Woah

Well its been a whirlwind first 72 hours for me here in the capital of Belgium. The past few days have consisted of plenty of walking, instantly forgetting the names of people in my group, more walking, learning about the people of Brussels' obsession with urinating, a bit more walking, rain, forgetting more people's names, being a stereotypical tourist, some standing, somehow managing to house 4 adult sized men in a hostel room the size of an ordinary bathroom, and oh yeah beer. Here's some of what I've tried so far:

The first beer I had was from a can...

fully this one was bottled

1 euro Stellas

Gueze @ Cantillon

Rose de Gambrinus @ Cantillon 

Had this one with a chicken caesar salad. Probably not the best pairing but hey I know nothing

It just keeps going on and on

Not as good as I remember

just 1 of 2400 beers available @ Delirium

I am lucky enough to be taking part in this program thanks to CIEE. My specific program includes 50 students from schools all over the US, 40 of whom go to Penn State (Might be a tad of an exaggeration but there sure is a lot of them here). The most unique aspect of our program so far is that we were not informed of our housing situations until our third day here. Instead of being thrown directly into the abroad fire, we were given the chance to get to know the rest of our group and could let the housing coordinator know which persons we grew to hate so much in two days that we would refuse to live with them. So we spent the first two nights in a hostel located not far from the Grand Place and downtown Brussels. This location came in pretty handy on Sunday night when after about 16 hours spent in either airports or airplanes with no sleep and a further six hours of orientation, this guy needed his first drink in the land of beer and downtown Brussels has plenty of places to do so. That first night included visits to 3 bars, one of which was an absinthe bar, another had a menu the size of my head and included over 2400 beers, and the other sold Stella Artois for 1 euro. Suffice to say, beer is going to be referenced heavily in this thing and if you'd rather not hear a 20 year old male ramble on about tastes and styles he doesn't even understand, it's not too late to cut your losses and get out of here.

The next day, we were able to tour the Cantillon brewery, the only remaining lambic brewery in Brussels that still uses the same equipment and methods from the 19th century.

I have only been to one other brewery in my life, the Coors Brewery and the two could not have been more polar opposites of each other. One was nothing but metallic equipment and assembly line production, the other had a sticky floor and used a rope mechanism to move stuff between floors.

see what i mean?

Our tour guide and brewer Alfredo (Actual name) may be the closest thing to a beer God that exists today. As he showed off the various brewing equipment, Alfredo somehow managed to incorporate detailed lesson plans on physics, human anatomy and international economics into his presentation. I may not be able to remember how they make a gueze exactly but I can certainly recount how United States capitalism corrupted the taste buds of the world and the beer market for the entire world. He did also strongly resemble Albert Einstein so he pretty much is the brewing equivalent. I can't completely remember if his name was actually Alfredo. I did ask him, but had completely forgotten his response within a few minutes.

Of course, being the stereotypical American tourist that I am, you know I had to sample the legendary Belgian street food of waffles and frites. No offense to my beautiful mother's wonderful Christmas brunch Belgian waffles, but damn those Belgians know how to make a waffle. My first waffle was seeping caramelized sugar out the sides and was so sweet and delectable, adding toppings would have just been too much.

waffle selfie

Following this magnificent cherry popping waffle experience, expectations for the frites were riding high. You bet I downed those mayo drenched potato fritters in a heartbeat but unfortunately the hair that was the size of my arm I found taking shelter in the middle of the cone really turned me off and I could sadly eat no more. Perhaps I should have known better than to buy my frites from the disturbingly hairy man working at a store front that models cold and deteriorating hamburgers in the window but you know, when in Rome.

On our third day, the big announcement of where and with whom we would all be living would finally occur. This of course would not happen until after a full day of orientation at Vesalius College ( where apparently we will be taking classes or something this semester). Vesalius is a tiny college of only about 350 students, most of whom are international. We shared orientation with a group of AIS students, another American study abroad program. The awkward tension between the two groups in the same room was palpable. I can't wait for the eventual confrontation when one of them disses the hair of someone in our group and when all engage in an Anchorman style brawl (I assume the remaining news teams will consist of students from the other abroad programs in Belgiun, most of whom i met in a bar last night, and I get to stab the guy with the trident). Anywho, Vesalius only has three total classrooms and the entire organization is housed in the lower couple of floors in an office building. So following our orientation, and a presentation on housing guidelines and criteria that seemed like a cruel prank from the housing coordinator to build the suspense, we got our assignments and were sent in a cab (which we had to pay for) to our new homes.

I'm writing this post in the bed of my new home on my first night here. My apartment is in the Schaarbeek commune in Brussels, just northeast of downtown Bruxelles and only a 10 minute tram ride to the Vesalius College campus where I'll be studying. It is a 4 story house owned by a family of an unknown amount that occupies the first 2 1/2 floors. I have only met Stephanie, the land lord so far and she seems nice. the top 2 stories of the house are occupied by 4 students which includes Cesar, another student in the CIEE program, myself, a Dutch speaking girl who I have yet to meet and whose name I do not remember, and an unknown student who the landlord has met, who will be arriving on Saturday. We access the top floors of the house through the main stairwell in the house which the family below uses as well. It feels quite odd to literally just walk through someones home, not even having to communicate with them and clearly see them lounging around watching tv as if there are not 4 random young people living upstairs. That said, it is a beautiful home, the bathrooms are a lot less unorthodox then the ones i saw in France a few years ago and it will be interesting to see if I can not break any of the house rules. We all receive our own room, and have a kitchen, common area and 2 bathrooms to share between us. Cesar and I flipped a coin to decide which of us would get the clearly nicest available room on the fourth floor. I won and so here we are.

The room Cesar did not get

our living area space/whatever you would call it

kitchen

One last note on the house: I truly love redundant or just absolutely unnecessary signage. Not many other occurrences can make me chuckle as much at their sheer absurdity. The signage in this house is not quite as ridiculous as that in our beach week house from last year, but it is absurd in its own way. The toilet in the bathroom has a label on it that reads "please flush after using", which really makes me question the intelligence of previous tenants.

Now, if this was James D's study abroad blog (a nice chronicle of my friends past semester in Istanbul, which you should check out at http://jamesdigregorio.blogspot.com) this would be the point in the post where I wrap things up by having the post come full circle and leave you all with a display of wisdom. This is not James D's study abroad blog, and so I bid you adieu. Cheers.