J'aime le pain!

Six days in. It's amazing how quickly you become friends with people when you're on an exchange. You meet people one day, go for a walk in the Parc Cinquantenaire the next and suddenly you're watching movies until 2am together and laughing hysterically over a drink in a pub! Four days in and I'm somehow leading other people around town, feeling like I know something of the city. Naturally, this grand knowledge roughly equates to the area between my apartment, the university and the city center with historic monuments and the cheap grocery store.

One huge difference between this exchange program and when I studied in Scotland is that this school is tiny. The University of Glasgow had around 20,000 students. Here, I think it's McDaniel-sized- 2,000 or less. That being said, the exchange program is really small, and our tiny group of 40 Erasmus students is the international population, instead of a 200 person international society like there was in Glasgow. That being said, I've essentially met everybody already! Adventures so far? Explore the city!

Le Grand Place: La Maison du Roi

Parc du Cinquantenaire 

First off it's freezing here just so you know. Legitimately. It was 18˚F all day, or -8˚C and windy! We even had a bit of snow on Monday before it got too cold for even that. So my typical gear always involves boots, gloves, a hat, and today two scarves so that I was more wrapped up than that kid in "A Christmas Story". That being said, we did explore! And when we couldn't take it anymore, we would seek refuge in a pub or café!

Saturday we took the metro downtown to the business district of Brussels, where all the big important European buildings are. In case you didn't know, Brussels is a hugely important international center in Europe, containing the headquarters for the European Union, European Parliament, European Council, Commission, and NATO. All of them, minus NATO, are located in the Espace Léopold- and so we adventured there!! Next time however, I'll go during the week when we can actually get inside- there are tours too!

The glass dome is the European Parliment

European Parliament

Essentially we explored the area by just picking a direction and walking, seeing some beautiful cathedrals and parks along the way (Brussels is full of parks that will be gorgeous come spring), and then found an adorable boulangerie, or bakery that doubled as a restaurant for lunch...and there I once again fell in love with bread. Not just any bread- French bread! Thus the title of the this post (I love bread). It's probably because I've been spoiled since a very young age; getting free bread from good family friends who owned a French bakery, but I'm a bread snob- as multiple people will tell you. But it's so good! I literally almost ate the whole basket of bread they gave us there, and convinced my new friends to take the rest home-which I ate later. And guess what? Just two blocks down from me, two minutes walk is another bakery! Hello croissants and baguettes (and huge amazing tarts and cakes. I will buy one I swear)! Speaking of baguettes... the Erasmus welcoming committee fed us a bunch as sandwiches for lunch. Yup I'm definitely taking full advantage of the bakeries here.

My extremely delicious lunch: pumpkin soup and bread! Plus, see the bowl behind the bread? My coffee! I love having it in a bowl.

Part of that Erasmus welcoming day involved exploring a bit of the Flemish countryside, which was beautiful despite the cold, and is apparently known for its moulin- or windmills (Moulin Rouge anyone?).

On another totally random note to finish this off, classes started this week! I've only had two so far, one in English and one in French. Thankfully, I could actually understand the entire French lecture on anthropology! The only really tricky part about having courses in another language is taking notes. Even writing quickly, sometimes I have no idea what the spelling is for certain words, or I understand the phrase in context, but don't know how to write it down. Luckily I met the two Belgian students next to me and they not only helped me with a phrased I missed, but took me around the Uni to where they sell syllabi. It's not a syllabus like in the US, but rather course notes and references in a huge packet- I'm definitely planning on getting them for all my courses when they become available.

Geopolitics, one of my only two courses in English was really strange, listening to the Quebecois professor speak in okay English for the whole lecture. It will take some getting used to. Four more courses to go this week!