Hi Guys,
Two days ago I had the opportunity to chat with a guy named Eugene. He did a 10 month Belgium exchange last year and as such is a very valuable resource to this year's outgoing students. Over the course of our 1 hour chat I was able to glean quite a bit of information from his experiences. Eugene designed his exchange to be entirely travel oriented. In the span of 2 semesters he managed to travel to 20 different countries in Europe and racked up an $18 000 travel bill - not including tuition at ULg. Although I definitely want to travel as much as possible, I will definitely not be Eugene level extreme. He ended up skipping most of his classes and doing a lot of travel alone as all the other students opted out of a lot of his trips. Imagine that. To be fair though, Belgian classes often have one component, such as an assignment or exam, that make up almost 100% of your mark. As long as you do well on that one thing, you're set.
To summarize the conversation in list form:
1) Set up a bank account while there, pay the one time transfer fee to transfer all your money, and use a European debit card.
2) Flights are really cheap so don't settle for cheap by Canadian standards. From Belgium to Poland (round trip) cost Eugene 40€. When he paid 75€ for flights to Rome he was later told by Belgians that they would never pay that much.
3) There is a fantastic fresh food farmer's market along the river every Sunday, year round, from 8:00 am - 1:00 pm that is relatively inexpensive. The only issue is most things are sold in bulk and fridge space tends to be limited.
4) Some bus passes and rail passes are specifically for tourists who don't know better. Eugene had a bus pass that made every bus ride equivalent to 30 cents. The tourist pass made each bus trip several dollars.
5) Travel in groups at night and always keep your eye on your stuff.
6) Www.couchsurfing.com is the way to go if you want to stay cheaply in the comfort of someone's home instead of an overcrowded hostel
7) Insist that a woman named Amanda is your exchange advisor. A woman named Joan caused some real issues for Eugene.
8) Belgium is colder than you'd think because of the humidity. Eugene is from northern BC and said he'd never been colder in his life. Minus 5 degrees Celsius in Belgium feels like our minus 20.
9) Be spontaneous. Make friends with locals. Use the opportunity to learn as much French as possible.
What fascinates me is that Eugene is now super involved with the U of L International Center and has learned proper French from that. He said most of his French has developed from hooking up Belgian exchange students with places to stay in Lethbridge and from hanging around with them here. Also interesting, he said that of the people he knew who lived in City Living Student Hotel, most came away with more Spanish or Italian than French. The international students that stay there are predominantly from Spain or Italy and as such, Canadians don't get much opportunity to practice their French.
Another thing that Eugene threw out there was that he wished he'd spent more time exploring Belgium. As great as it was to visit tons of countries, he would've liked to have gotten to know the host country more thoroughly. Also, because of all his international travels, he didn't fall in love with Liege until the very end. I think those comments have really helped to shape in my mind what sort of exchange I want to have. While I will take as many opportunities as possible to travel internationally, I want to really delve into the Liege and Belgian communities and establish a friend base.
All my best,
Jacqueline
