Brussels

Our trip to Brussels, Belgium was a John Carroll organized trip with all 30 kids from John Carroll and three professors. On Thursday we woke up at the break of dawn at 6 AM for our 7 AM meeting time. From school, we took the tube to Kings Cross/St. Pancreas train station and took the 2 and a half hour train ride to Brussels, the EU capital. From the train station in Brussels, the group took a bus to our hotel, but we were not able to check in so we just dropped our bags off. A tour guide gave us a very general walking tour of the city where we saw the Grand Place and sort of a town square area. We also got to see what is known as the "Manneken Pis" and as the name implies, it is a statue of a baby peeing into a a pool of water. Still can't decide what was cooler that or the Glockenspiel (a tourist joke) The tour guide also took us to the very first chocolate shop and it had the best chocolate I have ever had. After this we continued to walk around and ended up back at our hotel for check in. I roomed with Steve. The professors organized a trip to the European Parliament and when we got there we had an hour long power point presentation concerning everything about the EU Parliament. Needless to say almost everyone fell asleep during this time (including one professor) We did, however, get to the actual place where parliament takes place. We had to take elevators to get there and the reason that I say this is that a group of about 12 actually got stuck in the elevator which was pretty hilarious. We took a bus back to the hotel where Nick, Torrey, Newk, Steve and I went out for dinner (JCU gave us each 100 Euro for food) After dinner and several games of euchre, Steve and I went to bed at around 9 completely exhausted.

Friday, bright and early 7AM breakfast at the hotel (which was delicious) and another bus ride. This time it was to the NATO headquarters. They took us into a large conference room and failed to realize that at each of the seats there were these microphones that would broadcast over the speakers in the room (presumed for translators) You can see the fun that we had with these (yes, we are college students) We had three different presentations on different aspects of NATO and the U.S. influence on NATO. Interesting stuff. From NATO we took a bus back to the hotel where we were on our own for lunch. A large group of us went to a local Belgian fast food restaurant called Quick Quality Burger Restaurant (equivalent to McDonald's but not nearly as good) Went back to the hotel and took a bus ride to the EU Commission. Another powerpoint presentation about the EU (again) by that time we were all European Unioned out. From there Steve and I sat down at a pub and had a beer before meeting back up with the professors for dinner near the Manneken Pis. Great dinner followed by a search for a Karaoke bar which we could not find. We settled on a place called O' Reily's

Saturday, we were up at 8AM took a bus to the town of Leuven and met and insane tour guide (she got mad if people yawned or talked while she was talking). Took a walking tour of the town which was really beautiful. Leuven is home to the supposed best Catholic university in the world and it is a great college town with a little European flair . To me it was better that Brussels itself. The crazy tour guide lady took us into probably about six churches while walking around the city. Following this we had a group lunch in the town hall area of the city and had about an hour of free time afterwards. We then took a tour of what is known as Beguinage, which was a community of lay, single, women during the midieval period and is now home to apartment housing. After this we went back to te square where they literally had about 50 bars one right after another. The nice part about this is that the weather finally broke and we were able to sit outside until our bus came. Nap. Shower and Dinner and went out that night.

Sunday we were able to sleep in a little bit. After breakfast, Torrey, Steve and I walked the city until we had to be back at the hotel.

Brussels was a great way to finish my travels with a group of people who I now consider my family. It was also nice to travel with almost everything planned for you including where you are going and how you are getting there. So thanks to JCU and our professors that came with us.

Because we only have about 11 days left here in London, look out for several different blogs to come out this week such as what I'm going to miss most, or what I am looking forward to back home in America

Cheers,

Paul