Brussels....and the in between

So I promised I would write about Brussels, so here we are.....
a) no dog poop in the streets....although just past the train station where we entered, there were several unexplainable splashes of throw-up, which I haven't so much seen in Lille. interesting...
b) the Grand Place is absolutely stunning!! It is 13th century style architecture including gold in the facades..I could have just stayed there all day looking at it.
We went to lunch on a narrow street lined with little restaurants with fixed menu prices, so yes it was meant for tourists, but that is what I was. I had a delicious vegetable soup and then salmon. Along with the Belgian beer Leffe, blonde....I was in Belgium, I had to try a beer. We also went to the museum of Brussels and saw the city plans and pretty paintings and photographs of all the different types of facades, which is what I really enjoyed about Brussels: all the buildings, despite being butt up beside each other, have vastly different and varying facades in styles and colors and it makes the streets so colorful and interesting to the eye. We also stopped in two Cathedrals, which were absolutely gorgeous: Cathedral de la Chapelle and St. Michel's Cathedral. At the latter, Corinne and I split a delicious Belgian waffle, or a gaufre in french. I bought Belgian chocolates in two different chocolate stores, and I haven't even touched them yet, and it is now Monday. For any one who knows me and knows how much I love chocolate, this should be surprising. We also visited the statue/fountain of the little pissing boy "Manneken Pis". I don't know how he has become so famous, because he is just on a street corner, up high taking a piss, haha. But he is so famous that most countries of the world have created clothes in their typical dress to dress him in, so when I saw him, he was wearing Russian clothes. All the other costumes are on display in the Museum of Brussels, so I had a chance to see those too. I felt like I got a good sense of what Brussels had to offer though I know I missed several museums and a place called the Atomium which is a huge atom-ic structure with escalators in the bonds between the atoms and then viewpoints looking over Brussels. But, when you only have 12 hours in Brussels, you can't see everything...especially when the restaurants take more than 1.5 hours. We were almost late to our train back because the restaurant didn't even get us our appetizer until 30 min after we were seated. We had to forgo our dessert and coffee that was included in our menu, so that we could RUN all the way across town to the train station and make it in just the nick of time.

When I've not been traveling on the weekends I have been going to classes, sleeping, walking around Lille and getting to know it better, and hanging out with my friends. Last monday night, I met Grant's family, his french home stay family, and helped prepare an "American" dinner for them and ate with them. His "mom" is very nice and said that I had very good french which is a nice compliment to receive when I go to places around town and they don't understand me when I speak. Somehow, after taking the french placement test, I scored in the range of the highest level french. I'm not sure how that happened, but so far I understand everything in my French class. And Benoit, Lynn's husband, said that he could tell a definite improvement in my french and my accent just after one week, a week in which I didn't even hang out with my french friends hardly at all.

So I mentioned earlier that I worked out last week. The "gym" or as they call it, "salle de sport" which is more appropriate, it has 3 rooms: a weight room, a dance room with mirrors, and an elliptical, row machine, etc room. This salle de sport is located in the same building as my dorm but requires a special pass to enter. Grant bought one so we all went to an "abs and butt" class. After this class was over, I was ready to do it again the next hour. It was not as strenuous as classes in the US are. Dani will back me up. Also, none of the girls in the class wore t-shirts and shorts, they wore shirts that back home would be acceptable to go out in and then some stretchy knit relaxing pants. All around just "wrong" (in my mind) clothes in which to exercise.

IT IS SNOWING today in Lille!!! I am very very excited!!! time to go play, I will write more later :)