So this past weekend most of the people in the program decided to stay in Leuven. We had a blast. Most of us needed it after a week of midterms. With each passing day I find it increasingly difficult to concentrate when there are so many distractions around. On Thursday we decided to go to the local Irish pub. It was a great decision as we ended up hanging out with the staff of the institute. This proved to be quite a good time. We sat there and exchanged jokes, stories of life, and laughed about general cultural differences. I got a pretty solid lesson on Irish geography too. Friday we ended up doing the same thing and a good time was had by all. On Saturday four of us went into Brussels in the afternoon to look around. We saw the mannekin-pis which is a fountain in which a little boy is urinating the stream of water. There is a back story on how he saved an important building in Brussels using the exact method depicted by the statue. After some exploring we happened upon a pub that has happy hour from 1PM to 12AM. After a few delectably discounted trapist beers we headed over to the March aux Poisson for some dinner. Deciding on a prix fixe menu proved to be very worth it. For 12 Euro I had oysters, a delicious mussels dish, a staple of Belgium, and a tasty desert. That evening after returning to Leuven, we had plans to go see a couple of really good DJ’s at the club on the outskirts of town however they were foiled by the phrase “sold out.” Little did it matter as we ended up having a blast at one of the clubs in the town square.

This week I was invited to attend a session in Strasbourg France by my MEP. The internship is really picking up and it has become very exciting to be conducting such an interesting and meaningful body of work.