Day Three

This morning was a good one, I managed to get up, without my alarm at 5:45am and go for a run, It was a little bit scary, I wasn’t sure who i was going to run into or what obstacles i may face, especially since i still didn’t really know the lay of the land. It turned out that i didn’t run into too many people, 6 am in Leuven, not a popular time. I ran to the train station, then did a few sets of stair climbs and ran back in the direction of my temporary “home”, by this time it was still fairly early and i wasn’t about to go back and wake up the girls, they would not have been pleased therefore i continued running. I chose to run in the direction of the “grocery store” that we had found on the first day. I ended up doing a little loop around the block then i decided id had enough running, but it was still to soon to return, so i walked down a street and took it easy, eventually turning around and making my way back to the college just in time to wake the rest of the group up with Yas.

We all had breakfast, and made our way to the train station to catch the train to Leuven, by now you may as well call us commuters, we are beginning to see the same people everyday and we have been taking the same trains. Our day started at the European Commission, if i have it correct? It was fairly interesting, we learnt about the various jobs that the commission has and the formation of the entire group. After this meeting we made our way back to the “Markit” (as spelt in Belgium), and Dr. Brooks walked us to the city’s monument, the little peeing boy, who apparently put out a fire in a building? Or something like that. Today we were not so lucky as the day before in finding our “Stock Exchange” man to show us the “BEST RESTAURANT”. We wandered on our own and ended up going to the “Drug Opera”. This was a restaurant on the corner of a couple streets, a little bit further down the main street and it was in a building that appeared to be as though it could have been a Burlesque House at some point, it was very interesting. Now, all day Aaron and i had been dying for a solo espresso con panna (for those of you who do not know what this is, it is a shot of espresso with whipped cream on top) our server did not understand what we meant when we said this, and therefore we just agreed to whatever he was going to bring us. Turns out we got a cappuccino with whipped cream on top, definitely not a great thing for the little bit of me that is somewhat lactose intolerant, but It was there, and i NEEDED some coffee ASAP.

We wandered back to the group and made our way to the International Federation of Journalists for a lecture about the rights of Journalists all over the world. This was a particularly interesting lecture all about how many have been killed and how they can protect themselves, as well as some personal stories from our lecturer, Tobias (last name presently forgotten). There was some sort of reception going on in the building when we had first arrived, but it was over by the time we were leaving, so we made use of the banner from it and took a huge series of roommate pictures. We had one more meeting after that one and we were all incredibly tired for some reason so we went into the little cafe and got a cup of coffee? Espresso? Basically just something with caffeine. This worked wonders on some of us, although myself not so much, thanks to Starbucks i need about 5 shots to keep me up, at minimum. The last meeting of the day was held at the Canadian Mission to the European Union a very different feel to the U.S. Mission the day before. The Canadian Mission had a little bit of security, although not a lot, they were very welcoming and very informative about what exactly the Mission does and how it helps the EU and how the EU helps Canada.

After the final meeting ended we headed back on the train to Leuven where we wandered home and eventually got ready for dinner and went out. We went to the Markit for dinner, which was the beginning to a semi sloppy night. When we ordered our drinks Yas asked me which beer i’d had the day before so i showed her and pointed to it, in front of the waitress. She went around the table and took everyone else’s order with me being last, so i chose my new beer of the day and ordered my pasta. When the drinks were brought out it appeared as though she brought an extra Leffe Blond, which is when we realised that I had accidentally ordered 2 beers. Upon downing the first one before the meal came i was already a little bit tipsy. I continued to drink the second beer while we ate, yet as comments were said i drink it a bit faster without realising it and soon enough i was unable to finish my meal because i was full and my second beer was finished before anyone at the table had finished their first beers.
We began to walk back to the College but I then continued on a little adventure for a couple hours, eventually ending in realising the bar down the street was overly busy for a Tuesday night, so i grabbed Magda and we had a couple more beers then went to the bar with Slavvy and Alex. The bar itself was a little bit small but cute, although the people were very rude, they stared at us, they whispered and pointed, one even mooned us, while we were in the bar, it was ridiculous! We decided to go walk to the Markit and see if anything was going on there. And lo and behold, of course there was, there were a number of people although i was a little chilly, and the Boys were there and we didn’t want to put them in any type of an awkward position. We got back to the College only to change, have some minor pillow talk, where apparently i say things that don’t make sense and do not recall, at least it creates for a good story in the morning, and puts Yas to sleep with a smile on her face !


Overall a good day and somewhat of an adventurous night.