Day 6 - Leuven: 3 hours of trains, 2 hours of wandering, and some new friends

Well, I'd first off like to start with a shout out to my wonderful boyfriend Jesse. I was saving this post for the corresponding day (June 13th--I'm writing my blog one day late--I'll fix that tonight.), but happy six month anniversary babe! I miss you tons!

Anyways, my day started off with a little bit of a hang over. Not gonna lie. Stijn and I were up fairly late the night before, but you have to spend as much time as you can with old friends that are seen rarely, right?

I caught and early train at 9am in Oss. The ride was uneventful as I slept most of the way to Leuven, where my course would start.

After I got to Leuven, I thought I would open up my laptop to check the directions that Professor Brooks sent us to get to the Irish College where we are staying, to find that I had 4% battery left and it shut down.

"No worries!" I thought. "I still have the e-mail on my iPod I'm pretty sure!"

I pull my iPod out of my bag to find that it too has also been completely drained of power.

Oh joy. I'm stuck in Leuven. I have no idea where I'm going and all my electronic devices that might possibly help me are dead.

So I decided that wandering towards the direction of downtown Leuven would be a good idea. I know what the place looked like (sort of) and I knew it was part of the Leuven Institute. I should be able to find it. How many institutes could there be in Leuven?

According the the University Librarian, there are thirty different institutes. At least.

I also forgot to mention that I was very low on cash and I had traveller's cheques (I'm old school like that). And it was Sunday.

Sunday in Europe turns the busiest city into a ghost town. Everyone stays in. Nothing is open. Nothing is happening. So here I am, asking a few people where the Irish College is located ("Shouldn't an Irish College be in Ireland? You're in Belgium right now!" "Thank you, sir, but I know I'm in Belgium) and no one knew where it was. Eventually, I remembered that Dr. Brooks told us to find Father Damian's Place and it was across the street. That helped a TREMENDOUS amount when someone finally knew where that was. And so I finally arrived with all my new friends about two and a half hours after my train pulled into Leuven.

Now that I was able to complain, let me tell you about Leuven (and my first impression of Belgium). This country is all about decadence. All the churches and palace-like buildings are decorated with gold. The city hall here is a ridiculously detailed building with a carving of what I assume are all the mayors of Leuven since the building's construction. But the gold that puts the shine on all the buildings is incredible! I've never heard of anything like it anywhere else in the world (maybe Versailles).

That night was very relaxed. Professor Brooks got stuck in Philidelphia so those of us that were checked in an all ready decided to go have a beer and a bite to eat and get to know each other.

I have some great expectations for this trip. Our group is smart and funny. And so far, everyone gets along. We have a HUGE list of things that we're doing for our trip so I'm very excited.

Cheers!