Orientation Day 1: Tonight’s post is going to be short and sweet — and without visuals, sadly. Today was the first day of Orientation at Vesalius College, an American style university that is part of the larger Flemish university: Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Up until today, and I believe I can speak on behalf of most study abroad students here, we were a bit confused on the specifics of this college known as VeCo. So, after a few hours of general academic information and such, we were introduced to the campus food options. I will admit, they are much better than the campus options at New Paltz (sorry New Paltz!) We were then given information on Brussels life and tips on how to adjust. Once our academic portion of the day was finished, the entire group of students was led to the on-campus bar. That’s right, at around 5pm our large group of about 100 people were led to the on-campus bar called ‘t Complex. As unusual as this was, I will admit that it is a much better way to get students (and professors!) to mingle, more so than the freshmen orientation we’ve all gone through — of song and dance routines with people we hardly know.

Well that’s about all for today. There is much to be done in the days coming and I shan’t drone on about the specifics of our first academically geared day.

I will make mention, though, that the first Belgian beer I tried is called la Chouffe and that I enjoyed it very much. It was strong, but bitter and sweet altogether. Très bon!