one week in belgium

Sorry for my delay in updating, I'll try to be more diligent in the future.

Last Wednesday I met with my supervisor finally. She thought I was arriving the following week and apologized for the miscommunication. She explained my project to be basically optimizing a liquid-liquid extractor. It turns out that's really more of a chemical engineering job, but it should be interesting. I've spent the last week reading up on the process (or trying to at least) and some various background information.

Thursday was my first time to go into Brussels proper. Kan, the other American, and I took the bus into town. He was familiar with the area from his previous week, and played tour guide for me. He showed me the main square, Grand Place, and the nearby Manneken Pis, the icon of the area, or so it seems. Finally we met up with a friend at the movie theatre and watched the new Indiana Jones. Entertaining, but a bit over the top.

Finally we take the tram back to the train station. The tram, however, is much much slower than the subway. We get there about 15 minutes after the last train back to Rhode-St-Genese (town where we are staying). Getting off the tram we run into two boys about our age who appeared to be asking for a lighter for their cigarette, but they are speaking quickly words I can't understand and trying to distract my eyes with their hands: definitely pickpockets. I watch him and tell him to leave and I come out okay, Kan tries the same but realizes later he lost his subway ticket (with 2 rides left on it). Not a bad run-in with pick-pockets, but these weren't very good ones mind you.

So we're at the station after the last train and we have to call a taxi. Quite an expensive way to get back into town, but it beats staying at the train station until 6am for the first train or bus.

My next adventure begins Saturday morning. Kan and I head into Brussels again to explore the city. (He keeps a decent blog, with many more pictures. His post from this venture here. - My pictures are coming soon I hope.) We wander through central brussels with stops such as The Koningsplein, an area resembling an open-air, indoor mall, The Cathedrale St. Michel, a museum of Belgian history. The museum is less informative than I would like, as they are trying to serve speakers of French, Flemish(Dutch), English and German. Quite a difficult ordeal, so overall it's mildly helpful. I'm not so sure they have that extensive of a history anyways.

We head to the site of the 1958 Expo for its attraction: the Atomium. I go up into it and get a great vantage of the city. Finally we end the day by wandering the city somewhat at random and then heading back home.

Sunday I sleep in until noonish. I get a call from Kan asking if I am interested in Waterloo. It was on my list of places, so I'm definitely up for it. Waterloo is the closest place to Rhode-St-Genese. Just 2 miles or so, and is where I rollerbladed to for the acquisition of a cell phone.

We take the train to a stop just beyond waterloo to get to the site of the Battle of Waterloo, the famous one you hear about that stopped Napoleon. Erected there is the Butte du Lion, a tribute to the soldiers lost. After seeing just about everything that the site had to offer (lots of little exhibits, movies, etc that isn't really worth the money), we head into Waterloo proper. There isn't really much there, but we wander around a bit before catching the train and calling it a night.

The movies shown at the Battle of Waterloo exhbit make me realize how much of a problem it is with these multiple languages. The movie tried to convey the ideas of the battle almost completely without words. Quite a feat really, but it just left me confused mostly. I wanted a narrator the whole time.

Not too much to report from work. I'm understanding things better. The book is putting me to sleep a little bit less. I've found out there is a rock climbing gym in Brussels so I think I might go one night for fun and exercise. Waking up and exercising in the morning has begun to prove unsuccessful. Even if the sun rises at 5h30, it's hard for me to motivate myself to be up any earlier than I have to be for work.