Getting History in Ghent

     This past week has been quite long so it seems.  I have been feeling the allergies of being in a new location once more (i can't seem to get it under control in a new place ever)! DayQuil has become my best friend! As always, i work through it with lots of coffee (one of the many fantastic things about my internship at the British School is the free coffee!!!)
     I have been working on all of my paper outlines which seem to be due at the same time.  As well as beginning my presentations for my classes.  I am with a group of 4 other students in my European Union Common Foreign and Security Policies class to create a presentation on the Middle East for this week.  All of us have background with taking classes on the History of the Middle East and we chose this region because of our previous work.  My section is on Palestine/Israel/Jordan which is an area I have studied greatly in the past 2 years.  I have a solo presentation to do today in my Contemporary Political Debates Class on Race in Politics.  It will be me for 10 minutes talking to the entire class with a powerpoint.  Next week I have to do my french presentation on an article of the french belgian culture and create an activity using the vocabulary of my choice.  I have chosen an article about food….no surprise there because I love Food!!!!  I chose to get all my presentations done by the 6th week of school so that I could spend the last half of my semester focusing on my million papers that I have due!  wish me luck in my endeavor to no go crazy by december!!!!
     Friday night, we had a Belgian food tasting! It was incredible.  I was able to mark all of the food off my bucket list from the previous article! We had "tasting" courses of a watercress soup, Pear and Cheese waffle sandwich thing, endive tart, blood sausages, mussels, mashed potatoes, bread, carbonade flamand which is beef and gravy, the belgian version of a Chicken Pot Pie (my personal favorite), and chocolate cake!  I was so full and satisfied by the end of the night! definitely my favorite experience so far!!!!
     This past saturday, the ISA group and I took a day trip to Ghent, Belgium!  We had some lovely visitors from the office in Austin, Matt and Blair, whom i have been emailing since my freshman year.  It was great to put a face with the names!  Pa, one of our lovely site staff, joined us as well.  We got to see a lot of the city by walking around on a history tour.  By the time I got home, I was well ready for bed.  I was exhausted and i am sure my attitude portrayed it.