Hello from Belgium!

It has been quite the week here in Lille, full of boring information sessions as well as exciting events thrown by IESEG’s international club. We had a barathon where we visited several bars in the city, a 4-hour scavenger hunt throughout the city (my feet still hurt from all the walking!), and a surprise trip to the city of Béthune and the beach at le Touquet. Besides that I got French healthcare, which I thought I would need this week. One morning I woke up with a sore throat, no energy, slight fever, and no appetite—I felt awful and words can’t describe how I felt. I struggled throughout the day, but 10 hours of sleep seemed to do the trick. Hopefully I don’t get sick during these next few months!

 

Perhaps one of the things I was worried about the most, both before and after I got to Lille, was the classes I would take. The Lille program is relatively new to Santa Clara, and so there isn’t a set list of pre-approved classes and the credits at IESEG don’t really translate to SCU. Because I will be taking classes at both the bachelors and masters level, credits for classes are different. One thing I really like at IESEG is that some classes are extensive and others are intensive. Classes that are extensive meet once a week for a semester (well it seems like a lot of mine only meet for half a semester) and classes that are intensive meet a few hours everyday for one week with a final on Friday. It seems pretty crazy, but I’m actually doing a few of those. Thus far I signed up for 9 classes (20 units), which doesn’t quite equate to a full course load at SCU. With this said, I’m still trying to add classes at the other schools at la Catho aka my French classes because most of my classes are in English besides business French and Euro-Mediterranean relations.

Now that my week of orientation is over, it’s time to actually start school. Well actually, it isn’t. Thanks to the wonder French education system I don’t have any classes the first week and for my second week I only have one class, and it’s on Monday. This means one thing: a lot of traveling through Europe. Currently, I am writing while cruising on a train along the beautiful countryside of Belgium. I feel like Xavier from one of my favorite French movies “L’auberge Espagnole.”  For the next few days Molly, Ryan, and myself will be exploring the medieval city of Bruges and the wonderful city of Brussels. It was kind of a spur of the moment trip because none of us have class the first week. Even better, we got really cheap train tickets (only 13 Euros to Bruges) as well as some cheap hostels.

Looking forward to when we get back to Lille, we have a few things for which to get excited. We plan to take the 45 minute TGV ride down to Paris to do a little bit of exploring. The other reason to be excited is the famous “Braderie.” From what we heard, it’s Europe’s biggest flea market with people coming from all over the continent to both buy and sell stuff. As you walk around the city, you can see people already sleeping in tents trying to get the best possible areas in Lille. 

 

To put things into perspective, today experienced the weekly (flea market) at Wazemme. Ryan went last week and said it was quite the experience. Literally everything was sold, from things like clothes, socks, and towels to exquisite cooked food like rotisserie chickens, slabs of ribs, and both Moroccan and Asian delicacies. The smell throughout the market was contagious and I couldn’t resist buying some food. I decided to get a slab of ribs (5 Euros) a quarter chicken smothered in its drippings (2 Euros) a container full of roasted potatoes in chicken drippings (2 Euros) and a baguette (50 cents). Needless to say, it was one of the best meals thus far. This market is amazing, but I honestly can’t imagine what the Braderie is going to be like.

A few parting thoughts…

Even though I have been here for more than a week, I still can’t get over how nice people are here. It really seems like a family here in Lille, as people are willing to talking to everyone, even the homeless people.

I’m not sure how I’m going to get used to all the rain. It’s not like it rains all day here. It will rain for a few minutes then stop, and then get harder again. It’s kind of unpredictable.

I wish I paid more attention to the metric system in school

Professor Toppel’s lecture on culture in MGMT 80 mirrored exactly what a culture specialist talked about during her information session. “Culture is like an iceberg: 10% of a person’s culture is above the surface, and the other 90% is below the surface.

Update:

Belgium is awesome.