My Diary van België / My Diary of Belgium (30/1/13

One of our modules which we chose was 'Outdoor Week' during this week we were required to keep a diary entry of every day and below is my diary for the week.

Monday 15^th April

This morning started off with the remaining of packing my luggage for outdoor week, when this was complete the time had come to try and fit my rucksack on my back – fail! Far too heavy! Opening the bag again I reluctantly remove a few things from the rucksack. Stewart has finished packing so I test to see which bag is heavier and of course mine is, so I do a direct swap.

We meet our fellow students Erola and Laura and walk to the bus in the rain. As we arrive and see the other 100 students and everyone’s luggage and food for the week it is hard to hide our excitement.

After a two hour bus journey we eventually pull up at the small ‘village’ in which we are staying in, Hastiere Namur. The scenery is outstanding, which I never knew existed in Belgium as we had only seen flat land in this country before now. We unloaded our luggage and were given the key to our house which we, the five Erasmus students, are living in together. The lady who gave us the key mentioned something about cardiac hill – which we passed no remarks too until we seen where our house was. Right at the top of a large steep hill! So we trekked up the hill with our weekly luggage and all the food for the week… when we reached the top of it we understood where it got its name.

Our opening ceremony began at 5pm where we all had to go down to the bottom of the small village to the ‘mass’. In our groups we had to introduce our house to the rest of the groups. As it was appropriate we named ourselves the Erasmus house and explained that we consisted of three Irish students and two Catalan students. We had planned out or menu prior to this weekend spaghetti bolognese was on the menu for tonight, which a few chilled drinks with the teachers and the Belgian students which went down a treat after a long day.

Some of our luggage!

The beginning of Cardiac Hill.

Tuesday 16^th April

Our first morning was a 6.45am wakening which did not go down well after little sleep. After a nutritious breakfast we set off down to the teachers house to collect our mountain bikes for the day – a lot of the Belgian students were wishing us good luck which I didn’t understand as I like mountain biking. This soon became clear after freewheeling down cardiac hill that we actually lived in a valley so there was an identical hill to the other side which seemed to last forever. Of course luck of the Irish strikes again and my bike gears have broken after only 20 minutes into the cycle. It meant I could only cycle on gear 6 the whole time – which was not good going up the mountains where we were and for 40 kilometers. After 1 hour a van met us on route and thankfully changed my bike for me, although my thighs were already burning from cycling in 6^th gear the whole time I am adamant to keep going. It was a hot day of around 24 degrees which was enjoyable at times and not at others. Everyone likes a little tan but it got too warm when battling up the hills.

Halfway through our day we walked 8 km up to the peak of a mountain to have lunch and admire the beautiful views then proceeded back down the mountain to continue the other 20 kilometre cycle home. After 10 long hours away, 40 km cycle and 16 km mountain walking - finally we were home to our little house. The tiredness had now taken over me and I didn't feel like eating dinner at all just wanted to get into bed for a long night sleep.

The top of the mountain were we had our lunch.

Laura and I getting some much needed rest after lunch.

Wednesday 17^th April

Again with a 6.45am start we began breakfast with eating the most important meal of the day. Although I was sick during the night and didn't sleep much I tried to eat a little something to keep me going. We proceeded down to the ‘mass’ again to meet our leading teacher whom gave us our GPS device and 16 points which we need to find in a particular order. The scenery and landscapes where beautiful however I was not feeling well and wasn't sure if I was going to last the whole day in the beginning but I did. This was a nice way to get to know the Belgian students in a fun way. We covered a long 20 km walk up through the mountains which resulted in me cutting my leg when I slipped down the mountain but still it was a tough and enjoyable day at the same time. Tonight is Mexican night, chilli con carne, which went down lovely after such an active two days. We spent the night nursing our blisters and relaxing at the fire.

Walking up the mountains.

Our Relaxing Fire.

Thursday 18^th April

I am beginning to hate the sound of my alarm on my phone! 6.45am rise again, although I am enjoying this week a lot I am very tired and every muscle in my body aches. This is the day I have been waiting on – Kayaking! Of course we are not getting it that easy, we are taken on a bus and dropped off with a compass in hand and given a point of where we have to reach by 12 noon. Having to walk 12 km to this point seems like my worst nightmare at the minute with the amount of blisters I have on feet but we get on with it. Eventually we make it to the given point and meet our other fellow Belgian students and enjoy some lunch while soaking up the sun.

Now the time of kayaking has come and I join with two Belgian students, Ester and Lori, to share a three man kayak. It was an exciting and eventful 10 km down the river. We were all getting on good and beating all the other students from our university then boom a waterfall came out of nowhere and our kayak went down it horizontally going under the water. It had started to sink as there was so much water in it. We all agreed to pull into the side and try to flip the kayak over to empty the water but this was making it worse as we weren’t strong enough. Thankfully Adam stopped and helped us get our kayak floating again!

Arriving back to our home after another long day we enjoyed a lovely Spanish meal made by Erola and Laura and we entertained one of the teachers, Mr. Mark. It was an enjoyable meal washed down with a few bottles of wine and it was nice to talk to the teachers in this way and get to know them more in a relaxed manner. Adam, Stewart and I met up with a few of the Belgian students and enjoyed our last night in the Belgium Mountains watching the stars.

Helping Erola and Laura make Spanish Omelette.

Friday 19^th April

Finally a lie in… well until 7.30am! We quickly packed our things and cleaned the house ready to attend the leaving ceremony. We were given the opportunity to thank everyone for this wonderful outdoor week and express our enthusiastic thoughts of the week. It was such an enjoyable experience which I will remember forever and we have already arranged to meet up with a few of the Belgian students in a few weeks in Hasselt. After this the buses where loaded up and returned to Hasselt – where we are definitely catching up on much needed sleep this weekend!

The 'Mass' where our opening and leaving ceremonies where held.

Hello van Parijs!

Although it was very tempting to have a quiet time during the last week of the Easter holidays with a few of the other Erasmus students, I realised we are halfway through our Erasmus experience now so may aswel make the most of our time left.

Saint Augustine once said, "The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page."

Two Belgium students had arranged a trip to Dublin for a few days which I joined then continued on my travels to Paris to meet two Scottish girls. We explored Dublin’s culture, attractions and nightlife for 3 days, which was very interesting. It was an exhausting 3days to say the least! We visited Trinity College Dublin, the Guinness Factory Tour, O’Connell Street, Dublin Zoo, Croke Park, and Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

Personally this trip has been a great advantage to me as I have not visited a lot of these attractions so it was a great experience to get to explore Dublin and unexpectedly the weather was nice for once! Unfortunately Sielke got her purse stolen on the last night in Dublin which brought a slight dampener on their trip to Ireland but they said they want to come back in August to visit my home and my family as we only stayed in Dublin on this trip – evidently they quickly got over the purse robbery!

Sielke, Sabrina and I enjoying the Guinness Factory.

Dublin's Famous Pub - Temple Bar.

Sampling the Irish Guinness.

Monday morning came, which meant onto Dublin airport to make our journey back across the water. As I was going on to Paris to meet other friends I said my goodbyes to the Belgium students and carried on my journey. Eventually after a three hour flight delay I landed in Paris Beauvais airport where I got a bus to meet the two Scottish girls.

Our first stop was to leave our belongings in our ‘hotel’ if you would even call it that! Holly organised the accommodation which was not your standard luxurious Paris accommodation, instead it was dull, dark and damp! Nevertheless we did not let this slight hiccup ruin our trip as it was only a place to get a few hours sleep at night!

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” From this Gandhi tells us to live every moment to the fullest, not wasting anytime and learn throughout your pathway of life. This quote sums up my thoughts exactly; we should all enjoy life to the fullest and learn from it – which I intend to do.

The first two days we spent exploring the normal tourist attractions: the Sacré-Cœur Basilica (a Roman Catholic Church dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus), Notre Dame Cathedral, Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.

Miller, H. (1957) stated, “One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things.”

It has been 10 years since I have visited Paris – it seemed so much bigger when I was 12 years old!

In our final days in Paris we visited a few art galleries with Holly, enjoyed the French Cuisine and some window shopping (as nothing else will fit in our tiny hand luggage’s!) It was a great, enjoyable way to end our Easter break – now back to Belgium to reunite with the other Erasmus students.

This trip to Paris was personally enlightening to notice how many homeless people there where on the streets of Paris. It was an eye opening experience and is evident to see that money issues hits many cities around the world - it reminds us how lucky we actually are.