Starting to get settled in...

Hello beautiful friends and family! I hope everyone is doing well and you're enjoying the warm summer weather at home. You see, in Brussels, you never quite know what the weather is going to do. It can go from perfectly sunny and really warm straight to a full on rain shower. Let's just say it's a good idea to carry an umbrella with you at all times! Overall the temperature has been around the 70s during the day but is cool during the mornings and evenings which feels great when you have the windows or the balcony door open. 

We finally were able to move into the first floor of the apartment and have been working in the little free time we've had to get all moved in and organize all of our stuff. Once we pick up a few final little decorations, rugs, and storage items on our IKEA day next Wednesday things should look pretty put together. Here are a few pictures of what it looks like now. I made a video but it won't upload at the moment so I'll have to work on trying to get that to work some other time...

So Tuesday morning the three other interns (Ashlee, Jess, Andrea) and I all got up and made our way to school via the metro and bus 17. Thankfully everything went smoothly getting there and we made it on time for our welcome breakfast of croissants and juice/coffee. Mmmm mmmm good! Of course we've now learned it's a little faster to take the metro to the tram to get to school since the tram comes more frequently but you definitely live and learn when living abroad! I must admit that minus the public transportation system (or the mail we're guessing since everyone else got their passes) losing my MOBIB (which is my yearly transportation pass the school got for us all) the public transportation is pretty great here. You can pretty much get anywhere you need to go and the MOBIB works on all forms of transportation too! Until either mine is found and comes to the school or it's after the 10th and the station will just agree that the mail has lost it I've unfortunately just had to buy tickets that I'll get reimbursed for later. Of course you can only use coins or a local debit or credit card (which I don't have yet) to buy them so it's been a bit of a nuisance. Oh well though, life goes on! As for the school though, it's SO great! The campus is absolutely beautiful and all of the new hires (there are about 35 of us this year) are so fun. We've all been having a blast and can tell that it's a special place to teach at already. It's also fun to meet teachers from all over that we'll be working with. There are quite a few people from Canada, some from the States, Ireland, England, Germany, Brussels, etc...

Considering how well we were all getting along at orientation a bunch of us went out for dinner in the center of town (Le Grande Place) where we had some delicious Thai food. It was so much fun and the food was great! I suppose you could call Le Grande Place more of a touristy area with lots of old buildings and beautiful architecture. There is also shopping areas and some other fun things close by though. Here is a picture of just a fraction of what the middle of Le Grande Place looks like...Isn't it beautiful?!

As for the rest of the week we've been busy with lots of different things at school and getting to know our colleagues. Today just the 4 of us went and met with our Principal at the ECC and learned some more about how to access different drives and curriculum information using our tablet PC's they provide us with. We also saw more rooms in the ECC, met a few veteran teachers that were in working on their rooms, and brainstormed some ideas for a few bulletin boards we need to make. After work our Principal, along with a veteran 2nd grade teacher, took the 4 of us to lunch at this place right down the street from school. We had an awesome buffet and some really delicious desserts as well! It was definitely a good day! :) The place we ate is the 2nd building in the picture and the dessert I got was a traditional Belgian dessert called Mousseux au chocolat which essentially is a warm chocolate cake with a fudge like sauce in the middle. Believe me, they don't make them like this at home though, haha. 

Alright well I suppose I need to be getting to bed considering we have another busy day tomorrow and lots of places to explore this weekend. I miss you all and hope everyone is doing well. Much love!