Lille, France

We have a holiday from work on Friday, so I am spending Friday and Saturday in Lille, France with a friend from work who lives in there and commutes from France each day.  I will be back on Saturday and update my pictures and stories!

Joyeuses Pâques!!!

Happy Easter!!!  Today has been interesting.... I wanted to go to church today, so i found an English speaking church online and decided to go this morning.  Luckily mass wasn't until 11:15, so I got to sleep in.  The church is in a part of Brussels that I don't know well at all.  It's more residential so there's not much reason to go.  I tried to find a picture of the church but I couldn't so I figured out how to get there by metro and I went.  Well, the church is a ways away from the metro stop, which I knew and I had written down directions on how to get there, but of course I got lost.  I wandered around the area for a while and decided that at that point I should just find some random church and go.

Well, I found a church, and I figured it was Catholic, which it was.  Although the 11:00 mass was an African mass.  So I was one of the few white people there haha Anyway, it was an interesting mass, because they sang all the hymns and everything to African style music, which was kind of strange sounding and the mass was in French.  It was a strange combination.  But the church was beautiful and of course extremely old.  It was amazing to be there.  OH, and I got pooped on by a bird :( which was gross, luckily it didn't get on my clothes, but it was in my hair.  So disgusting.

On my random adventure I did find some beautiful parks and on the way back I think I might have figured out where the church I was trying to get to is.  I guess I'll go try again next week :) Easter is a really big deal here, in fact it's a national holiday so no one works tomorrow!!!  Yay!!!

 Church I went to for Easter mass

 Tulips for mom :)

 Random lake park in the middle of Brussels

 The European Commission, and the church on the left is the one I was aiming for (I think)

Maastricht, Holland :)

Yesterday a few of my friends and I went to Maastricht for a day trip.  It's still amazing to think that I can do a day trip to Holland, but it was so fantastic!!  It looked how you'd expect a European town to look.  The weather was beautiful, it was 75 degrees and sunny!  They say it rains over 200 days a year in Belgium, so apparently I came at the right time because rain has not been an issue.

Maastricht was amazing!  They have a cathedral built in the 13th century that they recently converted to a bookstore.  It was so cool!!!  I've never seen anything like it.  We went to a few other churches, which were all just as amazing. My favorite was the church of our lady, it was built in the 12th century, and it was  truly spectacular!  Maastricht was just amazing in general, although I didn't get to visit one of their infamous coffee shops, maybe next time haha

 Evelina and I in the city center

 Bookstore in a cathedral

 Ceiling of bookstore

 My friend Evelina, but it's a better picture of the bookstore

Après le travail :)

I really like work, but it would be more fun to be out and exploring all the time!  I basically spend the day calling potential clients, encouraging them to sign on with our company.  Luckily they've approached us possibly interested in utilizing our services, so it's not bad, and playing the occasional game of solitaire :)  But the people I work with are fantastic and I go out with them every Friday night.  Brussels has so many fun places to go, and most of them are close to the city center.  It still amazes me that when you walk out of a bar you run into an ancient cathedral.  It's really crazy!!

I'm usually the only girl that goes, which is always kind of fun, so here are some pictures of my new friends and strangely my boss!  haha!

 Tarun and Ivan- Ivan is the one in the glasses and he is my boss :)

 From left: Dash, Tadej, me, Poseidon, and Joao

 Me and Emil

 Everyone minus Tadej and Poseidon

Gent

Last weekend I went to Gent with my roommates and another girl from work, and it was amazing!!  My roommate Nina's younger brother is on the Slovenian National Thai-Kwon-Do team, and he had a tournament in Gent.  So we spent part of the morning with Nina watching her brother and then we went and explored the town.

Gent was quite similar to Bruges, although there were fewer tourists, which was fantastic.  There are canals that run through the whole city, and of course the city center has spectacular churches and buildings.  We were so lucky with the weather.  It was about 70 degrees, so it was perfect to walk all over the town.  We didn't do much more than walk around.  The problem with Belgium is that most things are closed on Saturday and pretty much everything closes at 6.  It's so bizarre.  It was really cool though because instead of saturday morning soccer they have huge rowing competitions.  There is one giant river through the town and there were so many races going on.  It was really fun to watch.  The coaches bike along side the river yelling at their teams :)

Here are some photos of Gent!

Gent

 Me and my roommate matthew (he jumped into all my pictures)

 Canal in Gent, the girl on the right is Nina, my roommate, and the one on my left is Lu

 Gent City Center

 Magnum bar the greatest ice cream bar ever!!!

 Gent :)

Gent

Bruges!!

Yesterday I traveled to Bruges with some of my fellow interns, and it was spectacular!!!  I've heard a lot about it recently, so I was thrilled to be able to go.  We were extremely lucky because it was a beautiful warm day, which meant that we didn't end up going to any museums or Cathedrals.  So I do plan on going back :)

Europeans consider Bruges the Venice of the north, because there are canals running throughout the city.  We went on one of the boat tours, and it was pretty amazing.  The tour guide spoke English, French, and Dutch, and said everything in all three languages, it was quite impressive.  He showed us buildings where movies had been filmed and of course the more historical buildings, so it was interesting to listen to the information about the town.

My friend Aleksandra has a good friend who lives there, so we met up with him later in the day and he showed us around.  It was fun to walk around the less touristy areas!  Of course we went into lace shops and chocolate shops.  I even bought christina a lace christmas ornament :)

 Me, Aleksandra, Jason and Becca (Jason's wife) in Bruges.

 Me and Aleksandra, she's polish :)

Work is still going well, and I've made a lot of friends.  Last week was all training and explanations about what the company actually does, so tomorrow will be my first official day, and I'm quite excited!!