WW Around the World - Leuven, Belgium (2)

Hello All!

Like Saara, I am also writing from Leuven (its gorgeous town hall pictured on the left) in Belgium at the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven. I've been here for almost a month and so far it's been amazing. We've yet to start classes, so most people have just been travelling in groups to various parts of Europe.

The Leuven program is nice because most of the Penn people are living together in houses along with other US study abroad students as well as people from countries such as Chile, Japan, Korea, and Spain. It's been great to meet new people and to still have a bit of Penn familiarity, especially when I am missing my Gia Pronto salads and Greek Lady gyros.

Not that I am complaining about the food here. I was surprised to find so many ethnic restaurants here including Thai, Chinese, and Ethiopian. Of course, the chocolates and the waffles are amazing-- I thought they wouldn't be able to live up to the hype, but they definitely did not dissapoint me. Ice cream and gelato are also very popular here among the locals, no matter how chilly the weather. I really don't know how the Europeans here are so thin when they always have an ice cream cone in their hands.

I've spent the last week and a half on various daytrips around Belgium to cities like Ghent (picture from our boat tour below), Antwerp, and Brussels. The architecture is gorgeous, and it is pretty crazy to think we are walking on streets that predate the oldest buildings in America. Like Saara said, this is the perfect program for those who want to travel to different countries on the weekends. So far I have trips scheduled to over 10 countries this semester, and I still have a couple weekends to fill if I don't get too travelled out.



Will write more when classes start. I'm very excited about the classes I'm taking this semester. Some classes are to fulfill the Wharton Business Breadth requirements, but some I'm taking purely for my own enjoyment, including a course about the Policies of the European Union as well as a course on European Art, Literature, and Religion.

As the Flemish would say, Tot Ziens!

Connie