So just an overall view of where I am and what I'm doing. I'm here in Leuven, Beglium for 3 months studying the European Union. The town is about 20 miles from Brussels and is the home of the Louvain Institute for Ireland in Europe, an old Irish college founded here in the early 1600s. Oh, and it's also the home of Stella Artois. :)

So I've been here for a week and a few days, and I'm finally beginning to feel at home. So here's a run down of the last week or so:

1-2 September: Our flight was two hours delayed but once we finally got into Brussels, we hopped a cab to Leuven. We got to the institute and checked in. I'm rooming with two other girls from NU. Our room is nice, but just one big room with a bathroom. See pictures :) We took a nap and then explored the town. It's incredibly old and beautiful here. The Catholic University here was founded in the 15th century and the town is older than dirt. The town hall is a beautiful Gothic building. And there's tons of bars, restaurants and shops. Oh and lots of chocolate and waffles and beer. Don't worry, I've tried all three.

3-7 September: Lectures started bright and early Monday with a brief orientation and a walking tour of Leuven. Classes themselves began Tuesday with three 2 1/2 hour classes basically back to back. Luckily we only have each class once a week so the long sessions are bearable. I'm going to be taking History and Development of the EU, European Law, and Economics of European Integration. The History class is taught by our program director here at the Institute, Law by a lawyer with his LLM from Harvard, and Economics by grad student at KU (the Catholic University) from Benin.

On Friday we had to go register our visa's with the town hall, which was an adventure. We had to be entered into the system, then to police are supposed to come to our residence to see that we are living there, and then we have to go back to the town hall again with a bunch of paperwork. What a process...and we really didn't even need the visa, it turns out. We're the only group here that has them. Thanks for the goof goes to our study abroad office at Northeastern.

Last weekend, we decided to catch up on some much needed sleep between the lingering jet lag and busy class schedule. Saturday was a good day to wander around Leuven and explore where we are a bit more. On Sunday we ventured into Brussels for the afternoon. The train ride is only 25 minutes, so it's really convenient. We didn't have anyone with us that had been there before so we wandered around using our guidebook as best we could. We had mussels in Brussels, and we saw the Cathedral of St. Michel, Le Grand Place, Manneken Pis (the little boy peeing statue), le Place Royale, le Palais Royal, le Parc de Bruxelles, le Parc du Cinquantenaire, and the EU buildings. Everything is just so old that it's hard to comprehend. The buildings in le Grand Place are so ornamented and beautiful, and Manneken Pis is way smaller than you might think. Unfortunately he wasn't dressed up that day. The EU buildings are sort of interesting because they are so new and shiny compared to the rest of the city. I in all my brilliance forgot to take a camera that day, but since I'm interning there I'll get pictures some other day :). After walking for about four hours, we dragged ourselves back to Leuven for the night.

This week I started my internship with Member of European Parliament Professor Georgs Andrejevs from Latvia. I haven't seen much of him in the two days I was in, but his assistants Gundars and Chris are fantastic. The job itself leaves quite a bit to be desired after the first two days, but hopefully it will get better. I spent about 14 hours in front of a computer researching environmental refugees. For the next two weeks I don't have to go in because there is a party meeting in Barcelona and then its plenary week in Strasbourg. But they asked me to write a summary of the evolution of the term "environmental refugees" and the sides of the debate over whether or not they exist. Luckily I can probably use this for my paper topic too so I can kill two birds with one stone. But I would like to sit in on committee meetings and things like that, so hopefully they will give me the chance to do so. I might go in sometime in the next to weeks to do that since I'm not expected to be anywhere.

Monday and today have been class days. Tomorrow we start our trips :) We are headed to Luxembourg for Friday and Saturday. I'll fill you all in on how that goes when I get the chance.

Tot ziens!