Moving Along

As of this writing, I have completed my first week of classes at Vesalius College. Yes Mom and Dad, I am doing more than just drinking beer here. Much like at Richmond, I somehow finagled my way into a schedule with no Friday classes. Although its just syllabus week, I have already recognized several differences between studying abroad at Vesalius and back home at Richmond. For one, Vesalius is tiny, with a student population of about 350 students, 150 of which are students on exchange like me. The school really only possesses 2 floors in a basic office building, which include about 4 classrooms, a bathroom, a TV displaying the day’s class schedule, and a vending machine.

Yep, this is campus

All Hail Our Supreme Leader

Now you may ask where are all the basic essentials of a university campus are and the answer is that they’re all situated directly across the street on the campus of the VUB, the large Dutch speaking university in Brussels. Vesalius has some sort of partnership with the VUB where Vesalius students get access to all the VUB’s resources including buildings, food places, library, print shop, and most-importantly its pretty strong Wi-Fi. I’m not sure of the details behind the partnership, but the VUB’s Wi-Fi is better than my apartment’s so all praise VUB.

Getting to school is ridiculously easy for me. I simply start out with a two minute walk to Diamant, the train station by my house, hop on a tram for roughly 8 stops, then get off at Etterbeek station, right in front of Vesalius. Not too shabby and definitely better than taking a bus or making connections and I'm not outside that long, which is good cause its freezing in the mornings here.

Due to the school’s tiny student population, Vesalius definitely feels reminiscent of high school in certain ways. The classroom atmosphere is much more laid back than I’ve experienced at Richmond with students and faculty holding a much more level relationship with one another. Swearing is completely normal and said in the presence of whoever, so that's fun. All the full time students seem to know each other well and all my classes have about an equal number of full time students and those on exchange. I also haven't figured out if the sink in the school bathroom even shuts off, so i always run out of there as sneakily quick as possible. 

How do i drink this

The last couple of days of orientation last week included a fancy group dinner at La Mirabelle with the rest of CIEE and a Pub crawl put on by the Vesalius student government. The CIEE dinner was nothing short of extravagant. It included a 3 course meal and plenty of wine. I ate Shrimp croquettes, a bomb diggity steak and chocolate mouse. I ddidn't take pictures because, I imagine you have all seen a juicy steak before. Afterwards, a group of us went out to a place in the area called El Cafe, which i guess is a Mexican themed restaurant that turns into a club/bar at night. This was also the night I took my first Uber, which I have never really had a need to use back home. I can now say that Uber is awesome and you should use (Do they pay me for that plug now or later?). During the week in Brussels, public transport stops running at about midnight, which is interesting considering the nightlife continues well after such time, especially for young people. On weekends, theres a night bus that runs from downtown until 3am that I have only taken once so far. That again, is incredibly convenient given it drops me off three doors down from my house. I'm not sure if it's actually three doors down but i just wanted an excuse to say three doors down. 

The friday night pub crawl started at KK's, the bar on VUB's campus. Coincidentally, KK's is also the same place where the Vesalius Dean's reception was held the previous day. That was also fun, considering I got to meet the Dean and there was free beer. Yes, sometimes they even give beer away for free here. WHAT. I know. But back to the pub crawl. After  KK's a group that must've been 60-80 of us headed towards an area of Brussels called St. Gery by way of the metro. I am sure you can picture the general debauchery and rambunctiousness of a metro car filled with that many college students. Our first stop was the Halles de Saint-Gery, an old church that has been converted into a bar. It was a tad pricey, so my friend Wes and I decided the best bargain was to split 250 cl of some cheap blanche for 25 euros. When the bartender presented us with this:

blurry pictures happen. sorry folks

We knew we made the right choice. Although getting that thing back to our table on the other side of what was a large former church proved a challenge, we did make it with the beer unscathed. We also had some friends help us out with it. Next stop was the Big Game, a local pub that shows the general athletic matches of the day (I believe they call it Football here), but also has a dance floor on the second floor during weekends. That kind of set up is actually pretty common here. The Big Game is notable for it's one-Euro Stella's during happy hour, which apparently occurs every day until midnight. I realize the irony of drinking Stella in Belgium, but I am a college student, I have to have some semblance of a budget and I still have another 3+ months here. The last stop was O'Reilly's Nua, which is like the cheaper younger alternative to O'Reillys Pub a well regarded pub in the area. 

Oh this is a Bush Light you say?

The rest of the weekend featured more of the same. We checked out a couple more bars including Le Corbeau, which has boots on the menu. There was also Le Poechenellekelder, a cafe right across the street from Mannekin Pis that was surprisingly well priced for its location in the most touristy street corner of Brussels. In my time here I have also been to Celtica, an Irish bar with a 2 euro beers for happy hour every day until midnight. I don't quite understand the Belgian interpretation of the phrase "Happy Hour" but I'm not complaining. I've made a few stops there as well as Delirium Cafe, which is renowned for having a crazy huge beer selection. I believe I read they had 2004 in 2004 or something like that. Delirium is full of locals and tourists and is always packed. 

Menu @ Poechenellekelder

Hopus

Although my weekend was not just bars. Sunday, CIEE had a group lunch and then toured the Belgium Comic Strip Museum. Lunch that day was a traditional Flemish Beef stew and frites. A wonderful combination. Then we received a guided tour of the museum with a guide who only spoke in broken english and liked to move his hands a lot. Kinda like my father. Anyways, we were able to explore the museum itself and snap some quality pics:

Kriek for breakfast

me in a nutshell

too big for the smurf village 

And of course, I specifically was able to spend some quality time with my Belgian counterpart in Tintin.

Even the Wi-Fi looked like Tintin

Ezra Koenig is really just Hipster Tintin

The whole gang in space

Afterwards, a few of us explored a bit of downtown including the Cathedrale des Saints Michel et Gudule, basically a smaller Brussels version of Notre Dame.

This is my favorite picture from the Basillica

And since we went on Sunday, I can adamantly say that I went to church this Sunday, Dad.

Look Dad, I was there!

Just had to leave my mark

Then this week, CIEE organized a trip to see the film "The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her" and went out for drinks at L'Ultime Atome, a recommendation by our Program Director Michelangelo, who is deserving of a post in his own.

Michelangelo in class

The movie was good, I'd recommend it. L'Ultime Atome was another great cafe type bar which seem to be infinite in Brussels. Look at the menu:

The rest of the week consisted mostly of classes, food shopping, and cooking on my own (a lot of pasta). So, as I begin to settle in here in Brussels, I'm looking forward to whatever comes next. Cheers.

tl;dr
class, beer, bars, beer, and bars