12/2/2012

herro everyone, this week i finally developed pics from germany and mechelen, and i also had the opportunity to visit the city of Antwerp yesterday, and i shall get those pics soon. 

—Germany- (went in December)

Monschau:

This is the first time i have ever been to Germany and i really liked it.  I saw two cities with CIEE, Monschau and Aachen, both were amazing.  Monschau was a very small town, and although it was raining the whole time we were there, i loved it.  I really enjoyed the architecture, it looked so stunning.  I ate at this awesome restaurant inside this house were we had to cross a bridge in order to get there. 

Aachen:

This town was a bigger, and it had an awesome xmas market.  Everyone seemed very happy (probs cause it was close to xmas) and the food was pretty good.  Later at night we were able to go to a tent set up in a square and have a glass of warm wine (tastyyyy!)

German is definitely a language i can’t understand.  Everytime someone asked me a question (it seemed to happen a lot!) i would be completely lost.  Many times people would ask very detailed questions that would keep the person talking for 30 seconds while i stood there awkwardly, mouth open, uttering “uhhhhh”, trying to tell the person i didn’t speak german.  I found out too, that every noun in german is capitalized.  (this makes it easier to tell the difference between german and dutch)

—Antwerp:

I really like this city.  It is home to the second largest port in Europe, as well as a TON of diamonds.  There are also a lot of fashion designers, which makes the whole place diverse.  My friend Sharon and I had this map that gave us “a walk around the world” and it took us through the Portuguese, Turkish, African & Chinese neighborhoods.  There are also many many vintage shops and LOTS of places to shop for vinyl.  We went to a café that sold vinyl records in the back, and there were definitely artsy people walking around there.  Speaking of artsy things too, a man runs a contemporary art thingy through his house that we decided to look at and his artwork was interesting….but very weird hahha.  ALSO, We could have also gotten a chinchilla jacket for 1,585 Euros, but it didn’t look right with my shoes (what a shame!)  IFFFF i decide to get a masters degree (once i figure out my life haha) i think finding a masters program in Antwerp would be cool.  Unfortunately it is a dutch town, so i wouldn’t be able to practice my French as much, but could learn Dutch (and sound crazy when i speak!) 

—In other  news, i started my French class at the ULB this week ( i am taking “histoire, culture et religion du monde arabo-muslim = “history, culture and religion of the arab-muslim world”) the first lecture i understood probably 20% of what the professor said…. But the next class i understood probably 60% of what the professor said!  They said that understanding the professor at first is a struggle but within 3 weeks you should get his/her speaking vibe and understand like 80-90% of class (which is great! Cause the first day i was like ,” whaaaaaa…????”)  and i have 2 friends in that class who are better at French then i am, so they can help me! 

This upcoming week i have a lot of schoolwork planned, and i am going to go to the commune for my last meeting before i get my residency card (obviously things in Belgium are SLOW because i have been here like 5 months and still don’t have a residency card…. Ridiculous) (only 1 girl out of the 7 who are here for the year has hers, but my roommate got a letter today saying his is ready… FINALLY) 

And the weekend after that i am going to slovakia and Austria for sure! (only staying in Bratislava and Vienna, but i am excited!)  many good things to come

au revoir!