Cooking!

So I decided to drag myself from my room to achieve at least one goal today, cooking a meal! I decided on doing a "simple" dish, mince, pasta etc. Bought the ingredients at the shop, with no hiccups except that I accidently bought pork mince instead of beef (as I found out later when I google translated the label when wondering why the mince WOULD NOT BROWN). So I cooked the mince, with oil, then added in store bought sauce then grated carrot and courgette. Then I boiled the pasta, that was easy.

And it didn't look too bad in the end, and it tasted ok, would have been nicer if it wasn't pork.. next time, I'll see :D No complications besides the stove heating up so fast the oil started spitting everywhere, and the pasta almost overflowed when it first boiled. But alle goed!

Orientation and First Week of Classes

In Bruges

Daniel from Sweden, Steven from Belgium, me, Viktoria from Russia.. we got lost a lot :D

(Maastricht, The Netherlands)

Ok, I'm finally writing another blog, it's been so long I think I've missed so much already, and I'll probably forget to mention a lot I wanted to. Oh well. Doing laundry takes over an hour but there is internet access there so I will write this while I wait.

I got ripped off TWICE today, not happy! First some lady on the street comes up to me and hands me a clipboard, I thought it was a petition so I signed, and then it turned out she was collecting donations and everyone else had given about 50e. I said oh I can't give this much! And she says that is ok. I felt compelled to give something after all this (BUT DID NOT WANT TO) so I gave 2e, but she looked disgusted and went off in a huff. And then the laundromat machine stole 1e off me. Awful day :P Actually it was, I have no class most Friday's and there is nothing planned or anything, so I sort of did nothing all day.

Which is why I am not looking forward to this weekend, no plans, and even the exchange students are going home before the semester properly starts, to visit friends.

(Nicolas, Luc, Guy, me)

So let's see..

Last Saturday we had the trip to Bruges, which was about 1.5 hours by bus. We had a tour around all the old churches and stuff but it was about -7 at the time so we weren't entirely appreciative. Four of us ended up going to lunch at some bar, while the rest of our group went to a posh expensive restaurant. I'm sure our meal was nicer, and funner :D The orientation activities were really fun, since it provided the opportunity to finally meet other people. I have more than 1 number in my mobile phone now, yay! Ugh.

It's some historic village in Bruges, anyone can enter but it closes at night, people live here, you have to be silent when entering. There was an explanation but I didn't quite catch it :P Just google village by "The Lake of Love" :D

Then I had a Eurovision national final viewing night with Nicolas, epic night, epic Icelandic winner too. Then off to Maastricht in the Netherlands at 8 that morning to visit two of our friends, Guy and Luc. They showed us around the city, we want skating on ice in our shoes, I almost fell over many times of course. That was awesome, walking on what would usually be a boring shallow lake, turned into an outdoor icerink. Was so jealous of all the people with actual skates. And all the rivers in Maastricht were frozen and looked pretty amazing. Then we went and drank "warme chocolademelk" and cola, which actually means pepsi.. random sidenote, Dutch M&NMs taste more like New Zealand pebbles than m&ms, and are much nicer! Oh and we passed an "Australian Icecream" shop, which made me do a double take. And I was assured they are quite popular around here. But really, icecream? Australia? I can assure you all the USA and especially New Zealand have nicer ice cream than Australia. Odd. Also, I had the chance to study in Maastricht too, but I am glad I chose Leuven, even though it was a really fun day, but Leuven seems to have more of a student vibe to it, I mean the entire city is literally like a big university campus, and you feel safe walking around alone at night. And I live down an alleyway. So that's really saying something.

I heard Hadise - Dum Tek Tek in an electronics shop, that's 2 ESC songs now! :D

I am glad I didn't come here in a group with people from Australia because it's so interesting meeting people from all over the world also doing exchange, I've made friends from Italy, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Germany etc. Really fun getting to know everyone. Of course it would be nice to have the security of a set group (like all the Americans are sticking together), because it does get a bit lonely sometimes, especially on weekends like this week when I'm pretty much aimless, with no plans.

Classes started on Monday, Dutch at first was awful, the entire class is conducted in Dutch, and she used no visual aids and all her explanations were in rapid Dutch. I quickly lost all confidence in passing the class. The teacher we have on Tues/Thurs is better, so I enjoyed them a bit more. The first exam is literally during semi final 2 of eurovision and I wanted to be in Baku for that, so I have to decide whether to take the exam or not.. VERY difficult decision. My development cooperation class is interesting, the others are all awful. Mainly Art, completely pretentious/boring class, but that was to be expected.

Trying the Belgian beer!

I can't believe I've been here almost three weeks. It already feels like years since I was in Australia though. Speaking of which, every time people say "so where are you from" and I answer Australia, they seem very shocked and impressed. Because that's so far away or something. It's funny because now I can predict the reaction, set a bunch of us laughing at one stage. Some people have trouble understanding my accent, they've learned American and English accents but mine is a challenge for them, I've been asked to speak slower.

It's really good that when we pick classes here, we register for exams at the same time, so you can actually make plans, unlike QUT (although UQ is worse).

I think I've started to develop the "look away and don't make eye contact" habit of the Belgians when walking past someone on the street, oh no! Maybe I'll start saying hallo to everyone I pass, just for fun. I'd probably come across as insane though.. xD

I have yet to find normal chedder cheese, or cook. That is getting pathetic, I've told myself I HAVE to cook a meal in the next week.

Oh and I had a traumatic experience when buying what I thought was milk, until I tasted it.. turned out to be some kind of off-yoghurt tasting buttermilk stuff. I almost vomited! And it looks JUST like milk, why Belgium why xD

Ok laundry is done and I think I may have used too much washing liquid because my clothes have an overpowering soap smell now that makes me sneeze. How are you meant to know how much to put in, it's all in Dutch!

And this blog post is probably really boring, I should blog every couple of days so I can remember interesting things to blog. Another goal to add to the list ;)

Here is the song we used in our Dutch lesson when learning when to use jij/je, U, etc.

Excuse me Sir, you're in my way

I will never get used to moving to the right when people are approaching on the sidewalk from the other direction. It's ingrained into me, keep left. So many times, I've almost collided with people. It's funny, you never think about little things like this that will be different.

(me after I bought warm clothing, do I look European yet? :D)

Tomorrow it will be one week since I arrived in Belgium. I feel a lot more accustomed now, or at least, I am no longer walking into supermarkets going "WOW A BELGIUM SUPERMARKET WOW BELGIAN LOLLIES WOW BELGIAN FOOD" etc :P It's been quite a stressful week.. first on the Monday, I carried my suitcases to the bank, set up my account, it started to snow by then, that was extremely exciting. Then I carried on to the reception desk for the guesthouse, or at least I went to the address on their website.. but it was shut up, no one there. Cue panic. I walked back into the main street (or one of them, unlike Brisbane, Leuven has more than one main city street), and bought a cheap mobile phone, because I was a bit panicked by then. I called the reception and it turns out they were at a completely different address, but not open until 2pm. So I went to a fast food place called Quick for lunch, it wasn't very nice, but Nicolas and Marjo both went EW when I told them I went there so..no surprise? Then I wandered around but with my suitcases it was painful so I went to sit in the Leuven Mcdonalds (which seems to half be about 10 years behind McDonalds Coorparoo, but then they have electronic order machines that you can pay on and order at, so in other ways, better). It's weird, Mcdonalds is like the most expensive food place I've seen here so far besides the really posh places. Because the food here is so cheap! Ok but back to Monday. I stood in the snow for ages when I found reception because it's this massive courtyard and I didn't know where to go. Then I asked some lady if I could wait in another building until 2 because I was freezing (after I took photos of my first snow scenes :D) So found the reception eventually, dragged my cases across yet more cobblestones, found my room, it was absolutely freezing, the heater seemed ineffective. That's when homesickness hit me the most, it was so lonely at that moment. And my arms were in so much pain from carrying all my stuff all around town. The next day no one seemed to know the problem with my adapters, though I asked everywhere, and the only person I could contact was Nicolas, he saved me from going completely crazy and having a mental breakdown or something, because it was really worrying at this point. That was the low. Then I bought a power supply for my laptop and have been connected (albeit to an awful wifi connection) ever since, so things improved. I registered at the uni/city hall etc. Yesterday it snowed so much it was more of a blizzard, at it's peak the snow almost reached my knees. I was in the middle of the city amongst all the beautiful old buildings, it felt like a scene out of a movie or something, genuinely the most magical thing I've ever seen, the snow was falling so thick and it was so fluffy on the ground, like a cloud. I've only ever seen it flattened or thicker, like it is today, a day old. Despite the absolutely icy cold temperature I couldn't resist playing in the snow, making snowballs and such.

(JESC related CDs, most exciting this ever :P)

So now I am enjoying Belgium a lot now I am more settled, I found a house (but have not moved in yet), I know my way around a bit more. I have yet to speak to anyone in Dutch, I keep losing my nerve. I'll start small, with thank you or something. Soon. Honestly. And ignore the fear I'll do it wrong (which I will, but better to try right?) One lady in a supermarket today was saying something to me when I went to pay, I had no idea what she meant, I was worried I didn't hand over enough money, but it turned out she wanted a 1c coin to round it up, but she just kept speaking in Dutch even though I said I didn't understand at first. That was a bit e

mbarrassing. Lucky I know what een means :P But I wasn't going to brave the "do it yourself" machines in the supermarket after yesterday, when I swiped my food, paid..then went to exit. Gate didn't open. Panic. Look around. Move aside to let a lady through, who says something unitelligeble in Dutch. Apparently you need to scan your receipt to exit the supermarket here, again, embarrassing moment.

Also I'm wondering how many times I'll slide along the ice slicks on the pavement and almost fall on my ass before I actually do topple over in a heap. I'll give it a day, max. :P

Leuven is a much smaller town than Brisbane (MUCH)..population wise. BUT.. Brisbane has Queen Street, and the indoor mall there, and there's the clubbing area in the Valley, Southbank.. but really not many shopping streets. Leuven has many shopping streets, it's like the heart of the city is the entire city, there's not just heaps and heaps of empty office building skyscraper streets like in Brisbane. So it seems bigger, actually. Not being in suburbia.

I am really liking that it's a student city. The university is not just 1 campus but it's located in over 400 OLD buildings all over the city, and most people here are students, so it feels like the entire town is the uni, like a big massive uni campus. Even the streets with all the pubs and stuff don't seem to be dodgy, I wouldn't want to walk around alone at night in the valley in Brisbane, but it isn't too creepy here, I'm glad.

I've been eating dinner a lot in this one restaurant where the man recognises me straight away and calls out AUSTRALIA when I walk in the door, he's really nice, and automatically speaks to me in (very poor) English, which is somewhat comforting though I suppose defeating the point of being here but, I'll branch out soon. He told me I was always smiling tonight, that's funny, considering I told Nicolas, if we're twins, I'm the glass half empty one while he's all "OMG best JESC ever, I love every song, they're all so amazing *swoons*" :D So again, food here, so cheap! Also clothes, cheap! I never thought Australia was that expensive until now when I realise Western Europe is cheaper than us. In some things anyway, not in everything. Like trains, they are ridiculously pricey here. I think the Netherlands students get free transport, but in Belgium it's only in the city you study I think, boo.

I still can't get used to wearing so many layers, it's such an effort to get dressed/undressed really, and I may as well walk around naked considering even in all the layers it's so cold it feels like I'm wearing nothing at all. :P It's weird to see even the young children dressed more stylish than most older people in Australia, well I guess winter clothes just look more stylish than our casual thongs and bikini lifestyle.

Tomorrow I'm going to see Brussels for the first time, Nicolas is coming, despite him being a Belgian native, remind me to bring a map :P Well anyway that will hopefully be fun, though everyone says "Brussels is nothing special".. I'll see. I'm looking forward to having someone to hang out with too, I've pretty much just had my own company for an entire week now. But ah well, I can't feel too sorry for myself can I, I'm in Europe :D

There's a lot more I wanted to blog about but I keep forgetting all my observations! So, I'll save them for next time (when hopefully I'll have new photos/a working camera). And omg panic, my blogspot has set itself automatically to Dutch, lovely! :D