Union!

Hi everyone! Sorry I've been a little lax lately in posting on the blog, but not much exciting has happened in the past few days. I wanted to have enough to write about without boring you all to tears so I saved up (plus I've been pretty busy with actual school work!).

Saturday was the first day that we've been here that I was actually able to sleep in which was wonderful! I spent most of the day enjoying just lazing around our apartment and trying to catch up on school work. Caitlin (one of my roommates) and I went out for a walk in the afternoon and we just wandered around town. We stopped at a little cafe and had some coffee, which was very pleasant. We then wandered back home, which turned out to be a lot closer than I had previously thought. That night, we went out to celebrate Audrey's birthday (one of the girls on the trip with me), which was a lot of fun.

Sunday was more of the same... sleeping in, catching up on reading, and such. That night, some of us decided to be decadent and go out to dinner. We went down to the Grand Place and ate at one of the incredibly touristy restaurants down there. I doubt we will ever eat in that area again. From now on, if we go out, I think we will look for more local fare. We walked home from the Grand Place and passed some of the beautiful Brussels spots all lit up for nighttime. It was wonderful.

Monday, I went to class and did homework. Definitely not exciting. Before coming home though, we stopped at an electronics store where we bought a wireless router that we needed for the apartment and I bought a skype headset, so if anyone wants to call me I'm ready now!

Today was a bit more exciting. Instead of going to Dr. Kreppel's class, we took a class field trip to the European Commission, which is basically the bureaucratic sector of the executive branch of the European Union. I was expecting something like a tour similar to the one given at the UN (if anyone has ever done that), but instead the building was just a regular old office building. Instead of a tour, two British men who work for the Commission talked to us about enlargement of the EU and the EU's neighbor policy, which was all very interesting, but not quite what I was expecting. We still had to go to our other class so we made our way over to Vesalius after the guys were finished with their presentation. After class, I went home and did more homework (I know... a recurrent theme here. SO much homework!). Then, the guys on the trip invited all of us over to their apartment for dinner, which was very delicious, especially since I didn't have to cook.

In other news, I forgot to mention in my previous post that while in Bruges I was fortunate enough to have some real Belgian chocolates, which were deliciously sinful. They are very rich and thick and, I'm sure have no calories whatsoever. Also, in Bruges I got some real french fries. If you don't already know, french fries were not originally made in France, but in Belgium. The French just took the credit for the invention. They were, of course, delicious. However, Belgians seem to think you need sauce with your french fries. These sauces are usually mayonnaise based and a little overpowering for the french fries, which I thought needed nothing else.

Well, better close for now and get my nose back to the grindstone.

Love to all,
Courtney