the english-language literature is a dead giveaway
sunday i got to drop by some of the museums. all in all it was pretty interesting. first I went to the musee des instruments de musique. it has a huge collection of instruments from all over the world. they give you a pair of headphones to wear as you walk around. when you stand near a display, you hear the instrument playing in the headphones. it was fun but a little confusing if you were walking by a bunch of things and got bombarded by bagpipes and trumpets and accordions and whatnot.
after that i went to the site archeologique du coudenberg. it's part of the old palace from the 1100s-1700s, a road, part of another nobleman's house, and the aula magna, where charles quint abdicated. it's all underground - you're actually under the place royale. you can even walk along part of a road - rue isabelle. there's arches everywhere and you can see some of the other things they found when they were excavating the area, like old armor and helmets from the 15th century.
after that i was directed to the bellvue museum by an overly-excited employee (you have to go in there to get to the underground site). the bellvue has things from the different belgian kings, but i couldn't really get into it. there were things like a letter from the prince saying what he wanted for his 8th birthday.
from there i headed over to the modern and ancient art museum. they had an exhibition on fernand khnopff, who must have been a famous belgian painter. it was nice, but i didn't have the audioguide to explain the paintings to me. i headed to the modern art museum first. it goes eight floors underground but has natural light from a big opening at the top of the building. i saw a dali painting and some other interesting things. after that i went back to the ancient art museum to try to find stuff by the few flemish painters we'd talked about in art class so far, but i didn't find much besides peter paul reubens.
the rest of this week has been pretty normal. classes are going fine so far. i want to try to get to the comic strip museum and the natural sciences museum some time soon. this weekend is our art trip to ghent, where i have to do a presentation on medieval guilds.
i've still got to check out some jazz here, but i've got to get the bulletin (an english-language weekly in brussels) to see what's going on.
i'm wondering if they have any kind of anti-smoking campaign for the kids here. it's an easy 70% of the VUB and vesalius students that smoke. it's nuts. they also seem to be fans of finishing the professor's sentences instead of just waiting for them to finish what they're saying.
it snowed last night and actually stuck to the ground. it's only about an inch or two. i'm glad i have waterproof shoes.
lunch time.

comme des connards
possibly the worst french song / knack cover i've ever heard:
http://www.mcm.net/clipbox/index.php?incId=851
click on the video icon next to "michael youn - comme des connards"
wow.

gerard depardieu is everywhere
today i saw a french-language magazine with a picture of michael moore on the cover. the title said something like "michael moore: the american that one likes"
classes have been going pretty good. i am going to do my presentation for art class during our trip to ghent (next saturday). it's on medieval guilds.
today i went for a walk downtown. i went in some music stores (instruments and records), then eventually found myself at notre dame du sablon. it is a 16th century church. the stained glass inside is probably the most impressive that i've seen so far. it's everwhere, and all of it is beautiful. the woodwork and pipe organ is magnificent as well. gilbert told us that the stained glass is illuminated from inside at night, and that it is quite a sight. i'll have to check that out.
i also went by all the museums in the area. i think i'm going to try to go on sunday and get the ticket that lets you visit all of them.
the machines at the laundromat are ridiculously small. either people wash their clothes often, or just don't wear clean clothes too much.
i noticed that i haven't seen bagels anywhere so far.
paquita told us that she is going to have us try to eat rabbit one of these days. i don't know about that.
well, back to the house.

brussels is punk rock
someone spraypainted (with a stencil) the Crass logo on one of the main doors in this building.

in the city in the rain you vanish without a trace
more photos: PHOTOS 2
saturday was a tour of the city, in a bus and walking. it was pretty nice. our art professor told us a lot of history which was nice.
sunday we walked down to the parc de la woluwe, not far from our house. it's very calm there, i like it.
stuff at the school is slowly getting organized. my european dictators class seems like it'll be very interesting. i haven't had my european studies class yet, but the first talk and tour were good. econ, ethics, and strengths should be ok.
another great belgian treat: speculoos - they're like ginger/almond cookie things. our art teacher gave us some at the grand-place on saturday.
i'm still surprised by the amount of dog poop everywhere.
here are some of the cars that people drive in brussels:
opel
citroen
peugeot
renault
smart
fiat
and a lot of mercedes and bmw's
well, i guess that's it for now

finally got onto a VUB computer.... but it's got the french/dutch keyboard.
time to try one of the other labs.
edit: yeah, you can just switch keyboard maps on the computer.. good stuff.

here comes the sun
i had my first class yesterday - history of european dictators. dr. pribic seems like he'll be an interesting teacher. there are a lot of regular vesalius (non-lafayette) students in our class. everyone is an international affairs or politics major. dr. pribic decided there wouldn't be a midterm or final because "ve all vant to be friends heah, ohhkay?"
i walked up ch. de wavre and found a nice chocolate shop that gilbert and paquita had recommended to me. now i just have to figure out how to send stuff to people.
all in all, the day was pretty slow. i just walked around the neighborhood and campus, dropping in to the computer lab at veco (which apparently is the cool way to abbreviate vesalius college?). Right now about 300 students are trying to share 3 computers.. ha! once the VUB accounts get activated and we get our IDs it should be ok - then we can use the vub computers.
still, the interesting stuff from yesterday came at dinner. it was a big belgian meal. it was the three of us, gilbert & paquita, the one daughter and her boyfriend, and the other daughter and her son. we had some kind of dish that was noodles, ham, and cream. some of them put ketchup on it and got a kick out of the sounds when the bottle was almost empty. it's really entertaining how silly they get when they're all together; it's kind of neat.
there is a painting of paquita when she was 15 in the formal dining room. she told us the story about it:
(i think she was still in spain at the time) she was someplace and this painter came up to her and said that she had an interesting face and asked if he could paint her. the painter got permission from her dad, and paquita and her dad would go down together while this guy painted her. later, the painter was selling all of paintings to this one american man. but he wouldn't sell the one painting of paquita, because he said it was "the daughter of a friend". so eventually he gave the painting back to paquita's dad as a gift. paquita never wanted to ask for it directly, but her father gave it to gilbert for his 50th birthday.
i thought it was pretty interesting. gilbert joked about how the eyes follow you or it's one of those paintings where you poke out the eyes and somebody is there looking at you.
so when the ketchup was making the pbbtthh noises they were blaming it on the painting of paquita.
after the dinner we tried some belgian and french cheeses. they were pretty good.
then coffee and a little piece of some kind of apple dessert thing. they don't fool around with their coffee here. it's ridiculously strong - almost espresso, but a whole cup's worth.
the other night paquita and gilbert were also telling us about all the places they have been to. they've been to the US a lot (new york, atlanta, hawaii, florida, washington), mexico, france, germany, bankok, hong kong, morocco, tunisia, south africa, and more. i asked if they had been to luxembourg and paquita's reply was "ah, oui... c'est triste"... she called it sad there! ha! her explanation was that there isn't much to do there, but it is still very pretty, quiet, and full of small villages.
we also found out what gilbert's job was. he was a programmer for mainframes. he spent most of his working years with the belgian bank.
i found out that there is an american counterpart to lactaid that i can get at the pharmacy. i don't think they knew i spoke english until they saw the fact sheet for it (which is in english). so that was a plus. so they wanted to talk to me in english instead of french, and the main guy spoke it fluently. it's just nice to know if there's ever a problem and i can't remember the right french words.
no real plans for today. i was going to read for my dictators class and then try to go to one of the parks or something (but i think it is going to rain later today).
there are still tons of churches and museums that i'm looking forward to seeing. the churches are all so beautiful inside and actually feel holy. it's not like lafayette's colton chapel. there's still the comic strip museum and all the history & art museums in the city. i think i'll wait to get my student ID - gilbert said a lot of places will give you discounts.
i guess that's it for now. i'm going to go be productive and free up this computer.

eh, we'll get to it
i guess there's a lot to report...
saw the atomium... much bigger than i had thought..
also went to the basillica and other places in the photos.
gilbert talked to us about iraq for a bit.he mentioned how he didn't see why we had to go in, and that all the european countries know what the people there are like and that they "know better" than to get involved in that mess. i just told him how i didn't support bush and hope that he will be gone in november.
paquita (not sure on spelling) isn't around much, so i don't have much to report on her. she gives me a good chance to speak 'en francais', which is nice.
gilbert spends most of the day in this one office-type room in the house. i asked what he does in there all day (he is retired) - but he is doing his geneology. he has traced back his family line to 1701 and has all kinds of documents, copies, and neat little things on all these people in his family.
some interesting brand name foods that have interesting european variations:
(either that or i don't pay attention at home)
lays bacon or pickle-flavored chips
sprite "ice cube": mint-tinged sprite....
tic tac "extra strong mints" - like a menthol cough drop minus the cough drop part (???). the best thing about these is that it is just a white coating on it... the actual mint is like dark brown/black...
i saw the simpsons in frech. the homer voice is very close, but marge just sounds like a chain smoking french lady.
had my first belgian waffle in belgium. wow. they're definitely winners.
vesalius is way less organized than lafayette (hence the 'eh, we'll get to it' title).classes start tomorrow and we didn't even find out where they are until today. also, each day the class is in a different room. hopefully they get their act together once classes start. we still don't have our school IDs (and consequently, internet access).
i'm still debating whether or not i should be a tool and get a cell phone.
so i found out if i either speak a little faster, slur my speech, or mumble, the french-speaking people won't automatically pick up that i am american. big plus. with some of these other kids, it's a little embarassing. some of them expect everyone they meet to be able to speak english. sheesh.
in town, i found the ancienne belgique (for rock shows) and le sounds (jazz). only thing is, the metro stops running at midnight. so i would have to cut most things short.
last night while the vesalius student government had everyone go to o'reilly's irish pub downtown - not exactly an authentic belgian atmosphere. dan, amanda, and i left since we're not into the whole drinking and hanging out in pubs thing - we got a waffle and then went to this really nice cafe on the main drag. i had a cecemel, which ended up being a really good hot chocolate.
i suppose that's it for now. i need to get to colruyt (a market) to get some regular tic tacs...
if you are reading these, please let me know with a comment.
talk to you all soon

i had to update my phone number for the house.
i will try to get a good update up later today or tonight.

photos
PHOTOS
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