Yes I have made it to Belgium and I am alive. I have been too cheap to pay the 5 Euros for the faster Internet so I have let Melanie do the blogging for the few days. I think that I have done the best with jetlag since I slept the first night for 12 hours and then took a nap on Tuesday and went to bed after we got home from the da Prof, the local "Turf" for the college students, I'll talk about that more later.

Monday, May 16: The first day was a long day! I wasn't nervous as I thought I would be since it was only my third time flying. I knew I would be in good hands with Melanie, the seasoned traveler, with me. We left Fargo at around 11:30 am and got on one of the smallest planes I have ever been on to Chicago, Illinois. The flight was an hour and 20 minutes long and a little bumpy on the way in since there was clouds and some rain. Once we arrived in Chicago the group met up and we went for a bite to eat and then found our gate. After we found our gate and found out that our flight was delayed from 5 hours to 6 hours, Melanie and I found some outlets and Melanie had to pay for Internet so she could "Creep"! J After the long layover we had a long flight, which was on the biggest plane I have ever seen! Melanie and I had seats all the way in the back of the plane in the middle with no windows! It was about an eight-hour flight. On the flight we watched The Tourist, which I still don't know what is going on in that movie! After we landed in Brussels, Belgium we got off the plane and got in line for customs. Once we got through customs checking out passport we went to get our luggage and out and turned right we saw the NDSU Banner with Dr. Wright, Mr. Jim Kelly, and Mrs. Wright.

From the airport we rode in a bus to Antwerp, which was about a 45 minutes. This was our first view of Europe. We noticed all the trees lining the highway and that the speed limit was posted in kilometers. Once we arrived in Antwerp we stopped at a Western Union to exchange out U.S. dollars in to Euros. Then we checked into our flats. Lindsey Haverland, Melanie, and I lugged our luggage up to the 3rd floor, which is according the Belgium's the 4th floor since they say the ground floor is zero. Once we settled in for a bit we started our walking tour. Dr. Wright took us to look at the campus of the University of Antwerp, and we ate lunch at the Agora since it was Monday at around 12:00. After we walked around the campus we then took a practical tour around the area to find local attractions like the bus stop, train station, and Movie Theater, oh yeah and the shopping areas! After walking around all day and being up for almost 24 hours we stopped and picked out sweatshirts and ate supper. We ate at a place called Verona that served pasta and pizza. After supper we walked back to our flats and I fell right asleep at around 9:00pm or 21:00 in European time.

Tuesday, May 17: The second day we had to get up and head to breakfast with everyone. We had our alarm set for 8:00am and had to be down to meet everyone at 8:30. Needless to say we cut it pretty close! At breakfast, which was at the Agora, we ate bread, eggs, yogurt with fruit in the bottom, Nutela (which is big over here), and juice. After breakfast we went to our first class, an orientation meeting. Class lasted till about noon and then we had free time to have lunch on our own. I went back to the flat and took a nap! Melanie said I was a bum, but I really needed it. After lunch at about 2 pm we had to go back to campus to class once again. Class was cut short so that we could travel to the grocery store to buy some things for our place. Lindsey and I went in together and bought a few meals together. This was a tough job since we could not read any of the packages! After we brought our groceries back to our apartment we ventured out to find some supper with a group of about 10. We walked down to where we had seen some restaurants with outside eating areas to find a place to eat. We all couldn't decide on a place until we picked Quick, which is really the only place that has free refills. After we were done eating we walked to da Prof. This is the bar right across the street from the Agora and the University of Antwerp. We saw a few college students inside the bar, and not knowing what to do the six of us who went just pulled some stools up to the tables outside of the bar. After sitting there for a few minutes, Jordan decided to venture into the bar to get a drink. The rest of us followed. We found out that there was a big futboll game that night so the bar soon filled up with local college students. As they were intently watching the game, the American college students (us) were grouped up on the other side of the building. Some of the other people joined us after a while. We took 1 euro shots called blue rush that tasted like lemonade! I thought they were tasty! Since everyone over here pretty much smokes, the bar was smoky. Being use to smoke free bars in Fargo I started to get a headache and Melanie and I headed back while the rest of the group stayed at the bar. Once back to the apartment I went right to bed and fell asleep right away! Melanie and Lindsey on the other hand had trouble sleeping Tuesday night. Oh did I hear about that Wednesday morning!

Wednesday, May 18: Day 3 of the trip and everyone is started to get to know each other and everyone on the trip is getting along really well already! We all woke up and had breakfast together for the last time this week. After breakfast we had our first class with the professor from the University of Antwerp. Professor Paul Rossens is an expert in the European Union business integration. He is teaching our European Union business course. He is a short little man and has a awesome accent. I am a sucker for anyone with an accent. I thought this first class period was very interesting and I liked it a lot! After class was over we were once again free for lunch. After walking back to our apartment to get a quick bite to eat Melanie, Kaylie, and I went to the local farmers market to look around. Melanie was in need of a purse since her tan colored safety travel thing just wasn't cutting it for her. Personally I thought it looked good on her! Haha J The market was neat to see since I have never really been to one even in the United States. Many of the stands were closing up and packing up so we didn't have much luck finding anything.

In the afternoon we went on a retail tour with Dr. Wright. We took a tram out to the large Carrefour. This is the second largest retailer with the first being Wal-Mart. This is the European version of our Wal-Mart. The one we went to was one of the smaller Carrefour's so it was about like the old style Wal-Mart's. After walking around the store trying to find the differences we headed back on the tram to B the main shopping area of Antwerp, which has many high end store like Paris does. A bunch of us walked around there for a while and then went to the train station to check on prices to take the train to Amsterdam for Saturday. While at the train station Lindsey, Melaine, and I found chocolate covered strawberries! Oh my, these were so good since they were covered in warm Belgium chocolate! That night for dinner Lindsey and I had our first attempt in cooking. This was an adventure since we didn't even know how to turn the oven on! Once we figured that out we preheated the oven. I went to check and see if it was actually working and well it was. As when I opened the door smoke came rolling out. I found that the bottom of the oven had not been cleaned for a while! Once the smoke cleared, our potatoes finally boiled, and chicken was cooked, it was actually not that bad!

That night ten of us went to the movie theatre to watch the new Pirates of the Caribbean 4. It was a huge theatre and we went up to the third floor to watch the movie. The escalators were neat since one went through a tunnel that was black with stars! The seats were really comfortable and put many of us asleep. The movie was in English but had subtitles in French and some other language. So we could understand the movie! The movie was pretty good. After the movie we just went back to the apartment and went to sleep after a long day of walking!

I hope everyone back in the states is doing well! I miss everyone and will be seeing you all soon!

Love, Michelle