the hostel. We then jumped straight into CIEE orientation about the program and went through a few sessions on what to expect and then headed out for dinner. A few friends and I went down to the Drug Opera to have pizza. After dinner, we headed to the Big Game bar to watch the Packer game and then returned to Delirium, meeting up with almost our entire group of 50! Today, Monday we continued with CIEE orientation with a quick walk around the city followed by a crash-course section of French. This afternoon we headed to Cantillon Brewery where the brewing process has stayed the same since 1900. It is the last brewery of its kind in Belgium--there used to be over 3,000 before WWI. Cantillion uses brewing technique known as spontaneous fermentation and still uses all the same equipment that was bought second-hand in 1900 to start the brewery. The beer is very sour and lacks fizz because of the fermentation process it undergoes, so it was very interesting to try the old beer taste comparative to today's beers. Lastly tonight, the girls in my room (there are 6 of us) went out for Gyro at a Halal restaurant downtown and I had a chicken gyro with fries--very good! Tonight, after dinner, my roommates and I stayed in for tomorrow is a long day starting at 8am so it is now time for bed!