Back for more!

Hello peeps! So it’s been a while since I wrote anything here – sorry, my bad! It’s been quite a busy month for me and since the sun was shining most of the time, I preferred being outside rather than inside.

So since the last time I wrote many things have happened! First there was the weekend in the Ardennes (which is the Belgian “mountains”), then there was a lot of social time which included enjoying the spring sun on the Graslei with friends, eating ice cream and, of course, hanging out in Porter House (the Irish Pub where the exchange students meet on Wednesdays).

So spring has finally (and briefly) arrived in Gent. I was sick in bed for most of the first few sunny days, but it wasn’t long before I was up and whizzing around on my bike enjoying the sun. The students like to spend their lunch time on the Graslei enjoying their lunch and a beer. Of course everyone went crazy when they saw the sun, so the Graslei was super busy, but the atmosphere was amazing and it made for an awesome lunch time!

So then we went to the Ardennes. Basically what this entails is assembling 70 exchange students, getting on a bus, driving about 3 hours to the other side of Belgium (in the South) and having a massive house party every night with unlimited beer on tap! This was no doubt one of the most fun weekends I’ve had the pleasure of attending. So after arriving in Arbrefontein, which is a really small town, we had dinner prepared by the owner of Porter House, after which we had a music quiz type activity with the girls against the boys. Of course the girls won – probably due to their amazing dancing skills ;) After this the house party continued until the next morning. Everyone slept till the afternoon and then we went for a “hike” in the mountains (which is basically just very high hills). Then came the much awaited “Bal Marginaal” where everyone was supposed to dress as silly as possible. After which another huge party followed. It is probably unnecessary to mention that most people were either still drunk by the time we got on the bus, or very hung over. It was quite a funny experience for me! We then drove to Dinant to see the famous Citadell Castle. Some of us were brave enough to climb the more or less 250 steps to the top while others opted to take the cable car.

A few Sundays ago we went to Leuven, which is a university town in Belgium kind of like Stellenbosch (probably just less awesome). Another Stellenbosch student, Stephanie, is studying there and she spent a night or two with us in Gent, before we went to Leuven to see where she lives. The weather was great and we had a drink on the Oudemarkt square, where many other people also came to enjoy the sun. After this we played some Rummikub in a little pub/coffee shop close by. Once again the town’s atmosphere was amazing, even though most places were closed since it was Sunday.