Holidays are near

Last exams before the holidays

Finally, it was the week of the last exams which were only two in fact. Well, and two in the language and civilization courses but they were done with not even one hour of studying. The other courses had already finished. But for these two exams I had to study a lot because the professors didn't make quite clear which subjects were the most important for the test. But I had almost finished learning my summaries and I was already looking forward to the three weeks of holidays. I would go to Brussels, my Mum would come to Paris and I would visit two friends in London.

But before, the work. So the first exam was quite okay, it was about economic analysis and it was the lecture with the nice professor. I finished quite early and had half of the afternoon to relax a bit, so I met my friend, we had a coffee and walked a bit around the city. I loved it so much to spend time with him but I was also very afraid of what would happen when I would leave Amiens in June. My experience with long-distance-relationships wasn't a good one and actually I didn't want to miss somebody the whole time. But well, I decided to just enjoy the moment and think about leaving when I would really be about to leave. So I returned to the library and continued studying. 

On friday - the two language/civilization exams were already done, it was the last day before the holidays and the day of the last exam. Even if it was the only course I had from the 2nd semester (the others were from the fourth) it was the hardest exam for me. The reason for that was not that the things were to complicated, it was just that the professor didn't have any structure (at least in my opinion) and it was hard to learn for the exam. But with a nice book the professor recommended I felt more or less prepared and was sure that I would at least pass the test. So excited because the next day I would drive to Brussels, I waited impatiently the whole friday for the exam to start. Finally, it started and fortunately I could answer more or less all the questions. After 2 hours it was over and my German colleague and me were heading to another students residency because she would leave Amiens the weekend already - she didn't have any more exams. 

Party and Departure to Brussels

So we had a small party, were cooking pizza together and enjoying the last evening. Unfortunately I had to leave a bit early because I wanted to start my trip to Brussels by car in the morning. 

In the morning I started my way to Brussels at 8am. I went totally alone because there was nobody I knew who wanted to join. But for me that wasn't a big issue because for one weekend I thought it would be quite relaxing to discover a new city completely alone - doing whatever I wanted. Furthermore the weather was great, so I was excited and happy to get there. 

It was about 2 hours away from Amiens, so it was not a large trip by car. I had looked for a free parking in the internet before and found one, so that was the adress my GPS was directing me to. But it was more complicated than I thought, at first I didn't find the place and when I finally had found it (I already hated driving around in Brussels, it was even more chaotic than France!) I saw that it was closed the weekend. Because I had an appointment with the owner of my AirBnb appartment in the city centre I had to let my car in a paid parking next to the closed one. It would me cost 17 Euros for the first night, so for the next day I would have to find another possibility. But for the moment it was okay, so I let it there and went to the metro station right next to it. After some issues with the ticket (every metro system is different..) I sat in the metro to the city centre. 

First Belgian Impressions 

Brussels was not as big as I had thought before, so I arrived quickly and found my appartment via Google Maps. I was 15 minutes too early but I had no problem with waiting. It looked quite cute from outside and I was excited to see it from the inside. Finally, the Italian owner arrived and introduced me to everything important about the appartment. It was a cute 1-room-appartment with kitchen and bathroom but for 2 nights it was totally fine. So he left his phone number and the keys and returned home. I unpacked some things, changed my bag and decided to go right into the city centre. It was such a nice weather! I was hungry so I looked for something to eat (french fries of course) and sat down at the Grande Place in the middle of Brussels. 

Afterwards, I found an impressing gallery with Belgian Chocolate stores everywhere. Even if those pralines are so damn expensive I bought some - that's included in "discovering the city". ;-) 

They tasted great! The rest of the day I was walking around the city, looking for nice places, exploring everything. I went to the Grande Place, later to the Palace Royale, the nice park next to it and to many other impressing places in the centre of Brussels. I loved every single spot of the city, it was so different to Amiens and I loved to get new impressions and ideas. I had a coffee at a nice place with flowers and a lot of people around and took a lot of pictures of everything. I discovered comic books which are quite popular in Brussels, and looked for some cute things to bring with me for friends or my family. 

Finally, I was really tired and it was already 7pm, so I passed by a supermarket, bought some things to eat in my appartment and something to drink and returned to the appartment. I took a shower and relaxed, watching some series via wifi and eating the stuff I had bought before. The next day I wanted to go to the Atomium and the European Parliament. Because I had gotten up so early it was not hard to fall asleep that night. 

Photo gallery