So It Begins

Like any good piece of writing there needs to be a preface. Here's mine: I am living in Leuven, Brussels for 100 days, and it seems the easiest way to document everything is in a blog. However, it will be full of ramblings and my beloved fragments that are too often forbidden from use by professors. Plus, pop culture references, because that is simply me. Enjoy!

Chasity: I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?
Bianca: I think you can in Europe.

Who knew that the movie 10 Things I Hate About You would best describe my feelings upon reaching Europe. Let me explain.

I have been to Europe once before. After graduating high school there was a class trip to Italy and Greece. I immediately felt that I was abroad. There was constantly that "wow" moment, because I was seeing the places I had only read about. You were a tourist, and you were overwhelmed by everything you saw.

I anticipated a similar reaction when I touched down in Brussels, but it never came.

I looked out my plane window to see green. Coming from Arizona, green is a foreign concept. Coming from The States (yes, that is how I am referring to the USA), I recognize cities as marked with towering skyscrapers. To say the least Brussels was a new world. Somehow it felt provincial, but I will have to explore it better. And don't worry with travel comes pictures.

From the airport we (ie Aly, Lizzy, and I) traveled to Leuven, Belgium. It is located 20 minutes by train from Brussels and is home to Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, which was founded in 1425 by Pope Martin V. The University is the oldest existant Catholic university in the world and the oldest university in the Low Countries.

90,706 people reside in Leuven. AND, almost 37,000 of these individuals are students, making Leuven very much a college town. That is exactly what Leuven is, a college town. People here are living their daily lives: attending classes, raising a family, falling in love, getting groceries, etc. Leuven is life like any other place. I think this is the only way I can understand why I have not felt that overwhelming feeling like I did in Italy and Greece. When I visited previously, I looked at the cities through the lens of a tourist. It was an instinctive reaction when I was seeing things like Juliet's balcony (Verona), Rome's Colosseum, and Athens' Parthenon. But while Leuven holds many architectural wonders (ie Leuven's city hall), it is not "touristy". Instead, you immediately see that it is home to thousands of people rather than an attraction to thousands of tourist.You are not an outsider looking in, instead you are easy immersed into the city. Leuven feels natural, not foreign.