If We Ever Make It Home

We Are Home!

2010-08-14T10:19:00.001-07:00

WE ARE HOME!!!

But back to Thursday. On Thursday after the room inspections, I decided to go out to the shopping street with Katie. We stopped to buy post cards and some last minute Leuven souvenirs. Then we had ice cream and did a little bit of clothes shopping. I ended up buying a dress, a leopard sweater from H&M, and a soft black skirt. Fun, Fun. When I got home I took a warm shower (thank God the cold water episode ended) and then dressed up for my last evening in Leuven. Then I went with Ann and Liz to a small Italian restaurant for dinner where I had a Margharita pizza. Leuven's big annual festival and celebration will be held Friday night through Sunday. So we left town right before the huge parties with 9 stages of concerts. But while we were eating dinner under umbrellas and the rain, two members of one of the performing bands came to eat there. It was pretty cool. After dinner, Ann and Liz stopped to get ice cream. Then we went to Louvain Louvain and I had one of the famous raspberry mojitos. It was incredible and tasted just like candy. When I got back to the house the boys were playing poker (see below). Brad lost first and ran out of chips but then bought back in. He ended up winning the pot of 40 euros. During the game, our RA Vincent surprised us with homemade Belgian waffles (also see below). They were amazing. In Belgium, waffles are made with a thick batter that is shaped like a ball and then placed on the griddle. It's not runny like here in America. The boys enjoyed the chocolate dipped waffles with powdered sugar and whipped cream. Then I went with Derek and Liz to Louvain Louvain to get more mojitos. I used all of my change to buy a raspberry mojito and then a strawberry one. Austin and Val also met us there. When I got back to the house I told Katie bye since she was leaving for Ireland very early in the morning and then I tried to get some sleep.

I woke up around 7 AM on Friday. Jake, Jaime, Molly, Brad, Kirstin, and I had two taxis pick us up from the house and take us to the train station in Leuven. It cost us about 10 euros for each taxi (total, not each). We rode the 8:27 AM train to the Brussels National Airport. After lots of security, customs, etc., we boarded the plane and left Brussels at 11 AM which was 3:00 AM in Texas. We arrived in Chicago at 1:00 PM. We thought it was cool that it only took us 2 hours to get there....haha, ya right. It was an 8 and a half hour flight that was long and miserable, as always. We had a long layover in Chicago. We passed through a long line of customs in Chicago and then grabbed our luggage and had to turn it in again to be checked for our connecting flight to San Antonio. Then we rode the tram to the complete other end of the airport where our next flight left from. When we got there, we had to go through security again. I had to go through one of those special X-ray machines. It was crazy. Then we found our gate and went to sit down at Chilis in the airport. We each had sweet tea and munched on some chips and salsa. We waited for a few more hours and then left Chicago around 6:40 PM. We made it back to San Antonio shortly before 9:00 PM. When we went down to the baggage claim area our parents were waiting for us (except Kirstins). She got picked up outside. I hugged and kissed my parents immediately. It was great to see them. Dr. Kenney, my AP biology teacher during my senior year of high school, was also there waiting to pick up her husband and children. Very random but awesome to see her. Brad's grandma Kathy also met us at the airport. We told Jake and Kirstin bye, loaded up our luggage, and then drove to La Hacienda in San Antonio to eat Mexican food. It was near Brad's grandma's house and her husband Melvin was there waiting for us with a table. I had a cheese enchilada with rice and beans and a giant margarita. MMMMM. It was so great. When I made it home, I unpacked my souvenir suitcase and presented my parents with their gifts from me. Everything in my suitcase was fine except for the chocolate. Most of it had melted...........ugh! Oh well. I was only able to sleep for a few hours and have up and at it already this morning. I saw both of my grandparents and have already been busy catching up on lots of tasks. We are going to my cousin's Julie's daughter Brooklyn's birthday party today at 5:00 PM. I will probably be very tired again tonight from staying up a total of 24 hours yesterday! It may take me a couple of days to get back on track again. I have totalled up the money that I spent on my trip but will have to wait for my August debit card statement to come in the mail to end up with a final amount to report. But, it will be in the range of approximately $7,000. However, I received $3,500 for scholarships and student working. So this summer ended up costing me around $3,500. Not too bad for a wonderful summer in which I earned 13 hours of credit towards my degree (Summer I and II) and made a ton of amazing memories.

I am not sure if I plan to keep writing on this blog, but I do know that I will take a break from it for a while. I may start updating again once school starts back in two weeks. It has been pretty fun to journal and keep up with my days. It has also been great getting feedback from my family in that they can keep in touch with me through the blog. Looking back, I am really glad that Dr. Munster volunteered/required me to do the blog for promotional and recruitment materials. It was a great experience.

To conclude, I just want to say that I had a completely awesome, out-of-this-world amazing time in Europe. I am SOOOO glad that I went! I would definitely recommend this study abroad program to anyone. Love from Marion, Texas!
Sabrina Louise Luensmann

Brad and I on our last night in Leuven eating waffles.

The waffles made by our RA, Vincent!
An intense poker game!

Last Day!!!

2010-08-12T01:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening, we had another barbecue in the garden here at the student house. Vincent, Jaime, and Jake went and got all the meat and then everyone pitched in 5 euros. We had pork burgers, sangria wine, mushrooms, bratwursts, garlic bread, pico de gallo, chips, shrimp, beef and pork shish-ka-bobs, eggplant, stuffed bell peppers, and a vegetable salad. We had to make the pico ourselves. But, they don't sell fresh jalapenos here so we had to use pickled jalapenos. It tasted sort of wierd. It was a great time though. I ended up playing badmitten for about an hour. My arm is sore today! When it started to get dark, we cleaned up and then started a poker game. It was 5 euros to buy in and we had 2 tables. I played with Brad, Randy, Kelsey, Nikki, and Stephanie. I won a lot at first but then my chips eventually dwindled down. Later, all the girls and Randy decided to go out to the Oude Markt to celebrate our last night here (since tonight we have to be in bed early). I moved over to the table with Ryan, Adam, Derek, Jake, and Liz and played there until I ran out of chips. I wasn't able to take a shower last night because there is no hot water here at our student house. And, I didn't think a cold shower would be too fun before I went to sleep. Last night, while everyone was eating, Katie and Kelsey presented our RA, Vincent, with his going-away present from us. We got him about 6 or 7 beers and made him a nice thank you card. He has been a wonderful RA and a huge help to all of us. He has definitely been a big part in helping our trip be much more enjoyable.

This morning, I packed up all of my stuff besides my laptop. Then I cleaned up my room the best I could. At 2:00 PM, our rooms will be checked. It is 10:40 AM now. Brad, Kirstin, and I are meeting Dr. Engler back at school to print our boarding passes and check in our luggage at noon. I hope my suitcases don't weigh over 50 lbs but I think it will be close...... We don't really have an accurate scale here to weigh them on, plus we would have to convert from kilograms. After we print our boarding passes, we are going to stop off at Velo and return our bikes. Hopefully we get our 50 euro deposit back. Then, we will come back here for our room checks. And then for the rest of the evening, I'm not sure. Maybe we will have dinner on the Oude Markt one last time. Or maybe I will go get some more chocolate to get rid of my left over Euros. We also need to call a taxi today to line them up for picking us up tomorrow morning around 8:00 AM. We will take a taxi to the train station here in Leuven. Then we will ride the 20 minute train to the Brussels airport. Our flight leaves from Brussels at 11:00 AM. We arrive in Chicago at 1:30 PM because of the 7 hour time difference. It is really about a 9 and a half our flight. Then we have a four hour layover in Chicago. We eventually will arrive in San Antonio around 8:15 PM where we will hopefully be greeted by our families and then go out to enjoy some awesome Mexican food.

I found out last night when Dr. Munster emailed our grades that there was a 2 point curve on the final exam which brought my average up from a 89.8 to above a 90. I ended up with an A in that class. I do not know the results for Dr. Engler's class yet, but I think I also made an A in his class.

I miss my family soooooo much and am sooooo excited to go home tomorrow. Although, when I see them it will feel like 3:15 AM to me instead of 8:15 PM. I think I will have bad jet lag and will sleep most of the day on Saturday. On Sunday we are meeting with my new roommate Karley to have her sign the contract and discuss her moving in. On Monday, my mom has volunteered me to speak to the Guadalupe County Aggie Moms Club about my study abroad program and adventures. I bet it will be fun sharing this amazing experience with some passionate Aggie Moms. Next Wednesday I think my mom and I are going back up to College Station to unpack most of my stuff back at my house in College Station. Then we will be coming back home before the weekend because my sister Kayla is coming in from Dallas and my cousin Melissa Marsh is coming in from Kansas City, Missouri. I can't wait to see both of them!

One thing that will definitely be a shock for us is the weather and the temperatures in Texas. It has been so nice and cool here the last few weeks that we have just grown accustomed to this nice weather. I hope I don't die when I get off the plane in San Antonio tomorrow night. A couple things I forgot to mention about life here in Leuven. In Europe, people eat pizza with a fork and a knife, not their hands! Also, most of the water here is carbonated so you have to ask for "no gas" or "no bubbles" when you order water somewhere. There are no free drink refills anywhere. The grocery stores do not sell any kinds of medicines such as Imodium, etc. For any kind of over the counter medicines that you would normally buy at Wal-Mart or H-E-B in Texas, you have to go to a Apotheek or pharmacy in town to purchase. There are many of them though so it is not hard to find one. Although, they all close at 6 PM and are not open on the weeks which can become a problem. I know there are more things that shocked me about coming over here but I most likely won't remember them until I get back home to Texas.

I have truly enjoyed my stay here in Leuven, Belgium. I wish I could have travelled more around Europe but being sick kind of ruined my last weekend. When I come back, I want to travel to Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Ireland, and the United Kingdom or England. I want to see many more places and do many more things while in Europe. I hope to someday bring my sister Kayla back with me. Hopefully within the next 10 years I can return. I have loved it here and could not have imagined this study abroad program being any better or any more fun. I have had the time of my life and have had some of the best 5 weeks of my entire life while here in Europe. I want to take an opportunity to thank each and every person that made it possible for me to come here. I want to thank my parents for their support first and foremost. Without their support, this journey would not have been possible. I also want to thank the Texas A&M University Study Abroad Office and Financial Aid Office, the Honors Program at Texas A&M University, and the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society who all sponsored me by giving me $1,000 scholarships each. I want to thank Dr. Engler for allowing me to earn $500 by writing this blog and grading papers for his class. I also want to thank everyone else who had input into making this program a success such as Orie Varner, our study abroad advisor, Sofie Bruneel, the secretary at K.U. Leuven, and the professors of our class.

So, that's all..... the program has come to an end and it is time to return to reality in Texas. Fall semester classes will start at Texas A&M on August 30th in only 2 weeks. I will be starting my last and final year at A&M. I will graduate with my bachelor's degree in May of 2011 (only 10 months away)! I can't wait to get back and live up my senior year! There are so many things that I must do before graduating from A&M. As I leave this study abroad program, I want to say once more, peace and love from Leuven, Belgium. I am looking forward to getting home and giving all my souvenirs that I purchased to my family and friends. I also can't wait to share all my wonderful stories with them. I love each and every one of them and have missed them tremendously! Goodbye!

-Sabrina Luensmann-

Addition to Previous Post

2010-08-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

One more picture. Ann and I eating our hamburgers or "pork burgers" at the barbecue in the garden at the student house. See next post for lots more pictures!!!

Random Pictures

2010-08-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

Below are random photos from throughout the trip that I got from Ann. I have tried to comment all of them so you know where/when they are from. I ended up not taking my bike back to Velo today. So, tomorrow I am going to clean my room and pack, then head to school around noon to print out my boarding passes for our flight, then take my bike back to Velo, then get my room inspected at 2 PM, and then enjoy the rest of my last day in Leuven and last day in Europe!

Derek and I on the train on our way to Paris, France.

Ann and I pointing to the door with the shower in it at our hotel in Paris, France.

Me being crazy outside the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France.

Our Paris Group - Ann, Me, Liz, and Derek - in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Me being silly in a park in Paris, France.

The Eiffel Tower.

Ann, Liz, and I in Paris, France on top of the Eiffel Tower.

And again!

Liz, me, and Ann on top of the Eiffel Tower. Behind us is the city of Paris, France at night.

Our Paris group on the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Liz, Ann, and I in front of a huge mall in Paris, France.

Liz, me, and Ann having fun in Paris, France.

Ann and I hiding behind trees in a park in Paris, France.

View from the garden of our student house. Look closely. You will see all of us in our rooms, like the Brady Bunch.

Having margaritas at La Cucaracha during our first week here in Leuven, Belgium.

Ann, Brad, and I at the first restaurant we ate at in Munich, Germany.

A circle of friends.....hanging out at night in the garden at our house.

Our slip-n-slide set up on the day of the Belgium National Holiday.

Our Munich group - Liz, Jake, Ann, Me, Brad, and Jaime - at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, Germany.

Brad, Me, and Ann at Quo Vadis having pizza on our first night here in Leuven, Belgium.

Ann and I at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, Germany.

Jake, Ann, and I at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, Germany.

Brad and I at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, Germany.

Stephanie, Kirstin, Molly, Me, and Brad waiting to get on the canal boat ride in Amsterdam.

Stephanie, Ann, Molly, Me, and Brad waiting to get on the canal boat ride in Amsterdam.

Brad, Liz, Derek, Jaime, Me, and Jake eating our bratwursts in Fussen before we made the hike up the hill to the castles.

Ann and I at the top of the hill in Fussen. About to tour Neuschwanstein castle.

Me at the Heineken Experience in Amsterdam. Holding a fake cup up to the mini keg.

Ann and I with our beers at the Augustine beer garden in Munich, Germany.

Liz, Ann, and I at the Augustus beer garden in Munich, Germany.

The "I amsterdam" sign at the entrance of the park where we attempted to watch the World Cup Soccer Finals in Amsterdam.

Liz, Me, and Ann at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Liz, Me, and Ann in France.

Ann and I in front of a monument in Paris, France.

Liz, Molly, Stephanie, Me, Nikki, and Kirstin having drinks at Louvain Louvain on Girls Night in Leuven, Belgium.

Our whole group (+ Ann) this time.

And again!

On our way home from the Oude Markt at Girls Night. We ran into some locals.

Interacting with high school locals on our way home from the Oude Markt on Girls Night.

Time to Pack Up

2010-08-11T05:03:00.000-07:00

I just got done taking my last final exam for the study abroad trip. I am not feeling too happy right now. I did not do well on Dr. Munster's exam this morning. I made a 30 out of 52 points. I studied mostly the old homeworks because the last test was mostly all homework problems. Yesterday he said that the final was going to be similar to the mid-term. It was 22 questions and the midterm was 10. It was only 2 math/homework problems and 20 questions that were multiple choice and true/false. I may have just made my first B ever in college......... :( I knew it was going to happen eventually but I didn't want it to happen while I was here in Belgium. Oh well. We will just have to wait and see how the final grades turn out. Dr. Engler's exam was not too bad. It was about how I expected it to be. It has some multiple choice and four work out problems about manure treatment.

I plan to take my bike back to Velo today and hopefully get my 50 euro deposit back. Then I need to deal with my food that is in my cabinet and my refrigerator. I only have a little bit, and I will most likely just end up throwing all my left over food out. Tomorrow morning we are supposed to start packing and have our rooms cleaned by 2:00 PM. Elke, from the Belgium housing authority, is coming at 2:00 PM to check us out and make sure our rooms are clean.

Last night I got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. When I opened our room door, two chocolate bars fell down. Vincent, our RA, put candy bars in each of our doors last night. Or at least we think it was him. Today, Kelsey and Katie and Dr. Engler are going to a beer store to buy Vincent a going away present from all of us.

I am so excited to go home on Friday. I can't wait to see my family. I hope everyone is doing great in Texas. I am not quite ready to face the heat! It has been cool and rainy here the past 2 weeks. I am sure it is going to be a big shock for me! Love from Leuven, Sabrina!

Final Exams Tomorrow

2010-08-10T13:11:00.000-07:00

So sorry for the short update today, but we have both of our final exams tomorrow. Dr. Munster's final exam is at 8:30 AM and Dr. Engler's final exam is tomorrow afternoon at 1:30 PM.

Today, we had two lectures like normal. Before lunch, I had time to finish my last homework assignment for Dr. Munster's class and nearly complete the Study Questions on Constructed Wetlands for Dr. Engler's class. I went to the sandwich shop for lunch with Jake and Brad. I had tomato soup with boe-tie pasta and onions and bread. It was decently good. I stopped at DelHaize today after school to get some tortellini for dinner and I also got some candy. Then I took a nap and started studying. I was able to catch up with my mom on Skype this afternoon before she headed to College Station for the day/night. I am so excited that we only have 2 full days left here in Leuven even though I love the city. It's beautiful.

Tomorrow evening I plan to take my bike back to Velo if I finish my final in time and then start packing up some of my stuff. Look for a longer blog entry tomorrow!
Peace and love from Leuven, Belgium! Wish me luck on my final exams :) Sabrina Louise

Beautiful Day

2010-08-09T05:10:00.000-07:00

I spent most of the day yesterday caring for Brad and writing my field trip report while he slept. He was only able to eat some chicken soup broth for lunch and drank sports drinks most of the day. I washed clothes from the field trip which smelled like manure (yuck) and washed our sheets since we had been throwing up so much. I also did a lot of cleaning up from the night before which was so rough for us. I had some tomato soup for lunch and was able to ride my bike to Subway to get a sandwich for dinner. My stomach still hurt pretty bad but luckily I didn't throw up or have diarrhea yesterday. Around 10:00 most of our friends went out to the bars to have drinks. Brad and I opted to stay in bed and watch a movie. We watched "Waterworld" on Brad's laptop. Our friend Jaime had brought a couple DVDs with him on the trip so we borrowed it from him. We went to sleep around 1:00 AM.

Today has been a great day so far. Nearly everyone has gone to Brussels or Ghent for the day since it is our last day to travel in Europe. Adam, Ryan, Sierra, Lindsey, Ann, Liz, and Derek didn't go. I would have loved to go to Brussels for the day, especially because it is nice weather, but because of our stomach virus I thought it would be best to stay here. I slept in and then went upstairs to check on Brad. He was already dressed, shaved, and ready to start the day but complaining that he was hungry! He ate a couple waffles. I finished my field trip report and then emailed it to the professors. Then I organized and rearranged my souvenir suitcase which isn't nearly as full as I expected it to be. Then around 1:00 PM, I went to Pizza Hut with Brad. We had the pizza buffet, although he only ate 2 pieces. Then we went shopping for a gift for Brad's sister Megan. We got her a very nice gift, but we hope it fits! Then we stopped by the Leuven souvenir shop for me to get a few more shot glasses and gifts for friends. I'm not sure what I will do the rest of the day. Maybe I will relax and read a book or maybe I will go for a bike ride through the forest to see the abbey. I'm not sure yet.

I have to fill out a form and send in the receipt from my doctor's visit to HTH, my international health insurance to get reimbursed for the doctor's visit. It only cost me 34 euros, but I guess that is almost $50 in US money so it is probably worth the trouble of filling out all the paperwork and sending it in. I will get Dr. Munster and my parents to help me figure it out when we get back home on Friday.

So, only four more days left! Tomorrow is our last day of regular school. Wednesday we have both of our final exams, eek! But we should get out of school on Wednesday relatively early I think; maybe even by lunch time. Thursday is a packing and cleaning day. We have room and kitchen checks before we leave the student house. We also have to take our bikes back to Velo and get our deposit back. Then Friday we fly out of Brussels. My group will make it back to San Antonio around 8:15 PM on Friday since have such a long layover in Chicago. I can't wait to see my parents!!!! I miss everyone so much. But I am very sad that our trip is almost over. It has been some of the best 5 weeks of my life. I have learned SOOOO much about myself and other cultures and the world in general. I have learned to appreciate the small things and life and to not take things for granted in America. I have learned what it truly means to reuse and recycle and preserve natural resources. I have learned how to get along with others that are much different than myself. I have seen lots of beautiful places and backpacked around Europe. But most of all, I have fufilled a dream of mine. I am so thankful to everyone that have helped me make this trip a reality. I will forever remember it! Love from Leuven! Sabrina :)

Long Night

2010-08-08T01:53:00.000-07:00

It has been another long night. I threw up all of my soup from dinner while I was going to the bathroom with diarrhea around midnight. Brad moved his mattress into my room so he could be with me if anything else happened. About an hour later, he started throwing up and having diarrhea as well. Another student, Austin, has also been throwing up all night outside my door.

Randy and I called the professors this morning. They are going to try to find an open pharmacy to get some nausea medicine and a thermometer. I'm pretty sure I had fever last night and most of the other students have had chills as well while sick. Adam went and bought about 10 Aquarius (Gatorade) drinks for all of us. Such a life saver. I will keep everyone in Texas updated. This is definitely an epidemic!

Love, Sabrina :(

Field Trip to Brugge / Being Sick

2010-08-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

Today: I woke up around noon when Brad came into my room to check on me. I still felt pretty bad. So, Brad went to get me some Aquarius (similar to Gatorade) and he was going to look for some soup. I convinced myself to get into the shower. I felt very dizzy, but I made it. I was also informed that 4 or 5 other students were also sick. Sierra, Val, Stephanie, Adam, and Randy had all thrown up in the last 24 hours. I continued to have diarrhea this morning. I emailed our professors to let them know what was going on with all of us. They said they would come to the house and take me and others to the clinic. The main student clinic for K.U. Leuven was closed because it's Saturday but they found the one that stayed open. There was just one doctor, no nurses or receptionists or anything. We had to wait in line until it was our turn to be seen. It was very hot in the office which had about 6 foot ceilings and was located underneath an organic grocery store. Dr. Engler went into the office with me. I described my symptoms, he pushed around on my stomach, and then basically told me that it was a stomach virus that had to run its course. He said not to take any more Imodium because it prevents the virus from escaping the body. Then I made it home by about 3:00 PM. Brad got me 2 more orange Aquarius to drink. Then he heated me up a bowl of chicken broth that Lindsey had bought for Sierra but Sierra didn't want it. I ate most of that and then fell back asleep until 6:00 PM. I finished grading some papers. Then Brad came to check on me and asked if I wanted to go get some dinner. I went with Brad, Ryan, Lindsey, and Sierra to Agora for dinner. It was raining so we had to sit inside. There was a concert going on outside. I had a Sprite and a bowl of tomato soup. The others had lamb with vegetables and cheesy potatoes. I had to leave before we got our bill to come back to the house because I was having bad stomach cramps and had to go to the bathroom. Then I emailed the finalized homework grades to Dr. Engler. I cleaned up my room and unpacked from the field trip. I am not sure how long I will stay up, but I probably won't stay up long enough to start on my 4-6 page field trip report. The only people who went out of town this weekend were Kirstin went to Holland to see some family friends, and Katie and Kelsey went to Bond, Germany to meet up with some of Katie's friends.

Friday: I woke up around 7 AM for breakfast. Katie was not in our hotel room. Apparently, she had come home a couple hours after me. She said she knocked twice but I never answered. I remember waking up to a knock, opening the door and no one was there. We only had one room key and the hotel wouldn't give us another one. She ended up sleeping on the floor in Kelsey and Molly's room. I felt really bad. I went downstairs to eat breakfast from 7:30 to 8:00. I had scrambled eggs, 2 sausages, 3 glasses of apple juice, and a sandwich. Then I took a nap for thirty minutes in the room. We all met outside the hotel at 8:30 for our walking tour of Brugge that started at 9:00. We had to walk to the bus stop to meet our tour guide. He had long shaggy hair and a long beard. He looked almost like a homeless man, but he was a great tour guide. He took us all around the city in 2 hours and had a stack of post cards in his pocket that he used to supplement the tour. We saw lots of beautiful and interesting parts of Brugge. Our tour ended at 11:00 at our hotel. Then we all checked out of our rooms. Brad and I went to find a lace store. We found one store with hand-made lace, not lace from Taiwan or China! We each bought special gifts for special family members of ours. Then we went to the town square of Brugge and ate Subway. I had a 15 cm turkey and ham on wheat bread. It tastes just like it does in America. Brad really enjoyed Subway. It's amazing how great a little bit of home can make you feel! Then we walked back to the hotel. On the way back, we stopped at Hema because I wanted to buy a nailpolish. It was 3,50 euros. The cashier was a guy with sculpture nails! They looked just like my mom's fake nails with the white tips. Gross! When we got back to the hotel, we found a bench. Others slowly started trickling back. We were just sitting there when a lady walked up to us and asked us if we went to A&M. It turns out that she is a professor at A&M. She teaches Accounting 229 and her name is Mrs. Barrett. It was super cool. About 12:30 I started feeling really bad! I went inside the hotel to go to the bathroom. At 1:30 we all went back to the bus stop to get on our big tour bus to head to our last stop on the field trip - a produce auction. My stomach was hurting the entire bus ride. When we got to the produce auction place, I had to run out during the presentation about 4 or 5 times to go to the bathroom. I had bad diarrhea. Sierra also had to keep running out but she was throwing up. Both of us basically missed the entire presentation and tour of the facility. Then we had a 2 hour bus ride back to Leuven. I had diarrhea and threw up 3 times on the bus ride home. It was hell. When we got back to our bikes, I caught a ride with a professor's wife from K.U. Leuven who had gone with us on the field trip. They brough Sierra and I back to the house. Brad and Ryan brought our bikes home for us. I tried to go to sleep but had a hard time. I continued to have diarrhea throughout the evening and threw up 5 more times. Brad threw up when he was cleaning up my throw up..... wow! Brad rode his bike all over town looking for Imodium for me. We had gotten home about 7 PM and all the pharmacies shut at 6 PM. He brought me an orange and a lemon Aquarius to drink. He ended up finding Imodium for me from Nikki and Kelsey but I ended up throwing it up. Then we called my parents to let them know what was going on. They were in Dallas with my sister moving her to her new apartment. My mom started crying. We also called Brad's Aunt Kim to ask her about some medication. Brad gave me a Promethazyne (?) that's for nausea and cramping. It also causes drowsiness. It helped me sleep all night long. Thank God!

Thursday: On Thursday we left Leuven around 7:30. Our first stop was a manure composting and biogas facility. The manure composting facility smelled HORRIBLE. The ammonia levels were so high that they made everyones eyes and throats burn. Some people even had to go back to the bus and not finish the tour because of the smell. Some students think that this is what eventually led to the stomach problems. We toured the composting facility and then the biogas facility. Everyone reaked of manure when we got back on the bus to head to lunch. Everyone's shoes were also covered in manure. It smelled soooooo gross. Then we went to eat lunch at this castle place that you see below in the first picture. It was good. We all had the same thing for lunch though, it was preordered. We had spinach soup with bread and the main course was a Flemish stew of beef tips with fries and a side salad. It was very good. Then we went to our next stop. It was an Agricultural Research Center somewhat like the Luling Foundation. There, we learned about biogas through a presentation and then had a tour of a miniature biogas set-up at the center. It was very interesting and smelled much better than the first place. I graded papers during our time on the bus. Our last stop was Danis. They have 3 main processes: turning hog manure into pellet fertilizer, making hog feed, and soybean treatment. We toured the manure treatment facility. It was not in operation while we were there. It had a somewhat bad smell but nothing like the first place. It was a pretty neat facility. They did biological treatment of the manure which consisted of nitrification and denitrification in huge tanks. You can see the aerobic nitrification picture below. It looks like bubbly poop. Then we drove to Brugge and checked into our hotel Ibis. Then each of us went out to explore the town. I bought a few chocolates and then stopped to have dinner with Ryan, Adam, Brad, Val, and Austin. Brugge is a town about the size of Leuven but it is MUCH more touristy. There are tons of souvenirs, chocolate shops, and lace shops. The place we stopped for dinner was very expensive. Brad and Adam got Charolais steak and Ryan got the lobster for 49 euros, haha. I just had a glass of rose wine. Austin, Val, and I decided to go eat somewhere else. We ended up eating at a pasta and sandwich place. I had the 4 cheese penne pasta. It was super delicious. Then we met the boys back at the hotel. Val and Austin went to the music festival. I went with Brad, Adam, and Ryan to a bar behind the square for drinks. I had a couple more glasses of wine. The boys had glasses of Stella Artois and smoked some Cuban cigars. On our way back to the hotel around 11 PM, we stopped at a Night Shop for Ryan to get a bottle of wine and Adam to get an ice cream. Between the Night Shop and our hotel, we ran into Dr. Munster. Then we met Ann and Liz inside the bar of our hotel. Dr. Munster offered to buy us drinks but we passed. I ended up going to sleep right at midnight.

What an eventful weekend! I am still not feeling 100% but I pray that I continue to get better. I must have my stomach back to normal when I return to Texas on Friday evening because our first stop is going to be Mexcian food!!!!! We have our last 4-6 page field trip report due on Tuesday. Both of our finals are on Wednesday. We have room and kitchen inspections here at the student house on Thursday. Then we leave from Brussels on Friday. Maybe, if I get my report done tomorrow and the weather is nice, we can go to Brussels on Monday to see some of the sites. I would like to see where the King and Queen live. As for now, love from Leuven! I will keep myself hydrated and get back to normal. Thanks for all the good luck wishes. Now say a prayer that Brad and the rest of the house does not end up getting sick. An overseas flight while sick would not be fun! <3 Sabrina

We're Back

2010-08-06T10:46:00.000-07:00

We just got back home to Leuven from our field trip. However, I have been VERY sick since 12:30 PM today. I have been throwing up and have had diarrhea :( But, I want to assure everyone that Brad is doing a fantastic job taking care of me. I am trying to focus on drinking fluids and resting.

Sorry to dissappoint you, but I don't plan to post a blog update about our field trip until tomorrrow when I am feeling better (hopefully)!

Love to all

Only 9 Days

2010-08-04T11:32:00.000-07:00

As of today, we only have 9 more days before we go back to Texas. I am very sad, but excited to get back home. Today, we had 2 short lectures in the morning. Then we had a seminar speaker named Frederik Accoe from VCM: the Flemish Coordination Center for Manure Processing. The title of his speech was Manure Processing in Flanders: An Overview. He was very interesting. For lunch I had a bag of Paprika baked Lays, a sandwich roll, and some Simpson cookies. Then later in the afternoon, I had a Cola Light to get me through the day. During the lunch break, I stayed and graded homework assignments for Dr. Engler's class. Today, Dr. Engler gave us a homework assignment in the morning and our LAST homework assignment in the afternoon. Dr. Munster gave us a really hard homework assignment about storm hydrographs. We had to use Microsoft Excel and it took forever.

I left school about 4:30 after Dr. Engler finished his second lecture about septic tanks, and we finished our second homework assignment for the day. Then I headed to the Standard, a bookstore close to our house. I was looking for a Nicholas Sparks book in English other than The Last Song, Dear John, or Three Weeks with my Brother. The only Nicholas Sparks book that they had was The Last Song. So I ended up getting a different novel and 3 postcards of Leuven. Then I rode to a chocolate shop about 10 minutes away on my bike. I bought a bunch of chocolates to take home to my family. My favorite chocolate is there. It is white chocolate with a hazelnut cream and rice crispies inside! It's amazing. Then I came back to the student house and met up with the girls to go eat dinner. I went to Del Sol with Nikki, Molly, Stephanie, Kirstin, and Val. I had a ham and cheese omelet. Kirstin and I split chips and salsa. I also had two Leffe Blond beers. It was delicious but it took forever. There were only 2 people who were taking orders and cooking all of the food. About 5 of our class mates went to a soccer game tonight. I am curious to see how it went. Today, during school we got 40 euros for food on our overnight field trip and 100 euros in a rebate from the cost of the program. It was another great surprise. Tomorrow morning at 7:30 AM the bus is leaving to go to Bruges. We are stopping several times and manure treatment facilities. We are staying in the Ibis hotel in Bruge and coming home on Friday after a walking tour of the city. We will be home on Friday around 4 PM. Today, Brad went to the post office and mailed 2 boxes of souvenirs home. It cost him 50 euros. Wow! I hope they get there soon.

After I finish this blog, I need to write my 1-2 page seminar and email it to Dr. Engler. Then I need to pack my backpack for our overnight field trip. Then I will take a shower and go to bed!! No going out for me tonight. Tomorrow morning is going to come way too early. As always, peace and love from Belgium. I miss and love all of my family and friends. Nine days is going to fly by! My next blog will probably be on Friday evening, including lots of pictures! I also hope I come home from the field trip with some beautiful lace from Bruges. XOXOXO Sabrina Louise

Testing out the Waters

2010-08-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty average day. Last night I was able to watch a episode and a half of the Bachelorette before going to sleep. Then today during school I read a summary of last night's episode of the finale of the Bachelorette. I did like Roberto, but I think I liked Chris more. And after reading the summary, it sounds like she didn't even give Chris a chance at the end. Brad finished washing our clothes after I fell asleep last night. He did a great job, even though the whites were still wet. Haha. (He said he couldn't read the dryer settings since they were in Flemish). I woke up about 7:40 this morning and ate a banana and had an orange juice box for breakfast. Then I rode my bike to school all by myself. It has been very cool outside today. Longsleeves and pants weather. In Dr. Munster's class we learned about Open Channel Flow today. Dr. Engler passed back his mid-term exams. I made a 93 and am pleased with my grade. Then we had lunch from 12 to 1:30. I stayed at school and worked on homework. I ate some pretzel sticks and an orange for lunch. Later, I had M&M's (which taste the same as in America) and a Cola Light to make it through the afternoon. During lunch, I finished up Dr. Munster's homework assignment. The Ag Engineers has 3 tough problems. The Ag Systems class only had 1 problem. Then at 1:30 when everyone met back in the classroom, we went out into the field for a lab exercise. You can view the pictures below. We rode our bikes along the Voor River until we got to a monitoring station about 10 minutes away. It is where they measure the flow rate of the river every 15 minutes. The results are posted online. Then we broke up into 5 or 6 groups and took a bunch of measurements on bridges along the river. We performed lots of calculations and then eventually compared our results to those posted online. Our values were slightly higher. The lab exercise took a while, and I ended up finishing it after dinner. We started Dr. Engler's homework around 3:30 PM. It was really long and hard. It was about land application of manure, and everyone had the same 3 problems. Ann, Liz, and I finally finished it around 5:15.

Then I rode my bike to the ATM machine and got some more euros since I ran out yesterday. Then I went to the shopping street to try to find an English novel for the plane ride home and the bus ride to Bruges on Thursday for our field trip. I was looking for a Nicholas Sparks novel. The first store I went to had a small section of English novels but the only Nicholas Sparks book they had was Three Weeks with my Brother, which I just finished reading on the way here. It was a 2nd hand shop that sold used books. No one would help me find anything, and I asked two different people who worked there for help. Finally, I got frustrated and left. The next store I went to had no English novels. So, I gave up. I came home and then went to Metropole on the Oude Market (or the square) for dinner with Brad, Jake, Jaime, Katie, and Kelsey. They are known for their pasta. I had a bowl of Spaghetti Bolognaise (spaghetti with meat sauce) and parmesan cheese. I also had a Stella Artois. It was very good and cost me about 10,40 euros all together. Just after we got to the bar for dinner, it started raining. And luckily, by the time we were done eating it had stopped. Then I finished up the internet portion of the lab exercise when I got back here to the house. I have also been helping other students with Dr. Engler's homework. I have a feeling that it is not going to be a fun homework for me to grade later this week. Tomorrow, we have 2 short lectures and then our last seminar speaker. We probably also have 2 more homework assignments in the afternoon. Tomorrow evening we have to write our last 1-2 page seminar report. On Thursday morning the bus leaves at 7:30 AM for the overnight field trip in Bruges. This is the first time that the program is doing this due to a grant that we received from the USDA. We are touring a manure management site on Thursday and then have free time after 6 PM. We are staying in hotel rooms with our same roommates from the student house. On Friday, we are taking a walking tour of Bruges and then returning to Leuven by about 4 PM. We will have to write our last 4-6 page field trip report this weekend. Finals for our program are a week from tomorrow. I can't believe that it is almost over.

Today, Dr. Munster gave us Use-It maps of Leuven and Bruges that he got from a new hostel in Leuven. They are English maps written by locals that have really interesting information about the towns. They are written for young travelers. That is where I found out about the good pasta at Metropole. Today, I added my cousin Melissa Marsh onto Skype. I am going to try to Skype with her sometime if we are both online at the same time. Also, I got my sister's address to her new apartment today. Maybe I will try to mail her a post card or something from Belgium...... we'll see! I miss not talking to my mom since she is at my sister's old apartment this week helping her pack up and move. She does not have internet service at her apartment so I have no communication with my mom. But, my sister has downloaded Skype on her computer at her new office and we have been able to talk in the evenings while she is at work. Only about 10 more days until Texas. Love to everyone!

The cute baby ducks in the river. We have been watching them grow up for the past 3 weeks!

Ann, Liz, and myself getting our data. Ann is using the flow meter, Liz is timing, and I am recording.

Jake is in the water using the flow meter to measure the velocity of the stream.

Picture is blurry since I took it while riding my bike. That is Katie sitting on the bridge in her pink jacket.

I've Got Texas on my Mind

2010-08-02T10:57:00.000-07:00

Last night I was able to talk to my mom and my sister for about an hour. They were in College Station taking care of my yard before they headed back to Dallas. My mom is going to help my sister move into her new apartment. I was excited to talk to my sister finally because we haven't been able to Skype since I've been here. Her computer and her iPhone are messed up! Then, I stayed up till about 1:30 or 2:00 AM just hanging out with friends outside in the garden. We were discussing all of our weekend travels. The group from Paris had tons of stories to tell! They had an extremely eventful weekend. This morning I slept until 11:30 AM. I planned to wake up around 8 and finish my field trip report #3, but that didn't happen. At noon, I went to Pizza Hut with Brad, Jake, Kirstin, Ann, and Liz for the lunch buffet. It was delicious! I had a salad, pizza, and a Pepsi Light. Then Brad and I walked to the shopping street so I could buy my sister's "big" gift from Europe. I hope she loves it; I sure do! On our way back it started raining and got really cool. When we got back to the house we both worked on our papers. Then we went to DelHaize together (hopefully for the last time) to get some food for this week. I got some fruit, a couple juice boxes, a bag of baked Lays, and some sandwich stuff. I even used teh self check out today at the grocery store. I feel like I have come such a long ways! Then we came back to the house. I peeled and ate my pomegranted that I bought last week and made a sandwich for dinner. I had planned to go to the book store today to find a book in English for the plane ride home since I already finished the book that Brad's mom let me borrow for the trip. I never made it though since all the stores close at 6 PM. I finally finished my paper right before we went to the grocery store and I emailed it to the professors. Tonight, Brad and I are going to do our laundry together. We need to get all the sand off of everything! Katie and Kelsey made it back from Rome a little while ago. I haven't had a chance to talk to her about their weekend yet though. I have been watching the Bachelorette Episode 9 since they got back. I am super excited to see who Ali will pick in the Season Finale which airs in about 6 hours, I think!

Tomorrow and Wednesday we have class. On Thursday, we are all leaving on a bus to go to Bruge for our last field trip. However, this one is an overnight field trip. I am excited to go to Bruge. They are known for their lace. I can't wait to see it. I think we are getting back on Friday evening around 6 PM or so. Hopefully, on Saturday we can take a day trip to Brussels. I have been wanting to see it very bad. Then we have school next Tuesday, finals on Wednesday, clean up our dorms on Thursday, and go back to Texas on Friday. Crazy huh? Time has been flying by!!! Brad reminded me of something today. He said, "When we get back to Texas we are going to eat Mexcian food and watch some Fightin' Texas Aggie Football." Yaaayyyyy! I would like to mention that I am having a wonderful time here in Belgium. I truly love it in Leuven. It is beautiful and the people are so nice. I hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend. I love and miss you :)

This is a picture of me with my wonderful family on my Fightin' Texas Aggie Ring Day. I miss them so much :)

Fun in the [no] Sun

2010-08-01T13:33:00.000-07:00

Wow! What an eventful weekend! Thursday night I ended up going asleep early after I finished grading all of the homework assignments. I was super tired. However, I woke up when my dear friend Brad had an accident down the stairs. He slipped on the first stair on his way down from his floor to the floor I live on. He was holding two full glasses of coke which busted and went everywhere. He also cut his foot. I sure am glad he was sober because it could have been much worse. I am so glad he is ok! I was also woke up at 3 AM by Katie's alarm. She set it for 3 AM because the group that was going to Rome, including her, had to leave in a taxi around 4 AM to get to the Brussels airport. Their flight left at 6:45 AM. However, she wasn't in the room when her alarm started going off at 3 AM. I think she was out having fun with Kelsey all night long.

Friday morning I slept in until about 10:00. Then I went upstairs to see if Brad, Liz, and Ann were ready to go to the market in Leuven. We left about 30 minutes later. Our first stop was the K.U. Leuven gift shop. I bought a white K.U. Leuven t-shirt for myself. We also all got free clipboards. Then we headed towards the university library for the market. The market turned out to be just a huge flea market. There was clothes, jewelry, underwear, cheese, produce, meat, waffles, and lots of other stuff. We stopped at a chocolate shop near the market where I bought the BEST white chocolate square I have ever had. They are filled with rice crispies and hazelnut creme! MMMM. Ann got lots of gifts for her friends back home at the chocolate shop. On our way to the next store, I saw a sign that said cookie dough ice cream. It was a small Ben and Jerry's cookie dough, but I bought one for Brad and myself. I couldn't pass that up. The ice cream shops here don't have cookie dough or cake batter ice cream - my two favorites! Then we headed to the "I Love Leuven" souvenir store. I bought about 6 postcards and a shot glass that says Leuven on it. Liz bought an awesome paper fan with lace on it. Then we came back home for lunch. I graded one last paper and ate an orange for lunch. This is also when we found out that the entire group that was supposed to be going to Rome did not make it to Rome. Apparently, their tickets were booked for August instead of July. However, Kelsey and Katie decided to buy new tickets and went instead. Molly, Chris, Stephanie, and Jaime came back to Leuven. Jaime left for Paris Friday morning with the Paris group - Ryan, Adam, Sierra, Lindsey, and Randy. Then Brad and I rode our bikes to the botanical gardens in Leuven. They are beautiful! We had a really great time there. There were chickens, bees, all types of fruit trees, a pond with fish, and lots and lots of plants. Then we rode our bikes to Velo and got our tires aired up. When we got back to the house I crashed and took a long nap. Around 5:00 PM, I convinced Brad to go shopping with me down the Dieststraat since all the stores close around 6:00 PM. We went to Buffalo where I bought my silver t-strap Birkenstocks. They were still on sale too because it was still July. We also went to H&M where I bought 2 tops. Then we went to Leonidas and we bought some chocolate to take to our family. Brad got two assorted boxes. I bet they are going to be delicious. Then we ran into Stephanie and Molly. I took them back to Buffalo so Stephanie could get her Birkenstocks. She got the lime green ones. Then we headed back to the house. Before we got there we ran into Liz and Ann. They were headed to supper at a Mexican restaurant near our house. We decided to run home, drop off our bags, change clothes, and then join them. I had a margarita and the Pollo tacos. It was very good for Belgium. I had one taco with chicken and one taco with a beef mixture in it. It also came with a serving of beans, a heap of spicy mashed potatoes, and a salad. Lots of food! Molly, Nikki, Stephanie, Jake, Brad, Liz, Ann, Derek, Kirstin, and myself were all there. We all thought there were concerts on Friday night in Leuven since the stage was still set up but apparently the last one was last Friday. We were bummed. So, we went back to the student house, had a few drinks and then us girls had a "girls night" at the Oude Market. We went to one bar and we each had a shot of something with gold flakes in it. It tasted like cinnamon. Then we went to Louvain Louvain, a coctail bar. I had a Mango Daquiri, but it was gross. And it cost me 7,50 euros!! Ann had a pina colada and a banana colada and loved them. I think I just chose the wrong drink. Later we went inside the bar and danced for about an hour. They played lots of great American music, even Usher! We had a great time. Earlier that night, Ann, Liz, Derek, Brad and I had all decided to join Nikki, Kirstin, and Jake, and now Molly and Stephanie in Calais, France for Saturday and Sunday.

Yesterday morning we left the student house around 8:00 AM. We took a train to Gent and then to Lille Flandres. Then we had to walk to Lille Europe and then we took a train to the first stop in Calais. When we got off, it was after 2:00 PM and it was dark and raining. We were all wearing our swimsuits. We were planning to go to the beach! The weather was a bummer. We walked into the train station and realized that we needed to go to the Calais Ville station. So we rode another train 10 minutes to the station in the town. We think the first Calais station was a prison stop, but we are not sure. We finally made it to the right train station and only walked one or two blocks to our hotel - the Metropole Hotel. It was very nice. We had one room with 2 twin beds that Liz and Derek stayed in, one room with 3 twin beds that Brad, Ann, and I stayed in, and then a large room with 2 queen beds that Jake, Stephanie, Molly, Kirstin, and Nikki stayed in. That way, we had a boy in all 3 rooms. After we got settled in, the rain had begun to stop but it was still freezing cold outside. We walked a couple blocks to the Hovercraft restaurant. I had the Alfredo pasta with tap water. It was really good and had chunks of turkey in it. The other students had omlettes or cheeseburgers. Then we walked to the beach. Only Liz was brave enough to trip and fall into the water (she wasn't wearing her swimsuit)! We only stayed for a little while because it was cloudy and cold. But, around 5 PM when we headed back to the hotel the sun started coming out. We stopped at a souvenir shop and then made it back to the room. Again, we all crashed and took naps. We all met up on the bottom floor in the big room and were watching TV in English - there were lots of English stations since Calais, France is just on the other side of the North Sea from England. There are ferries that take vehicles across. I think it's only about 25 km from Calais to England. Then, a group decided to go get dinner. I wasn't very hungry but told Brad that I just wanted one slice of cheese pizza. It was a disaster. They came back with 3 Dixie pizzas. Brad, Jake, and Derek had ordered the Dixie. It was a pizza with slices of hot dog (it said "sausage"), mushrooms, and a raw egg cracked over the top of it. Disgusting, right? I ended up eating 3 slices of Kirstin's cheese pizza, thank God she came to the rescue! The boys didn't feel so good this morning after eating that nasty pizza.

This morning we had to check out by 11 AM. Then we headed towards the beach. We ate at a restaurant close to to the beach. I had a ham and cheese omlette. It came with fries and a salad for about 7,50 euros. It was delicious! Then we walked to the beach and stayed there until about 3 PM. I actually took my clothes off today and layed out on my towel in my bikini for a while. It was partly cloudy and the sun peaked in and out of the clouds randomly. It was still cold but this time Kirstin and Jake both went into the water. There were a lot more people on the beach today. We got back to the train station super early. So we ate sandwiches at the restaurant connected to the Calais Ville train station. I had a ham and cheese sandwich for 3,80 euros. It was good but the bread was thick. Then we rode 3 trains back to Leuven. On our way back to the student house from the train station we ran into a mass of people. There were concerts going on tonight. Except no one ever told us that they were on Sunday night this weekend instead of Monday. Oh well! I made it back and then went right to the shower. I had sand in my nose, ears, hair, and everywhere else! But, at the end of my shower, the shower head accidently fell (it is one of those that has a hose that you can take down). It broke into lots of pieces. I had to go get Brad from upstairs to fix it! Oops. I'm glad he could fix it for me. Then I uploaded pictures from this weekend to Facebook. The boys went out to get more food but I am stuffed from all the great food that we ate this weekend. I think I am going to go to bed soon.

Tomorrow morning I am going to write my 4-6 page report over the field trip that we went on Thursday. I hope I finish within a couple hours. Because, I would like to go shopping again. I am still looking for the perfect gift for my sister. I think I found it but it is 60 euros! So maybe I will keep looking. I would like to also go to the M Museum in Leuven tomorrow but it is closed on Monday so we will have to go another day. Maybe I will wash a load of clothes so I can get rid of all the sand. The girls talked about going to Pizza Hut for the lunch buffet tomorrow. I hope we make it. They even have a salad bar and Pepsi! So that has been my weekend so far. I haven't talked to my mom on Skype in about 4 days. I'm not sure when I will talk to her again because she went to Dallas with my sister to help her move some of her stuff to her new apartment in Uptown. Maybe she took her laptop; I'm not sure yet. I have no way to get a hold of her right at this moment. I hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend. I only have 12 more days in Europe before I come home to Texas and eat REAL Mexican food and barbeque! Peace and Love from Leuven ~ BRE

The Flea Market
The Botanical Gardens in Leuven

Aren't they gorgeous?

Before "Girls Night" out

At the Lille Flandres Train Station

A fort built in the 1200s in Calais, France - also used during World War II

Ferrie boat that goes to England and back

We stopped at a carnival to get some awesome carnival food. Ann got 2 candy apples!

The Underground World of Belgium

2010-07-29T11:04:00.000-07:00

Last night we had a Texas style barbeque at the student house. Vincent (our RA), Jaime, and Chris went to the grocery store to buy all the supplies while the majority of the students and the professors were at the movies watching Inception last night. The professors gave them 150 euros from our program to buy supplies for the barbecue. For meat, we had: pork hamburgers, beef steaks, beef shish-kabobs, bratwursts, sausages, and chicken pieces. We also had mushrooms filled with garlic butter (which you can see on the top of the grill picture). For the vegetarians they bought bell peppers, onions, and tortillas. We also had hamburger buns, sausage buns, mayonaise, mustard, ketchup, lettuce, tomatoes, lots of chips, and 4 types of dips (although the "hot" sauce didn't quite taste right). They also made a bucket of sangria wine with fruit in it and Fanta. So, we essentially got lots of food for about 140 euros, not too bad. The food was pretty good. I had a pork hamburger, and I split a bratwurst on a bun with Ann. I also had 2 of my miniature Cola Lights but lots of other students had the Sangria or bottles of Stella Artois beer. I think they finished two cases last night. I was also glad that Dr. Engler and Dr. Munster could come and join in the fun. Some of the students started playing soccer, some played badmitten, and Ann and Kelsey had a hand-stand contest. I decided to show off by doing a roundoff backhandspring. I have been doing it since I was in 5th grade, but it has probably been 3 years or so since I did it last. Needless to say, I landed on my head and tweeked my neck. I felt like I had a horrible crick in my neck. So around 10 PM I came upstairs, took a shower, and then went to sleep. I'm not sure how late others stayed up.

This morning Katie and I woke up at 6 AM to write our Seminar #3 Reports. I finished mine in about 30 minutes and then emailed it to Dr. Munster. Later, I realized that I should have proofread it before sending it. Oh well........ I ate a banana and a Minute Maid orange juice box for breakfast at 6 AM. I also took more Tylenol for my neck. Then I laid back down in bed. About 10 minutes until 8 AM (we were supposed to leave at 8), Brad came and woke me up, thank goodness. I put on some clothes and headed out the door on my bike. However, both of my bike tires are pretty much flat. So it took me forever to make it to the bus stop. The bus left around 8:30 AM this morning. We first went to the Flanders Water Distribution office. We saw a bunch of computer screens and met our tour guide for the morning, Simon. Then we got back on the bus and drove 30 minutes till we got to a water gallery. The water gallery is pretty much were they capture 250 m3/hr of drinking water that is groundwater. It is only slightly treated with chlorine and then passes through a sand filter. It is groundwater that flows by gravity down a mountain into the gallery. The gallery is 600 meters long. It was really awesome. I enjoyed seeing the water that came out of the mountains; it was beautiful. Then we got back on the bus and went to a man-made chalk or phosphate cave that Flanders also pumps drinking water out of. It is a cave that was mined in the middle ages that is all chalk. This phosphate was used for agriculture and for writing. It is now used as the Chalk Aquifer and supplies a lot of the drinking water in Flanders. It was super fun, but most of us got really dirty climbing down about 5 ladders into the cave. We were able to see the water table when we got down in the cave. Then we loaded back on the bus and drove back to our school campus where we had lunch at the sandwich shop. I ate their the past 2 days also, so I am getting tired of it. Today I had a Panini Italiano with ham, cheese, tomato, and pesto with a Cola Light. I didn't like the ham though so I took it off. After they brought out more soup, I also ate a cup of soup because I knew it was going to be a long day. It was a vegetable soup with noodles and a tomato base. It wasn't too bad. Then we got back on the bus and drove a couple hours. I'm not sure how long we drove because everyone was sleeping. We picked up our tour guide for the second half of the field trips, Jan. He is a geology professor at the University of Ghent in Belgium. We stopped the bus along the side of a highway and everyone got off. Then we walked down this narrow path between two barbed wire electrical fences about a quarter of a mile. The path was full of really tall weeds and some people who weren't wearing pants ran into weeds with thorns and such. Then we got to a cliff essentially. He made us go down it until we got to a sink hole where a river found limestone and fell into a sink hole. Now water flows down the river and then directly into the groundwater supply in the area. It was pretty interesting but everyone got SUPER muddy. Some girls were wearing shorts and some were even wearing flip flops. A couple people slipped and fell down the mountain. It was pretty disastrous. My $80 tennis shoes are kind of ruined. I will have to wash them in the washing machine when I get back to Texas. Then we stopped again on some random side of the road and saw the other side of the river that has also turned into a sink hole. It wasn't quite as bad this time though because we knew what to expect. Finally, we got back onto the bus and drove into Liege where we went into caves that are actually tour-led. They were very similar to the Natural Bridge Caverns except they allowed people to touch the stalagtites and stalagmites and other formations in the cave. We had to go down lots of steps but then when we got to the end of the cave, we got into a boat and our tour guide from the cave rowed us back up to the front of the cave. It was an awesome boat ride through the water table in the cave. After the boat ride he asked for a tip but he wasn't too bad looking so I was fine with it. Especially since we didn't tip over like a group of people did 3 years ago. Then we all used the restroom and several people bought some souvenirs. Jaime, Jake, and Brad ran across the road to get some fries with ketchup or samari sauce. Stephanie and I went a couple buildings down to an ice cream shop. We were in the French speaking region of Belgium so it was difficult to communicate with the people in the stores. Then we had a long bus ride back home. We got back to the bus stop around 6:40 which was 40 minutes later than planned.

Then I rode my bike home slowly and cooked some cheese tortellini with tomato sauce and cheese for Brad and me. It was good. Then I uploaded my pictures from last night and today. After I finish this blog I will probably take a nap and then try to start on my 4-6 page field trip report. The group of students that are going to Rome this weekend leave on a plane at 6:45 AM from the Brussels airport. However, the first train to Brussels doesn't leave Leuven until 6:00 AM in the morning. So they are going to have to spend the night in the Brussels airport or get a taxis to pick them up very early in the morning. My plans are to go to the Leuven market tomorrow morning with Brad, Ann, and Liz. Then I need to take my bike to Velo to get the tires aired up so I can actually ride somewhere. I would also like to go to the K.U. Leuven bookstore tomorrow which is only open Monday-Friday from 10-12 and 2-4. I would also like to go to the M Museum which is the new museum in Leuven. Ann wants to do some shopping in town also because all the sales end on Saturday. Stores here are only allowed to have sales in January and July, so once August hits there will be no more sales. Tomorrow evening there will be 5 or 6 stages set up around the town of Leuven with live concerts again. I am not sure what the theme is but I am sure we will try to be around to watch them. Brad wants to go to the post office tomorrow to get stamps for his post cards. I mailed mine this morning because Ann let me buy enough stamps from her. She had a few extra. On Saturday, I think we will go on a day trip to Brussels. It is the capital of Belgium and a much bigger tourist town than Leuven. I am hoping to get some "Belgium" post cards and souvenirs. If the weather is nice, we will go to Oostende to the Belgium beach on Sunday since all the shopping will be closed everywhere anyways. I am not sure what we will do Monday, but if we have time I would like to take a day trip to Luxembourg. Another group of students is planning to go to Normandy, France for the weekend. Next weekend is our overnight field trip and then our final exams are the following Tuesday. So this weekend is pretty much our last 4 day or full weekend to travel anywhere. All of us are exhausted right now and most people are ready to get caught up on their sleep. I am excited that we only have 4 more days of school in our classroom and only 1 more field trip (even though it is an overnight field trip). That means not too many more homeworks and reports until we are done with these classes. Only about 2 more weeks until Texas!!! Whoop!

I just want to say that I miss everyone and I am enjoying myself. My neck is fine but it does feel like I have a horrible crick in it. I have not decided if I will ever attempt a backhandspring again in my lifetime. Although if I do, I will be sure to have a spotter just in case I fall. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. And I hope the weather here clears up and doesn't rain this weekend. It has rained everyday for the last week or so. I like the cool temperatures but I am ready for the rain to stop. Peace and love to everyone from Belgium :)

<3 Sabrina (this <3 is a heart!)

Mid-Terms Over and Seminar #3

2010-07-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

For breakfast I had a grapefruit. I ate it by peeling off the entire peeling and then eating it like an orange. It was good, but messy. I usually eat grapefruits with a spoon and sugar. Oh well. At school today we got back our mid-term exams from BAEN 460 that we took yesterday. I made a 45/50 but Dr. Munster threw out the question that I missed. So I ended up getting 100%. Brad made a 50/50 and was upset that we ended up with the same score. Haha! Today we had Dr. Munster's lecture from 8:30 to 9:30. Then we had Dr. Engler's class from 9:45 to 10:45. We worked a homework set about manure treatment during that time. I barely finished it along with about 6 other people. Later, Dr. Engler graded my homework (I made a 53/55) and then gave me the other 5 homeworks to grade. Then at 11 AM we had our third seminar speaker. It was given by Eddy Wille from OVAM. He is the department head of the soil remediation department. OVAM is the public waste agency of Flanders, Belgium. It is similar to the EPA in the United States. The title of his presentationw as: Waste Management and Soil Remediation: Role of the OVAM. OVAM stands for Public Waste Agency of Flanders in Flemish. So the acronym is kind of pointless in English. The seminar was good except it went over about 15 minutes, so it cut our lunch short. (Mr. Wille is hard to see in the pictures below but he is on the right side in front of the chalk board and behind the podium).

At 12:15 when we got out of the seminar, I rushed over to the sandwich shop on the campus of K.U. Leuven where our classes are. I got the panini benglisch again today. It is a panini with ham, cheese, tomato, and pesto. Yesterday it didn't have tomato and pesto. I also got Paprika Lays potato chips which taste like barbeque chips from America. And of course, I got a Cola Light. My total was around 5 euros. The line was super long today. Then when I was done eating, I went back to the classroom and started studying for Dr. Engler's mid-term exam at 1:30 PM. It was 5 multiple choice questions that were closed note/closed book. I think I missed one of them (worth 5 points each). Then the rest was 4 work out problems that made up the other 75 points of the test. I think I did well on this work out portion of the exam. The AGSM 337 students had a different test than the BAEN 465 (engineering) students. When I finished the exam, I started working on Dr. Munster's homework assignment. We had to work a problem about the amount of nitrogen flowing through a river and the amount of salt that needs to be added to the Rec Center pool to make it saltwater. It was about 215,000 lbs of salt. I finished the homework and turned it into Dr. Munster.

Then I left school and went to DelHaize to do some shopping. Today I bought 2 bananas, 3 oranges, a container of pineapple, a container of green grapes, 1 pomegrante, a package of cheese tortellini, a package of shredded swiss cheese, a package of pretzels, and 4 Minute Maid orange juice boxes for in the mornings. I still have 3 pears left from last week. My total at DelHaize was 15 euros. Dr. Munster had told us that we could buy postage stamps at DelHaize. I tried to buy them but they were only for Belgium. They were not international stamps. So, I need to go to the post office soon. I have 4 post cards that I have been wanting to mail. They are addressed and ready to go. If I don't send them soon, I will get home before they make it to America. When I got home from the store, I bought 2 wash and 2 dry tokens from Vincent, our RA. Brad and I separated our darks and whites and are doing 0ur laundry together to save money (and energy of course). Our clothes are still in the washer and dryer now. Then I graded the rest of the papers that Dr. Engler gave me. I also uploaded the 2 pictures that I took today at the seminar and checked my email. After I finish this blog I need to write my 1-2 page seminar report, finish my laundry, talk to my mom on Skype, and then possibly do some research for our plans this weekend.

At 5:00 about half of the students on the program went to the movie theater to see the movie Inception in English. The cost was 9 euros. I wanted to go but I didn't think I would have time to do everything I needed to do tonight if I went to the movies. When these students get back, we are having a barbeque here at our student house. The professors said we have some left-over money from the program that they could use to help us buy the meat. Yesterday, we each receive 120 euros from the professors as a refund from the cost of the program that we paid. They over charged us initially to make sure that they had enough money to cover all of the expenses. So, again I have a busy evening but hopefully more relaxing than last night was. Tomorrow we have our 3rd field trip. We are going to some groundwater facility and some caves. We are leaving on the bus at 8:30 AM. It's about a 20 minute bike ride to the bus stop. Then the bus is returning around lunch time to the sandwich shop at school where I ate the past 2 days. This is where we are eating lunch. Everyone has to buy their own lunch this time. Then we are getting back on the bus to go somewhere else. We are getting home around 6:00 PM tomorrow evening. I plan to work on my 4-6 page field trip report tomorrow night.

Today it rained really hard while we were taking our exam. But luckily it stopped by the time I had to bike home. The weather has been cool and rainy here in Europe recently and it is supposed to stay that way throughout the weekend. Some of the students on the program have booked plane trips/train rides to Rome this weekend. It is costing them about $500. Another group of students has talked about going to Normandy in France. I think I am just going to hang around here and explore Brussels, Oostende, and Leuven. I want to do some shopping before the sales end on Saturday. (Stores here are only allowed to have things on sale in January and July). Well, I guess that is all for tonight. I will try to have another blog post tomorrow evening after our field trip that includes some pictures, of course. To everyone back home in Texas - stay cool and I miss you!!!

Love, BRE

Mid-Term Exams

2010-07-27T05:20:00.000-07:00

I am at school and just finished my first mid-term exam in BAEN 460. I'm not sure how I did yet but I think Dr. Munster is going to give us our graded exams back in about an hour. Tomorrow we have a mid-term exam in Dr. Engler's BAEN 465 class. It is most likely going to be a lot harder and more work out problems. The test today was only 10 multiple choice questions.

I had a pear for breakfast this morning and had a ham and cheese panini with a Cola Light from the sandwich shop at school for lunch today. Dr. Munster also assigned a homework assignment that is due tomorrow, even though we had a test today. Dr. Engler has decided to lecture today during our problem solving session. We only have one homework assignment in his class this week. It is due on Tuesday. Tomorrow, we also have a seminar speaker. So tomorrow evening we have to write another 1-2 page report over the seminar that is due on Thursday. On Thursday we are going on a field trip from 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM. We are touring a groundwater facility and some caves....? It should be interesting. We have to write another field trip report this weekend. It is a 4-6 page report that is also due on Tuesday. At least I don't have any homework to grade this week. Although I will definitely need to do laundry this week sometime.

Our RA gave Katie and I this little bug zapper to plug into the outlet in our room to keep the bugs from biting us while we sleep. Last night was the first night we used it, and I didn't get any new bug bites. But, we also slept with the windows closed and the door closed because it was really cold. The temperature has really cooled off here. It is cool enough that you need at least a light jacket on while outside. It feels like October or November or even December in Texas. The weather is supposed to be nice on Friday but then rainy on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday for our last 4 day weekend here in Europe.

Some things that I have noticed lately is that the hooks in the bathroom stalls in public places for women to hang their purses are on the sides of the stalls, not on the back of the door. Also, it usually costs anywhere from 20 cents to 1 euro to use the restroom in public places in Europe. And, most of the restroom stalls go all the way up to the ceiling and down to the floor. It is basically like a room. And people called it the toilet or WC (water closet). Bathroom refers to the shower and restroom doesn't mean anything really.

Yesterday on our way back to Leuven from Germany, we were on two ICE (high speed German trains). We got free water (not carbonated) and two free orange juice boxes. It was awesome. The German trains are really awesome! I don't know if I said this in my last blog, but I really wish that we would have had just ONE more day in Munich. We wanted to be able to go on the "not-free" walking tour from 11 - 3:30 and also have time to shop while in Germany. I wanted to buy some nice steins, German ornaments, maybe a Cuckoo clock, and Birkenstocks of course! Maybe one day I will be able to make it back to such a beautiful place :)

I am trying to decide what I am going to do this weekend. A group of people are going to Rome but it is going to be like a 12-15 hour travel time. This is enough time to go back to Texas!!! I don't think I can ride the train that long. I want to stay here in the Leuven/Brussels area this weekend. I think it would be fun to go to Oostende to the beach on Friday since the weather is supposed to be clear and 24 degrees C. Then we could come back to Leuven in the evening and be there for the concerts around town. Then on Saturday we could shop in Leuven (I want to go to the I love Leuven shop, find some Birkenstocks, go to the M museum in Leuven, and go to the student bookstore at K.U. Leuven) and then make a day-trip to Brussels. I would like to see some monuments in Brussels and do some souvenir shopping for "Belgium" souvenirs while in Brussels. Then, possibly we could go to Luxembourg on Sunday or Monday for a day-trip since we don't need to be back early to study for exams next week, especially if we get our field trip reports done early. Everything is really up in the air right now but I am leaning towards staying in the area this weekend and touring Belgium. There is also a market in Leuven on Friday morning that is sort of like a trade days or nice flea market. There are lots of little tables and booths set up throughout the square and city hall area. I would love to go to that also. There is also a water park in Brussels that Jacob (the Belgian guy in our classes) told us about. We could also go there if the weather stays nice through the weekend and not rainy. Within the next few days, I guess I will decide for sure my plans for this weekend. I met a family from Amarillo while in Germany and they said that they had toured most of Europe and their favorite place of all was Brussels. So, I think I may just hang around and tour Brussels this weekend. I could save a lot of money by not having to pay for a hostel/hotel this weekend.

A lot of people have been talking about going home lately and being super excited to get back to the U.S....... (Brad!) It is making me really homesick. I miss my parents and Texas soooo much right now. I hope I can focus on studying tonight and get my mind off of Texas. I also miss Texas food. When I get home I want to eat some super good Mexican food - like a giant plate of enchiladas with rice, beans and sweet tea. And maybe a breakfast taco! Also, I would actually like a steak with mashed potatoes and pie or cake of some sort. I noticed that everyone in Germany eats bread with EVERY meal. Most of their diet consists of carbs.... horrible for trying to keep my figure while over here, but delicious of course!

We only have about 16 more days left in Europe. Time is flying by! But, I just want to say, Mom, Dad, Kayla, and everyone else ------ I miss you and will see you soon! And I wish I was going to the Davis wedding with my family this weekend. Love from Belgium, as always!
<3 BRE

Be sure to check out all my photo albums on my Facebook page. I have lots of pictures from all the cool places I have been so far. And wish me luck on my other mid-term exam tomorrow; I will need it!

Pictures from Germany

2010-07-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

Germany was incredible! Now back to the books :(

Munich, Germany

2010-07-25T13:07:00.000-07:00

(I obviously didn't take these pictures but I found them on the web. They are pictures of the castle that we saw on Saturday! Absolutely beautiful, huh?)

What a great weekend in Germany!!! This weekend I went to Munich, Germany with Brad, Ann, Liz, Derek, Jaime, and Jake. We left from our house at 6:45 AM on Friday morning to head to the train station. We stopped by the ATM to get euros before heading to Germany. We travelled from Leuven to Liege. Then from Liege to Frankfurt, Germany on a high speed train. Then our last train was from Frankfurt to Munich, also on a high speed train. We arrived shortly after 2:00 PM. Then we walked one block to our hostel called Wombats to check in. It is awesome!!! We got one room with 6 beds. There is an awesome bar and atrium at our hostel and they gave us each a free beer ticket for the bar. There is also happy hour at the bar from 6-8 PM and 12-1 AM. As soon as we got settled in and made our beds, we headed out to get some dinner and make our way to the legendary Hofbrauhaus. We stopped to eat at an Italian/German restaurant. Ann and I had the Weinerschnitzel. We expected it to be a sausage with fries, but it was actually a huge piece of veal that was battered and fried. It was very good. I also got the most giant Diet Coke that I have had since I have been in Europe. It was 0.5 Liters! (but it was also 4 euros). Then we walked a little longer until we got to the Hofbrauhaus. We walked into the huge beer hall. We found a table where we could all fit and sat down next to a nice man who only spoke German. We each ordered a beer from our nice little German/Asian waitress who was very flustered the whole time. I had a White Wheat Beer that was only 0.5 Liters. Liz also had one of these but then had some white wine. Jake had a Dunkel or dark beer that was 1 Liter! All the others also had 1 Liter beers. Then, while we were just hanging out and listening to the Om-pah band, four Aggies walked in and sat down at our table with us. Ann decided to try the beer with lemonade. It was sooooooo delicious! I bought some awesome souvenirs at the Hofbrauhaus also. After most of us had 2 liters of beer, we headed back to the hostel. Derek stayed with the Aggies and ended up drinking 7 Liters of beer!!!!!! He somehow made it back to the hostel later that night. The rest of us drank a little bit more at the Wombar with our free beer tickets. We had a fun night, even though it rained the entire day.

On Saturday morning we slept in until almost 10 AM. It was raining again and ended up raining throughout the entire day. Then we went downstairs to eat breakfast which shut at 10:30 AM. It cost 3,70 euros each but it is a buffet style. But, in Germany, people each sandwiches for breakfast. They have a panini maker here at the hostel so I had white bread with ham, cheese, tomato, and strawberry jelly smashed into a panini with Orangesaft (orange juice). It was very good and held us over until we ate a bratwurst at the castles. We had initially planned to go on the free walking tour of the city of Munich provided at Wombats at 11 AM. The tour guide showed up about 30 minutes late and made a very bad first impression on us. He said the tour would last until 3:30 or 4 PM and we would have to pay anywhere between 7 and 17 euros each at the end of the "free" walking tour. So, we decided to bail and head to the castles. We rode a train to Fussen that took around 2 hours. Once we got to Fussen, we had to take a bus to the castles. They are on the border between Germany (Bavaria) and Austria up in the mountains. I actually only had to pay for the bus ride back because a girl we met on the train from Guatemala got me on the bus for free with her pass. The castles that we saw were Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. We saw both of them for 15 euros. Our first tour was at 3:45 of the Hohenschwangau Castle which was the castle that King Ludwig's parents lived in. It is yellow and set above a lake. The name of the castle means Highland of the Swans. On top of the castle there is a giant swan. We were able to go inside and go on an English tour but pictures were not allowed inside so I bought a guide with pictures of the rooms for 3,50 euros. It was a 10 minute walk up to this castle. Our tour of Neuschwanstein started at 5:55 PM, so we decided to walk there instead of paying for a horse carriage or a bus to take us up to the top of the mountain. It was supposed to be a 40 minute walk but we made it up there in about 25 minutes. It was the most difficult climb I have ever been on! I was definitely breathless but it was a beautiful walk in which we saw many natural waterfalls. The rain was a bummer but we made the most out of our day. When we made it up the mountain to the castle, I ate a pretzel and a water. Fabulous snack. Also, when we got up to the castle and were waiting for our English tour to start, I met Lauren, an Aggie whose dad is in the air force and just recently got stationed in Germany near the castles. She is a sophomore at A&M. We also made friend with a family from Florida that were on both of our castle tours. Neuschwanstein was King Ludwig's castle that was built from 1869-1886. However, it was never finished because King Ludwig was found drowned in a lake. He had only lived in the castle for a little over 150 days. And, Bavaria never finished the castle. It was turned over to the people and tours have been given ever since. It is the most beautiful site I have ever seen. Walt Disney got his idea for Sleeping Beauty's castle from Neuschwanstein. The castles that are found at Disney Land and Disney World are based off of this beautiful castle. I got one especially awesome souvenir in a shop outside the castles. We finally made it home to Wombats around 10:30 PM. Ann and I ate pizza and a salad at the pizzeria right outside our hostel. Then we all fell alseep!

Today, we woke up a little bit earlier, around 9:30 AM. I went downstairs and ate breakfast and then waited for the Gordon's tour that we were supposed to be meeting at 10:15 AM. The tour costed 17 euros and was supposed to take us on a 5 hour tour of the Dachau Concentration Camp, the first concentration camp built. However, Gordon got sick so we had to once again go on our own. We rode a subway 21 minutes to the city of Dachau. Then we rode a bus to the actual camp site. The admission to the memorial was free but I bought an audio guide for 2,50 euros. We stayed there until nearly 3 PM just touring the museum and the different buildings remaining at Dachau. We saw many horrifying sites and pictures. We also watched a documentary movie in English at 2:00 PM. It was very, very sad. It was an extremely moving experience though. We saw the bunk houses and the crematorium while there. It was a very sad day but we were glad that the sun was shining and it was not raining. We made it back to Munich around 4:30 PM. We had already decided that we were going to shop during the afternoon today. We had all seen some steins on Friday that we wanted to buy for souvenirs. I also had planned to buy some Birkenstocks that I found right outside our hostel. They were silver t-strap Birkenstocks for only 39,95 euros. However, EVERYTHING was closed!!!! The only place that I could find a stein was in the train station. I was extremely sad about not being able to buy the shoes or steins. But, Ann and Liz and I were able to see the premiere party of Toy Story 3 here in Germany. There were lots of papparazi around to take pictures of the Germans who had done the voices. How cool, huh? Then we all walked to a bier garten/bavarian restaurant about 15 minutes away called Augustiner. It was awesome!!! I had 4 pork brautwursts with potato salad. Brad had liver soup....? And Ann had a GIANT blueberry pancake that was delicious. I had a half liter of beer. It was a great experience.

And now, we are hanging out in the hostel trying to solidify our plans to go home tomorrow. We are leaving here at 9:55 AM tomorrow morning and will not make it back to Leuven, Belgium until after 4:30 PM. I will then have to finish my Field Trip #2 report and then study for both of my mid-term exams. I plan to post some pictures of the castles and such on this blog once I get a chance. We have BAEN 460 mid-term on Tuesday and BAEN 465 mid-term on Wednesday. I still have not decided where I am going next weekend, but I will figure it out soon.

My bug bites have pretty much all healed since we have been here in Germany, but I am sure they will start to bother me again when I get back to the student house and get new bites. I really hope they start leaving me alone. We have been on this study abroad trip for about 18 days and have about 19 days left. We are right in the middle of the program. However, many of us are starting to get homesick and are ready to get back to Texas. I am sure these feelings will intensify over the next 2 weeks. Next weekend is our last full 4 day weekend to travel. The next weekend is our overnight field trip to Bruge, Belgium on Thursday and Friday. We will be able to travel on Saturday and Sunday. Ann and Brad and I had talked about staying in Brussels or other places in Belgium that weekend since we will most likely be BROKE by then! So, since I have so much to do when I get back to Leuven tomorrow, I may not write another blog. But I will try to post pictures from the castles and other German sites on this blog and Facebook whenever I get time. Peace and Love from Munich, Germany!!!

Field Trip #2

2010-07-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

Today we went on our second field trip. We had to leave the student house on our bikes around 7 AM to be at the bus stop by 7:30. The bus left shortly after 7:30. We went first to a water treatment plant called Kluizen. There, they treat surface water out of canals, rivers, and reservoirs for drinking water for Flanders, Belgium. Our tour guide was super funny and LOVED water. He submitted a problem for our class to solve on Tuesday. Then he discussed it with us and tried to convince us that the answers we obtained are wrong. He then gave us a tour of the facility. They have 2 huge reservoirs that they use throughout the year. They treat about 60,000 m3/day of water. Then it is pumped up to 40 km away to local clients. It was interesting but a long drive. We left Kluizen about 11 AM.

Then we went to the coast of the Netherlands or Holland. We went to an island called Neeltje Jans where we learned about the Delta Works Project. It was a huge storm surge wall or barrier built to resist floading of the Netherlands. In 1953, almost all of Holland was under water and thousands of people drowned. It was a horrible natural disaster. The project was the first open air dam with giant steel gates that are pushed down whenever weather threats arise. The project took 10 years at the time and has won numerous awards for its concrete work. It was amazing. When we first got to the island, however, we had lunch upstairs in the museum. It was nice. We had water, hot tea, and coffee to drink. The food was bread, ham, salami, cheese, jam, butter, and mustard. They also had some fruit for us. Then, they brought out this wierd dish. We called it fried gravy. It was basically a ball of meat and flour that was fried and tasted like gravy inside of it. Then, we watched a 30 minute movie about the 1953 flood and the storm surge barrier construction. We were able to walk through the actual bridge built above the piers of the storm surge and then we walked onto one of the piers. It was fun. However, after our tour ended around 4 PM, we were allowed to play around for a while. We rode a boat ride called the Moby Dick that went in circles. It was basically a carnival ride for kids. Then we went through a wind tunnel that simulated hurricane winds up to 130 km/h. That's why Ann and I are wearing goggles in the picture below. After that, we saw the seals. There is usually a seal show but we had missed it for the day. Then, Ann and I rode the giant water slide. We didn't get wet thought because you go down it in a raft. It pretty much dropped straight down though. It was super fun. Then we shopped in the gift shop of the museum for a little while. We left Delta Park shortly after 5 PM. We got back to the bus parking lot where our bikes were around 7 PM. Then I went to DelHaize with Ann to buy snacks for this weekend. I spend twelve euros. I got 2 pears, 2 grape fruits, a container of green grapes, a package of saltine crackers, some Spongebob cookies, a package of cheese tortellini, a cheese pizza, and a can of tomato/pasta sauce for the tortellini. When I got back to the house I cooked the tortellini and ate dinner in the garden. Then I uploaded pictures to my computer and took a shower. Now I am uploading pictures to facebook and writing this blog. Then I need to write my 5-6 page paper over the field trip. I made a 141/150 on the first field trip report. I want to do better on this one though. I am all caught up on grading papers thank goodness. I finished grading Tuesday's homeworks on the bus ride today. We have our midterm exams on Tuesday and Wednesday. I also need to pack my backpack for this weekend. I am leaving in the morning for Munich, Germany with Ann, Liz, Derek, Brad, Jake, and Jaime. We are staying in a 6 bed hostel at Wombats in Munich. It is supposed to be very cool. We are planning to go to the Hofbrauhaus tomorrow evening and then Saturday going to King Ludwig's castles. There are two of them, and they are located in Bavaria and are supposed to be beautiful. Then on Sunday I think we are going to visit the first Nazi concentration camp called Dachau. I heard it was disturbing but very worthwhile to visit. I am super excited about going to Germany, especially since I am 7/8 German! I am also interested in testing my German speaking skills. I took 2 years of German in high school and have grown up around my grandparents and dad speaking German. So, I guess we will see how I do. I think our train leaves around 7 AM tomorrow. I need to stop at the ATM on the way to the train station. I am out of euros again! The hostel is going to cost us each 81 euros since we are staying 3 nights. We are planning to come back on Monday morning so that we can finish our field trip reports and study for our midterm exams. I was able to talk to my mom, Carli, and Lea today on Skype. It was super fun.

My bug bites are persisting. My arms and legs are almost completely covered. I am beginning to get worried. I even have a bite on my left eye-lid. The only thing I have to treat them with is a chortizone cream that I bought here in Belgium. I talked to the professors today about the problem, but they told me to talk to our RA, Vincent about the problem. I hope it gets better soon.

I really miss my family, but I am having such a great time here! I probably won't be posting another blog update until we get back from Germany on Monday. Or maybe even after our exam on Tuesday. But I will definitely be thinking about all of you this weekend while I am in Germany. I plan to taste the beers there in Germany and hopefully purchase a beer stein for my dad and grandpa. I love you all - my trip is almost halfway over :(

Slip-n-Slide

2010-07-21T04:46:00.000-07:00

This is me doing the Slip-n-Slide in our backyard for Independence Day. It started raining though so I came up to the room. I'm glad we didn't go to the beach since it is raining. I am not too good at the slip-n-slide, but I sure was having fun! I think we are going to barbeque now.... Texas Style :)

Wok Dynasty and Beer Pong

2010-07-21T03:03:00.000-07:00

The first picture below is from a student soccer game in our garden (or backyard) at the student house on Sunday night, I believe. I took it out my bedroom window. The second picture is of the restaurant we ate at last night and the third one is our group before eating. The last two pictures are from the beer pong tournament that we played last night at a bar in the square.

Dinner was very good. There were about thirty of us total that came. There was a hot food buffet with all kinds of meats and salads on it. It also had lots of sushi. There was also an all you can eat wok line. You filled your plate with raw vegetables and raw meat and then gave it to the guys who steamed it up and fried it with the sauce of your choice. They had noodles and rice that you can add with it. I picked broccoli, zucchini, chicken, and shrimp. I got an oyster sauce. Then I added rice with it. It was very good. They also had a large choice of desserts including ice cream and fruit. They also had several soups to choose from. And lastly, they had a grill where you could get all kinds of exotic meats. They had kangaroo meat but I decided to pass on it.

After dinner, we came back to the student house for a few minutes. I graded some of the homeworks from yesterday. Everyone made a 100! Then we went to the bar in the square that has a beer pong set up. We bought a case of Cristal beer bottles. We used those to play beer pong. I was not going to play because I didn't feel well. However, our RA, Vincent, did not have a partner so I played with him. We won 2 games in a row and then lost our 3rd one. It was a very good time. The square was PACKED last night because today is a holiday and no one has to work.

This morning I got up at 6:30 AM, put on my swimsuit and then went upstairs to find out what time we were leaving for the train to the beach. But, Ann and Liz wanted to just stay here and relax for the day. So I went back to sleep for 5 more hours!!! Oh well. Currently, we are setting up a blow up pool and a slip-n-slide in our backyard/garden. It should be a fun day. I also need to finish up my seminar report and email it today. I was finally able to talk to my mom on Skype this morning. It felt awesome. Her and my dad might call me back when he wakes up for work. Tomorrow my mom is taking my cousin Lea to get her wisdom teeth out before she starts college in August. I want to wish her the best of luck! As for now, Happy Belgium Independence Day to all! Love from Leuven :)

Busy Busy Busy

2010-07-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

Last night after I wrote my blog, I washed a load of my clothes and Brad's clothes. I used the washer and dryer here at the student house. It costs 2 euros for the washer and 50 cent euros for the dryer. They are nice, but the screens that show the programming option are all in Flemish. I figured out how to change the washer to English and washed our clothes on a delicate cycle at 30 degrees C. That was the coldest temperature offered. The washer only took 33 minutes. Then I came up to my room and started researching the castles, Dachau, and beer gartens in Munich, Germany. I went down and put our clothes in the dryer, but I could not read the options so I just picked the second one. It took an hour and 30 minutes to dry our clothes! I wrote down lots of information about Munich and looked up train schedules for our day trip to Oostende tomorrow. Then a big group of students went to a local soccer field to play a soccer game. Dr. Munster, our professor, met them there and played. I stayed here since my clothes was still washing. But there were a few students still here hanging out in the garden (back yard). So, I went down there and hung out with them for a while.

This morning I rode to school on my bike with Brad. He stopped at a brand new gas station to pick me up a Sprite and a croissant for breakfast. We had 2 shortened lectures and then our second seminar speaker. His name was Erik Bomans and he works for Ibeve Environment Department. It is a non-profit institute dealing with occupational health, safety, and the environment. He talked about the implementation of the nitrate directive in Flanders after World War II. After I finish this blog, I plan to write my 1-2 page seminar report. I stayed at school during lunch and ate a pre-made ham and cheese sandwich that I bought at the grocery store yesterday. I also had a peach. I went to the student lounge and graded Homework 4 for Dr. Engler's class. It was the homework that we did yesterday. Everyone made good grades on it. Then I went to the computer lab and sent my mom a facebook message. She got it an hour later when she woke up (there is a 7 hour time difference). Brad and the boys went to Alma 3 today for lunch. They had chicken stew.... Then I started working on Dr. Munster's homework assignment with Liz and Ann. It was a problem from a water treatment facility that we had to do on Excel. It took quite a while. When we finished, we waited for Dr. Engler to show up with his homework assignment. It was super short and we finished it in 30 minutes. We left school at 3:55 or 15:55 (they use military time here, by the way). I was sort of upset because the Student Book Store or gift shop is only open from 10-12 and 2-4. I wanted to stop there and get a K.U. Leuven t-shirt or pen or coffee mug or something. Oh well, maybe another day we will get lucky and get out of class early enough to go. I rode back here to the house with Ann and then grabbed one of my MINIATURE coke light cans from the fridge. I decided to wash my sheets on my bed. I am beginning to think that some of the beds have bed bugs because a lot of us keep waking up with red bites all over us in the mornings...... So I am washing my sheets on a cotton cycle at 60 degrees C. Then I recorded homework 4 grades and put away my clothes that I washed yesterday.

At 6:45 PM tonight we are leaving the student house as a group to go to dinner at Dynasty Wok. It is the "Welcome to Leuven" dinner. There will be all of us students, the professors, the secretaries from K.U. Leuven, the department head at K.U. Leuven, and the two students who joined our class that are from Belgium. It is supposed to be all-you-can-eat and a really good restaurant. I picture it being like Genghis Grill where you fill up your bowl with meat and vegetables and then you pick a sauce and they fry it up with rice. I went there once in Dallas with Kayla and my parents. We will see. It should be a good time. I would like to talk to my parents on Skype tonight because I didn't get to talk to them yesterday. I also want to finish my seminar report before tomorrow. So I may be up late tonight. Tomorrow is the Belgium National Holiday - it is similar to the 4th of July in America. Everything is going to be closed. Some restaurants may be open though. I am going with Ann, Liz, Brad, and Jake to the Belgium beach in Oostende for the day. We are leaving Leuven on a train at 7:35 AM and we will get to the beach at 9:17 AM. There are trains that go back and forth every hour or so. We are planning on leaving at 18:35 from Oostende and getting back here at Leuven tomorrow night at 20:20. Or, we may leave earlier if we get bored, cold, or rained on. Haha. A few students are going to Luxembourg tomorrow for the day, but it is a 3 hour train ride. Other students are going to Ghent, Belgium tomorrow for a festival. Anyways, that's what I have been up to here lately. Thursday we are leaving on a bus at 7:30 AM (we have to ride our bikes to the bus stop 20 minutes away) for our second field trip. It has truly been a very busy week. We are leaving on Friday morning for Munich and returning on Monday. We have a mid-term exam in Dr. Munster's class on Tuesday and a mid-term in Dr. Engler's class on Wednesday. Things are starting to get hectic. I'm glad the weather is nice and cool here now. It is sunny and warm during the days but not nearly as hot as it was the first week. To everyone back home - take care and stay cool. I miss you and love you!!!

Sports Bar and Grocery Shopping

2010-07-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty typical school day. I woke up a little before 7:30. I got dressed nice today for a change. I wore a nice sweater with a cami under it. The weather has been much nicer here. It's not near as hot anymore. Then I went downstairs to make a sandwich for lunch. My bread was FULL of mold. So I took all of my tomatoes, lunch meat, cheese, mayonaise, and lettuce up to Brad's kitchen on the 3rd floor (or 2 here) to use his bread. I tripped on the way up the stairs with all of that stuff. Brad only had little hoggie rolls left that wouldn't open up. So I ended up eating one of them for breakfast. Then we biked to school. We had a new student today join our classes. His name is Jacob and he is from Gent, Belgium. He is just starting work on his PhD. He already has a Masters degree in waste water treatment. I had a very hard time staying awake for the two lectures this morning. And it took me forever to bike to school because my legs were so sore from walking everywhere in Paris this weekend. For lunch I went to eat with Ann, Jake, Brad, Liz, and Jaime at the student sports bar. I had a ham, cheese, pesto, and tomato panini with a side salad. It was 3,70 euros. I had the waiter bring me tap water also. It was great food for a cheap price. Then we went back to school to do our homework problems. We finished both sets of homework shortly after 4:00. Then I went with Brad and Liz to DelHaize. It's a grocery store similar to HEB. Except the wine and beer section takes up the majority of the store. I really wanted grapes but they were sold out until tomorrow. So I ended up getting peaches and pears. I got two ham and cheese pre-made sandwiches. I got a box of Kellog's Loops honey, which I hope taste like Honey Nut Cheerios. I also got a package of waffles and a box of 6 ice cream cones. I got a chocolate donut for breakfast tomorrow. I also got an 8 pack of Cola Light sodas. The cans here are smaller because they go by mL instead of ounces. It's kind of depressing. I got Nature Baked Lays (natural or original flavor). I also had to buy a plastic bag because I couldn't fit everything in my backpack. My total was about 24 euros. It was much more expensive than Aldi. Brad helped me bike back here to the student house with the bags. I just ate one of the pre-made sandwiches and a peach. The peach is white inside and very sweet. The fruit is different here but it is very flavorful. I don't have any homeworks to grade tonight, although I probably should have stuck around and got all of them from Dr. Engler. I think most people finished and turned theirs in today. So, I guess I will be grading them tomorrow as well as writing my 1-2 page seminar report tomorrow evening. Tomorrow evening we also have a student/faculty dinner called "Welcome to Leuven" at Dynasty Wok. It is supposed to be all you can eat buffet. So I hope I like the food. Tonight I plan to research our trip to the beach on Wednesday and our trip to Munich on Friday. We have lots of details to work out still. Our first test is a week from tomorrow, on Tuesday. We are getting back from Munich on Monday. I hope we have ample time to study for our mid-terms. After this week we are going to be halfway done with the program. I am starting to finally get used to Belgium though. I really like it. I also hope to talk to my sister Kayla on Skype tonight if she can get her iPhone to quit acting up. I miss her. That's all for today! Hugs and kisses from Belgium. I am looking forward to being home and eating a huge plate of Mexican food and spending time with my parents again before the fall semester starts. No pictures today.... sorry. Love yall!

Paris, France

2010-07-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went to Paris, France with Ann, Liz, and Derek. I absolutely LOVED it! Brad and Jake went to Germany to visit Josef and his family. Josef was an exchange student that came to live with Jake's dad years ago. He has a farm and his family owns a hotel and beer garden. Another large group went to Cologne, Germany this weekend. I will talk about my weekend though.

On Friday morning I woke up and packed my backpack for Paris. The four of us rode our bikes to the ATM to get euros and then to the Leuven train station. Our train was a little after 10:30. We rode from Leuven to Brussels Midi. From Brussels Midi, we thought that we could catch a train 7 minutes later to Paris Nord that would get us there shortly after 12:30. However, it was a high speed train that required reservations (which we didn't have!). So, we were informed that the next high speed train with seats available was Saturday morning. So we were stuck riding regular trains all the way to Paris. It only ended up costing us 3 euros though instead of 36. But, we didn't end up getting to Paris until after 4 PM. We rode from Brussels Midi to Mond, Belgium. We had a 20 minute layover there. We bought wonderful Belgian waffles at the train station. They were warm and super sweet. Liz and I got plain waffles, and Ann and Derek got waffles dipped in chocolate. We all loved them. Then we rode from Mond to Lille Flanders. We had an hour and a half layover in Lille Flanders. Liz and I had to use the bathroom so we were willing to pay the 50 cent charge. But, when we went to the bathroom, there was a lady in there that was bleeding from her nose. She had been snorting drugs. The bathroom attendant had set off the alarm so that the police would come get this lady. Four police showed up. The lady ended up throwing punches at them. They escorted her back to the train floor level and then ended up letting her go. A few minutes later was our first view of the French army walking around with machine guns. We ended up seeing this 5-10 more times throughout our weekend in Paris. It was super wierd how their army just walks around the country with machine guns to keep the peace. Nevertheless, we went out into France (Lille is on the Belgium-France border) to a small cafe. I had a Cola Light which cost me 2,80 euros! So expensive. Liz and Derek both had omelettes with fries and salad. Omelettes are a very popular dish in French cafes. Then we rode from Lille to Paris Nord. When we arrived in Paris, we walked out of the train station into the street. The first thing we saw was a sex shop directly acorss the street from the train station. We navigated our way to our hotel after 30 minutes or so. It was located on a pretty bad side of town and was extremely hard to find. However, once inside, it was very nice and cozy. We had 2 rooms, each with a double bed. Ann and I shared the "smurf room" which was completely blue! It was on the top floor though (6th) so we had an awesome balcony. The hotel ended up costing each of us 55 euros for both nights. Not too bad. It had free sheets, towels, toilets, toilet paper, and showers. We had a hard time finding the shower though because it was inside a room labeled "Douche." Weird, huh? After we checked into our hotel and left our backpacks in the room, we set out for the Arc de Triomphe. On the way we saw lots of awesome monuments and churches. After taking pictures and being exhausted from a 2 hour walk across Paris, we headed out for the Eiffel tower. It was beautiful! We finally got there an hour later and went up and took pictures of it. We realized that we were allowed to ride to the top of it. However, we were starving. So, we went and ate at the Eiffel Tower Cafe. The four of us each had delicious food with 2 bottles of wine. We also had chocolate crepes and creme brule for dessert. Even though our bill was well over 100 euros, the food was delicious and I LOVED my salad. Then we went back to the Eiffel tower to wait for it to light up in the night sky. We got in line to ride to the top. Halfway through the line, they announced that the top floor ride was closed. So, we were able to ride to the second floor which was halfway up the tower. While waiting in line, a African man came up to me and starting making me a bracelet out of string. I tried to escape him, but I couldn't. He made me wait until he finished and then asked me to pay him for it. I did not pay him and walked off. It was very scary. We found souvenirs at the Eiffel Tower as well. Being halfway up the Eiffel tower at night was AMAZING! It was hard to capture the beauty of the city in my pictures. At the end of Friday night, Ann and my cameras were both showing low battery. We were all 4 exhausted from the long day of travelling and walking. So, we decided to get a cab to take us back to our hotel. Our cab driver drove us in circles to increase our mileage and ended up dropping us off at a huge church called Sacre Coeur. It was on top of a giant hill and was populated with lots of teens drinking alcohol and smoking and looking over the city. We had to walk down lots of stairs and about 15 minutes through the dark city to get back to our hotel. We all crashed.

We woke up around 9:30 on Saturday morning and prepared for a long day of siteseeing and walking. I think we ended up walking between 10 and 15 miles on Saturday. We went to the train station to try to get tickets for the high speed train on Sunday. We ended up having to get the same tickets for the same route we took to Paris back to Leuven. Then, we decided to walk toward the Notre Dame. On the way however, we mapped out a route so that we could see as many possible monuments as we possibly could. We saw lots of beautiful churches, fountains, and magnificent architecture. We stopped at a small chocolate shop on the way to pick up some souvenirs for our family and friends. We finally reached Notre Dame and we were all in awe and amazement. It was huge!!! We were able to walk inside and tour the church. We spent around an hour inside it. It was soooo amazing. The stained glass was outrageous. We all bought souvenirs from Notre Dame. Ann got a roseary for her mom, Derek and Liz got things for their family, and I bought a bracelet. Then we ate lunch at a cafe near Notre Dame. I FINALLY had tap water and a sandwich. It was good food, again. Then we stopped by some Paris souvenir shops and made our way to the Palais du Luxebourg. It is basically a huge castle in a large park. There is a pond where people bring their miniature sail boats and there are lawn chairs everywhere. People come sit there and read or eat or just relax. It was gorgeous. Then we headed to the Louvre. Liz and Derek were super excited to go there. It was gigantic! And beautiful of course. I loved the glass pyramid that you have to walk through to get into the museum. Ann and I decided to go wait for Liz and Derek in the lawn outside the Louvre. It took them over 2 hours to view only about 1/10 of the museum, if that. But, they saw the Mona Lisa! Ann and I passed the time by relaxing and eating an ice cream cone. We also people watched and watched a nearby ferris wheel. Then we walked by more monuments on our way back to our hotel. It was after 6 PM and we were all exhausted, once again. However, Ann and I wanted to go by and see Moulin Rouge. So we walked there and saw it. There is a wind mill thing on top of the building that turns. It's pretty amazing. The cost is 150 euros for dinner and the show at 7 PM. I would love to go one day; it seems like a pretty cool event. However, the street that it was located on was pretty bad. It was nasty and filled with strip clubs and more sex shops.... ugh! But, we finally made it back to our hotel. I bet we had to walk 5 miles or more just to get home. We decided to eat at a pizzeria near our hotel. I had a ham and cheese calzone with tap water. It was delicious. We got back to the hotel around 8:45. Ann took a nap while I finished reading Three Weeks with my Brother by Nicholas and Micah Sparks. It's a great book! Then Liz and Derek came to visit us on our balcony. Liz brough her bottle of wine, hehe. I visited with them for a while, went downstairs to use Ann's laptop in the kitchen area where she could get wifi service, and then took a shower. I went to bed around 10 PM.

We woke up at nearly 11 AM this morning. We slept 13 hours!!! And my legs were super sore when I woke up. We got to the train station around 11:30. I did some last minute souvenir shopping in the train station. Then we all got sandwiches for lunch. We boarded our train to Lille Flanders at 12:58 PM. However, when we got to Lille Flanders, our train to Liege (we were getting off at Tournei) was cancelled. It took us a while to realize that though because we didn't know what cancelled was in French. By the way, everyone speaks French in France. It was hard communicating. Ann speaks quite a bit of French though, so she got us by. While in Lille, we met 3 boys who had just graduated from Highland Park high school in Dallas. One is going to be an Aggie in the Corp of Cadets beginning in August. We talked to them while we waited for our train and exchanged email addresses. They have been backpacking Europe since last weekend when we were in Amsterdam (they were there too). We finally caught a train to Tournei and then to Brussels Central. Ann and I bought some Belgian White chocolate while in the Brussels train station. We met up with some other students on the trip that had been in Amsterdam at Brussels Central. Then we finally rode the train back to Leuven. We got our bikes and then headed back to the house. I went up to Brad's room to give him a souvenir I had bought for him. Then we went out to dinner at De Rector. We chatted about the weekend and had a nice evening together. After getting back here to the student house, I uploaded pictures to Facebook, graded a set of homework assignments and recorded the grades, submitted my time sheet for working as the student grader, unpacked all of my stuff from this weekend, talked to my parents on Skype, attempted to talk to my sister Kayla on Skype (her phone is messed up and our call kept dropping), and now am writing my blog. I need to still take a shower and then go to sleep because we have class tomorrow.

This week we have class on Monday and Tuesday. We have a seminar speaker on Tuesday. On Tuesday evening we have the "Welcome to Leuven" dinner provided by our program at Dynasty Wok. Professors and students from K.U. Leuven will also be invited. Tuesday evening many students are participating in a beer pong tournament at a local bar on the square. Then on Wednesday is a National Belgium Holiday. So, we have no class. Ann and I are planning to ride the train to Oostende (the Belgium beach) for the day. Then Thursday we have another field trip. A group of 7 of us will be spending Friday through Monday in Munich, Germany. Wow, this study abroad trip is flying by! Love from Belgium to all of you back in Texas!!! And a special shout out to my parents who drove to College Station this weekend to mow and weed-eat my grass and water all my plants and the grass. They are soooooo wonderful!

I only posted a few pictures from this weekend here because it takes so long. But, my entire 208 photos that I took this weekend are on my Facebook under my album called Paris!!!

ecoWERF and Stella Artois Brewery

2010-07-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

Today was our first field trip day. We met outside the student house with our bicycles at 9:00 AM. Both of the professors met us there as well as two former students of Texas A&M University (a married couple). The husband is working on his doctorate in the Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department at Texas A&M University and is here in Leuven, Belgium doing research. The wife is a sociology graduate from A&M. They will be here through August. Also, a past correspondent for our program from K.U. Leuven, Jan, came along on our trip as well. I passed out the graded homework #2 to all of the students before we left the house and those who still needed to turn in yesterday's homework did so. We travelled in two groups to ecoWERF which is a waste collection and composting site. It was about a 30 minute bike ride to get there. We had a short powerpoint presentation by Sara and Derek and then we toured the composting facility. After the tour was over, we headed to lunch at De Blauwe Schuit which is a famous cafe in Leuven. I ordered two Cola Lights (they are super small!) and the spaghetti bolognaise. It was very good! Brad had the lasagna. They also served a wide variety of sandwiches. We set out in the courtyard or garden during lunch and out of the middle of nowhere, a peakcock walks out and starts eating the crumbs of food around us! It was the wierdest thing I have ever seen! Then we travelled about 10 minutes to the Stella Artois brewery. They brew Stella, Jupiler, Hoegarden, and Leffe at the Stella Artois brewery. First, we toured the waste water treatment facility onsite at the brewery. The treatment plant had all parts and more than a typical munipal waste water treatment facility would have. Then, we toured the brewery. It ended with the bottling process and then free beer and soft drinks in the bar. We were also allowed to buy Stella souvenirs from a small gift shop. I was not able to take many pictures from the Stella Artois brewery because pictures were not allowed in most areas. We were required to wear very uncomfortable safety shoes while there so I am super tired from walking up and down stairs all day. After we left the brewery at about 5:30 PM, some of us girls went to the Diessastraat to shop. We went to H&M and several other shops. Stephanie and I were looking for Birkenstock sandals (they are the biggest trend here) but we were unsuccessful. All of the shopping stores and grocery stores close at 6:00 PM though, so we didn't have much time to look around. Then I rode my bike with Val to an ice cream shop. She got a hot waffle covered in chocolate syrup. I got a waffle cone with a scoop of ice cream.

Now I am home and am about to write my 5 to 6 page field trip report that is due on Monday! I am so happy that I actually was able to talk to my dad on his cell phone via Skype yesterday. I also talked to my mom. It's great to keep in touch with them! Hugs and kisses and love from Leuven, Belgium. Ann, Liz, Derrick, and I must also figure out where we are going this weekend (tomorrow morning!). It sounds like probably Paris, France but I'm not positive yet. I will be back on Sunday, so look for another blog then!

Seminar #1 and a Rain Storm

2010-07-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

We had school again today. The first picture is the building that our classroom is located. It is at the Heverlee campus of the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven. Most people call it K.U. Leuven. I overslept a little bit today and didn't have time to eat breakfast or pack a lunch before Brad and I left for school. So, I stopped at a small bakery on the way to school and got a croissant for breakfast for ,80 euros. It was super good. Both of the professor's lectures were cut short today because we had our first seminar speaker today from 11 -12.

This is our seminar speaker #1. His name is Philippe Quevauviller and he was from the European Commission in the European Union. His is a scientist studying water resrouce management and climate change considerations. He has also been involved with envirionmental policy making. Tonight, we all have to write a 1-2 page report about the seminar that we have to email to our professors before tomorrow.

We had lunch from 12:15 - 1:30 PM today. Since I didn't pack a lunch, I went with Brad, Jaime, Austin, and Chris to Alma 3 for lunch. It is one of the school cafeterias. We got fried pork chops with mashed potatoes and carrots. I didn't want the carrots though so I got fries and mashed potatoes. When I went to check out and pay the cashier, I saw packages of ketchup by the register; they were like the ones at McDonald's or Sonic. So, I grabbed 5 of them for my fries. When I got up to the register, the lady started counting the packets. Apparently, she was going to charge me for all of them. So, I was only allowed one free package of ketchup for a whole plate of fries. However, most people here eat mayonaise with their fries so the mayonaise is free! But, it was still a good deal. My entire plate of food was only 2,60 euros. Also, we found glasses and tap water so we didn't have to pay for a drink or get carbonated water. When we got back to the classroom, we started working on Dr. Munster's homework. We finishsed it in about an hour or so. The Ag Engineering students had 2 more problems than the Ag Systems students so it took us quite a bit longer. We had to design a retention pond for irrigation of a corn field. Then we did Dr. Engler's homework. It wasn't as bad as the last two, but it was still complicated. Before I left to come back here to the house, Dr. Engler graded my homework from yesterday and gave me the key to grade the other students' homeworks. I graded them as soon as I got back to the house. The grades were much better than the first homework from Friday. I was glad about that. I followed Jake, Jaime, and Brad home from school but they were going super fast because the sky looked like it was going to rain. Just after we got home, Katie, Ann, and Liz went out to go shopping. About 5-10 minutes later, a huge thunderstorm hit. Katie came back soaked; I feel bad for her! So after writing this blog I am going to write my seminar report and email it to Dr. Munster and then start planning this weekend. It sounds like several students are going to Cologne, Germany, but I think that I will probably end up going with some friends to Brussels and then the coast/beach in Oostende, Belgium. I am also considering going with Katie to Bonn, Germany where she has some friends. Next Wednesday is the Belgium National Holiday so we are off school. I think we may make a day trip on the train to Luxembourg. I am excited about that also.

Tomorrow is our first field trip. We are leaving the student house here at 9:00 AM, so we get to sleep in slightly. In the morning we are going to Ecowerf and then lunch provided by the program. Then in the afternoon we are going to the Stella beer brewery. I am super excited. Sometime this weekend we will have to write our 5-6 page paper over the field trip. It is due Monday. I am glad I got to talk to my mom today on Skype. Also, my sister Kayla created a Skype account and requested to add me as a contact. I hope we can talk soon on Skype. I am not sure what my supper plans are for tonight, but I need to get my paper done first.

Peace and Love from Leuven, Belgium!

Waffle Country

2010-07-13T12:14:00.000-07:00

Today we had school from 8:30 AM till 5:00 PM, although most of us ended up staying at school until almost 6:00 PM. We had Dr. Munster's class from 8:30 to 10:00 then Dr. Engler's class from 10:30 to 12:00. I woke up this morning around 7:30 AM and then went down to the basement to the kitchen to make a sandwich for lunch. After our two lectures, Brad and I ate our sandwiches in the Student Lounge at school. Most of the other students either went to the cafeteria or came back here to the house to eat lunch. At 1:30 we began homework for Dr. Munster's class. It wasn't too bad and we finished about 10 minutes early. His problem session ends at 3:00 PM. Dr. Engler's homework session started at 3:30 PM. His homework was very hard and long. But, I worked with Ann and we ended up finishing shortly after 5:00 PM. After I ate my lunch in the student lounge, Brad and I went to the computer lab. I needed to check my email. I found out the strangest thing! The keyboards in Europe are MUCH different than the keyboards in America. Some of the letters are re-arranged and it took us a long time to navigate the websites we were looking for. I also tried to research Munich, Germany but all of the words were in Flemish or Netherlands.

After Ann and I finally finished our homework and I got the papers to grade from Dr. Engler, we rode our bikes to the Student Sports Bar. We each had a ham, mozarella, pesto, and tomato panini with a small side salad (on the plate). We also had a Stella Artois to drink because it is only 1,40 euros, and it's the cheapest thing on the menu to drink. The paninis were only 3 euros! And they were super good! We had a nice chat. Then we rode back towards our student house and stopped at an ATM machine. We had trouble finding it, so I asked a girl walking by where the ATM machine was. She just looked at me funny. So, I said you put card in and get euro out. She knew exactly where to direct us so we could get more cash. When I got back here to the house, I graded Dr. Engler's homework 1 from Friday. It was interesting grading papers and very challenging. I hope my peers don't hold grudges against me, even though I am following Dr. Engler's orders about how to grade. Then I went down to the garden and had a couple glasses of wine with the other students. Many of the students went on a jog or run tonight. I decided to blog instead of running.

Our plans for this weekend were to head to Munich, Germany and see lots of awesome sites. However, the hostel that my friend from A&M recommended (Wombat) is booked for this weekend. So, Ann decided to pay the down payment on the reservation for Wombat for next weekend. We have a 4 day weekend next weekend so we will stay Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The 6 bed room that we reserved is 27 euros per person per night. I think it's a good deal considering all of the features that it offers. The train ride to Munich is about 6 hours from here. So, at this point we do not know exactly where we are heading this weekend on Friday morning. We are considering Paris, France and possibly Luxembourg and possibly even the coast of Belgium.

The temperature here has cooled off significantly. Today was the first day that I actually got goose bumps and didn't feel completely sweaty after riding my bike home from school. Tomorrow we have our first of four seminar speeches. So, tomorrow evening we each have to write a 1-2 page report about the seminar speaker. We have to email the report to Dr. Munster by Thursday morning. Then Thursday we are going on our first class field trip. In the morning we are going to EcoWerf which is a waste collection, recycling, and composting facility near Leuven. Then we are all going to eat together for lunch which is covered by our department. In the afternoon we are touring the Stella brewery. They are even providing safety footwear for us. We will travel to all of our destinations on bike. The rest of our field trips will all be on bus. We will have a 5-6 page paper due on Monday over the field trip and covering the main topics related to hydrology and water technology presented in the field trip. So, we will have to be back on Sunday early enough to write our reports. A few of the girls went out tonight to find Belgium waffles. They found some at the ice cream shops, but they are definitely much different than what they seem to Americans. Most of them are small, only a few inches by a few inches. They are also filled with sugar and are baked. They are not served with syrup but you can pay extra for chocolate or carmel syrup to drizzle on them. Like I said, MUCH different from what they seem in America!!! But, the beer is good here and usually cold unlike what I thought it would be :)

I miss my family and friends. I look forward to talking to my mom everyday but have not been able to talk to my dad much. It makes me sad. The days are flying by, and I am enjoying every minute that I am here, even school! Please check out all of my pictures on facebook. And send me a message if you have any suggestions for our weekend travel. There will be about 5 or 6 of us since Jake and Brad are going to Hanover, Germany to stay with Joseph this weekend. He is a friend of Jake's dad that participated in an exchange program to America years ago. He now lives on a farm, and the boys are going to stay with him this weekend and learn about farming in Germany. Hugs and kisses from Belgium!

World Cup Finals in Amsterdam, Holland

2010-07-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

Wow! Where do I begin? The last three days have been extremely crazy! On Friday evening after class I took a shower and then about seven of us went out for dinner at De Rector. They had all kinds of pasta for only about 5 euros. It was great food and right on the square. However, it was extremely hot inside where we had to sit. We each had about 2 stellas (beer) with dinner. Shortly after dinner the city concerts began. The main stage in the square had an Irish Folk band with Irish Step Dancers who performed. It was awesome; however, we quickly found out that no one here dancers or hollers after a song. They just stand around, drink beer, and clap lightly after the songs are over. The beers were only 1 euro on Friday evening so most of us had quite a few during the concert. There were actually 5 different stages set up around the town. Throughout the night we made it to 4 out of the 5 stages. The theme for the evening was folk so all of the concerts were variations of folk bands. All of the concerts are free street performances. Throughout the entire month of July there will be this type of event every Friday night. During teh evening we met a couple Americans, had some cotton candy, and were even able to meet up with our professors during the night. A small group of us finally made it back to our student house around midnight. I took ANOTHER shower and started packing for our weekend adventure to Amsterdam the next morning. Brad and Jaime finally made it back here after 1:00 and Brad somehow managed to lose his wallet. We looked everywhere in our dorm for the wallet (since he used his ID card to get into the building) only to later find his wallet in his backpack!!!! He had put it in his backpack as soon as he got up to his room.

On Saturday morning I woke up around 6:00 AM and went downstairs to make a sandwich for the train ride. We all met outside around 6:45 and left for the Leuven train station around 7. We caught a train to Mechelen shortly after parking our bikes in the GIANT bike parking garage. The ride to Mechelen was only about 30 minutes. We got off there to change trains. The second train went straight to Amersterdam Central Station which is an enormous train station. It was about 2 and a half hours long. When we arrived in Amsterdam we were all hungry and realized that we had left the address to our hostel in Leuven at the dorm. So we went to Ben and Jerrys to use their internet and write down the name of the hostel and the address. The internet cost money to use. It also cost 50 cents to use the bathrooms pretty much everywhere in Amsterdam. Then we went to a store in the train station and purchased about 4 maps of the city. There were a total of 16 of us on the trip. We then began our walk throughout the city in search of food. When we got to the New Market which is a fresh produce farmers market, we found a few restaurants. Half of us ate at a sandwich shop called Steven's Cafe and the other half of our group had pitas. I had a bowl of fries with mayonaise ( I didn't eat the mayonaise) and a Cola Light! Then we walked through the Red Light District where we walked through a multitude of gift shops. We ended up all buying orange Netherlands soccer jerseys so that we would fit in during the game on Sunday. The jerseys were 10 euros since the guy gave us a group discount. In the Red Light District it is very evident that weed is a legal substance in the Netherlands. Also, prostitution is legal. There were many displays of women in windows that we passed by. After leaving the Red Light District, we walked to the Ann Frank House. The house was not much to look at from the outside. The line to get into the house was very long so instead we just took a few pictures and then decided to head to our hostel. Our hostel was located on a Camp Grounds with tents and motor homes and travel trailers and cabins. We rented 2 cabins with 8 beds in them each. There is a picture above of our hostel. It was very small and hot. The toilets were a little walk from the cabin but they were free to use. However, there was no toilet paper. The toilet paper, towels, sheets, and shower tokens were all sold at the check-in lobby gift shop. The showers were 80 cents so I only took one six minute shower during the weekend. We ended up having to take 3 taxis from Amsterdam to our hostel because it was located about 20 km out of the city. The taxi ride was 10 euros per person!!! About half of us decided to stay at the hostel while the other half of our group caught a bus and then the Metro back into the city. The group that stayed at the camp drank a few beers, played cards, talked, and played some other games. A few of us girls even ended up accidently going into the Men's side of the community bathrooms. Oops! Jake was especially funny during the evening. For dinner we bought 3 packs of spaghetti noodles, 2 jars of tomato sauce, and 2 long loaves of bread from the camp store. We cooked a huge meal of spaghetti in the community kitchen shared by the whole camp. Their is a picture of our meal down below as well. Later we met a group of guys from Holland that were staying right next to us at the camp. They taught us a lot about Holland and were very nice. They had come to Amsterdam for the weekend to watch the game and go to a party. We went to sleep and later woke up when the other half of our group got back to the hostel. It had rained quite a bit during the evening so they had to buy some ponchos and trudge through the weather to make it back home on the night bus.

On Sunday the group of us that stayed behind on Saturday night decided to go site see in the city. We left on the buses around 11:00 AM to head to Amsterdam. When we arrived, we ate an American hot dog off the street from a little trailer thing. It was good. Then we bought canal boat tour tickets for 16 euros each. There were 9 of us and we needed 10 people to get a group rate so we invited a couple to join our group so we could save 6 euros each. (The tickets are normally 22 euros each). The canal boat tickets were called hop on hop off. The city of Amsterdam is FULL of gorgeous canals. There were four different canal routes that the boats followed. The ticket we bought was good for 24 hours of use. We rode the orange route all the way around the entire city. During the tour it rained on us twice but the canal boat had a movable roof that the driver closed during the rain and opened after it finished. We met a couple from Illinois and some women from England during the boat ride. We saw the World's Oldest Windmill during our boat tour. There are also pictures above. We were also able to see lots of other cool sites throughout the city. We got off the canal boat almost back at the stop that we got on. Then we walked to the Heineken Experience which is basically a museum/tour of the brewery except super cool and exciting. It was 15 euros each to get in but that included 3 beers. The tour lasted 2 hours. We were able to pay 5 extra euros to get a personalized Heineken beer bottle with our names printed on it. Brad and I purchased one that says "Brad and Sabrina." It is super cool. At the end of the tour when we obtained our free beers, we had several people come up to us and hand us their tokens, so we actually ended up having more than 3 beers each. I was able to buy a few souvenirs for friends and family back home at the Heineken Store after the tour ended. After that we ate dinner at a Kabob place. Some of us had Kip (chicken) kabob sandwiches with lettuce, tomato, and sauce. Some people had beef or lamb kabobs meat wrapped in tortillas with vegetables and sauce. They were very good and interesting how they cook the meet on a giant scewer and then shave it off. Then we met the other half of our group at the Rijksmuseum which was located near the place that we were planning to watch the game which started at 8:30 PM. They had gone to the Van Gogh Museum before meeting us. They really enjoyed it, and I wish that our group would have been able to go also. Then around 6:30 we walked to the Museumplein where there were 2 huge screens set up for the public to watch the World Cup Finals game. We went into the crowd of a million people full of drunk people dressed in orange. Several of the people in our group bought vu-vu-zelas (not sure about the spelling). They are the orange horns used in South Africa at the games. They were cool but quite annoying! About 6 of us decided that we could not handle the chest-to-chest situation so we walked to a Deli a few meters away and bought a bottle of wine. We sat around and drank it until the game started at 8:30 PM. Then we walked to the very back of the crowd so that we could actually breathe and still watch the game. At the start of the game, planes and helicopters flew over the whole city and dropped down confetti and orange flowers. It was so crazy! Our group of 6 left the game at half time so that we could make it back to the hostel before the buses quit running. We walked to the bus stop, made a stop near the Hard Rock Cafe and Holland Casino for restroom breaks and then walked the rest of the way to the bus stop. When we arrived at the bus stop, we read the schedule and decided to wait 30 minutes for the next bus. After waiting an hour and not seeing a single bus, tram, metro, or anything drive by, we decided that the bus was not coming. About 10 minutes later, a van taxi drove by and we hopped in. We told him "camping" and he knew exactly where to take us. We listened to the first round of overtime while on the way back to the hostel. It was 0-0 during that time. This taxi ride was only 7,50 euros each. During the drive he drove up to 130 km/h. Super fast! Three more in our group arrived around 2:30 AM and the rest of our group arrived around 4:30 AM.

This morning we woke up at 10 AM and began to pack up, brush our teeth, and clean our cabin. We had to check out by 11. Brad gave the keys back to the people to get his drivers license back and then we headed back to Amsterdam to get to Central Station and catch a train back to Belgium. I ate a few potato chips for breakfast. We rode one bus for 2 euros a couple kilometers to our first stop. It started pouring. Then we got on the second bus for 4 euros that was supposed to take us to Central Station. Due to construction, however, it only took us halfway there. When we arrived at the final stop, the bus driver told me that we could take tram 17 to Central Station. I looked behind the bus and saw the tram and saw that it was about to leave. So I hopped on the tram and before I knew it, the driver closed the doors and drove off. I was the ONLY one in our group on the tram. I started screaming at the driver until he stopped and let me off the tram. I have NEVER been so scared in my entire life. We then walked 25-30 minutes through the town of Amsterdam to Central Station. When we arrived at the super busy station, we looked at the departure board and found a train leaving for Brussels, Belgium in about 5 minutes. So we ran upstairs and hopped on the train which was unbelievably packed. Most of our group ended up sitting on the floor in the hallway of a train car. The train was so packed that the conductor never even came and checked our tickets or Eurail passes. The train ride was 3 hours from Amsterdam to Belgium Central Station. In Belgium Central we got off and tried to find a train to Leuven. We found a train leaving for Leuven in 4 or 5 minutes so we rushed to the stop and waited. We did not see the train and thought we had missed our chance to get back to Leuven until some nice lady helped us figure out which train to get on. We got on a train there that went to the Brussels Airport and then directly to Leuven. When we arrived back here at the train station in Leuven, we were excited to find our bikes located exactly where we had locked them up in the mile long bike parking garage. I had to urinate horribly and we were all starving since it was 5:00 PM already. We had been travelling all day! I followed Jake, Kirstin, and Brad back to the dorm. However, we ended up getting lost on our bikes for the first time since we arrived here in Europe. We finally got turned the right direction and arrived back here at the house 30 minutes later. I jumped in the shower as quick as I could. Then I unpacked all of my stuff and bundled up my dirty clothes. I uploaded pictures to facebook and check my email. Then Brad came to get me and we walked to the square to get Pizza Hut for dinner. We got 2 small ham and cheese pizzas (Canadian bacon). They were like personal pan size pizzas and tasted just like they do in America. They gave us a 50 cent student discount. So the pizzas were 6,50 and each of us got a Pepsi! They finally accepted my Visa card. It was only the second time that I have used it the entire time I've been here in Europe. Then Brad and I came back here to the dorm and met up with Kelsey and Molly to go do laundry. We found some laundry detergent here at the house and took it with us to the Washateria. The washers cost 4 euros each to use. The dryers were only 1 euro. When we got there we started talking to a guy there. He invited us to come to a bar across the street while our clothes was washing. He bought us each a round of drinks. He challenged Kelsey to a running competition tomorrow evening. Then we went back and dried and folded our clothes. We got back here to the house shortly after 9. I was then able to Skype with my cousin and roommate Claire. It was great!

Now that the weekend is over, I am pretty much out of Euros or cash. I need to find an ATM machine tomorrow very badly. I am glad that we survived Amsterdam. I am hoping that some of us can go to Muenich, Germany on Friday through Sunday. This week we have class Tuesday and Wednesday. We have our first field trip on Thursday. However, next week we have class Monday and Tuesday and a field trip on Thursday. We do not have class next Wednesday because it is a Belgium National Holiday. This week my job of the student grader begins. Tomorrow evening I will have some papers to grade for Dr. Engler's class. Amsterdam is very similar to New York City except different in many ways. It was extremely crowded and overwhelming. We met one Aggie while in Amsterdam. It was exciting. We were all relieved when we made it back here to Leuven this evening. Although the Netherlands actually ended up losing the World Cup game 1-0 to Spain, we had a great weekend. It was Spain's first time to ever make it to the Finals so I am happy for them that they won. However, it would have been super fun to see how the city of Amsterdam reacted to the win if Holland had won. Our trip was amazing, and I definitely made some wonderful memories this weekend.

Once again, I miss my mom, dad, sister, and Hope and everyone else from back home. Brad is also homesick even though we have only been here since Wednesday. We are having a great time though and trying to enjoy every minute of our stay here in Europe!

Mexican Food & Classes in Belgium

2010-07-09T09:22:00.000-07:00

Howdy from Belgium :) The first picture is of Alma 3 or the student cafeteria closest to our classroom. Brad, Jaime, Jake, Katie, and I ate their today for lunch. The next few pictures are from La Cucaracha. Nine of us ate their last night and had some awesome margaritas. But, they were each 5 euros. There are a couple pictures from inside our classroom. The bottom picture is a student sports bar where Jake, Brad, Jaime, and I attempted to eat lunch today. Last night was super fun going to La Cucaracha. Today was our first day of school. It started at 8:30 AM. I woke up around 6:30 to pack my lunch, get dressed, and eat breakfast. I took a sandwich to school for lunch and then just got a Coke Light at the Alma. For the first hour and a half of school, Dr. Munster lectured about hydrology. Then, Dr. Engler lectured for an hour and a half about waste water treatment. Dr. Engler was a little bit late because he got his bike stolen last night. It was locked, but it still got stolen. I hope that doesn't happen to me. After an hour and a half lunch break, we had to go back to school to solve two sets of homework problems. I also found out that I will be the grader for Dr. Engler's homework which was VERY long today. I left school at 5 PM and made it home by 5:20 today. Currently, we are waiting to go out on the town for the concerts tonight. There will be bands playing all throughout the city. The theme for tonight is folk music, I think. I think we will also grab some dinner. The fries here are legendary but you are not supposed to call them "French" fries because the Belgians don't like the French. So they are just called fries. There are a ton of pizza places in Leuven so maybe we will get pizza tonight. But nevertheless, I'm sure we will have a few beers tonight.

I was shocked to find out today at lunch at the student cafeteria and student sports bar, the beer was the exact same price as water! Can you believe that? Tomorrow morning we are leaving very early for the Netherlands. We are going to be staying in "cabins" Saturday and Sunday night that are outside of Amsterdam. Sunday night is the World Cup game that is the Netherlands versus Spain. We are excited to see how excited the fans in the Netherlands are for the game. We are also planning on seeing the Ann Frank house and possibly going to the Red Light District. The Heineken Brewery is also in Amsterdam. We will all be staying together though and being very safe while in Amsterdam. Our next day of class is Tuesday. So we have to be back by Monday evening. We only have 9 more school days while here! Yay!

I won't be able to do another blog update until later tonight after the concert or Monday night when we get back from Amsterdam. I don't have any papers to grade or write or homework to do this weekend so I should be able to post a long blog with lots of pictures when we get back from Amsterdam on Monday night. I just want to say that I miss everyone - especially my parents, Kayla, and Hope! I am sad that I will not be able to Skype with them until Monday night again. I love everyone! Please wish cool weather for us. It is so hot here and there is NO AC in any buildings!!!! I am finally getting used to my bike but it is about a 20 minute ride to school and back so I am definitely getting in a good workout while I'm here. Sending hugs from Belgium!

Above = the square where lots of bars are and restaurants. A Pizza Hut and McDonald's are actually there too.

Bicycle Tour of Leuven

2010-07-08T07:47:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to Quo Vadis as a group. Our department paid for our meal and "drinks." I ordered a ham, tomato, and cheese pizza. It was fabulous!!! I think it was about 10 euros, but I'm glad I didn't have to pay for it. I was scared to try the Belgium beer last night, so I had three glasses of white wine instead.

After dinner, we walked to the square to watch the World Cup gam

e which was Germany versus Spain. The whole square was packed with people. I have never seen so many people packed into a street and excited about soccer like these people were. Germany ended up losing (boooo), but I came back to the house at half time to take a shower and unwind. I skyped one more time with my mom before I hit the bed. The mattresses are pretty comfortable, so I slept good. However, it is EXTREMELY hot here right now. It is close to 100 degrees which is very rare weather here in Belgium. The locals love this weather, but with no air conditioning in our houses, we don't like it too much. And since I burned the motor in my fan yesterday by not using the voltage transformer, I am out of luck on that end. I ended up

having to close the windows last night because some students on our program stayed out in the garden until 3 AM last night talking and making loud noise.

I woke up around 8:30 AM this morning. I read a little bit in the book that Debra is letting me borrow - Three Weeks with my Brother by Nicholas Sparks. I am about half way done with it. Katie, Kirsten, and Brad went to a French grocery store this morning and then stopped by a bakery. Brad showed up right before our meeting time at 10 AM with a strawberry custard pie/pastry for me for breakfast. I had some and shared the rest with Jake, haha. At 10:30 AM we finally left as a group with our professors to take the trip to our classrom since tomorrow is our first day of school. We will go from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM tomorrow. It was about a 15 to 20 minute bike ride to get there. We toured our classroom, met the secretaries, and saw the student lounge. Then we ate at a student sandwich shop close to our classroom. I had a ham and cheese sandwich that had lettuce, tomatoes, and lots of carrots on it. I also asked for a Diet Coke and the lady just looked at me strangely. Here in Europe it is called Coke Light. The cans are also a bit smaller; they are 330 mL instead of ounces. The sandwich and coke was about 4,5 euros. So relatively cheap since we are students. There is also a Student Sports Bar and Student Cafeteria on our way to the classroom that gives us discounts on food.

After leaving the sandwich place, our professors showed us where we will have to be on days for field trips. It's a parking lot where the buses will pick us up. It's only a couple of minutes away from the classroom. Then we went to a gorgeous castle and the Leuven city park. We basically rode our bikes around the entire town until about 4:00 PM. You can see most of the photos I took below. Many of them were taken WHILE I was riding my bike. Many more people have had bike troubles today. Jake's bike fell into mine and bent my front fender which caused me trouble. Brad ran straight into a post while he was looking at a soccer stadium. We made fun of him quite a bit! After we were leaving the city gym (which we toured), Brad's chain fell off his bike. We also saw the city court house, several statues, and the school library which are all pictured below. The city gym has a nice pool that we can swim in for only 4 euros. It has several water slides. There is also a cheaper student pool. We also went to the post office and "shopping street." The only familiar stores were ESPIRIT, H&M, and Claires. They are all located down one street. I bought 3 Belgium chocolates from Leonida. They were very good and cost about 1 euro for all three. We went by several places looking for fans (or ventilators - that's what they call them) but all were sold out except one place. They were charging 25 euros for the personal fans.

The wierdest thing about the shopping is that the stores here are only allowed to put things on sale in January and July. They will receive a fine if they put things on sale at other times. So this is a very busy time for the stores. Almost all of them had signs up that said -60% or more.

When we returned back to our student house, I decided to go to the grocery store with Kelsey, Molly, Ann, Liz, Kirsten, and Stephanie. We went to Alda which we heard is cheap. We rode our bikes there. It was only about 4 minutes away. When we got there we tried to grab a shopping cart but they were all chained together. We had to put in a 1 euro coin to release the basket. Then, when we returned the basket, our coin popped back out. Pretty smart, huh? I got a loaf of bread, ham, turkey, light mayo, a big container of Roma tomatoes, a head of lettuce, a block of swiss cheese, a bag of potato chips, and a carton of 10 eggs. My total was only 10 euros. But the store wouldn't take my credit card or debit card, so I had to pay cash. They only accepted local bank cards. We had trouble finding the eggs and milk. They are both kept warm. There is very few things that are kept refrigerated or warm.

Another huge difference is that the women and girls here all wear dresses and skirts. Hardly none of them wear jeans and shorts, which is all I brought. So our group definitely stands out as Americans. Also, it is unbelievably hard to obtain water here. Even at the gym, there are no water fountains. I have been filling up my water bottle in the bathroom sink in our house. The places that do sell water actually sell carbonated or bubbly water. Apparently their tap water is very good and expensive so they don't make it readily available.

They are extremely conservative here and are doing a fantastic job preserving our environment. After the grocery store, we had to put all of our items in our backpacks because they do not have plastic bags. The toilets have one button for urine and another button that you push for #2. Everyone has to sort their trash into different color bags for glass, metal, organic wastes, paper, and all other trash. The trash service will not pick it up if it is not sorted correctly. Also, in the bathrooms at the student classroom there are no paper towels. The towels are cloth and it is in a dispenser like we have paper towels. You simply pull down a section of the cloth towel and wipe your hands. But the whole thing is attached, and I guess someone washes it when it gets to the end of the towel.

I uploaded pictures to Facebook earlier. I think we may go out to eat again tonight to try more food. We may have a few beers after dinner, but I think we will go to bed early tonight since we have to be at our classroom by 8:20 AM tomorrow morning. The sun goes down here at 11:30 and comes up around 4:30, so we have to shut our curtains very tight. Check out my pictures below. The first one is me with my awesome purple bike. I'm starting to really get the hang of it. Also, we are not going to the coast in Osten this weekend because all of the hostels are booked. We are considering going to the Netherlands and possibly Amsterdam after class tomorrow. Check back again for more updates! I miss everyone, especially my family and Hope!

My First Day!

2010-07-07T04:24:00.000-07:00

My day started out on Tuesday, July 6th with my dad waking me up at 7:00 AM when he was leaving for work. I told him goodbye for the rest of the summer and started getting ready for a day FULL of flying. Brad's mom drove him and Jake to the San Antonio airport. They came by to pick up my mom and me around 8:30 AM. We loaded up my suitcases and headed down 410 to the airport. Kirstin was already waiting there when we arrived. Her suitcase weighed exactly 50.0 lbs! She was lucky. We checked in our bags with United airlines in preparation for our flight. Then, Brad's grandma Kathy (who works in San Antonio) showed up and surprised us. She wanted to help send us off on our trip. We went through security and then found our gate of departure. With around 2 hours to wait, Brad and Jake were craving some sweet tea. We each purchased a beverage and then boarded our first flight to Chicago O'Hare Airport. We left around 11:20 AM and arrived in Chicago around 2:00 PM.

The flight to Chicago was Brad's first time to ever fly in an airplane. Although all of our ears hurt and we were dizzy from the small plane, we survived our first flight. Brad did excellent too! When we got to Chicago, we hit the bathrooms and then found the huge board with all the flights to find out the gate that our flight to Brussels was leaving on. Luckily, it was in the same terminal and the same letter that our previous flight with United had arrived in. After we located the correct gate, we decided to find a place to sit down and eat lunch. We had to go from the C to the B area in Terminal 1. (There are 5 terminals at O'Hare). We went through a lighted tunnel full of moving conveyors which the boys had fun with. When we got to Chili's (considered Tex-Mex in Chicago, haha) we were surprised to find only 5 choices on the menu consisting of hamburgers and sandwiches. We order chips and salsa and watched the World Cup. We were able to see the Netherlands beat Uruguay 3-1. The people here in Belgium are huge fans of the Netherlands so we expect to see lots of excitement around the World Cup in Belgium.

When we finally trucked back to our gate, we found Katie there. Katie is my roommate, and we were excited to finally meet her. She is the only student from the University of Tennessee on the program. At 5:15 PM, we boarded our flight to Brussels, Belgium and after some runway delays, we left at 6:45 PM. It was an 8 hour flight!!! It was my first international flight as well. We flew on a Boening 767. It was a giant plane with nice TV screens on the back of every seat. Although we were not able to lay down in First Class, we enjoyed the extra features provided on this plane. There were seven seats in every row. We were served beverages throughout the flight, a frozen dinner, and a breakfast pastry shortly before landing in Brussels. Throughout the international flight, we were maintaining altitudes in the range of 33,000 to 35,000 feet. Additionally, we were typically travelling around 600 mph. It was a trip of over 4,000 miles. The most shocking thing was that as we travelled across the Atlantic Ocean at more than 10,000 meters altitude, the temperature dropped to nearly -60 degrees F. Luckily we were inside the plane. The 5 of us probably slept an average of 30 minutes each throughout the entire 8 hour flight.

We finally landed in Brussels at the sight of gorgeous landscapes and farmland. When we landed in Brussels, we had to go through the emigration lines where we were quizzed about why we were there and where we had come from. They stamped our passports and we headed to pick up our luggage. When we arrived at baggage claim, we saw Ann, Liz, and Derek who had just arrived via Canadian Airways. I ran to the pay phone and called my parents to let them know that I had made it safely to Europe. Then we got our bags, went through customs, and found Dr. Munster there waiting for us in the hallway. He took us down to the train station and passed out various items before we boarded the train to Leuven, the town where we are staying. The train ride was about 15 minutes. When arriving at the train station in Leuven, we had to haul our bags up and down a multitude of stair cases (not fun!) and then we hired 3 taxis to drive us to our dorm house. Dr. Munster followed on his bike. We paid the cab drivers 10 euros to drive us 10 minutes to our dorm. After we got our bags to our room, we had to leave right away to go pick up our rental bikes.

It was about a 20 minute walk to Vel0 (bike in French) to pick out our bikes for the 5 week stay. I chose a large purple women's bike. They each have a bell on them for safety reasons, and they have a small generator that rubs against the wheel at night to turn the light on. We had to put down a deposit of 60 euros for the bike. If we take the bike back with the lock in good condition in August then we get 50 euros back. Halfway back to the dorm, Katie's bike tire went flat. So, Dr. Munster went back to Velo with her to get a different bike. The rest of us (7 of us) travelled the remainder of the way back to the dorm house without getting lost. I then took the chance unpack my stuff, make my bed, and cool off. It was very hot here today. Although the humidity is low, it is still very warm and riding the bike was very hard.

I talked to my mom and dad on Skype as soon as I got my computer hooked up and connected to the internet. It was after 1:00 PM here but it was only 6:00 AM there. There is a 7 hour time difference. You see, when we were flying from Chicago to Brussels, we basically lost the 7 hours of sleeping time. So we went from it being 6:00 PM in Chicago when we departed to it being 9:20 AM on Wednesday, July 7th when we landed in Brussels (only 8 hours later).

This evening we are having a meeting at 5:00 PM out in the garden behind our student house with the housing faculty from the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven. We are in the international residents housing. There is no air conditioning in any of the buildings or dorm rooms but the windows open wide, and I have finally cooled off. Following our meeting at 5:00 PM, our entire group of 21 students are all going out to eat pizza. The department is paying for tonight's meal and only 2 other meals on the entire trip. The 13 other students on the trip (that were not in our group of 7) arrived in Brussels from Dallas/Atlanta about 20 minutes before the rest of us. So Dr. Engler and Dr. Munster split up and took us to complete the various move in tasks in two groups. So I have yet to spend much time with my friends that were in the first group from Dallas. I am looking forward to dinner tonight.

I am hungry and exhausted and have been wearing the same clothes for 2 whole days now (not exactly).... but yuck! Maybe we will even get to see Germany play in the World Cup tonight. We are planning on going to Osten on the coast of Belgium this weekend. I hope we make it there. I believe our first day of classes is on Friday, so we still have one full day of site seeing here in Leuven before school starts. The classroom is a 15 minute bike ride away from the dorm room, by the way. And as far as the electrical outlets are concerned, I brough a converter but already blew out the motor on the fan that I brought with me because the wattage or voltage was not compatible. So, I guess we will have to make due with just opening the windows. I hope it cools off at night when we go to sleep. I am going to try to take a nap now before the meeting in 3 hours. Wish me luck on my first evening here in Belgium! Stay tuned for more updates soon!

Nervous!

2010-07-05T15:39:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the day! I will be flying out of San Antonio, Texas tomorrow morning and will end up in Brussels, Belgium on Wednesday morning. It will be a long day full of travelling. I will be travelling with 3 other Aggies - Brad, Jake, and Kirstin. We will be meeting Katie (my roommate) in Chicago during our layover before the international flight. I have finally finished packing and think I have almost everything I need. Brad and I got some Euros exchanged in San Antonio so that we will have some when we get to Belgium if we need them. I have already checked into my flights online and printed my boarding passes.

I am sad about leaving my family and friends here in the US, but I am SOOOOO excited about what lies ahead in the next 5 weeks. I can't wait to make some life long memories with my friends from the Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department. I bought a 2 GB memory card for my camera today so that I can take lots of pictures during our weekend adventures. I do hope to upload pictures during the trip and post them here on this blog though. So keep checking back! I had lunch today with my Granny and Grandpa Luensmann before my trip tomorrow. I enjoyed visiting with them and brushing up on my German speaking skills.

I am nervous about the train systems and about riding a bike around the town in Leuven. We will have a 15 minute bike ride to school from our dorm each morning. However, I am also very nervous about the food in Europe. I hope it is good! I should be able to blog again on Wednesday when I get to Belgium and get my computer set up in my dorm room. Maybe I can post a picture or two as well! Wish me luck on my first international flight!!!

June 29th

2010-06-29T19:46:00.000-07:00

I am officially leaving for study abroad in Leuven, Belgium in one week! I can't belive it. It has come so fast! This past week I have learned how to Skype and taught my parents how to Skype also. In addition, I have been preparing a packing list for Friday. I will be flying out of San Antonio on July 6th with three other Aggies. I am so excited to get to Belgium already and experience another culture! I will be posting entries here throughout the trip and documenting where we go, what we see, what I eat, wierd experiences, and other interesting information that I will want to remember and share with others. I will also try to post pictures as well in some of my blogs. While in Belgium, I will be taking 6 hours of courses. The two classes will be Environmental Hydrology and Environmental Waste Water Treatment Procedures. In addition, I will be serving as a student grader of homework assignments while on the trip.

I will pick up with entries after I am packed, have taken my 1st summer session finals, and am home for the 4th of July this weekend!