Maastricht, Netherlands

Bonjour Everyone!

With Bee in front of the train station

Today we ducked over in to Maastricht. It was an extremely short train ride, around 30 minutes, and was extremely cheap. The return trip was €5,60! We didn't really plan our trip out very well though... We caught the 7:22 am train and thus got there around 8:00 am. Unfortunately for us, almost all the stores were closed! At least we got to see the city in a quiet and peaceful state; by the time noon rolled around the streets were packed. Our group of six met up with a bunch of the other Erasmus students. Thankfully they had stopped by the information center and gotten a map of places they wanted to see. For the rest of the afternoon we did a self guided walking tour of the city and called it a day early. With trains running almost every hour, we caught the 5:09 pm train home. 


It was short but sweet. There isn't a ton to do in Maastricht and visually it is extremely similar to the places I've been in Belgium, however, it is extremely cool to say I've been to the Netherlands.

My travel team: Bee, Kiki, Chelsa, Vick, & K Sweet

A very interesting point. There were signs posted around the city announcing the changing of their marijuana laws. Starting on October 1 they will only sell pot to residents of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. It will henceforth be illegal to sell pot to someone from any other country. Some of the students I was with said they'd heard the Netherlands were trying to improve their tourism reputation away from the pot and prostitute image. I wonder how it will effect their local business and national tourism. It was really strange to walk around and see the pot cafes and all the drug paraphernalia stores just out in the open.


Anyways, pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150811762205414.749551.619530413&l=75c53babb4&type=1

Love you all!

Jacqueline

Orientations and Birthday

Hello Friends and Family!

This past week as been a flurry of activity as HEC (the management faculty) and the ULg (Université de Liege) have been trying to get all the first years and exchange students off the ground.

On Monday the HEC campus hosted several presentations, a tour of their campus, and a free BBQ. The first presentation, an introduction of the ESN (Erasmus/Exchange Student Network) team, detailed the events they have planned for the welcoming weeks as well as the services they provide such as helping to find accommodations for newly arrived students. This came with a fairly decent welcome package courtesy of all the ESN sponsors, although it did include a few rather strange items such as a chalkboard coffee mug and a carton of pumpkin soup. The tour didn't take very long as the campus is not very big but the building can be a bit of a maze so I'm glad I attended. The second presentation, by the HEC international student director, was more informative and provided good information on what to expect from classes, how to register, and who our contacts are if we have issues. Following this presentation was the BBQ and a huge mingling of all the international students. It is truly amazing how far and wide people have come from. It is also amazing how many uses the Europeans have a for a baguette. I usually think of French bread in the context of garlic toast with pasta. Here they are used predominantly as buns for sandwiches and sausages. Such a silly detail but so be it.

On Tuesday we had an orientation of the Sart-Tillman campus. This is the main campus for the majority of students. It is a 20 minute bus ride outside of town and is surrounded by a huge forest. Whereas the presentations at HEC were done in English, the Sart-Tillman Campus is predominantly French speaking. I found it absolutely fascinating at just how much of a difference the various speakers made. There was one woman who I caught about 85% of what she was saying. From the next presenter I caught about 8% max. I'm struggling to put my finger on exactly what made the difference but holy crow did it make a difference! After a couple more speakers and introductions the director of the university spoke. He is an extremely entertaining man. He encouraged us to get out, meet the locals, congratulated us on making such a fantastic decision to go on exchange, and in Liege in particular, and joked about the sub tropical climate. I appreciated the weather comments. If it is even possible, the weather changes more rapidly and less predictably than even Alberta's! He finished with an amusing comment, something to the effect of, "For those of you with significant others back home... don't worry. You'll find everything you need here". His whole demeanor was extremely pleasant and his welcoming message was extremely well delivered. After the presentation we were free to explore the different booths of activities offered at ULg and a free lunch was served. Unfortunately, because they were orienting Erasmus and first year students on the same day, everything was SO crowded. It was impossible to get through the crowds and lineups took forever. Chelsa, Bryanna, Kiersten, and I ended up leaving after lunch instead of staying for the guided tours because even at HEC the day before when crowds were a quarter of the size, the groups were still too big to hear the tour guides properly. We have decided to go back and explore on our own on a different day and at our own pace. It didn't help our motivation any that Bryanna is the only one with classes on that campus. Around 17h00 I went for a run with TK (Taiwanese Kevin) and we sure motored! We went down a similar route to the one I had run the previous week - it's about 7 km and follows the river. He found a way to incorporate more of the park paths into his route though. It was extremely lovely and I can't wait to go again!

Mercredi, le 14 septembre. Aussi mon anniversaire! J'ai vingt ans! Finally entered into a new decade and I couldn't be more motivated. Even though it was another orientation day, my friends still managed to make it special. At 11:30 am we met up and found a nice Italian restaurant with outdoor seating to sit down at and people watch. They surprised me with a beautiful chocolate cake which we unfortunately ran out of time to eat! Wednesday afternoon was another orientation at a different city center campus building. This one was Erasmus specific again. We were told that there are about 500 Erasmus students in Liege this semester. Quite a large group! This presentation, of similar information to the others, was followed by guided tour of the city. Unfortunately, since we have been here for almost 3 weeks already, we found the tour a little redundant and not altogether helpful. As such, we slipped out after the first half hour and found our way to a shoe store. I picked up some fantastic high heeled boots. Joyeux anniversaire à moi! In the early evening I was invited to a BBQ at one of the ESN team member's houses. When I said I wanted to learn French, I never thought it would be via French language drinking songs! However, they didn't pick on me too much. Probably because I was being super boring and sticking to water. They did however obliterate the friend who brought me. Poor boy! Additionally, the ESN team had picked Wednesday night as a Welcome to Liege Party at a cafe in Le Carré. After our group had had their fill at the makeshift BBQ we walked to Point De Vue Cafe and joined up with the rest of the Erasmus students. It was so packed! Immediately as we walked up I got accosted by a group of friends from Poland (the same group I went to Brussels with). They had picked me up a beautiful grey tube scarf as a birthday gift. I felt very loved.  We danced the rest of the night away and even though I was one of the first people to leave, it was still 1:30 am!

My beautiful cake was picked out by Bryanna and Chelsa. Despite the chocolate waves on top, the inside was actually not chocolate! It is hard to put a finger on it but I thought maybe cinnamon.

The rest of the birthday pictures are available at: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150808901660414.749091.619530413&l=0f89a5bda5&type=1

Yesterday, was awful. For the last week and a half I've been fighting a really harsh cough and sore throat. In the past few days it has turned into a non stop runny nose, an even harder cough, and unfortunately, and too much information I'm sure, you wouldn't believe the junk I'm coughing up from my lungs. Yuck. I woke up thinking I was getting an ear infection too. I think being out late and having a few consecutive nights of poor  quality sleep from being sick is just making me sicker. I'm not the only one though. Most of the North Americans are having an absolutely awful time with harsh coughs. It makes me begin to question the air quality actually. All the Europeans seem fine. Yesterday I just took it easy. Had a nice afternoon nap and watched a movie at Chelsa's in the evening.

Today I had the option of going to Ostende, a coastal town, with the Polish group but declined. Tomorrow there is a group of people who want to go to Amsterdam and consecutive days of travel are not appealing to someone as stuffed up as I am. The plan is to leave in the morning, sight see all day, sample the night life, and catch the 3 am train back to Liege so we don't have to stay in a hostel. I'm not entirely convinced I feel up to such a long day. I'm sure I'll decide at the last minute. C'est ma vie belge.

Love and laughter,

Jacqueline

PS: The most random occurrence of the entire trip is the fact that Kiersten and I actually went to the same elementary, junior high, and high school. We were never close because she was in the year above me but my jaw pretty much hit the sidewalk when I ran into her for the first time in years in the middle of Liege!



[UPDATE - 11:02 pm]

Tomorrow we are day tripping to Maastricht, Netherlands instead! Exciting!

Bruxelles!

Hello All,

Instead of heading to the coast with Tina and Chelsa, I ended up catching the 10 am train to Brussels/Bruxelles with 12 other Erasmus (exchange) students. It was an absolute blast. For the first half of the day we stayed in a large group and explored le Grand Place, a chocolate museum, visited the Manneken Pis, tried waffles, and wandered around. For the second half of the day we split up into two groups: those that wanted to see the Mini Europe display and those that wanted to go to this enormous inner city park. I went with the Mini Europe display group. I figured it is probably next to impossible to impress me with fake nature after living beside Fish Creek Park in Calgary and the Rocky Mountains for my whole life and the Polish kids really wanted to see Mini-Europe. If they were dead set on it, I concluded there was probably a very good reason why. After lots of semi-lost wandering and metro taking (which was an adventure in itself - there would've been no doubts to anyone that we were tourists!), we finally found Mini-Europe and also the famous landmark of the Atomium. I took an absolutely copious amount of pictures. Most of the interesting tidbits and such are in the captions so have a look through. When I get copies of the group pictures that ended up on other peoples' cameras, I'll post them up too :)

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150798491370414.746960.619530413&l=e189e5409f&type=1

See if you can name any of the monuments!

Also, I'm just going to throw it out there that it was UNBELIEVABLY hot. Jeans were not a smart decision!

Love you all!

Jacqueline

Edit (09/16): Here's one of the group pictures in front of the Atomium

Left to Right: Kevin, Marcin, me, Magdalena, Ewelina, Ewa

Who needs a latte?

Bonjour mes amis!

Today was the last day of the preparatory French course. Two students in our group got a card for the teacher and a pot of orchids for her as a thank you. All the students signed the card in their native language and we went around the room after presenting it to her and pronounced it in both native tongue and English.

 

The woman in the back middle (grey tank top) is our teacher, Aline. Notice the photoshop job on the guy in blue in the front. He came in just as we'd all returned to our seats. The class let out a collective groan and thus he got added in after the fact.

Just to recap, the countries represented in this picture include: Czech Republic, Spain, India, Iran, Italy, South Korea, Turkey, Bulgaria, Taiwan, Mexico, Canada, Poland, and Belgium!


This brings me to two funny language screw ups people have had in the last week.

1) The Taiwanese student went to a local coffee shop and asked for a latté. Unfortunately for him, the barista heard "le thé" which is French for tea. The pronunciation is extremely similar. He couldn't understand why she insisted on giving him tea so he just gave up and accepted it. When he got back to class holding a tea in confusion we all busted up laughing and explained to him that what he really wanted was café au lait.


2) The card that the class all passed around and signed was not a thank you card... it was a sympathy card! A Bulgarian and a Taiwanese (Mr. Latté) student went shopping for it with their translation dictionaries and got flustered so ended up picking one that looked nice. It says something to the effect of, "Our hearts are with you" on the outside and, "Courage in difficult moments" on the inside. They asked me to translate it for them right before we started passing it around. At that point it was too late. At least the teacher thought it was funny when they explained what happened.


So that is the first two weeks finished! Next week starts all the university welcome days and the first few days of classes. Also, my 20th birthday! This weekend we are taking the train to the coast. I am very much so looking forward to the fresh air. The city center (where I live) is nothing but car exhaust. Yesterday I ran 7 km along the river and yikes. My lungs were not too thrilled with me after. We have all decided we need to get out of the city. Hopefully we'll get some sunshine because we've had nothing but clouds and grey sky for the last week.


Thinking of you all,


Jacqueline

Things are picking up!

Bonjour!

Things are really starting to get going for me. Between the French classes, daily exploration, and night time adventuring, it is all coming together.

I am absolutely loving the French class I am in. It is from 9 am to 4:30 pm every day and the instructor only speaks French to us. She is very engaging, in incredible shape (a ridiculously sculpted upper body!), and is doing a fantastic job of teaching the basics. The universal language of the classroom is English though so if someone gets completely stuck, she will revert and say just enough English words to make the understanding occur. It is so neat though! She loves to take opportunities to have people demonstrate what things are like in their culture/language. For example, the picture below is a lesson on numbers. She had a both a Taiwanese and a Korean student right the numbers in their native numbers. Check out the zero in Taiwanese!

Another great moment occurred today. I got to hear tongue twisters from Italy, Mexico, India, Taiwan, and Turkey.

On Friday and Saturday night I went out to "Le Carré" or "The Square". It is literally a square made up by four streets. These streets are nothing but bars, clubs, and restaurants. Because there are no lines, no cover, and alcohol is legal in the streets, not only are all the venues overflowing with people, the streets can be outrageous crowds too. On Friday, the summer students had just written their final summer semester exams. It was absolutely packed. Saturday was surprisingly not nearly as jam packed and we got to see a live band in a cowboy themed place called "Far West". People definitely like to get rowdy and stay out late. However, Liege is not known as a particularly safe city... not that it is downright dangerous, or at least not during the day, but everybody insists on walking each other home at night. Safety in numbers!


On Sunday morning I went to the "Marché de la Batte" - one of the longest outdoor market in Europe! It is full of all sorts of fresh fruit and vegetables, clothing, live animals (both for pets and eating), and just about anything you can think of. The weather was unfortunately rather unpredictable and I got absolutely rained on. At least it kept the market from being even busier; it is a very popular place for locals and tourists alike.


Sunday afternoon was spent climbing at a local indoor climbing wall with a new friend from Missouri. He is a far more accomplished climber than I am... it was really rather embarrassing! Especially because I was so completely thrown off by the style of the gym. The walls have no texture, the harnesses are different, the difficulty (grade system) is nothing I've ever seen before, and the routes are marked out in a completely different manner. That being said, there were some AMAZING climbers in the gym. Some of the most impressive climbing I've seen live to date. Definitely gives me something to aspire to once my hands heal from the absolute shredding they feel like they took. The rocks are almost gritty feeling. You can tell I am not a laborer in the slightest just by the pathetic softness of my hands and how one rough climb upset them. Oh well!


Sunday evening was a really neat opportunity. The student from Taiwan, we call him TK, invited a group of us over for Chinese food. He did an excellent job of demonstrating some basic Chinese dishes. The best part was probably watching the student from Iran use chopsticks for the first time. It was quite the sight and he was quite a trooper! Our dinner group included an American, 2 Italians, a Korean, a Taiwanese, an Iranian, and 2 Canadians. It was a lot of fun and we have all volunteered to host dinners of foods from our native lands in the near future.


More pictures to come but here's the link to the ones I have posted on Facebook:


http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150778773995414.742006.619530413&l=3b589064e3&type=1

Love you all,

Jacqueline

Getting Set Up

It's hard to believe I've only been here for 46 hours.

Already I have scrubbed my apartment from head to toe (it was actually so filthy...), set up a phone, attended a full day of french class, registered with the international student office, tried to register with the city administration 3 times (their hours are SO finicky), taken a tour with a ULg student, tried Belgium fries for the first time, tried Belgium chocolate for the first time, and gone grocery shopping. There are just not enough hours in the day! Actually, plenty of hours but everything is closed by 7:00 pm. It is so bizarre not to have a supermarket or Walmart type building open 24/7. Certain elements of my day definitely take more planning now.

The French class was amazing. I jumped in with the beginner level this morning because I missed the placement testing and first two days of classes. It is extremely extremely basic and I would like to say I could've made placement into a higher level. However, because the instructor only speaks French to us, and I know what she wants us to learn, I am able to learn so much more from her instructions than her lessons. Her lessons are great refresher material but knowing what to listen for and being able to interact with her was an absolute joy. It made me feel like I might actually come away with decent French by the end of this exchange. I expect vast improvement even by the end of next week!

In the meantime, this hasn't made my recent French exchanges any better. I had an issue with my kot's heater. Basically I turned it on and couldn't get it off no matter what I tried. I eventually unplugged it out of fear of it burning down the building. Little did I know, when you unplug it it switches to battery. It just kept right on burning. I went upstairs and grabbed my housemate, Lionel, and tried to explain to him my problem. He came and took a look but had no idea. He offered to get the landlord (LL) for me. Turns out the store I live above is owned and operated by the landlord! Wish I'd known that! So we went downstairs and grabbed the LL, came back up, he took a look, did a lot of explaining in French to Lionel, and bid us au revoir. Lionel explained the bit about it being backed up by battery and tried to explain other things. It didn't really come across so I thanked him regardless. As long as it is off from here on in, that's all I want. It has taken a full day since but it is finally almost cooled off. I talked briefly, and awkwardly in broken franglish (sigh) to the LL today and he asked if it had turned off. I wasn't sure at that point because I hadn't been home in 10 hours. I said I'd check and let him know. He said to come tomorrow as it takes 3 days in the summer/1 day in the winter for heater controls. Or something like that. I think he knows more English than he lets on. I definitely know less French than I pretend.

Still so much to do before classes start on the 15th. I'm very grateful I came two weeks early for the French preparatory course. I feel like I've started to really appreciate the implications of my exchange. I've met people from Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Chile, Poland, Germany, USA, Belgium, Ireland, Taiwan, and Somalia in the past day. It is amazing to talk with them, compare countries, and struggle through language barriers together. I've had a PhD student from Iran ask me for help practicing his English after our French classes. It was a nice reminder that although I am focused on how jilted my French is right now, I am very very very fortunate to be fluent in English.

I found it extremely entertaining to see all the different versions of French-other language dictionaries. The Chinese-French and Poland-French are definitely two favorites.

I took a tour with a girl from ULg named Alice. She showed Chelsa and I some main places and provided general information about Belgium and Liege. It was fantastic to hear her input. We tried french fries (frites) with her and learned that they are so delicious because they are double fried. Once at ~160 F and then again at ~180 F. The second, hotter frying really crisps them up.

Love you all!

Jacqueline

Arrival

Hello Everyone!

I have arrived safe and sound after a fairly uneventful travel day. This post is a little mangled because I am so jet lagged, hungry, overtired, and have yet to see the light of day in Belgium. However, here it is before I forget it all.

- The plane started boarding passengers about 25 minutes late but somehow we still managed to leave on time. I am still impressed by this.
- Although not full, the plane had a capacity of about 380 passengers.
-  I lucked out and was one of maybe three people who had an entire row to myself. Originally I'd planned to try to stay awake on the flight but once I raised those arm rests and laid out across those seats I was done.
- I slept for about 6 hours in a very restless-your neck-will-never-forgive-you way.
- The final two hours of flight were passed eating a quick breakfast (orange juice, yogurt, and a cinnamon roll thing) and reading on my kindle.
- The plane landed way earlier than expected. I don't know if we made fantastic time or if the ticket was just plain old wrong but it was at least 45 minutes earlier than I had expected. Thank goodness too because my train was bang on time and the extra time to get to it was greatly appreciated!
- Customs was a really quick process and getting my bag didn't take too long either. Finding the train station caught me off guard. I had looked at maps of the Frankfurt terminal and thought the train station was in the basement. It is really at a separate terminal. I still think the way the map is drawn is silly. Anyways, found out I had to catch a shuttle over.
- Moved my train ticket to my jeans pocket because I kept pulling it out, trying to find clues as to where my train would be, and was clueless. Went to ask someone for direction, reach into my pocket and find it missing. Mentally flip out for 2 seconds as my hand checks other pockets knowing it was in that front right side, glance around, see it lying on the ground 25 feet away. Sheesh. Lesson learned.
- The train ride was nice enough. Wish I'd been forward facing instead of backwards but that's ok. The German country side was pretty.
- Get to the Liege-Guillemins station and see that the student with the Erasmus Student Network isn't there to pick me up yet. After 20 minutes I turn on my phone and text him. 10 minutes later he returns my text saying he can't make it and call Chelsa (the other U of Lethbridge student). After giving her a quick call, I end up taking a taxi to my apartment. It ended up being 7.65 euros and holy moly. The cab driver did not understand my French at all! I really really really need to work on it. We managed to hash it out eventually but yikes.
- My building mate, Lionel, let me in, carried my heavy bag up to my apartment for me and handed over the keys. He tried explaining the water heater thing to me but he has such little English and my French is apparently just not happening so we just kind of laughed and that was that. I have yet to figure out the lock on the bathroom door. I know how it should work, I just can't get it to actually do up. Throw it on the list of things to learn in the daylight.
- I am on a fairly busy street. It was quite noisy until about 10:30 pm but as the businesses closed, it isn't too bad anymore. It is however extremely bright and the curtains don't do much. I'm glad I brought ear plugs and a sleep mask.

Tomorrow will be the day to start assessing what I really think of the situation. I was such an overtired bundle of nerves throughout travel and arrival that I didn't get a great impression. Even now, it is 4:19 am local time. I managed to sleep from 11 pm - 2:45 am but jet lag has apparently decided to have its way with my sleep patterns.

The point is I am here and hopefully the morning will shed some light on the situation.

Love you all,

Jacqueline