Looking back, it is hard to believe that it has already been one month since I came home from my study abroad trip this summer. I can say with confidence that I already miss the time I have spent in both Washington, D.C. and Brussels, Belgium. In retrospect, what surprised me the most about my…
Tag: Belgium
The Challenges and Rewards of Navigating Brussels
It is unavoidable to run into challenges that force you to change the way you function in the environment and the way that you think about things when you are in an unfamiliar situation. In my own experience of studying in Washington, D.C. and Brussels, Belgium this May, the toughest obstacle that challenged me was…
Introduction: My Experience with Pitt in D.C.-Brussels
Hello everybody! My name is Erica Love and I am a rising senior majoring in French and international studies with minors in political science, linguistics, and history and a certificate in West European studies. This summer, I participated in the Pitt in D.C.-Brussels Maymester program. I chose this program because I knew it would help…
Bisous, Bruxelles!
It has been a while since you blog readers have last heard from me! I did not forget about you, but I will admit the month of January was a hectic month. All of winter break, I watched enviously as my friends from Pitt relaxed after their final exams, enjoying the holiday, while I had…
A Letter to a Stranger
Dear Adriana-from-September-before-leaving-for-the-experience-of-a-lifetime, It is December 14th, 2022, exactly one week before I am flying back to the States for the holidays. I am currently sitting in a new coffee shop I discovered this past weekend with my friend from Barcelona. They have amazing tiramisu here, and their hot chocolate is to die for. Today, I…
A Pinterest “Vision Board” in the Works
With each week that goes by, my heart becomes more and more torn at the thought of leaving Belgium. I would place myself in the denial stage of grief at the moment; I refuse to believe that I only have about a month and a half left. On some nights, I feel as though I…
The “Savoir-Vivres” of Brussels
In one of my first French classes at Université Libre de Bruxelles, we had a lively discussion about the “savoir-vivres” of Belgian life, and I, as a freshly-arrived and still moderately-slow French speaker, tried as hard as I could to keep up with the language while also really taking note of the “savoir-vivres” we were…
My Journey away from a Google Maps Dependency
I will not sugar-coat it; I was miserably stressed in my first weeks here in Brussels. Now, after nearly two months of living here, I laugh at my early-September-self for feeling so hopeless. Pre-Brussels-Adriana could never imagine that I would be able to find my way around the city without using Google Maps, that I…
Expectations versus Realities While Studying in Brussels
Before arriving in Belgium, my stomach was in knots from worry, wondering what it would be like to study, to make friends, and to create a feeling of “home” in a foreign country. I expected my courses to be as challenging and rigorous as my courses at Pitt, but with the added dimension of being…
Making Brussels “Home”
The beginning of my study abroad experience was very similar to the typical freshman-moving-into-college-and-leaving-mom-and-dad-for-the-first-time experience. The only difference is that this time, I am in an entirely new country that has a completely different system for handling student housing! Unfortunately, Université Libre de Bruxelles does not offer their exchange students on-campus housing, so it was…