Gelukkige Kerstmis en Nieuwjaar!

At long last there has been a minimum amount of legal work for the last two weeks!

Wandering the Christmas market was great (lots of Gluhwein and waffels were consumed) with the best part being able to go skating next to Het Steen and the Scheldt. Unfotunately I was silly and forgot my own skates and had to borrow some (which weren't at all comfortable) but otherwise it was great to be out on the ice practicing turns and spirals after a few months off. The fun weekend continued with the IELSP trip to Brussel - free train travel, free lunch, a tour of the European Parliament building, entry to the Parlamentarium and a lecture by the head of the European Commission's legal team negotiating EU accession to the ECHR and free dinner, dessert and wine. Fantastic!

Sadly the law kicked in again for my Children's Rights presentation, but a whizzy powerpoint and a nervous 7 minutes of speech later it was over and I was officially on holiday - woo!

A few days of frantic packing, present buying and stressing about the public sector strike the day before flying home later I landed in the UK after almost 4 months on Belgian soil - it was good to be home. After a whirl of family meals and a surprise trip to see The Snowman in Birmingham is was time to fly back to Antwerpen again with my best friend for our traditional New Year's celebrations.

Being the good students that we are (and worried about the impending exam season) we've been revising for a couple of hours each morning and then going to museums, eating waffels/chocolate/frieten, skating and visiting Brussel. Tonight we plan to see 2012 in from by Het Steen for a 20-minute fireworks display over the Schedlt - the perfect way to get in amongst the Antwerpen community and celebrate the beginning of another year.

Until next year!

A few thousand words and a Kerstmarkt

Yet again, my life has been law filled these last two weeks, with a heavy focus on my Children's Rights paper. On the plus side? 6000 words and 20 pages written, 33 pieces of legislation, 7 cases, 7 journal articles, 2 reports and a mountain of statistics read later, it is almost done! A conclusion and a proof read to go, and it will be finished and I can start on my presentation for next week. Amazingly, considering this paper has taken over most of my waking thoughts for the past 3 weeks, I've actually enjoyed doing the research and am considering developing it further in my dissertation next year (if UoD like the idea, that is). Maybe a closer examination of the standards of care for youth offenders in detention in the different jurisdictions of the UK?

Unfortunately my final Economic paper isn't going quite as well. Having worked out that 5% of the module mark means approximately 0.2% of my degree classification, it's kind of hard to get enthused about researching 500-750 non-legal words on the Eurocrisis. I will work on it...tomorrow. After children's rights.

In an effort to kick-start the revision process before Christmas, last Monday I resolved to do a mind-map a day, and have actually managed to stick to it! My folder is all organised by subject and now has 11 prettily coloured pages of revision. It's really quite a good way of refreshing the brain after a marathon essay writing session - today I worked on my paper for 6 hours straight and it was such a mental relief to get the felt-tips out and do some colouring! And it was fun :)

Not everything has been law law law though, on Saturday the Kerstmarkt (Christmas Market) opened in town, so I wandered through after the library closed. I'll explore it properly next weekend when my girlfriend is over for our Christmasy weekend together, but even just a quick wander definitely whetted my appetite for proper exploring - sparkly lights, a merry-go-round, a fire pot, huge christmas trees everywhere, the smell of fresh waffels and gluhwein (mulled wine) floating on the air, and an outside ice-rink on the riverside by Het Steen.

Next weekend promises to be filled with lots of non-legal fun, and on Monday there is apparently a free IELSP trip to Brussel including a trip to the European Parliament. Fun times ahead!

"Mount Law-Work reaches new heights"

Well it hasn't been a very exciting two weeks, as per usual law work has taken over leaving little time for fun. Even the weather hasn't been exciting - some sun, some cloud, temperatures of around 6/7 degrees and no rain. What happened to the snow and ice I was promised? Belgium is meant to get cold in the winter yet some days I don't even need a coat on at the end of November! At least in four weeks I'll be flying home for a couple of days holiday.

My law work at the moment is focusing heavily on researching and writing my draft for my Children's Rights term paper, due 16/12/2011. 6000 words on a topic of my choice may sound a lot but since I got to choose what I'm writing about it's actually quite interesting. I decided to focus on juvenile justice rights (sometimes known as youth justice) within the countries of the UK and see how far these rights are compatible with the UK's international obligations, with my main focus on the minimum age of criminal responsibility and the adaptation of procedures, and possibly looking at detention of youth offenders. My question (as it stands at the moment, it's subject to change) is:

      "To what extent are juvenile justice rights, as granted by the United Nations and the Council of Europe, applied and interpreted within the different legal jurisdictions in the United Kingdom?"

In other law news, revision has been begun alongside the usual preparatory chapters, legislation and case reading that must be done, and the trusty coloured pens have been taken out to begin the marathon of mind-maps (yes, I realise they look too fun and colourful and 'artistic' for a serious law student, but they make revision fun, and get the important stuff on handy A4 pages you can carry around on trams/trains/planes for whenever (if-ever) you feel inspired to study!). Sigh. Exams will be happening between the 9th and 23rd January with results on 26th. Unfortunately my 21st birthday falls in this period, of course on a weekday, so chances are I'll have to write an exam on my birthday :( On the upside, there won't be any classes until 13th February so I'm flying back to the UK for the European Figure Skating Championships in Sheffield (my girlfriend got me a ticket for the Mens and Ladies Free programme day) and then heading up to Scotland for a week or so and back south to England to visit family. This definitely makes up for the teeny tiny Christmas holiday i'm getting this year!

Other than having to buy a sourcebook for Competition Law (50€! For a book i'll use in one exam! An absolute outrage) nothing else has really happened lately. The Kerstmarkt starts in two weeks in the centre of Antwerpen, so that should bring some exciting opportunties to get into the Flemish culture. Tot ziens!

Law, assignments and just a little bit of fun

Sorry it's been so long since my last update! Life here in Antwerpen has been crazily busy for the last four weeks. To make up for it here’s a nice long one :)

 

The primary reason for the crazy is, inevitably, law. My lecturers love to keep us on our toes and busy, busy, busy! I feel like I'm spending every spare moment in the library tucked away in my usual corner typing away on my laptop (it is far too early in the year to have a regular library seat). As a taster here is the (current) list of my assignments and when they're due:

• Economic 1 (500 words) handed in
• Economic 2 (1500 words) due 17/11
• Constitutionalism (4000 words) handed in today!
• Children's Rights (6000 words and a 7 minute presentation) due 9/12

Economic have already threatened a third straight after we hand in the second, and this is on top of all the usual preparatory reading! Bring on the Christmas holiday – 5 days with my family and a week with my best friend back here in Antwerpen to celebrate the New Year will be a most welcome break before exams in January.

Thanks to all the time I’ve been spending in the library working on assignments I’ve had to figure out the UA printing system – and it is a very strange system. You need to not only figure the printing mechanism but also how to assign your betaalkaart (payment card) and load it with credit, so here’s a couple of quick How To’s:

           

            How to: assign your betaalkaart

1.      Do not try to assign it using the PayPoint – it won’t work! Go to the printing/copying/scanning room (usually in the centre of the main reading room)

2.      Pick a photocopier and put your card on the black box on the right to scan your card

3.      When it asks for login details use your normal UA login (i.e. what you use for blackboard/mail)

4.      Voilà! Your betaalkaart will now automatically sign you in whenever and wherever you scan it

How to: print in the UA library

1.      Open the document you want to print on a library computer

2.      When you click ‘print’ choose the FollowMe printer (black/colour/unspecified)

3.      Go to the printing/copying/scanning room and login to a photocopier

4.      Choose ‘print job’ and select what you want to print, and ta-da! it appears as if by magic.

In other law-related yet fun news – the IELSP is running a trip to Brussel at the end of the semester. We don’t have all the details yet but have been told that the trip is mandatory and that amongst other things we’ll visit the European Parliament, have dinner together and that all the costs of this day will be carried by the IELSP. Sounds pretty good to me!

Enough of law – I just had a week off and spent it exploring Flanders and Antwerpen some more with my girlfriend and must share the amazing places we found! The weather was lovely the whole week, sunshine and warm days abounded. To take advantage of that we wandered over to a Linkeroever park on the Friday via Sint-Anna’s Tunnel (worth the walk at least once if only for the fantastic wooden escalators) to look at the Antwerpen skyline and stroll through the crunchy leaves in the rather nautically themed park near the tunnel exit. A trip to Delhaize and a game of travel monopoly (no weighted dice this time!) finished the relaxing first day of the holiday. 

On the Saturday we went to the medieval canal city of Brugge, situated west of Antwerpen towards the coast. Wow. This city is one of the, if not the, most beautiful cities either of us have ever been to – definitely worth the train fare! (Which, if you’re sensible and buy the Go-Pass 10, is only 10€ return…) We arrived at around 11am and, after studying the map and the recommendations of the Lonely Plant Belgium & Luxembourg guide, decided to meander our way to the centre of town via the Minnewater canal and the majority of the sights that we wanted to see. After a (very) small accidental detour we found the first of many pretty bridges that lead us to the Begijnhof and ‘t Beijnghuisje (1€ for students), a tranquil garden home to a convent of Benedictine nuns and a small house that shows the traditional way of life. Next we wandered towards Sint-Janshospitaal via two really pretty godshuizen (alms-houses) to explore the 12^th century hospital building and (slightly reluctantly on my part) learn more about historical medical implements (1€ for students). The best bit was the free entry to the 17^th century restored pharmacy off a courtyard around to the right of the main entrance – but be aware it closes during lunch so you may have to come back to see it. After walking around the OLV-kerk (neither of us particularly wanted to see inside) we came across the Gruuthuse and Arentshuis courtyard with some truly spectacular spires covered in deep red autumn ivy on our way to Hof Arents and the small but idyllic Sint-Bonifaciusbrug bridge over the Minnewater. 

A slow walk along the canal led us to Vismarkt (noticeably lacking in fish) and to the Stadhuis (very ornate in a baroque style but very out of place amongst the red brick of the rest of Brugge) before emerging in the Markt at the foot of the 13^th century Belfort to the sound of its 47-bell carillon being played. We tried to climb it but the queue was so long we decided to go and have a hot chocolate and waffle in the Craenenburg Café which is situated on the site that in 1488 the Brugge townsmen held the kidnapped heir to the Hapsburg empire for 4 months (the hot chocolate was nice, as was the atmosphere, but the waffle wasn’t as good as those in Antwerpen) before delving into the food festival outside to find the statue of Pieter De Conick & Jan Breydel. At this point it was getting to be late afternoon so we wandered a bit north and then back along Steenstraat past Sint-Salvatorskathedraal and into the parks along the canal near the station, where we found a mountain of leaves to play in, a lovely bridge and a really pretty and idyllic view.

After a lazy Sunday morning we decided to continue our mission to visit all of the historic house museums in the city (begun with the Plantin and Moretus museum) with Ruebenshuis. Our 1€ student entry fee (UA and UoD cards accepted) included a booklet guide to the house (amazingly, the ticket lady gave me the Dutch version after I ordered in perfect Dutch!) which was full of handy information. The house was really nice – large, beautiful and full of amazing things. Our favourite was up in the attic in an exhibition on Ruebens as an architect, and was an oil on marble painting (by another artist) of the cathedral to demonstrate Ruebens’ influence in the design. According to Lonely Planet if you have a ticket to Ruebenshuis you can get in free to the Museum Mayer van de Bergh as well, so despite it not being advertised (at all) we wandered over (via the chocolate shop in Paleis de Meir to watch the chocolatiers at work) to give it a go for an hour. So very, very worth it! After tentatively handing our tickets over we were immediately given a copy of the English guide and set loose in the museum. Designed in the style of the 16^th century the museum was actually built by Mayer van de Bergh’s mother in 1904 to house his art collection after his death, and is done beautifully. We got so absorbed looking at everything we got asked to leave when it closed! Definitely worth a visit even if you don’t go to Ruebenshuis as the ticket for a student is only 1€. 

In the evening we decided to go wild and dress up for dinner and cocktails. I had a voucher for Wagamama’s from my ESN welcome pack, so off we went. The food was delicious – just as good as in the UK – although my attempts to order Japanese food in Dutch were met by English from the waiter. Afterwards, not really knowing where to get cocktails in a country obsessed with beer, we meandered down Meir towards Groenplaats where we found Bistro 33 advertising them. Braving the sounds of cheesy music floating out we went in and discovered some delicious drinks, although with not so delicious price tags (8-12€). The Cosmopolitan and Mai Tai were great!

Halloween is apparently a huge deal in Ireland (my girlfriend is Irish) so as Monday was 31.10 I went a-googling to try and find some type of festivity anywhere in Flanders. I struggled initially – Halloween isn’t really a big deal in Belgium – but then stumbled across Oostende. Oostende is a seaside town just west of Brugge and only about 1½ hours from Antwerpen on the train, and is completely obsessed with Halloween. Off we went! Before we really got into the swing of the festivities we wandered to the beach (I didn’t see the sea first so had to pay a waffle as a penalty) and paddled, ate our picnic and built sandcastles using the empty lunchbox (students can be surprisingly resourceful when fun demands it) before looping around town through Leopold II Park (it had a clock made of flowers that actually told the time!) and the Old Harbour to Visserkaai to grab some frieten (delicious) and wait for the free mini-ferry over to the other side of the river so we could visit Fort Napoleon. 

For the Halloween season (which lasts about a month in Oostende) the fort is transformed into ‘Grizelfort’ (Creepy Fort) and inhabited by pirates and many, many spiders. The student price was 4€ but as this included the ferry over and back we felt it wasn’t too much, especially as after looking around the fort we went for a walk along the sand dunes while the sun set. When we were back in the main town (having just made it to the final ferry cut-off) we wandered through the funfair to Sint-Petrus & Pauluskerk just before it closed which was beautiful and Oostende’s most striking historical building.  As there was meant to be a huge Halloweenspektakel in the evening, we had an early dinner at a lovely little wine-bistro recommended by Lonely Planet as cheap and intimate called Di Vino, which lived up to the review with a cosy atmosphere and a tasty menu with a few vegetarian options, although we may have insulted the owner by not ordering wine.

After dinner we wandered past the 1958 Belfry tower and back towards the Old Harbour and followed the crowds to Maria-Henrietta Park for the show. The show was fantastic! Almost the whole town turned out to watch the hour-long performance, which although was in Dutch, we understood enough combined with the acting and dancing to get the gist (plus we looked up a brief synopsis before we went), and the explosions, fireballs, and fireworks display certainly helped! Best of all? It was free! 

After the excitement of Halloween and the fact it was a national holiday, Tuesday was spent picnicking and exploring the beautiful Stadspark all kitted out in its autumn majesty before wandering through Het Zuid on an architectural walk where we just took it in turn to choose the direction. We found some really beautiful buildings this way, and got to see the building where (apparently) Europe’s finest art gallery is – unfortunately it’s closed for renovation for the next 6 years. 

The final day of our holiday together was spent at the new Museum aan de stroom (MAS), which for the 1€ student entrance fee, is well worth it. They have a (free to everyone) panorama floor on top with a fantastic view over Antwerpen and Linkeroever, and each of the floors is arranged around a theme, not just a period in history. The second floor was interesting as well as some of the storage is open to the public so you can wander around pulling out drawers and peering into cages!

Phew! I’d better get back to typing legal words, otherwise I’ll never conquer Mount Law-work!

Classes, reading, more reading, and even more reading

Two weeks into classes, it's probably time to do some initial reviews on them! 

I ended up only having one class in the week of 26/9 due to an ill Constitutionalism teacher - somewhat ironic since I dragged my own very ill self out of bed and to the class. Last week I had all of my compulsorary classes and my options, and I enjoyed the majority of them. Economic isn't too bad and will be focusing on the four (well, five including establishment) freedoms of services, goods, capital and persons, Competition will be focusing on the other negative harmonisation areas in the internal market of the EU, Institutional has an insane teacher but otherwise seems alright and Constitutionalism is surprisingly interesting. EU Information and Communications is really interesting with a great teacher and is basically the law of the internet, but Advanced International was dropped after one class - it didn't say in the course requirements that you had to have studied basic International law before! Instead I'm studying Children's Rights. Now, admittedly I have always maintained I wouldn't study anything to do with family laws unless I was forced to, but having read the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocols, I found myself looking forward to the first class this week. Luckily the teacher is nice and the course seems interesting enough that if I enjoy writing my paper (no exam but a 6000 word paper and presentation instead) I might end up using it as a base for my dissertation in 4th year!

Due to the large mountain of preparatory reading I've been battling through this week I've been spending time in the library on Stadscampus. For some reason the law area is always busy so I've been sitting tucked away in the philosophy zone. It's a great place to get work done since the whole library is a silent study area, the tables have plenty of space, lights, two plugs for laptops per space and free wifi. Plus everything is new and clean! The only downsides are the no food rule and the opening hours: 
    

26 Sept 2011 - 30 June 2012	Monday	8h30 - 21h
	Tuesday	8h30 - 21h
	Wednesday	8h30 - 21h
	Thursday	8h30 - 21h
	Friday	8h30 - 19h
	Saturday	10h - 17h
	Sunday	closed

Ice-skating with ESN was great fun although it showed me just how far the rink is from the centre of the city - I won't be going very often while I have so much work for my legal studies to do this semester. At least there will be an outside rink in the historic centre over Christmas and the New Year.  

Recently I've been going to Delhaize in the basement of Stadsfeestzaal for my food shopping instead of to Carrefour. Although I have to get the tram there and home carrying all my week's food, they have slightly cheaper prices, better quality food and a much better vegetarian quorn/own brand selection that Carrefour just doesn't seem to have heard about.

    To find your closest shop and information about opening hours use the form on this page:     http://www.delhaize.be/service/storelocator/_nl/index.asp

Laundry update - I realised (after only two trips to the laundrette) that the dryers can be set for more than one 4 minute cycle at a time if (once inserting the right amount for the time you want it to run) you press the button for your dryer on the payment machine the number of times you want it to cycle to run e.g. insert 0,80€ and press the button four times and the dryer will run for 16 minutes. So much easier!

'Welcome to UA'

Well, it’s been a busy two weeks! Dutch revision, a city walk or two, exams, results, international student induction, ESN sign up, residence permit signing and law department induction – phew!

The Dutch revision went well, as did the writing, listening and reading exams, but unfortunately I panicked in the speaking and dropped a lot of marks. Sigh. At least I passed! I’ve signed up for the level 2 evening course for the semester (Handy hint: Erasmus students can get a Dutch language voucher from Magali at the IRO reducing the fee from €235 to €75 for 45hrs of class) so hopefully I’ll get a better grade next time!

International student induction was a mixed bag – on the practical side of things I’d pretty much figured out everything they told me in the three weeks I’ve been living in the city, but on the academic side it was quite useful with information about course enrolment, credit transfer and the library. The presentation by ESN was good, and I went to sign up afterwards and got a goody bag! Oddly, it contained (asides from vouchers and discount cards – the Wagamama’s voucher was much appreciated) both chocolate and toothpaste – good to see that they’re taking care of the dental health of their members!

ESN have organised lots of events for their ice-breaking week, and the first I went to was the city walk on Saturday. Beautiful weather for city wandering and an afternoon filled with a piano busker on Meir (I joke not – a full size piano), buying a discounted UA hoody (perfect for those cold days on the way to uni and the rink), a free Belgian sweet (kinda funny tasting but still nice), getting lost (and found) and ending up in the wrong group – all in all, great fun! Tomorrow they’re holding a movie-night and showing De Zaak Alzheimer (hopefully with subtitles, since my Dutch isn’t quite up to film standards) and then on Wednesday will be my favourite event – Ice Skating! My skates are ready, my hoody is bought and I can’t wait to get back on the ice after a four month break from training and practice, even if it is just a fun night on the ice.

This morning I had an ‘appointment’ to sign my residence permit before I went to sign up for the Dutch course, so I got up nice and early, waited an age for the no.4 tram (I really dislike how unreliable it is compared to the no.24 but it gets me into town…eventually) before finding the city office in a little backstreet where I queued in the wrong place for 5 minutes before sitting in a waiting area for over half an hour after my ‘appointment’ time. All to sign a couple of pieces of paper and get my permit to live here! Very annoying. Plus side? I am well and truly a resident of België now!

Before my Law department induction this afternoon I swung by the ‘Students on Stage’ event expecting it to be something like fresher’s fair – boy was I wrong! It consisted mainly of stalls with indecipherable Dutch names selling food and drink and not actually giving any information on what their club does. Worth a visit for the food, otherwise give it a miss.

Law induction was great – around 45 minutes of main points about our course with outlines from the various lecturers (who all seem quite fun and like they want to make their subjects interesting even if they are compulsory) followed by a wine reception. Apparently we can change our course until the end of next week so we have a chance to try out the modules that are optional. Luckily for me the ones I picked already (Advanced International and Info & Communications) sound the most interesting, although Economic Law (compulsory) sounded surprisingly interesting and lacking in Economics so perhaps there is hope there (lucky since I have it three hours a week on a Thursday morning).

I have a reduced timetable this week because of Studay on Thursday (the official opening of UA is celebrated by having no classes) and some lecturers not wanting to teach before then, meaning I only have two classes. Nothing like getting back into study mode nice and slowly!

Some Dutch, some tourism and één beetje more Dutch...

Four days of intensive Nederlands and two days of blatant tourism later I'm still catching my breath!

The Dutch learning has been continuing at break-neck speed, mastering both the past and future tenses in just two days. The tests and pop-quizes are still coming thick and fast but the end is now in sight, and at least my teacher is still trying to make it fun despite the heavy-going grammar! Breaks are spent chatting in the dipped seating area next to the Agora cafe in E building and in the queue for a sandwich from Jean-Pierre's. This unassuming yellow little shop has been serving students for around 50 years and provides delicious sandwiches, drinks, cakes, deli meats, coffee, chocolate and fruit for very cheap prices - a crunchy smos (your filling comes with lettuce, tomato mayonaise and sliced hardboiled egg) sandwich costs between 1,70€ and 1,90€ and coffee is around 1,20€

Thursday and Friday saw me officially registered as a resident of België and student of UA - fantastic! My student card should be delivered soon and once the police have checked that my name is on the door my residency permit should be finalised and I can get my official card and stop carrying around my passport as ID. 

My girlfriend came over from Dundee to visit at the weekend (apparently Ryanair do respectably priced flights from Edinburgh) so as her flight was arriving at Charleroi airport (south of Brussels in Wallonia - French speakers! The horror!) late in the evening I went to meet her at the train station in Charleroi-Sud. To avoid paying 13,70€ each way and in anticipation of further travels beyond the city limits of Antwerpen, I bought a Go-Pass 10. This is basically a bulk-buy discount ticket for those under 26 - ten journeys anywhere in België within a year for 50€. I bought mine from Centraal-Station (well worth a visit just for the architecture - it has been rated recently as one of the world's five most beautiful), filled it in and was on my way. Easy! You don't even have to use a journey per train if you're catching connections just so long as you don't break your trip - perfect for me since I live next to the minor and little served Antwerpen-Zuid Station.

        How to: use your Go-Pass 10 –

1. Write the details of your trip along the first line of your pass (note: the day must be written in Dutch - Mondag, Dinsdag, Woensdag, Donderdag, Vrijdag, Zaterdag, Zondag) using your departure station and final destination
2. Hand it to the conductor on the train to stamp and ta-da! you're on your way for a fraction of the price - just don't forget to use another line for your return trip!

Yet again the efficiency of trains on the continent amazed me - we left every station exactly on time - and 1hr 29 minutes after leaving Berchem I arrived at Charleroi 107km south on the opposite side of the country ready to turn around (on the same train). We made it home just before midnight - a three hour round trip - which was pretty good going!

Saturday was spent showing off my beautiful new campus and city. We wandered through Grote Markt, saw the Brabo fountain and guild houses, spent ages being amazed by the cathedral (3€ for a student and Dundee matric cards are accepted!), walked through Groenplaats, down Meir to see Stadsfeestzaal (a 1908 shopping centre covered in gold gilding and flourishes, and complete with an opera singing quartet) and buy some lunch from Del Haize to eat while dipping our toes in the fountain on Wapper by the Palais de Meir. We also bought a chocolate bear lolly (wow), looked at a chocolate kitchen while marvelling at huge chocolate monsters before heading over to Het Steen and the raised promenade by the Scheld (buying a fresh waffle from CoffeeGo en-route). A tram to the new court building (yes, I am such a law student) and a game of travel monopoly later (I maintain that the dice were weighted against me by the faeries) finished the day.

Sunday was just as touristy, if not more! We attempted to go on a river tour but despite the timetable saying they were running, they actually weren't - boo. Instead of being disappointed, however, we simply moved to the next stop on our plan - the Museum Plantin-Moretus on Vrijdag Markt. After a slight detour to a flea market we found the unimpressive looking building and ventured in. Being the canny students that we are, once we saw the 12€ entry fee we asked for a discount by flashing our UoD cards - voila - 1€ and a free English audio guide. Due thanks need to be made to Lonely Planet's Belgium & Luxembourg guide here - without their recommendation we would never have ventured into an old print works and family house. As is it, we spent over 2,5 hours wandering through the 33 rooms in amazement accompanied by the excellent guide (with music at times!) and saw the only museum room to be on the UNESCO world heritage list, as well as the two oldest preserved printing presses, a renaissance garden and courtyard that puts Oxford to shame, and a whole collection of Rueben’s paintings. I can't rave about this place enough - definitely worth a visit even if you're only in the city for a weekend.

An authentic cone of frieten met mayonaisse (from a Firtuur on the corner of Groenplaats towards Grote Markt) and a fresh chocolate coated waffle refreshed us enough to walk to the Plantentuin (i.e. botanical garden) which, although much smaller than Dundee's, was beautifully laid out and a really nice place to sit and pass the time - plus it's free. Next on the agenda was a walk towards Centraal-Station via the diamond district (a girl just needs to look at pretty diamonds every now and then) to marvel at the 1905 architecture – marble, gold, arches…truly fantastic. For our penultimate trick of the day we were going to walk through the Jewish Quarter to Stadspark and then on to meet the 24 tram home. It didn’t go exactly as planned…we managed to get to the Park but somehow crossed a bridge and ended up in the wrong corner (thinking it was the right one), walked down a road and found the wrong tram stop. Luckily I had a street map in my bag, so we walked back to the park and tried again, this time successfully! Interesting note about Stadspark – the wild rabbits do not look like the ones in the UK…they look like pet rabbits idly nibbling the grass. Strange. The day was concluded with a cheap and cheerful meal in Da Giovanni’s next to the cathedral off Groenplaats and listening to an impromptu concert by Rueben’s statue. A truly touristy weekend!

The success of the laundrette and tram system (which I now know like the back of my hand – well, my trams anyway!) encouraged me to face the duel tasks of the official waste bags and the post office. Yesterday, after looking everywhere for the official bags for a week – if you put your rubbish out in supermarket brand ones you can be fined – I finally gave in and asked the cashier at a Carrefour express near Unif. Mystery solved! Apparently you have to ask for them (Restafval for general rubbish, groot or klein depending on how big your bin is) and pay a lot of money – 7,50€ for 10 large 7,5l bags! This includes the collection fee though, which makes it a little better… The post office was mastered today (opposite the tram stops in Groenplaats – Bank van de Post) as I had to post my receipt of funds letter to the international office in Dundee. In this post office you can’t just pick a cashier and queue – you need a ticket as you walk in through the interior doors which will tell you what your number is in the queue and you’ll get called to the right desk by the computer screen above loker 3. Very confusing! Nonetheless, I managed to get my letter posted – hurrah!

Time to study for my final pre-exam test tomorrow…

Één week in de Stad van Antwerpen, België

Hallelujah! After a week of computer troubles my laptop now stays turned on long enough to blog!

Having been in Antwerpen for a week now I can honestly say it is fantastic place to live. It is beautiful, historic, friendly and accessible. My journey over here, on the other hand, was a nightmare! At one point I wasn't even sure I would get to London, let alone to Belgium, due to a major freight train fire on one of the main lines into Euston. After much too-ing and fro-ing I did eventually make it to London where I hot-footed it across to St Pancras International to get my tickets exchanged for the next train to Brussel-Zuid (luckily I had bought a combined ticket with my UK travel so I didn't have to pay anything extra for this - phew!).

Once I’d made it onto the Eurostar, it was great - it may have been a little worn around the edges back in Standard class, but it was fantastically fast and perfectly on time - and I made it to Brussel-Zuid in less than two hours. The trip was a great opportunity to look at the local landscape and appreciate how completely different it is to the UK i.e. totally flat! I even managed to catch a glimpse of a beautiful mural pulling in to the station at Lille opposite the platform, which I’ll definitely look out for again. Because of my delays I didn't leave Brussel-Zuid until half past 8 so it got dark fast as I changed at Berchem for Antwerpen-Zuid Station leaving me with nothing to look at outside. Luckily I had a map with me so I could try to figure out how to walk from the station to my building!

While I’d been frantically trying to get to Antwerpen, I’d managed to rearrange the time I’d meet my landlady so that she would be able to meet me to give me my keys and explain whatever needed to be explained. After struggling up what felt like a million steps from the station (but was only around 40) I finally made it to De Beuckerstraat. Once my landlady had left me in her daughter’s studio (my room was still occupied) I collapsed on the bed and slept for a long time – well deserved rest!

I spent my first full day in the city pottering around my local area, discovering where my tram stop is, my closest laundrette, the nearby park and (most importantly) my nearest supermarket. Carrefour Markt is roughly equivalent in size to a Tesco Metro, although the stock has the local variants instead of the typical UK staples – tinned things are apparently a rarity as the Belgians seem to enjoy jarred goods instead, most strange. (Handy hint: to find your local Carrefour Markt in België just enter your address here: http://www.gb.be/Shopsearch_search.cfm?lang=NL ) Price-wise most things were about the same or less in € as they would be in £ in the UK, meaning they’re a bit cheaper! Here’s a guide of what I paid for some of the basics:

• Small loaf of bread 1,40 €
• 1 kg sugar 1,12€
• 1kg pasta 0,85€
• 1l milk 0,80€
• 1l orange juice 0,99€
• 1 bunch bananas 1,50€
• Cereal (own brand) 2,85€
• Toilet paper (9 rolls) 2,25€
• Washing powder 3,95€

My EILC language course registration was on Thursday afternoon so beforehand I wandered into town and had a quick look around the Grote Markt, Groenplaats and Meir areas – stunning! I also stumbled upon the wonderful, the amazing, and the true student friend that is Hema. This shop is kind of like a cross between the homeware sections of Primark and Ikea, with some ‘essential’ foods, stationary, clothes, make-up and hygiene goods thrown in around the edges for good measure.  As I moved countries with only a rucksack, a suitcase and a handbag, I had no room for things like bedding, towels, lamps, storage boxes, mugs etc. so I have been gradually getting everything I need over the last week and lugging it home on the tram (luckily the 4 to Hoboken goes past Meirbrug just down the street!).

Mijn Nederlands is slowly improving after 4 days of full-on immersion class – it is seriously intense work! Not only is there no English in class, there is a mountain of homework and tests every two days in preparation for the final exams in two weeks. Thankfully my teacher makes it fun with lots of speaking, listening and reading as well as the traditional writing exercises, and my classmates are really nice. I’m the only native English speaker though so it can be funny at times trying to understand each other’s accents!

Mastering the tram system was my mission for Friday as I didn’t want to walk 45 minutes to get to class at 9.30! After consulting the map I got at registration (which I promptly lost after actually getting on the tram…) I decided I needed the number 24 to the stop at Franklin Roosevelts Plaats and headed to the stop at Antwerpen Zuid (over the rail station). As I hadn’t bought my ticket in advance (encouraged by DeLijn the company that runs the trams) I got on at the front and paid the driver the required 2€, sat back and enjoyed the ride! All I had to do to get off was press the blue button when we were approaching my stop – easy. I found out afterwards about the Lijnkaart you can buy from newsagents – ten journeys for 9€ - which is much cheaper so I bought one from a shop between Keizerstraat and Groenplaats on my way home (I got the 4 from Groenplaats).

How to: validate your tram ticket

1.       Go to the yellow ticket box and insert your ticket/lijnkaart with the arrow facing front and down

2.       Press the correct number of passengers making the journey (usually just 1)

3.       Take you card and make your way to a seat – easy!

Saturday was a hectic day as my landlady texted me saying I could move into my room at 3 – when I had originally wanted to be at the Laundry Day festival – so I had to pack everything up then wait until 4 before she actually showed up. She then spent almost an hour explaining how everything worked in excruciatingly slow detail when it was very obvious what needed to be done (grr). After she (finally) left I realised I had no bedding to sleep in so I had to run into town on the tram to get cheap stuff from Hema, run back, make my bed and head on over to the festival. I managed to make it there just after 6 so I wandered around for a couple of hours listening to the music, which was disappointingly mostly DJs and dance and trance. It wasn’t really my scene, so I bought some friets met saus (absolutely amazing – definitely the high point and worth battling to the counter for), sat on the grass for a while longer, and headed home again around 9. If club music isn’t really your thing – don’t bother going.

Today I mastered the laundrette – hurrah for clean clothes! It was slightly intimidating walking in and being faced with numerous signs in Dutch (it was self-service) but I persevered and succeeded in both cleaning and drying my clothes. To prevent others from being as terrified as I was here is my How to: wash clothes in an Antwerpen laundrette –

1.       Do not panic about having loads of change for the machine (it accepts notes up to 20€) but do make sure you have washing powder, dirty laundry and a book to read while it goes round

2.       Put clothes in an empty washing machine (make sure it’s a small one otherwise you’ll pay twice as much!)

3.       Select the programme by pressing the P button – 3 is colourwash, 6 is synthetics – and pour powder into the trays on top indicated by the red lights next to the programme number

4.       Go to the payment machine in the wall and put the amount in as stated on your washing machine (around 3,20-3,50€) and then press the button with the number of your machine on it to start it – do not press it until you are 100% ready to start the wash! When you want your change back press Wisselgeld.

5.       Read a book while you wait (timer on the front of the machine)

6.       When your clothes are clean transfer them to a dryer, close it and go to the payment machine, put in the amount for a cycle, usually 0,20€ for 4 minutes (you have to do each cycle separately – slow but you can check on the heat/length you need as you go), and press the number of your machine when you are 100% ready

7.       Go back to your dryer and select the heat level you want and wait for the cycle to end (repeat steps 6-7 as necessary)

Now that I have clean pyjamas it is time to go to bed and curl up with my Dutch notes to prep for my test tomorrow - goeidenacht!