It’s hard not to worry a little about the state of the world given all the brutal attacks these past six months, harming civilians going about their day-to-day lives. Late last year there were the attacks in Beirut and Paris, and since then there have also been attacks in Turkey as well as Belgium, just last week.… Read More The attacks in Beirut, Paris, Brussels, Istanbul, Ankara…
Originally posted on KU Leuven blogt:
BY SHEILA PHAM. It’s cost me more than $20,000 to complete two undergraduate degrees and a masters in Australia, which I’ve gradually paid off. To me, this didn’t actually seem too expensive for a good quality education. But after studying at KU Leuven for a semester, my ideas about…
Exactly two months from now I’ll be a newly minted graduate in bioethics – assuming I finish my thesis next month – and packing my bags for the next country. At the moment I don’t even know what that next country will be, though I suspect it might be Croatia for a few days of R&R by… Read More A brief fling with The Netherlands
By the time I arrived in Leuven in September, I had resolved to enrol in Italian classes alongside my masters. I was told that Dutch wouldn’t be needed in Belgium or The Netherlands because most people speak English, which isn’t the case in Italy. Belgians were happy to code-switch to English and would deprecatingly reassure… Read More Being gezellig in Leuven and Nijmegen
Years ago I saw The Spanish Apartment and thought it was an amusing but morally questionable film. Maybe I was a little sheltered but after I watched it I remember thinking, “Is this really what it means to be on an Erasmus?!” Well, given that I’m at least ten years older than the characters in… Read More A long goodnight kiss to Belgium
I’m such a big city person that it’s been a refreshing change to live in a small town like Leuven for a time, where after a few months I know the layout of the town pretty well and have lots of favourite haunts that I frequent with friends. I also bump into people I know… Read More Enjoying the cosiness of a small town like Leuven
On Saturday night I went to my first real Belgian house party — where the lingua franca was French. Spending time with the other half of the country made me appreciate that, indeed, the cultural divide between Flanders and Wallonia is a real phenomenon. I mean, I live in Leuven, a mere stone’s throw from… Read More Finding common ground between the Flemish and the French in Belgium
The Travels of Elephant Woman 