Finale: Belgium

My last week in Brussels was taken up by studying for our exam on Thursday. We had no site visits left, so our days consisted almost solely of going to class, catching up on and reviewing our readings, and preparing for Thursday. After the exam on Thursday, we had a class dinner to celebrate the end of the program, where we had Waterzooi, a traditional Belgian stew-like dish with chicken and vegetables in a creamy broth.

As a final cap to my experience in Belgium, I joined a small group of students, as well as our professor from MSU, on a day trip to Namur on Saturday. The train tickets were extremely cheap, something like 8 euro for a round trip ticket, and we had a blast exploring the old town and its citadel. Underneath the citadel there was a network of catacombs, some hundreds of years old, and we were able to go on a tour of these, which was awesome.

Cool building in Namur.

Cool sign.

Another old Namur building. Probably served some important purpose.

Interesting graffiti.

A crest or something that I saw on the side of this building.

The citadel of Namur.

We saw Segway tours in almost every city we visited. I kind of regret not doing one.

View from the top of the Citadel.

Layout of the Citadel.

Descending into the tunnels beneath the Citadel.

Going deeper...

...and deeper.

The tunnels had rooms, like this one, that were overly creepy.

Stalactites (I had to look that up).

Still going deeper. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and I was absolutely freezing.

Original door from the oldest section of the catacombs, hundreds of years old.

Cool roots.

Outside of the Citadel.

One of the four or five chimneys that provided ventilation for the catacombs.

We got back to Brussels by 10pm, and I should have gone to bed immediately, seeing as how I was leaving for the airport at 5am the next morning. But I, in my infinite wisdom, attempted to stay up all night, reasoning that it would then be easier to sleep on the plane, which would in turn make it easier to stay up all day once I arrived back in the US.  Naturally, I fell asleep around midnight, and woke up at 5:20 to my cheap European cell phone buzzing on the floor as my taxi tried calling me for the fourth time. To make matters worse, I had hardly packed at all (I had all night, I figured, so what was the rush?).  I hastily packed and rushed outside, to find not one, but two taxis waiting for me, which was a problem. I had emailed Gus a couple of days before, asking to order me a taxi, but, as I had gotten no response, I figured he hadn’t received the email, and ordered one myself. But apparently he had ordered a taxi after all, and the driver was not happy when I told him that his services would not be needed, especially after he waited around 20 minutes for me to finally appear. He drove off quite mad, but on the bright side, I made it to the airport and through security with plenty of time to spare! After that, my journey home was without incident.