This week has truly been one of the best weeks in the history of time! As you know, my best friend came to Ghent on Monday and it's just been so nice to show her around and introduce her to people and places and show her how spoiled I've been for the last three months! Here is her first official Ghent photo, with the train station in the background:



The weather was simply amazing earlier in the week and so we spent some time hanging out at the Graslei on Tuesday, eating and drinking, enjoying the sun until it hid behind the houses... and then we sat some more.





And on Wednesday, my best friend and I went to Brussels to see Air play live at the Ancienne Belgique. They played a great set, I'm really starting to enjoy their new stuff! The sign in the first photo says the show is sold out (of course)!







Thursday was bittersweet, because we had our final oral Dutch exam. I say bittersweet because we really enjoyed the class, and we're all in love with our teacher, and it's just too bad that some things have to come to an end... But we all passed the course, so that's good! Right after, we all headed to our Portuguese friend's house for a little get together.



And that brings us to Friday. My classmate and I handed in a huge paper that we managed to write in between all the fun we are having... It was a breakdown of the major EU directives from 2006. And we went to visit Brussels again, this time for a quick tour of the European Parliament. I really haven't had much exposure to the EU in the past, but now I'm learning quite a lot about it, and for the first time, I'm considering working in Public Affairs...





Friday night, we started our weekend of partying by making some fancy drinks: our version of hot shots (coffee, cream and orange liquor). This is a very important weekend for partying because, not only is it my best friend's first weekend here, it's also one of my Finnish friend's last!!! It's happy and sad all at the same time...



We grew some milky mustaches:



Ok, that was absolutely everything that happened during the best week ever! Hope you're all well! Kusjes!

I said I was going to update on the weekend, but that hasn't happened yet. I'm sorry. It's the end of the month and my Internet is acting up again; our house always manages to use up all our broadband limits, which makes our connection unbearably slow during the last few days. I'm just dropping by to say that everything is "heel goed!" I picked up my best friend, Freyja, at the train station yesterday. She has just spent some time with her friend and ex-roommate in London... they had a great time, but Freyja had been complaining about the London weather (of course). So I promised her some sunshine in Ghent, and boy did I deliver! It was sunny and 17 yesterday. More of the same today. I'm just trying to finish up a paper, and then we will be having a picnic with some friends from school along the Graslei. More soon, and some pictures of course. Lots of kusjes!

I applied for my first EU jobs this week. It sort of happened by accident actually... I was surfing a Belgian website and found a link to English Jobs in Brussels, then decided to go all out and google English Jobs in the EU. The first one that caught my eye was for Google Inc. in Warsaw... I couldn't believe my luck. I was born for this position! If you don't know already, I am a huge nerd at heart, and Google is one of my favourite things in the entire world. So I quickly updated my resume and sent it along with a gushy cover letter. It's an entry level communications position... I have my fingers crossed.

(As a side note, here's a really interesting piece about Google taking over the world.)

The other position I applied for was at Maersk Inc., which is a global shipping and transportation giant. They are also looking for entry level communications staff, this time in Denmark. It's not that I have a passion for shipping, but I think there would be lots of great learning opportunities in a company such as this. And I'm sure they need lots of help developing their corporate social responsibility strategies, which is one of the most interesting aspects of PR for me.

That's all I wanted to say for now, I will post some more on the weekend!

The key situation was finally resolved on Tuesday. I am guarding the new set with my life!

Over the last week, I visited Bruges twice. Last Sunday, I visited with a friend who used to call the old city home. We walked over cobblestone streets, along the canals, visited two churches and saw Michelangelo's Madonna with Child. It was a gorgeous day, and as a result, I have some very nice photos to share with you:











Then I went back to Bruges with my classmates for a field trip on Tuesday. It was organized by students, and featured a guided tour of the Chocolate Museum!







The rest of the week was spent studying, preparing papers and presentations. On Friday and Saturday our class attended the Euprera conference on Social Media. It covered topics from blogs to Second Life to Facebook. I got so inspired by some of the speakers; it's such an exciting time to be in corporate communications!



After the conference on Saturday, we surprised our Finnish friend with a birthday trip to the sauna. She's been dreaming about saunas since she left for the exchange, because apparently everyone in Finland has one in their home. And our other Finnish friend was also celebrating his birthday this week, so Saturday night was one huge birthday party! Here we are out for dinner:





After filling our bellies with delicious Greek food, we went out to three different dance bars and had an amazing time!

Now I have to get back to work... Kusjes!

Today was a pretty horrible day! I managed to lose the keys to my apartment... After waking my roommates at a very indecent hour to let me into the house, my friend and I managed to break into my room. I've been a prisoner here since. And because I am so brilliant, I left the address tag on the key ring, so the landlord will have to change the locks on the front door. That will hopefully happen first thing in the morning so I can go ahead with my plans to visit Brussels tomorrow. But we'll see. I won't get my hopes up too much...

I want to apologize for not updating the blog for so long. But it's been more of the same really... I've been working and partying hard! Last weekend was really great because my friend's best friend came to visit from Finland. First we took her to Overpoort. It's an area of the city that turns into a huge party every Thursday, the night before the Belgian students go home for the weekend. (Most students go back to their cities, towns and villages. It's very cute; they visit their Moms and do their laundry and always come back with Tupperware containers filled with home cooking.) Overpoort is about 20 cafes, bars and dance clubs packed into just two city blocks. Once a week they close the area to traffic and it swells with party goers.





Then last Saturday night, we went out with just the ladies for a delicious late supper at a Greek restaurant around the corner from our place. We had seafood and lamb, which we washed down with wine and ouzo, telling silly stories and laughing the whole way through... No girls night out on the town would be complete without dancing, so we hit up a couple of places before calling it a night.



And the only other photo-evidence I have from the last two weeks is from this past Monday. A group of Artevelde Hogeschool students had to organize a fashion show for their final assignment. One of my roommates was a model, so I went to show some support (she was extremely nervous to walk the catwalk in 3 inch heels!) The whole thing was so professional: red carpet, candles, champagne and hors d'oeuvres! The show featured vintage wear from local shops, and some of it was pretty great!



Overall, this past week has been very productive for me. We had our first presentations yesterday... I think they went really well. I also got a head start on some new projects. For example, we're doing a presentation on radical right parties in the EU, and also writing a paper summarizing what has happened in the EU during the last year.

So I guess that's it for now! Miss you, kusjes! xxxxxxx