Okay, so it's been quite a while since I updated. This is the problem with blogs: when you're busy, you don't update, because you're doing so much. Then, you realize you have to update, and when you think over all you've done you don't know where to start. But enough of my first world problems. Here we go.
I first want to thank my incredible family/extended family, who managed to figure out how to send birthday cards and, in one case, monster cookies (!!) to my address in Brussels just days after I learned how to properly write it. You all rock.
My birthday was a week ago; I turned 23 and celebrated my full entry into the twenty-something era by eathing a chocolate cake on the way to the Africa Museum, finding my scooter, eating scrumptious moules and homemade frites with a Belgian friend of mine, and then going for drinks. Brussels people like birthdays; these new friends, who I've known less than three weeks, were so generous, sweet, and celebratory. I am impressed by the Belgians, I must say.
Belgian university schedules, on the other hand, are not quite as impressive. Or perhaps they're impressive in a different way. It's kind of exciting to have to wake up and check GeHol (the scheduling software) every morning to see if your class just might have changed time, location, date, or professor. The suspense (and the alarm clock) is excruciating. The good side of this is that I believe I've seen every building on ULB's Solbosch campus, including the recently-completed business school on the far side of the parking lot, because I've either 1) had class there; 2) had class moved there; 3) had GeHol tell me class was moved there but had class in the original location; 4) had class somewhere else, been unable to find it, and have a friendly-but-mistaken ULB classmate send me elsewhere. So that's been a fun way to see the campus.
That said, classes themselves (if/when you find them) have been very interesting; while two hours of Kant in French at 5 pm can induce either sleepiness or intense, grumbly hunger, the classes on bioethics (and the ways in which bioethical deliberations are slowed in Belgium due to linguistic competition between the Flemish and French communities), business leadership (complete with classmates from the Royal Military Academy and several officers from East African countries), and the ethics of communication (which basically confirms all your icky creepy feelings about Facebook) are fascinating. What's sometimes more fascinating are the Belgian/other international students' reactions to debates and discussions; for instance, while I sat silently outraged that the Belgian Committee on Bioethics only meets twice or three times a year due to the fact that they must have an equal balance of French and Flemish speakers every time they meet, my classmates either rolled their eyes or smiled sadly or didn't react at all. The level of linguistic politics and division in this tiny country is amazing. Perhaps they looked abroad to big, problematic Congo because exploration could distract them from the gargantuan task of getting these two proud regions to coalesce into one tiny nation.
Things to think about. I'm signing paperwork at the Museum today, hopefully, which means that there will be much more to come on colonialism and Belgium and history and memory and all those good depressing but interesting things that I do so like to study and research (and that, in all seriousness, I think are vitally important, too)
Friday was "La Nocturne de l'ULB," a big student-run music festival. While it was run with ULB's signature style (long lines, inefficient ticketing system, completely irrational way to pay for beers), the variety of bands and the number of students there was really quite fun. My favorite band was a Congolese group whose electric thumb piano player (!!) blew me away. They were also the only band of the night that got their mostly-white crowd to change from the European techno hop or the American white man's shuffle to a dance that involved much more hip movement and swaying. They were really fun (I would like to insert the video I took here, but I haven't figured out how yet. So check back later when I successfully battle my technological ineptitude).
Saturday was Nuit Blanche, which goes from 7 pm to 7 am the next morning and is a city-wide public art exhibit. There were funky glow-in-the-dark flowers, electro-dance-party lightshows in old cathedrals, a really interesting series of wax figures that gradually melted as the night went on, revealing all-wired skeletons underneath (again, the creepiness of Facebook), a really frustrating exhibit with mirrors that I never quite understood, a woman contorting herself in a box, a large series of head-scratching films, an enormous soap machine blowing bubbles to the crowd, and a klezmer band complete with unicyclists. I loved Nuit Blanche in Paris, but had even more fun in Brussels; the art wasn't quite as top-notch, perhaps, but the weather was infinitely better (oh, irony!) and the Belgians know how to throw a block party. Everyone was out, nibbling on falafel and (of course) drinking beer, snapping photos of art and relaxing on terraces (all the restaurants and cafes stayed open late and had drink/food specials). Good times.
I have spent the past few days picking up my scooter and desperately searching for insurance for it. I've finally succeeded, drawn up international contract number 3 (or 4? At this point in time that class in international contract law next year is going to be a piece of cake), and am off to get my "plaque" (license plate) in just a minute. I'm dying to ride Leo (for Leopold II, originally, but it also rhymes: "Leo the Mio," a rejected children's book about a European moped) around Brussels; he is beautiful, black-and-silver, and what's best, he runs when the Brussels metro does not/decides not to (which happens more than is quite necessary). This means that I will be able to get to ULB with time to spare to hunt down the new location of my elusive class, and that I will be able to get to Tervuren without feeling like I actually went to Africa instead (due to the tram delays and transit times :) Before you worry, I have an oh-so-impossibly-European cream helmet, so the Brown Cloud (my ever-unruly hair) will be flatter but will stay intact.
There are more, reflective things I ought to write, and I promise they are coming soon; the weather is getting greyer and colder and drizzlier so I'm much less likely to be taking walks and picnicking in the gorgeous parks here and much more likely to hole up and read and think and get curmudgeonly about the winter. But for now, suffice it to say that Belgium has impressed, bemused, frustrated, challenged, and, on some heartwarming occasions embraced me, and I'm happy (for now :) to embrace it back. We'll see how I feel after chasing Leo(pold's, not the scooter's) ghost around Tervuren for a while.
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