3000 Leuven

One of the goals of this trip was to get to know this city in the Flemmish side of Belgium, just 15 min. by train from Brussels National Airport. We were lucky again to have great hosts that let us stay in their place for our stay here. Jorge and Fanny are a couple from Chile who have been studying here for the last three years. They kindly welcomed us in their appartment in one of the many residences for students of the KUL. They not only gave us a place to stay, but the opportunity to share with them and get to know them better. We tried some great Belgian beer with them and even found one that CMS liked.
Because our time was limited in Leuven, the help of our hosts was invaluable in pointing us out and showing us some of the main attractions of the city and of the university that is one of the reasons of being of this bastion of Flemmish Catholicism (according to Lonely Planet). Their ultra adorned City Hall, the impressive Reference Library of KUL, the streets that connect to the Grotte Mart (the Grand Plaza in front of City Hall), and their innumerable restaurants, cafés and beer halls. The weather has been great for the time we've been here and we cannot say we missed Toronto's smog alerts when we have a balmy mid-twenties temperature all day long as we promenade ourselves surrounded by brick buildings over cobblestone streets and sidewalks.
This was my very first experience in a place where I could not make sense of any of the written signs. Some of you might have already had this experience, but for me I have been always in places where whatever sign around is either in Spanish, English, or French, and thus, I've been able to at least make sense of some of the words. So, even though English is extensively understood in Leuven, there are only a few exceptions where there are any explanations in any other language that is not Flemmish (Dutch). It seems I have found another language to start exploring with its fascinating double vowels and bizarre syntax.
For now I am sure we will be back to Leuven, and tomorrow we leave towards our 24 hr. stay in Brussels. I might be writting my next posting back in Toronto and then will leave to visit my family in Guatemala, therefore I may seem to have abandoned my blog, but be sure that I will come back to give you other impressions of this adventure.

Itenerary and links

As mentioned before here is our itinerary: We leave next Tuesday in the afternoon, 6:40pm local time. It is quite convenient that we'll be flying "overnight" and therefore arriving around 9:30 am in Paris. CMS tells me that should minimize jetlag if one is able to sleep through the flight. The first leg of our trip is four days in Paris, our specific schedule of activities is still to be determined.

On the 28th we take a train to Grenoble where we'll be staying with an old friend of CMS who has been kind enough to take us in an offered to show us around. He also helped us get the train tickets to his current city of residence at an incredible prize. Grenoble is in the South-East of France, close to the borders with Switzerland and Italy. It is a region I am looking forward to visit. Hopefully we'll be doing some hiking.

On the 2nd of August we take a plane from Lyon (France) to Brussels (Belgium). It is the cheapest way to travel, unlike the $19 "seat sales" for flights within Canada that end up being a hundred dollars or more we really got a deal. For both of us it will be cheaper than one person going from Toronto to Montreal.

In Brussels we take a regional train to a university city called Leuven, about 30 min. east of the Belgian (and EU) capital. Leuven is the home of the oldest Catholic university in the world, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL). There we will be hosted by a friend of mine and his wife (thanks Jorge!) whom I met in Montreal last Summer at the International Meeting of the Psychometric Society. After a couple of days and a couple of nights we return to Brussels for an overnight visit previous to taking a train back to Paris (another bargain thanks to a 48hr sale). I would've loved to have more time to visit both Leuven and Brussels, but it would have to be for a future trip. In Paris we stay a few days more before taking our plane back to Toronto on 08/08/07.

I have added some links on the right-hand sidebar, which I think will be useful for our trip. I discovered a neat feature of Google Maps called My Maps where I was able to enter several important addresses for our trip; I'll report if and how was useful. I added some other potential useful links. Under "Keeping connected" the links e-mail portals (ah, and of course Facebook). I hope having them on one page will save us time entering full urls when using Internet cafés and what-not. If you can think of any link or site that might be useful while abroad, just post it as a comment.