The Arrival

After a series of flight delays, lost baggage, and screaming infants we managed to set down in Brussels around 2:30pm local time with steady snow flurries and temperatures around 22 degrees Fahrenheit. Our concierge, Andre, (who spoke French, only French) got us loaded into a van and took us straight to the CUBC center. After a brief orientation in which we were given metro passes and EU cell phones, we had an hour break and set out to find my apartment.

Two of my three roommates arrived a day ahead of myself so it was much easier to locate my new residence with their help. Once you leave CUBC you hop on the metro at the end of the block, take it through 4 stops and then jump ship, climb two flights of stairs and jump on another rail line that takes you a solid 8 stops before letting you off at the end of the line. Once out of the metro, my apartment is a short 5 minute walk through a snow covered park and down a side alley. All in all it takes roughly 30-35 minutes, depending on the train schedule, to get from my side of town to the next.

I live in a very quaint, modestly furnished 2 story, stand alone apartment. The entire building is antique hardwood flooring with matching rustic wooden furniture. My shared bedroom in on the ground floor adjacent to the kitchen/dining room that you see pictured here. The upstairs houses the bathroom, a small living area, and the second shared bedroom.

Our landlady Barbara seems very nice but I have yet to meet her husband. They live in a larger 3 story apartment in the building in front of us. Her husband is some type of artist and works from home in his basement studio.

We met up again with the rest of the Clemson group three blocks away from the CUBC center at the Montgomery hotel around 6:30pm. Once it hits 5:00pm the sun has pretty much set and you can feel the temperature drop if you stand outside for a few minutes. We all ate together at a restaurant called Primus which is in the heart of downtown Brussels and only a block away from the magnificent Grand Palace (more on that later).

I sat at the table for roughly 5 minutes staring at a menu written in a language that was unknown to me, before I turned around and asked a group of French couples behind me what a newcomer to Belgium should eat and drink in a Belgian restaurant. A hardy fellow with a pony tail, beard, and a bald spot that put Phil Reath to shame, told me to order a Belgium specialty dish called Moules et frites. He then followed up by telling me to try a Belgium beer called Duvel (devil). His endorsement of the beer was that, "It will turn American boys into Belgium men" ending with a round of laughter from himself and his comrades. The Moules et frites is essentially a huge boiling pot of white vine, paprika, chopped vegetables, and about 50 Belgian mussels. It is served with a vat of crisp french fries smothered in mayonnaise, ketchup, and paprika (I later learned that french fries with mayo is the number one eaten snack by Belgians). The mussels were quite good and french fries could have taught McDonald's a thing or two.

Dinner in Belgium is a social experience. Americans have a tendency to want to be seated, wait roughly 3-5 minutes, order their food, and expect it to be served roughly 10-15 minutes later. As explained in our intro to Belgium Orientation packet, Belgians like to "eat, drink, and socialize". Dinner took roughly an hour and a half to two hours once we paid and got our 32 person group out of the restaurant.

After dinner the group broke up, 9 of us set out to explore the city nightlife. My own past experiences with being in a city after nightfall is nothing outside of being in downtown Columbia, however this was much different. The city seems to come alive at night. Although the stores and shops close down around 6:00pm; the bars, taverns, pubs, theaters, clubs, and cafes stay open nearly 24 hours a day. The freezing temperatures and biting wind do little to keep the locals from wandering downtown after hours. Depending on what you're looking for, you can find a hangout that suits your needs (Oddly enough though, Belgians seem to have an crazy preoccupation with Taylor Swift as much as Americans do. Its is overplayed just as frequently here as it is in a Crawford Falls party). We meandered from hangout to hangout just trying to get a bearing for what all was out there.

We ended up heading in a bit earlier than we expected since pretty much everyone in our group suffered from jet lag and had received very little sleep the two days prior. All in all I am incredibly excited about being here. Its 7:30am in the morning as I finish up this post (attributed to the extreme time change) and I can just see the first light starting to appear outside. I'm about to lace up and jog through the city to see what all else I can find.

Until next time,

Thomas