Funny Occurances and First Experiences

Recall my last post with pictures. All the while I was taking the shots of where I'm living, I kept thinking of the song from My Fair Lady that goes "...I'm on the street where you live". Kid you not - on Sunday, the church bells that were ringing were playing that tune.

So, on Saturday I went on a school-organized bus tour of Brussels. Neat, right? Well, anything that could go wrong went wrong. All things considered, it got me better oriented with the lay out of the city.

• The "sound system" for the tour part of it consisted of a kiddie-toy recorder thing.
  
• Random streets were shut down for construction. Apparently, Belgium also has a construction season.
  
• Due to the fact that random streets were shut down, the huge charter bus we were on ended up having to take a side road. Ironically, this was immediately after the guide shouted that the back streets weren't designed in the Roman fashion, but rather followed the way that cows would wander. It was a tense trip.

And, finally, today one of my host moms nephew is here to visit. The little guy is 6 years old and doesn't speak English beyond counting to 10 and saying hello. I asked him through his aunt if he wanted to walk to the park, and he did. He was taught how to say "I want to go home", and off we went with one of the yorkshire terriers. We walk a grand total of two blocks - didn't even get to the park - and he said " I want to go home". so we ran home. It was funny.




Anyway, I went to the Sunday market a few days ago. That was pretty neat - fruit stands, cheese booths, meat trailers, bread stands, clothing booths, toy stands...there was everything. I hear that the one downtown is the largest market in the world...but I'm not sure about that.

I've taken some classes already (the inconvenient part of studying abroad...kidding), and they're shaping up to be pretty good. I'm enrolled in History of Modern Europe, United States Foreign Policy 1898-Present, French 102 (= 112), and Intercultural Communication. I was actually surprised at how much I was able to understand in French today. Of course, it was very basic.

Other than that, things are pretty dandy over here!
My love to all of you at home!

Sarah