Happy 2 month-a-versary, Belgium!!!

Bonjour, everyone!

First of all, I owe everyone the biggest apology ever. How in the world have I let 9 full weeks pass without posting a single blog? I have no idea. As soon as we arrived in Belgium on a freezing, snowy January 8th, we immediately dived into school work and traveling on the weekends. What an unbelievable past two months it has been! I have so much to update everyone on, but I'll have to start out small. Here are some pictures and explanations of my unbelievably busy, life changing month of January:

 Starting 2010 out right with an awesome celebration at the Kellis's!

 

Anna Lauren, me, and the Aussies

Leaving from Columbia airport on Thursday, January 7th

  

touchdown on European ground

 

our incredibly tiny elevator up to our 'penthouse' that I have come to love...

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In shock when we found out we get to live in this palace!

 

view out of our window

my roomies- Sam from Charlotte and Michelle from Charleston

Renau, an exchange student from Belgium that was my neighbor in Clemson last semester, took me for a night on the town in Ghent! About an hour away from Brussels in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium.

my first famous Belgian beer! Frambroise...raspberry flavored.

St. Catherine's Cathedral

 

view outside of my bedroom window on quite a cold morning :P

 

I even got to have a reunion with the study abroad students from Clemson that were there  my freshman year! All from Belgium and 2 from Japan.
 

Basically, these pictures do not even scratch the surface of what has been going on in my life. So much has happened in the past two months. I have officially ended the first two classes of the semester, Marketing 301 and Accounting 201. Phew! They completely flew by. The split up our semester into two parts, so I had final exams last week for those two classes. It felt like the beginning of school all over again this week--probably because it was! We started Law 322 (I have an incredible professor so hopefully she'll make law more fun than I think it is... ;D) and also Finance 306. I am incredibly nervous about finance class, mainly because he spoke of the students today who failed it last year, and ALSO...it is a Belgian professor that teaches at a nearby Belgian university. Now I know that doesn't seem like a big deal- but he pretty much dissed the American system today of multiple choice and said 'Welcome to Europe...we're better than that'...so our tests will be quite intense but I'm sure I can handle it. I am also in an online class called Cultural Literacy Across Media (CLAM). It's basically about video editing and sharing our experiences in our study abroad countries through multi-modal compositions. Interesting.

Trips wise....where do I start! Just in the past two months I have been able to visit and/or spend weekends in London, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Toledo, Bruges, AND the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. What incredible experiences I've had already. I cannot wait to show pictures--I'll probably have to do a separate blog for each trip. Also my old roomie from last semester, Julia from Austria, came to visit me from February 24-28th! We had suchhh a great time catching up, talking about Clemson, seeing some of Belgium, and just enjoying each others company. I have missed that girl so much! Us 4 (Sany, Christine, Julia and I) had such an incredible semester together in the Cultural Exchange Community last semester. 

 

We were able to have two of the Belgian girls that were at Clemson last semester over for dinner and then go out on the town!

 

On another note, I'm having two more visitors come this Friday and stay for an entire week! So exciting! Anna Lauren, a friend from Clemson, is coming to stay with me in Belgium during Clemson's Spring Break. She's also bringing one of her friends, Laura.

Anyway, time to get back to some studying. I am so glad to finally have written this, and I promise there are many more updates to come. I still have so much to tell from my first two months! Thank you everyoneee for the support and letters and packages over the past two months; those mean more to me than anything and I appreciate it so much! Hearing from friends always makes me feel so much better :) 

I love you all,

Kree :)