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.