Brussels

There was no post last week because I was on vacation with my host family, and I forgot to mention that in the previous post.

Another piece of information: about 30 seconds ago as I write this, I deleted almost all my photos from Belgium (I had almost 100). I could feel my heart sink. We're going to work with what I have; however, that is not a lot. The pictures posted here are pretty much the only ones I have.

Now that that is cleared up, let me tell you about my trip to Brussels. 

We were thirty students from the 11th and 12th grades who embarked on a 10 hour bus ride to Brussels (we stopped 4 times for about 30 min, its a law).  We did so much during the day, then during the evening we were let free to go get dinner and hang out. 

Okay, onto all the cool things I saw and did while I was there. 

I'll start with my favorite activity: going to the European Parliament. We had this hour long presentation (in German, of course) given by a Czech, and he was absolutely hilarious. He works in the Cultural Affairs department, and he educated us on the European Parliament. He explained to us the different things they do, the countries in the EU, and the different things that are currently going on in the EU. While I personally don't find this topic boring, I'm sure many people might, so he made sure to keep us engaged, make us laugh, and be light-hearted. By the way, when I say laugh, I mean a busted up, uncontrollable laughter. He even made all three of the teachers cry from laughing so hard; however, that particular joke I didn't really understand. He speaks perfect German (along with 12 other languages he knows fluently), and because German isn't his maternal language, I was able to understand him pretty well. The best part was when he was speaking German and then every few sentences he would switch accents. For example, he went from Russian to Italian to Dutch to French, and when he went to a new accent he would make a light-hearted joke about that country and its stereotype. He then took us to the big and official Parliament room where everyone meets (I don't know the official name for it).

We also went to the Grand Place, or the Central Square of Brussels. It has the town hall, a building named "The King's House," and two other buildings that are incredibly beautiful on the outside, but I'm not entirely sure what is on the inside. The Grand Place has an interesting history, but what I found the coolest is that one edifice is architecturally Gothic while the another is Baroque even though they were built at the same time and place.

Brussels Town Hall

In Grand Place

This is the example with the Gothic architecture next to Baroque

We went to Waterloo, where the famous battle was. Honestly, I didn't really know much about it, but they have this film at the visitor center to watch and I was able to learn all about it. Then there is a huge grass hill with 226 steep steps to climb with a huge lion on top. Once on top of the hill, you can see what were the battlegrounds.

We visited the Atomium, which was built in 1958 for the Brussels World Fair. There is an elevator to the top sphere where one can see a panoramic view of Brussels, then escalators through the tunnels that support the spheres take you to a series of exhibits, mostly art related.

This is taken from the internet because mine was deleted

Another of my favorite activities was visiting the NATO headquarters. We met with our guide, whose German was so slow, clear, and annunciated, I wasn't sure at first if he was actually German. We then went on a tour of the military base, which was really like a miniature city because it had everything a person could need. And here is something cool, the families that live on the base have the flag of their native country hanging outside their house so people can know where they come from. Then he gave a 1.5 hours long presentation, which similarly to the European Parliament, could be boring to some, but I enjoyed it and found it interesting to learn about. The hardest part was all the German, which I could understand when I kept my mind focused. The moment I let my mind wander, if was difficult to jump back in and pick up where he was in the presentation. 

No picture here because it's was prohibited to have cameras and cell phones at the headquarters. 

On our last day we drove to this town called Bruges about an hour away, and it was absolutely enchanting. It was the business, financial, cultural, and commercial hub of Europe during the Middle Ages. The square today has lots of shops and restaurants along with a landmark church, naturally. There is also a Historium with an audio guide tour that takes you through this fictional story but portrays life at that time through themed rooms. It was super cool. At the end, there is an exhibition with more information, and then you go out to the balcony to get a panoramic view of the city square (I had a beautiful panoramic photo but it got deleted). Afterwards, we had 3.5 hours of free time to eat lunch, go shopping, explore, and have fun because it was our last day.  

Here is a funny "lost in translation" story. The night before we left, we had a group pow wow and the teachers told us the plan for the morning because we were going to get up early, etc. I though I had understood the instructions pretty clearly but apparently not. I was curious as to why the others in my room were up so early, but I just went about my business. Then the time rolls around that we were supposed to be out of our room, and I magically make it out with all my stuff in 30 seconds. Luckily I had packed the night before, but it really was a miracle I made it out of there without looking completely like that one person who was late. When it was all said and done, I turn to my friend and tell her that I had no idea we were supposed to be ready at this time. She just kinda laughs, and it all worked out. 

I had so much fun on this trip, and the great part is that I was able to hang out with my friends for a week and get to know more people from my school!

Here are a few more photos:

This statue is super famous, although I'm not sure what is so spectacular. He is peeing into a pool of water

Here is a photo that we got together for in 1.5 seconds, but I really like how it came out.

This is funny because my friend said to get in for a photo and we other 3 immediately started doing our hair...and the photo was taken anyway :)