Four month update

Hellooooooo, 

So I have now been in Brussels for 17.5 weeks and I only have 9.5 weeks left!!! What?! I'm soooo sad about this, like I honestly want to cry when I think about leaving haha. So I guess you could say I was enjoying my year abroad so far! 

I had my weekly feedback meeting with my manager yesterday and it was really good, she asked me for a lot of feedback and what I wanted to achieve before I finish my placement. I said I'd like to try translating something from another collection (like history or coaching or something) so I'm hoping I'll get to do one of those soon! My first translations have just gone on sale on Amazon which is soooo exciting! Like I know it's super corny but I just feel really proud that I've got actual translations with my name on already at my age! So everyone go buy them so my manager thinks I'm great, thanks :)

What would a post about Belgium be without a picture of Mannekin Pis in a ridiculous outfit??

 Apart from work life is gooood. I'm still going to choir, and apart from that I just do lots of stuff with my housemates, colleagues and other friends like going for drinks (especially at Place Lux on Thursdays hehe), going out, watching films, going to the beach, etc. So life is busy and fun! 

So Belgium is apparently super religious and has these little chapel things where you can pray like everywhere! Super cute

 I've also been given my first uni assignments which (never ever tell anyone I said this pls) I'm actually sort of enjoying doing! I guess I've just missed education which I really never thought I'd say, but I do! I miss studying and learning, I guess I'm not ready for the world of work just yet haha. But I'm sure as soon as I start back at uni next year I'll be dreaming of graduation! 

Vol-au-vent aka the best meal you can physically eat in Belgium!

So that's pretty much it for this month's update! Basically, I'm happy and busy and don't want to come home (soz family)!

A la prochaine!

Emma

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Two Month Update!

Helloooo,

So I'm utterly useless at writing posts because I'm sometimes busy, sometimes lazy. It also takes me like 47 hours to write anything because I keep getting used to using an AZERTY keyboard at work so using this one is so tricky, I make so many mistakes. So far everytime I've tried to write a full stop, I've written a "<" out of habit.

Bois de la Cambre with Machi, Kristi and Emi

BUT an update is needed because I want to keep track of what's going on with me and how I feel about my year abroad etc, etc because my feelings have already changed so much since I arrived and I think it'll be interesting to read this at the end of the six months!

Couleur Café with Jolien and Tom

So without further ado:

Work 

Work is pretty good! We've been working on a big project recently so I've been crazy busy and spending looooong hours in work trying to get it done but I think it's hopefully all finished now! I was also getting pretty stressed about work in the past week, but I think I'm over it now haha. I had a super early start the other day where I got into work at 7am to finish something I was working on. It wasn't actually that bad to be honest and it won me some serious brownie points so it was worth it. I still don't speak at lunch which is frustrating because I wish I was confident enough to just chat but it's really hard to speak in front of so many people. But I try and make conversation with people when I'm in a smaller group so that they know I'm not antisocial or anything, just not overly confident.

"Roulades de Printemps" (Spring Rolls) with work - very different from our small, deepfried ones!

In terms of the actual work I'm doing, I still haven't done loads of translation but I think I'll be doing a lot more this week which is good as I need to improve! My first lot of feedback wasn't bad but I have a lot of room for improvement as well. I'm hoping that the more I practice, the better I'll get. Practice makes perfect, right?

Life in general

Life is goooood! I love Belgium so so so much, it's the cutest place in history and everybody is so lovely and I'm just very happy here. I really don;t want to leave at all and if I had to choose now I would come straight back here after I graduate. There's so much to do so I'm always out at language meet ups, choir practice or just general activities haha. It makes it a lot easier to meet people. I'm not somebody who calls people friends straight away, but there are a lot of people here that I get on with v well and have lots of fun spending time with.

The queue outside Primark!!!

I also love how close Brussels is to everything, since Belgium is such a small place. So far I've visited Leuven, Ypres, Gent, Zeeland (the Netherlands) and Berlin (Germany). I'll hopefully write some posts about Berlin, Gent and Zeeland and upload them here so you can read about my escapades.

Other than that, not much to say really! My friends are finally starting to go on their year abroads now so I don't feel like the only person living in a foreign country. It's hard not to compare my experiences with other peoples, but since I'm having so much fun I don't really care. I feel like other people post more pictures with their friends, but I know that I have friends and that I'm happy so the fact that we don't have any selfies together isn't really an issue haha.

Visiting the Flower Carpet with mum and dad! 

Sampling the local cuisine and being educated in local beers!

Anyway, until next time!

Emma

year abroad

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10 Days in Brussels

So, I've arrived! Thought I should probably write some sort of update on what the heck has been going on with my life recently. I've been writing little notes about what's been happening on my phone but just haven't got round to putting it all together into one blog post. So I'll break it down into a few different sections for ya. 

Arrival 

I arrived on Thursday 16th June in the afternoon. Erna picked me up from the airport and we went straight to the flat to unpack my things. The airport was strange; nobody was allowed in to the arrivals gate due to the attacks in March, so everybody had to wait outside in the car park! When I got to the flat, Irene (the girl who moved out of my room) showed me around. 

The flat

The flat is really nice, it's got a big open plan kitchen/living room with a TV which I've really missed having! My room is pretty small (although it's nicer than my room in Newcastle) with a mezzanine bed. So its a bit strange, but I'm getting used to it! My housemates are soo lovely; there's Mahi whose Greek, Jenny whose French and Chiara whose Italian! We speak English most of the time but sometimes Jenny will speak to me in French to help me practice. I was a bit worried at first that I wouldn't improve my French at all as I'm speaking English at home but after a 9 hour day at work all I want is to hear some English haha.

All the flats in my building are full of Europeans from so many different countries. It's really sociable; I've already been to two parties, one in our flat and one next door! Again, everybody speaks English all the time as it's the common language but a few people have chatted to me in French at parties. It's sooo difficult to understand people when the music is on really loud and I can only hear the odd word but I guess I just have to get used to it. 

Work 

Ahh, work. I really can't decide how I feel about work at the moment. The actual work that I'm doing is okay, if not a bit boring. I'll be doing translation eventually but at the minute I'm literally just rereading other people's translation. Not the most exciting job I've had but I suppose no office job is incredible. I like the fact that I have specific work to do everyday; I get to the office and I know exactly what I need to get on with rather than having to constantly ask for more work. 

But it's also really difficult. Everybody speaks French all the time, obviously and I can understand most of it but when it comes to me trying to reply it's really difficult and I sound like an idiot. It's so frustrating as in my head I can respond to everything and say what I want to, but whenever I try to actually speak out loud my words just go to shit! I'm hoping that this is something that will improve over the next few months but it's annoying that I'm having such a hard time. 

Belgian things I've noticed...

- Public transport - the public transport here is so great!!!! There are buses and trams and trains going everywhere and there's one ticket for all of them and it's just so easy! It makes me really happy haha. 

- Food - okay, the food here is amazing but all the really nice stuff is so bad :( like chocolate and chips and waffles and Speculoos and cheese... but never mind. But I'm trying hard to eat a little healthier now that I've tasted all the good stuff. My first day at work was so difficult in terms of food though; I forgot my lunch so had to go to Delhaize to buy some; where's the meal deals at?! Everyone was buying like a baguette, some goats cheese, mushrooms and paté and just making random weird food concoctions. I panicked and ended up just buying a premade sandwich with tomato on which I don't even like. I also panicked the first day I went shopping with Erna and ended up buying so much food that I never eat! Like oranges; I have never willingly eaten an orange in my life and yet I bought 4!! And cornflakes too; I don't like those but the bread options were too overwhelming so it was easier to buy cereal hahaha.

I'll be back soon with more updates but for now I really need to go to bed! This 8.30-5.30 thing is killing me!! Good night xx

year abroad

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Time is a-Ticking

It is officially less than 6 weeks until I move to Brussels!!!

Scary or what?! I'd been trying to avoid thinking about it but it eventually caught up with me thanks to all these ridiculous year abroad meetings we've been having. Don't get me wrong, I understand that health and safety is important to talk about prior to the YA, but teaching me not to hold out my purse on busy streets or to avoid living with psychopaths seems pretty self-explanatory. But anyway. These meetings have been getting me really worked up and stressed out about the amount of paperwork I need to get done and also the lack of funds I'm going to have for my first few months in Brussels. Uh oh. I'm hoping I'll have enough in my savings to fund my life up until around September when I should receive my student loan and my Erasmus grant, but it'll be tough going until then. 

I've been emailing lots of people to try and find somewhere to live and I think I may have found somewhere! I'm keeping all my fingers and toes crossed that it goes through, but if it does I'll be living with 3 girls; a Greek, an Italian and a French girl. The flat is right around the corner from my work and there's a Lidl 15 minutes away. Winning. 

Now that it's getting super close, I've started trying to plan my travelling. I'm hoping that if I have activities planned for each weekend (whether it's with my potential new housemates or on my own), it means that even if I hate my job I'll be able to escape each weekend and see somewhere new. I think my first couple of weekends will obviously just be spent exploring Brussels and figuring out where I am. I also want to try and get the bus across to Paris, although I'll probably try and meet somebody there as navigating Paris alone doesn't sound much fun. Bruges is a definite must; I'll just get the train there as it's only about an hour away. I'd like to get to Cologne when the Christmas markets are on as it's so close to Brussels too. Maybe Luxembourg too, just because I've never been and am intrigued what it'd be like. And finally I'm hoping to get the bus over to Amsterdam and meet Emma there! I think they're the only major cities I can get to cheaply by bus/train, but if I find anyway of getting somewhere else for a cheap weekend I'll definitely do it! 

I've also started saying goodbye to my friends which is really tough. I said bye to Emma this weekend (although we've now arranged to meet up again, so it was a sort of fake goodbye haha) and it was so difficult, I cried my eyes out on the train. It's just crazy saying bye to people and realising how long it's going to be before I see them again, and the fact that when I do I'll (hopefully) be settled into a new country! Time flies by so fast... 

So again, this was a really rambly post just explaining where I'm at and how I'm feeling about the whole year abroad situation at the moment. I thought it would be nice to document all my feelings before, during and after, kind of like a diary. I'll just write stuff whenever I fancy it and it will be about anything I want, whether it's raving about a great day or ranting about a horrible week. Just my little place to share my life!

Emma

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