Louvain-la-Neuve, tu ne dors jamais

Once upon a time, a university was founded in Belgium. Over five hundred years later, the Dutch and the French members of the school were not getting along so well. So the French found a field and decided to build a new city for their new school. Tada! Louvain-la-Neuve and l'Université Catholique de Louvain were born.

Down by the "lake". As you can see, there's no actual water.

Fifty years later, Louvain-la-Neuve is a unique place. I don't think there is any other place quite like Louvain-la-Neuve. It takes living in a "student town" to a whole new level. The average age of its residents is 25.6. It's a planned city. This has a few cool implications. For the most part, it's pedestrian, no cars allowed. It's quite small, with students and families living at the most 10 or 15 minutes away from the town center. Also, everything looks the same: school buildings, student residences, family apartments, bars, homeless shelters (homelessness in a planned city?), restaurants, stores.

This is a picture of a bar, a homeless shelter and school residences. Promise.

Speaking of stores, for a small town, this place has excellent shopping. But not on Sundays. Nothing is open on Sundays.

Mall! H&M, Zara, Esprit and lot's and lot's of other stores.

In fact, the only thing open on Sundays are the restaurants. According to my Lonely Planet, Belgians dine out, on average, more than any other people in the world. There are a suprising amount of restaurants. All kind of foods, too. When I told my friends and family that I was going to Belgium for four months, they raved about the food: frites, mussels, chocolate. But they seriously understated how amazing, fantastic, completely life-altering waffles are. I have to limit myself to one every two days which is really hard because their aroma fills the air, masking the stench of alcohol from last night's cercle shananigans.

Another LLN quirk: cercles. These are student-run, school-approved bars each representing either a faculty or Belgian region. They serve one beer and it costs 0.90€ which means that no one really cares if they spill theirs. Or end up throwing it. Roham, Mandy and Nick: bring shoes that you don't mind leaving here! Also, this all goes down Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Friday and Saturday, the cercles are closed and everyone goes home. Or in the case of exchange students, go travel.

Casual Monday night.

A few weeks ago, Emily urged me to tell you guys about my roommates. In LLN, students live in kots (apartments). So Cassie and Marie-Eve are my kot-mates, or kototeuses. It's odd that were just three. Most students in school residences live in groups of up to nine people. Both Belgian, Cassie and Marie-Eve are super friendly and really eager to learn about Canada. I have promised them I'll make a traditional Canadian meal... pancakes, maple syrop and bacon. I showed them pictures of my prom and Queen's football games and they marveled at how it was "just like One Tree Hill!". On my end, I love hearing about the political situation in Belgian. It's not good. They haven't had a government in 200 days. Just yesterday negotiations between representatives from Wallonia (French speaking) and Flanders (Dutch speaking) ceased suddenly.  

My experience so far is that Belgians love Canadians. A lot of my conversations with Belgian start something like this.

Me: Hi, I'm Olivia from Canada (insert kiss on the cheek). Belgian guy looks to his friend: Woah, she's just like Robin. Me: Who? Belgian guy: ROBIN! From How I Met Your Mother! I love How I Met Your Mother.

Cool. I can live with that. In particular though, the Québecois accent gets rave reviews (tried to explain that I'm not actually from Québec and don't actually speak with a Québecois accent, to no avail).

For now, I'm trying my best to catch the Belgian accent. Replacing niaiseux with débil and chum with copain. Also, just starting to get use to kissing everyone on the cheek every time I meet someone, say hi to somone, see someone in the street or say goodbye to someone. Just another testament to how friendly Belgians are!

Peace, love & waffles,

Olivia