Settling in...

Hello my faithful readers:

Today I spent most of the day running around trying to complete some of the necessary errands I could not complete this weekend because we had a holiday. Holidays here in Belgium mean that many of the stores and shops close up completely. To top the fact that it was All Saints Day here, there was also a two-day open air festival called RockMarket here in Leuven. I got to hang out at RockMarket on the first night with some of my fellow classmates and had a blast. :) I have posted a couple of pictures from the night above. We all sampled the beer and friet saus (pommes frites or french fries) that night, while getting to know each other, in a laid back environment. My only thought is that I wish there had been more of us here to see the city of Leuven during such an exciting time.

The thing that I really love so far about my program is the sense of community we as Vlerick students have with each other. Today I also met a couple of my classmates for the first time which for me is very exciting. So far everyone has been super supportive of each other and willing to share helpful information amongst the group. I found my studio because of a list one of the other student compiled and one of my other classmates shared another list of possible leads from past Vlerick students earlier today. I was quite surprised to hear that our class size will be huge at a whopping total of 90 students. To give you some perspective on my surprise last years class size was 45 students. I really hope that we can continue our sense of community with such a large group. There are over 38 nationalities represented in the entire group and I believe there are a total of 7 American students including me.

Today my errands including going to the Housing Office at the school so they could review my lease (it's written in Dutch) and trying to get a SIM card for my blackberry. I also attempted to get my student registration card today and extend my stay in the guesthouse that I'm currently staying in. Unfortunately the only things I could completely cross off my list were purchasing converter adapter plugs (Van Eyck's) and getting my lease (or contract as it is called here) reviewed, signed and back to my new landlord.

The one thing that I've found highly ironic here in Leuven is that there seems to be an abundance of Italian Restaurants and Pizzerias that serve pasta! I am not a huge fan of pasta and on average I eat it once or twice per month if given the chance. Today I insisted that I was NOT going to eat pasta today and I kept that promise to myself by grabbing a lunch at Quick (one of the burger joints here in Europe) and eating dinner with my classmates at a Thai Restaurant (I got steamed rice with my food). I've been looking around, but have yet to run into a place that sells waffles or a chocolate shop here in Leuven. I'll keep looking for that as well as a restaurant that isn't Italian.

That's about all I have time to blog about today, but I'll try to log in and share a little bit more about life here in Leuven. I hope that tomorrow I'll get a few more things crossed off my to-do list. Now I'm about to catch up on some of my American TV shows tonight before I go to bed. I spent a lot of time walking around today so I think I'll sleep very well tonight. My body clock is still adjusting to the six hour time difference, but I have started setting my alarm for 8:00 AM each day so that I'll get used to waking up at a normal hour.

Thanks everyone for all of the love, support and good wishes on my move. It's been an amazing experience so far. It's a lot of adjustment for me too and I'm realizing just how much I took for granted living in America. Things are different for me here, but in surprising ways (had no idea how much I really hated eating pasta until I was faced with it every single meal)! So I just have to say thanks for reading and I look forward to sharing some of my experiences with you.

Mwuah,

Georgia Peach