In Brugge.

            Last week we all traveled via train to Brugge about an hour away from Leuven! With our trusted tour guides, Dr. Hughes (DH for short), and Sue, in hand, we ventured to the railways! As part of our culture class, there are a bunch of organized trips that are included in our program, and lets just say...I don't hate it! (Although this is not proper English, it would not be acceptable to finish this post without having something included that I say in almost every exciting/new situation). We all had to meet at platform #2 at 9:30, so we decided to all take our bikes to the Leuven train station. We were told to get there early because bike parking was a little tough, especially on a weekday. I sort of shrugged it off thinking there would be a small garage with a few hundred bikes, but I was mistaken. There was a massive garage with about 50 different lots and thousands of bikes! I of course had to walk/ride ALL the way to the back to get a spot because one was snatched right in front of me (apparently I am not an "aggressive biker").  It is quite amazing to see more people traveling the streets on bikes than cars. Many of whom are with kids in tote, or my favorite, a tandem bicycle!

The Leuven bike garage on a Tuesday morning. 

A platform at the Leuven train station.

          Once we arrived at the Brugge train station we all met up to get organized. There was the usual bathroom break, and the 40 cent charge to use the facilities. That is one of the great downfalls of Europe! You cannot use the toilet in most places unless you pay, and since I am a college student on a budget, I often find myself dehydrated on trips because every penny counts! 

        We left the station and walked through a beautiful park as we walked towards the center of the city. We first entered the Begijnhof,  similar to the one DH and Sue live in, except this one was a convent...so no pictures and no talking! (Not exactly the most appealing setting for 17 energetic college students). After a quick walk through, we entered town and passed SO many chocolate stores. As a self-proclaimed chocaholic, I was in heaven. I had to pace myself because I new the day was young and there were many museums to get through before the day was over.

       There were horse drawn carriages all over the city, along with bikes and cars. I have to admit, I was very happy to realize I only had to venture through traffic full of bikes and cars, rather than adding live animals to the mix!

A horse-drawn carriage in the square.

        After a few museums, and a few too many cathedrals, it was time for lunch! We were released into the city to explore. Back to the whole budget comment earlier, I packed a lunch to enjoy on the feet of the statue in the middle of the city. It was a beautiful day and a bunch of us ate while watching the bustling city. There were so many teenagers around, it seemed as though it was their lunch break from school. Many were sitting nearby on the statue, or scattered around on the various benches on the square. It was so hard for me to imagine this just being a regular school day for these kids, it seemed as though this could not be an 'everyday occurrence.'

Lunch in Brugge.

The colorful city square of Brugge.


    After lunch we hit up a few more museums and than went on a boat ride down a local canal. We were lucky enough to find and English-speaking tour guide who was willing to take on the challenge of entertaining all 17 of us. Unfortunately, DH and Sue weren't able to come because they would not fit on the boat, it was a tight squeeze to begin with! After the boat tour we were free to go, but decided to follow DH to the windmill just a half mile out of the city. We were able to climb up to the top, and I did...not clearly thinking through my fear of heights, but YOLO! 

Although we are quite small in this picture, this is myself, Nora, Cait, and Steffi. We are all Evergreen orientation leaders back at Loyola, and it seemed only appropriate to take this picture because the summer reading for the first-years was 'The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind," a novel about a windmill. 

         With minimum hesitation, I made it all the way up into the functioning windmill. It was amazing to see it in action, and how large of a structure it truly was. The trek down was a bit more difficult because it was a ladder completely vertical, as opposed to the stairs that seemed to have more of a slant. But the bottom line was that I made it, and now I can say I was inside a windmill!

       Leaving the windmill, we were planning our trip back to Leuven. We looked up some train times and decided to make one quick pit-stop before heading to the station. One word: WAFFLES. 

Cait and I with our first Belgian waffle!

   Believe it or not, even though I have been in Belgium for almost a month, I had not had a Belgian waffle! In the stores, I had seem many packaged kinds, but I was saving myself for something fresh! Brugge seemed like the perfect location because I was immersed in the Belgian culture. To my pleasant surprise, the waffle was so light and delicious! I was afraid it was going to be a little too much to handle with all the sugar and whipped cream, but it wasn't. I pretty much licked the plate clean. 

Back to Leuven we go!

Normandy-France Part 2

Outside the Cathedral of Chartres

Early Wednesday morning we boarded the bus once again to start the second leg of our trip. We were headed to the island of Saint Malo. We made a pit stop about 2 hours in at the cathedral in Chartres, where we took a guided tour. It was another spot that was being restored, so there was a lot of construction going on when we were there. There was gothic architecture, similar to much of what I saw in Paris, but nonetheless is was a great sight to see.

Inside the Cathedral of Chatres

A message we were VERY excited to read!

Once we made it to the second hotel we put our bags down and went right to dinner because we had been on the move all day. For the second hotel spot, I was a roommate with Tissy for the second time in a row, and Chloe made up the third person in our room.

Thursday morning I woke up super early to go for a run before the scheduled days activities. After breakfast a bunch of the girls walked down to the beach to see it before high tide. We were able to walk along the sandbars out to the deserted castle in the middle. It was a rainy morning, but the mist was light enough for it to still be enjoyable. I could still not believe I was walking the beaches of France, when just about a week prior I was back home in New York.

Katie, Caroline, Me, Shayne, Tissy, Nicole, and Chloe in St. Malo.

We headed back towards town and looked into some shops before meeting with everyone to get on the bus to Le Mont-Saint Michel. We spent much of the week in France touring ancient structures, but they all were unreal. Approaching the island, I felt like I was in one of J.K. Rowling’s novels approaching Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The castle sat atop a huge mountainous island. There was one thin road leading up to the base of the hill. Once we arrived, we were told to meet up at the top just before our scheduled tour time. In small groups we navigated our way up the steep alley full of stores, restaurants, and vendors. I felt like I was truly in a magical world walking passed the thousands of people that packed this small island.

The view as we approach Le Mont-Saint Michel.

We had an English-speaking tour guide (thank goodness!), and fellow English native-speakers from Australia and Austria joined us. It was fascinating to see how many different nationalities came to see the sights of Le Mont-Saint Michel. This whole experience has opened my eyes to all the different cultures that mesh in Europe. So back to our tour-guide, she seemed to be a bit…tense. She prefaced the tour by stating that anyone who talks will be asked to leave, because she didn’t force anyone to come here…not exactly the cheerful welcome we were expecting.

The bottom of the hill, before we started our trek to the top!

But besides from the less-than-optimistic tour guide, the walk to the top of the mountain was definitely worth it. We could see for miles and miles…or kilometers and kilometers (since we’re in Europe, I still have to get used to this). It reminded me of my time in Kerry, Ireland looking out to the coast and all the green grass that seemed endless. The tour was quite in depth, we climbed staircases after staircases! There were so many twists and turns that it was hard to believe people could easily find there way around! We looked down into the marsh and were warned that people head out there on their own risk, because there is quicksand that is quite dangerous. Only experienced guides venture there occasionally, needless to say we headed to the bus when the tour concluded.

A view from the top!

Friday morning we work up early to start our trip to our 3^rd and final stop of our French adventure. We were heading to the beaches of Normandy to walk where history played out years before. I was particularly excited about this because the places we were going, I had learned about for years.

Our first stop was the Bayeux Tapestry, it was something cool to see, but not something I was too familiar with. We only stopped for about an hour, but it was amazing to see the details of the story depicted on the tapestry. We were each given a personal listening device that fed us information about the tapestry as we walked along it.

A portion of the detailed Bayeux Tapestry. 

Our next stop was a beach off the coast of Normandy where the D-Day invasion took place. It was called 'The Pointe Du Hoc.' We were most familiar with it from the scenes of the film, “Saving Private Ryan.” We saw the different trenches and structures that were still present from the days of the war. It is crazy how preserved everything was, and it was even crazier that I was standing on the land that was the witness of one of the most significant invasions in history.

The Pointe Du Hoc. You can see some of the trenches and protective structures still there. 

Katie, Shayne, and I near the coast.

Our final stop of the day (aside from a quick stop at a armory…) was Omaha Beach, another beach on the coast of Normandy. It is where the Normandy American Cemetery is located. It was an amazing sight to see the thousands of headstones lined up across the fields. It was a beautiful tribute to so many brave souls who gave their lives for our country. It was tough to see the headstones that did not had names, but rather a message stating that it was a tomb of an unknown soldier. As heartbreaking as it is to think of the families who never were able to bury their loved ones, it was comforting to think of the millions of people who came to prayer for those heroes, there at the cemetery. After walking through reading the headstones, that listed the date of passing, and the hometown of the soldier, we headed to look at the beach.

Normandy American Cemetery 

We walked for about 10 minutes down stairs, and through paths that were created to access the beach. It was so serene to look to my left and right and see nothing but sand and sea. We all went down to put our feet in the water and really soak up the moment. There were so many beautiful sights, it was hard to fully take it all in.

                                            

                                                      Omaha Beach

 After all the stops, we headed to our hotel, La Marine. We had a dinner at the hotel set up by Loyola to celebrate our last night in France. It was really nice for everyone to come together again to share our favorite experiences we had over the course of that jam-packed week. The food was delicious and we were free for the rest of the night to take in the sights.

Our hotel in Normandy.
I spy Dr. Hughes peering out his hotel room window!

Early Sunday morning, Shayne and I woke up to enjoy a run before our 7-hour bus ride back to Leuven. We walked out the door and met Steve who had woken up to see the sunrise. Shayne and I had no idea how lucky we were going to be to see the sun rise along the coastline of the beach. We decided to run in the sand, along the water, because it was so quiet during the early morning hours. The serenity was unexplainable and it was the perfect way to end the week.

Our trip back to Leuven was long, but we were all very excited to get back ‘home.’ Hard to believe we had spent more time in France by that point, than we had in Belgium. I think I could speak for everyone when I say we were ready to go back and get settled into a schedule. Dutch class here we come!

Bonjour Paris! France Part 1

          Early Saturday morning we loaded the bus that arrived just around the block from the Huis and headed for France. We had a long, but very exciting week ahead of us. It was jam-packed with scheduled activities from sunrise to sunset. The only bump in the road was that there were some issues with our new Leuven bank accounts. I had to rely on the bank of Dr. Hughes (our professor living over here with us from Loyola) to lend me the money until our accounts were all sorted out. After that small roadblock, we were on our way. It took about four hours for us to journey from Leuven to the ‘City of Light.’

All packed and ready to go!

            Once we arrived at the hotel, we took our bags up to the room and headed into the city. For each hotel we stay at, we are paired up with different roommates. In Paris, I shared a room with Tissy and Candice.

We ventured to Napoleons Tomb and the beautiful Eiffel Tower. We either traveled by taking the metro, or on foot, so we most definitely got our workout in keeping up with our tour guides, Dr. Hughes, and his wife, Sue. I consider myself a fast walker, but I learned this trip that I am not as quick as I thought! It was very hot, around 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and the sun was beating down. By the time we finished the days scheduled events we stopped by the hotel to freshen up for a few minutes before dinner.

The beautiful view from my hotel room in Paris.

      






      Dinner was fabulous! I had a salad, salmon, and a coffee sundae. I also tasted escargot! I figured I would not often have the opportunity to eat snails in a country where it is a delicacy, so I took advantage of the situation. To my surprise, the escargot tasted quite good. It was very buttery and delicious, but the texture was a little unpleasant. Half of the battle was getting my mind off the fact that I was eating a creature I would run the other way, had I found it in my backyard. 

Escargot!

The obvious natural reaction when realizing you are about to eat a snail...

The whole group in front of the restaurant after dinner.

           

The next morning I was up early to attend mass at the Cathedral of Notre Dame at 8:30am. It was absolutely gorgeous! I have come to appreciate architecture after this trip because I had never seen buildings so beautiful in my life.

Outside Notre Dame after mass.

We than ventured to the Crypte Archeologique Museum, which is located under Notre Dame and depicts all of the artifacts and structures found on that site just about 20 years ago. After we walked through the bird market (yes, there is a bird market every Sunday and there were HUNDREDS of birds down this one street in Paris) to Sainte Chappelle.. To my surprise, the beautiful Sainte Chapelle was my absolute favorite stop in Paris. It completely blew the Eiffel Tower out of the water! It is a beautiful cathedral with sky-high arches and stained glass windows. It was built hundreds of years ago, yet the execution was precise. It is remarkable how much could be done in the past, with just a minute percentage of the technology that exists today. It is currently going through restoration that should wrap up in the year 2013.

Cait and I inside the very beautiful Sainte Chapelle.

Our next stop was a medieval museum with roman baths and ancient tapestries depicting different moments in history. The Musee d’Orsay was next, it was a holding ground for some famous pieces from Van Gogh and Monet just to name a few. In the afternoon and evening we were free to explore the city and get lunch/dinner. It is important to not that when you come to France, you will be eating a LOT of bread. Baguettes are a special food group in this country because they are everywhere! It is not unusual to see people walking down the street with there own personal baguettes, taking bites as they walk.  I thought “when in Paris, do as the Parisians do,” so I ate one too many baguettes this week!

At night we went on a boat cruise on the Cen to see the sights of Paris from a different angle. We say the Eiffel Tower again, but for the first time at night. It was a spectacular sight, and I learned that at the top of every hour the tower sparkles like a diamond for five minutes. It was a magical spectacle. 

The breathtaking view of the Sen walking to the boat cruise.

Monday morning I got up early to begin the day. Shayne and I decided we would start off with a run along the Cen. It was wonderful to see the bustling city so quiet in the early morning. Once we came back and met up with the group we headed to the Louvre. The museum was enormous; I would not have been able to navigate myself around had it not been for Sue’s knowledge of the place. We made sure to stop by the world famous portrait by Leonardo de Vinci, the Mona Lisa, for pictures to remember the moment for years to come.

The Mona Lisa in the Louvre.

The Arc de Triomphe was another scheduled stop. It is another highly recognizable symbol of Paris. We climbed the 283 steps to the top where we were able to take pictures of the view that went on for miles. After making the journey down the huge spiral staircase, we all started to walk up the Shan ze lei se to windown shop. I popped into the Loius Vuitton store to see how the other half lived! As a bag lover myself, I waited on line to be able to be just an arms distance away from purses and pieces of luggage that were worth thousands and thousands of dollars.

The Arc de Triomphe

In the evening I ate my first crepe for dinner. I had a chicken and cheese crepe at a small shop up the street for our hotel. I thought there was no better time or place to have my first crepe, and I was right!

My first crepe!

For dessert we went to a local gelato shop. There were so many different flavors but I decided on a cone of Nutella and Speculoos gelato. First off, I have never seen so much Nutella in my life! For those of you who don’t know what Nutella is, it is a DELICIOUS hazelnut spread that I often eat by the spoonful. Secondly, Speculoos is something I never heard of until I arrived in Belgium. It is a spread that tastes almost like a graham cracker. The combination of the two on a cone was to die for! It was put on the cone as if each layer was a petal to a flower, true edible art.

Nutella and Speculoos gelato! Yum!

Two words: Disneyland Paris! The best spur of the moment decision I have ever made! Tuesday was our only completely free day of the whole week and we were spending it in Paris. Late Monday night everyone was planning what they wanted to do when I came up with the ingenious idea to see how close Disneyland Paris was from our hotel. It was just a few metro rides away, so the decision was made that I was going! I learned that my friend, Tissy, was a fellow Disney lover, so we planned to hit the parks bright and early the next morning!

Disneyland Paris!

After about an hour commute we were lucky enough to spot a sign that informed us we received a student discount in admission into the park. So instead of buying a ticket to just one park, we received a park hopper! We first headed to Hollywood Studios where we rode the Tower of Terror and the Rockin’ Roller Coaster just to name a few. We also we lucky enough to have a photo-op with Mickey Mouse! After a few more hours, we decided we should walk across the grounds to the Disneyland Park.

Tissy and I with Mickey!

As we walked down Mainstreet U.S.A. (yes, its even called that in France!) we decided what rides, shows, and stores we wanted to hit . We were non-stop all day making the most of the time we had. It was a fantastic way to spend our last full day in Paris. We headed home around 7 pm when the park closed to meet up with the rest of the group.

As we arrived back at the hotel around 8:30 pm we met up with the other 15 Loyola students to take the metro to the Eiffel Tower on last time. We stopped by the supermarket to get food and drinks so we could enjoy a picnic underneath the beautiful glowing lights of the Eiffel Tower. It was the perfect ending to our stay in Paris.

The girls in front of the Eiffel Tower.

On to Normandy we go!

Settling in to Leuven

Over the next couple of days we spent a lot of time setting up everything that we would need to get settled in Leuven. We went to the local bank to set up an account and made sure we changed all of our money from dollars to euros. One morning we went to Velo, a place where we could rent bicycles. Unlike in America, when you navigate the streets of Leuven, you are more likely to see bicycles than cars. I decided to rent a bike for the year because that will be my major mode of transportation.  The KU Leuven campus is quite large and a bike would make it much easier to travel to and from the academic buildings once my classes begin.

My new mode of transportation!

            One afternoon we went to the Office of International Studies at KU Leuven for a welcome reception. The day started out with another walking tour of Leuven. But this one was more specific to the university. (Yes, everyone walks everywhere in Leuven! We have been getting plenty of exercise!) There were refreshments that included snacks, as well as drinks like Stella Artois and Hoegarden, two very popular Belgian beers. At this reception we met another group of Americans who were studying abroad as well. They were students from UPenn and it was nice to see other people in the same position as us.

Some of us at the International Student Reception at KU Leuven

                 

                  Even with our very busy schedule, Shayne and I made time to go for a few runs around Leuven. We decided it was the best way to get to know our way around the city. We ran to the KU Leuven athletic complex where there were fields, tennis courts, and trails to run or bike. We had taken a walking tour of this place earlier in the week so we had an idea of where everything was.

This is one of the parks at KU Leuven close to the athletic complex. The running path is to the right and it raps around the entire park.

            

Here are some picutres of the Loyola Nachbahr Huis. This will be my new home for the next 10 months!

Our front gate.

The courtyard and view from my bedroom window.

My side of the room.

               So after a very long and exciting week, we started to get our itineraries and background information of all the places in France we would be visiting. I packed my bag and went to bed thinking about the week ahead that will be one I will never forget.

Let the Journey Begin!

      Although Hurricane Irene gave us quite the scare, our flight left as planned out of Newark Airport on Monday evening at 6:15 PM. Belgium runs on military time, so I am trying to get used to reading a clock that says 18:15 instead. The 7 hour flight was not bad at all, the plane was full, and all the Loyola students took up the last few rows. It was pretty clear who the Americans were, as we soon would learn, we seem to be a bit louder than the Europeans. From the excitement of heading out and the anticipation of what to come, there was not much that could calm us down. As the flight continued, it became clear that we should try and get as much shut-eye as we could, being that it would be around 7 AM when we landed in Brussels. 

      The more I tried to sleep, the more difficult it became, as there was a snack, than dinner, and than breakfast, there was so much action up and down the aisles of the Boeing 747. As I continuously checked the map monitoring our location on the TV screen on the back of the seat in front of me, I realized it was going to be a VERY long day. Regardless, I knew I had to be ready to take every moment in because as many of you know, YOLO! (for those of you unfamiliar with my favorite acronym, "you only live once," i'm sure you will realize how important it is to me!) 

All 17 of us ready to start the adventure of our lives

Here is a picture of the bus that came to  pick us up from the airport, and the truck that came to pick up our luggage. (Remember, we were packing for a year!)

                                     

                               Katie and I with all of our bags outside the airport in Brussels.

         Dr. Hughes greeted us at the airport to welcome us and provide us with some insight on the day. On the bus ride to Leuven, which was only about a half an hour, we learned that we would be dropped off down the block from the Loyola International Nachbahr Huis, our new home, as the bus could not make it all the way down the cobblestone streets. Driving through the city I realized how lucky I was to be in such a beautiful place. 

       Once we brought all of our bags to our rooms we headed down to register for KU Leuven, the university we are going to be studying at this year. Christel, our on-site director of the Huis we are living in, accompanied us to show us the ropes. On the way back we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some bits and pieces that could last us until our trip to France on Saturday. The experience in the grocery store was very interesting. I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to go shopping simply because EVERYTHING was in Dutch.  In about 2 weeks we will be taking a comprehensive Dutch course, but until than we have to rely on the friendly Leuvenites who are bilingual.

Something else that is completely different about most of the stores in Europe is that you have to pay for almost everything. Plastic bags at the grocery store are 20 cents, so pretty much everyone brings reusable bags. Recycling is really important here in our kitchen we have about 5 different garbage bags separating our trash. (It is quite complex, but I hope to get the hang of it soon!)You also have to pay a deposit of 1 or 2 euros to use a shopping cart to make sure you return it to the correct place when you are done.

Leuven City Hall (Debatably the most beautiful in Europe!)

After a brief walking tour of the town we returned to the Huis for an orientation. Christel and Dr. Hughes provided us with a great deal of insight about what to expect this year in Belgium, and in the evening we had a pizza dinner at Dr. Hughes’ house.  All of us received a small welcome package from our directors, it included Belgian chocolates, candy, and of course a waffle! When Shayne and I returned to our room we met our Slovakian roommate Pavla for the first time. She had moved in 2 days earlier but she had been out all day at class so this was our first time meeting in person. She is very nice and speaks English very well. It was fascinating to be around so many people who can switch from one language to another with such ease. Finally, after a very long day we were finally able to hit the hay after approximately 30 waking hours.

Our first piece of Belgian chocolate!