I have now been in Louvain-la-Neuve for three weeks. It feels like just yesterday that I transferred my luggage along with my Canadian and American friends from train to train as we made our way to Louvain-la-Neuve from the airport. Having made the mistake of signing a lease in a little village called Corroy-le-Grand, I have now set myself up in a kot-a-projet in Louvain-la-Neuve. LLN is different from anywhere else I have ever been as it is entirely pedestrian. It is made up of stores, cafés, restaurants with various university buildings mixed in. This is almost entirely a university town. There are about 20,000 people but the average age is 26. During the week, you rarely see anyone over the age of 24 in town. Every weekends, all the Belgian students go home. The furthest students live only 2.5 hrs away – nothing by Canadian standards. On Saturdays, the town and mall suddenly fill up with families out shopping or walking around. They obviously want nothing to do with all the students during the week. The town becomes dead on Sundays; absolutely everything is closed – including the grocery store. With all of the other students going home on weekends, this provides us exchange students with the opportunity to travel without missing out on the university life.
I live in a kot-a-projet. This is slightly different from what most exchange students are doing. I live with 7 Belgians and with two external members who show up for meals, meetings and events. We differ from the normal kots in that we have various projects throughout the year – thus the name. I am part of the "kot-à-jeux". We mainly rent out various board games on a daily basis as well as casino materials (roulette, blackjack, poker stuff etc.) We will also be organizing several different casino and game nights throughout the term. We went through the stats the other day, and the most popular games have been Pictionary and Taboo over the last few years. I would just like to note, that in the week that I have been here, the most rented game is Settlers of Catan. I had someone come and drop of 12 games today that his kot had rented, so the services are actually being used. One of my favourite parts about the kot are the communal dinners. For the past two nights there have been at least 10 of us at dinner. Last week we had dinner with another kot, bringing the total number to 20 of us. It makes for a lot of people and a lot of fun!! There are many kots-a-projets here in LLN each with a different focus whether it is asian cuisine, comics, movies, sports equipment etc. all to provide additional services to students.
The Belgians seem to love Canadians. The moment I start talking, I hear "Oh! You're Canadian!" And the response is "Yes, I am Canadian". There is also the assumption every time I start to speak that I am from Quebec. Sometimes it is far too complicated to explain that just because we speak French we are not from Quebec. With the constant exposure, people are starting to note the difference between my accent, that of the girl from Ottawa and those who are actually from Quebec. One guy in my kot starts laughing everytime I talk because he finds my Canadian accent so charming. Immediately when people find out that I am Canadian they want me to say more and talk so that they can hear the Canadian accent. What is interesting is the combination of culture. As soon as they find out we are Canadian – we girls are referred to as Robyn from How I Met Your Mother – apparently everyone watches that here. Brown Hair + Canadian = Robyn.
One of the best parts about being here so far is the food. Even a simple sandwich for two euro at the deli is to die for because of the freshly baked baguettes. The chocolate is of course fantastic which we find ourselves eating almost every day. (On a side note, I realized that one of my favourite brands is actually produced by Kraft – go figure.) The guilty pleasures though are of course the waffles. At every corner you find somewhere that serves waffles. Although you can have toppings on them, it is unnecessary because there is enough sugar in them to give you a sugar comma. Some of the Canadians are trying to limit themselves to one every other day. Even the groceries you buy taste better. Ham is much better here, the milk too – but that could be as a result of the higher fat content even in the skimmed milk.
Unfortunately, I haven't yet loaded my pictures of LLN so I will have to do that soon!!
