First Days of Brussels

Bon jour! from "Europe's unknown gem" (aka Belgium, more specifically, Brussels).  Around every corner you see something new, something pretty, and something pretty interesting.  Since everyone is dying to know what is going on—the two people that read this—I’ll just start from the beginning to get the full effect. Tuesday we flew out of Atlanta for a straight flight into Brussels. Now, I'm not much of a flier--before the plane actually takes off--so I was a little nervous, but having Hannah and Katie (my roommates for the trip) made me feel a little more at ease. I actually think I like international flights much better than regular across-the-USA flights because it seems that the flight attendants and everyone kind of pamper you more so than usual. The flight was about 8 hours long, and I probably slept for about 3…the rest of the time we were either chatting, eating, or watching movies…aka living the good life (except when you can only move like 5 inches in front of you, which isn’t really “the good life”).  Nevertheless, we landed safe and sound into Brussels airport. However, it took us like 30 minutes to get through security, which was ridiculous. However, we did have our first “encounter” with foreign-ish people. We had to go one-by-one to the security desk and show our passports and such and this man asked us what we were doing here, and obviously we said that we were taking classes and studying. The he just looked at us and said, “So how did you get your parents to believe that?” Umm, hello mister, I’m a good kid. I guess to the foreign eye I don’t look so innocent.

Regardless, we had to get from the airport, to the train, to the metro, and then to our hotel. First off, it’s kind of hard to do any of that when EVERYTHING is in French. Literally, eve.ry.thing.  So we bought our tickets, which turned out to be correct, but we had no idea where to go from there. We kind of just stood around and then heard a French woman say the same place that we were going, so if you know me at all, you would know that I would creepily follow her—which we did exactly. After following the nice lady, we waited for the train. Okay, please get the image in your head of three girls, going to Europe for a month, packing 50 pounds of clothing (or more!), with a carry-on suitcase and bookbag, trying to hop on a train. Doesn’t sound too promising already? Luckily, we made it work and figured out how to get on successfully. However, encounter two occurred when the train first left—except these guys weren’t so foreign. We met these two guys who just graduated from Rutgers, and are enrolled at NYU in the fall for law school, were apparently going to Israel for two months but had a layover in Brussels for like 11 hours, so they took a trip into the city and how lucky of them to run into us. Of course we went over the basics, where are you from, majors, the ushe. Except, we didn’t really buy their story because yes, they may be going to Israel for two months, but both of them only brought one backpack and one of them didn’t even bring tennis shoes. You would think that a person going to law school would think things through enough to bring tennis shoes to travel…especially Israel. Needless to say, we were not impressed.  When we got off the train, we had to hop onto the metro, which wasn’t too hard—except buying our tickets because guess again, EVERYTHING WAS IN FRENCH. After talking to a man who just stared at us because he had no idea what we were saying, we found a nicer man who spoke English and helped us out. Of course our luggage was still a pain in the rear, but it was a success. We got off the metro at St. Catherine, which is where our hotel was for the first night and also our “extended stay hotel”, the Citadines--where we're staying for the duration of our trip. 

We checked into the Ibis right after we go there, which was super nice since we could actually change and shower because let's be honest--after 24 hours of wearing the same clothes, it gets kind of gross. After showering and changing we decided to a little exploring. Of course we didn't go super far, because we had no idea how to get around, but we saw enough to be absolutely amazed. Everything is so beautiful here, but a different kind of beautiful I guess. Usually I think of old buildings and grungy and not pleasing to the eye, but in Brussels, it's totally different. I guess just the essence of seeing something practically older than anything I've ever seen before is pretty mesmerizing. The architecture of it all and the intricacies of the buildings are gorgeous and you just can't stop looking around. Obviously, I'm a tourist. After walking around we came back to the hotel for a quick nap--we had been up for essentially 24 hours, so it was needed--we decided to grab some "safe" food--aka Pizza Hut. It was good, different from home, but good. Afterwards we went back to the Ibis and to sleep...for 12 hours.

Next morning was move-in day to the Citadines and the day that everyone else (almost) was arriving. I was actually kind of excited to move in to a "permanent" place because I like routine. Scratch that, I need routine--so some sort of stability eased my apprehensiveness. BUT first we had to move all of our luggage, again. Yes, again. However, we were smarter this time and took it in two trips since our first hotel was literally 3 minutes walking distance from our current one. Nice, huh? So on our way their we found some of our classmates and ended up hanging out with them for a while and then we all went back to the Citadines to wait for our rooms to be ready. Us being super lucky, our room was ready first, so Hannah, Katie, and I got to come upstairs and unpack and relax (sort of). Our room is...quaint. When you walk in the door, there's like a rectangular hallway that leads to two rooms in front of you--one has two twin beds and another has a living room (ish) area,--which folds out to be a futon--table, and kitchenette. Of course there's a bathroom and such too. Moving along, after everyone had gotten their rooms, which took two hours longer than it was supposed to, we all met up and went out for dinner. YAY. Not being sarcastic, it was fun, but awkward (obvi) because it's always awkward when you meet people for the first time and especially when you're thrown into situations like this. Let's just get one thing straight though: EVERYTHING IS EXPENSIVE. Like seriously. It's rather ridiculous. YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR WATER. Umm hello? Water is water. You cannot pay for water unless it's Dasani. Obvi Euros are behind. Regardless of my rant, it really is expensive, even without the conversion rates. Don't even get me started on the grocery stores. Not only can I not read what I'm about to buy, but they are SO crowded. People just cut you off or run into you and don't even say "excuse me" or "I'm sorry". Last time I checked, there were French words for those so umm, use them. Thanks.

Continuing with my rant (give me one more minute to get my bitter side out), here are some things that I have learned so far about being in Brussels:

-Everything is BEYOND expensive.

-People are rude.

-People smell.

-People love their alcohol (beer or wine).

-People LOVE their Fanta. Legitly.

-Alot of people actually speak English, you just have to prod it out of them.

-They know you're American. Even if you try to hide it. THEY KNOW.

But in all seriousness, I really love being in Brussels. It's an amazing city and I've never seen so many different cultures and people in one place--but it somehow works. I've only been here a few days, but I'm so excited for the rest of it and for all of the travelling. Actually, I don't think class will be too bad either...but I'm a nerd and like that sort of thing. No worries though, I'll be more up to speed on these blogs from now on.

Au revoir!