Shelby's Year in Belgium: March 2016

I don’t really know where to start with this post. I could talk about the 2 amazing trips I have had the chance to go on since my last post, the rotary activity in Mechelen, or my feelings about approaching my 100 days left. I think the place to start is the terror attacks that happened in Brussels this week. So starting backwards but here we go. First thing to get out of the way, I am safe. I live about 40 minutes away from Brussels and was on my way to school when I heard about the attacks. I am not coming home earlier than planned. I know a lot of people probably think I should but I would like to explain to them why I am not. First, I am obviously taking precautions given by rotary to avoid places that there could be an attack (crowded events, big cities, etc.). I hopefully won’t be put in the situation. Second, the goal of terrorist is to cause terror or fear (hence the name) and wouldn’t finishing my exchange right now be giving into what they want? I think it would and I am not planning on let the bad guys win. Thirdly, terrorist can attack anywhere, I am just as safe in Rixensart as I would be in Cheyenne. So no I am not going home quite yet. I trust that if the situation does heighten, rotary will know what to do, but I do not plan on coming home any day sooner than the 3^rd of July. So now that my safety is covered I guess I can talk about my feelings of the attacks. Of course it is awful. It hurts because part of me is now Belgian. How could someone want to harm a wonderful, welcoming group of people? We will never know. I knew Brussels, being the capital of the EU, was a high target for ISIS. IT is so awful that it really did happen and my heart aches for the families involved. For now I think we just need to be together and show Brussels we are with them. I just want to restate the two statements that I said after the Paris attacks. 1. Terrorist want to cause terror and we shouldn’t live our lives in fear because of what they have done. We have to continue on with life and not worry about what could happen. We really just need to enjoy each day and not live in fear. 2. ISIS is an extremist group. They don’t represent ALL Muslims or ALL Syrian Refugees. They represent a group with EXTREME ideas. After the Brussels attacks, the hashtag #StopIslam was trending. I found that very inappropriate and was quite frustrated with it. It should’ve been #StopISIS or #StopHate. It’s truly unfortunate that Muslims will be the scapegoats for what ISIS has been doing. On a bright side, I love how the world has shown support for what has happened. My favorite part of Tuesday was getting a tweet that the University of Wyoming (my future school) was lit up in red black and yellow to support Brussels. I think that’s all we really need to do right now, we need to unite and find a way to end this. Finally I just want to send a huge thank you to everyone who was worried about me! Your thoughts and prayers mean the world and I thank you all so much.

Happier topics now: So I’ve been able to do quite a great couple things in the past month. One was an activity to Mechelen with my rotary club. We had the opportunity to visit a concentration camp. I didn’t know that there was a camp in Belgium so it was really interesting to learn about. It was really a changing experience. I really have no words for it. I think that everyone in their life should at once go to a camp. It is important to understand what happened here. A quote that comes to mind is from Winston Churchill, “those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it”. As painful as the holocaust is to study, it is important to know what happened so it doesn’t repeat. The camp was interesting and was followed by a long museum visit (which we ended up leaving early because the guide wasn’t super great). It was great to meet more of the Rotarians in my club.

I also had the chance to go to Copenhagen in Denmark with two of my exchange friends who were in the USA last year, Cris (from Italy) and Irem (from Turkey). We had a great time catching up and exploring the city together. The northern part of Europe has such a different vibe than the Europe we Americans think of (France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, etc.). It was very cool to see a different pace. We saw everything from the little mermaid to Christiana. I will share a couple of my favorite memories. Our first day we went to the largest aquarium in Northern Europe, the big blue planet. It was my first time in an aquarium so that was really cool! Almost every night, we watched the sunset from a tower. The first night was from the round tower which is an old observatory in Copenhagen. The second night was from the tower of a palace in Copenhagen. Both were so beautiful and perfect photo opportunities J One night, we got locked in the garden of the summer palace together. It was so funny because we were all so scared that we weren’t going to get out but we did. We laughed about it for hours. I am really glad I was able to go on a trip to see them and it was really hard to say goodbye.

The next trip I took was a weekend in Paris with my host parents. As many of you know Paris is my favorite place ever so of course I had fun (going with my awesome host parents was just the icing on the cake). We did A LOT in the 3 short days I was there. I got to see the thinker in the Rodin Museum and we bought my favorite macaroons. We also saw Moulin rouge, Montmartre with sacre Coeur, the Paris opera, the house of victor Hugo, the Eiffel tower, and went to Shakespeare and Co (my favorite bookstore in Paris). I also got to see Saint Chappelle which is now one of my favorite churches ever (it’s literally a church with stain glass windows EVERYWHERE!!). There was a great exposition on photography we got to visit as well. It was on a fashion photographer and her pictures are amazing. We did a lot of window shopping too. I had a lot of fun and it’s really hard to pick my favorite part. I am so lucky I got placed in great host families like them.

Today marks 100 days left of my exchange. It truly is a bitter sweet feeling. My exchange has gone by so fast (too fast??). Part of me never wants to leave but another part knows it is time to move on with life. I still have a lot to see in these short 100 days. It is time to follow my inner Frenchie and Carpe Diem. Here’s to making the last 100 days the best.

School is going really well here. I passed all my classes and am really content with my marks. For the past two weeks, my class has been doing their internships so I have been coming to school and cooking all day. It has been really fun and I have learned a lot of skills in the kitchen!

A couple miscellaneous things I’ve done with my host family! We went to Mons, the city where my host parents come from, and they showed me around. We went up to a bell tower and saw the whole view of Mons. We also went to a museum on this huge event called DouDou that happens in Mons in May. It was super cool to see the city they came from. We also went to Tom (host brother)’s Jazz festival that he and a group of other students put on. It was really cool and I can now say that I am a big jazz fan. We had a lot of fun dancing and going out and listening to some great tunes.

It is now Spring Break here and my plans are to go on the rotary trip to Italy. We will be gone for 11 days and will be visiting Rome, Capri, Naples, Venice, Pompeii, Pisa and Florence. We are going to be about 100 students so it should be very fun! When I get back I plan on enjoying the time I have left with my host family (my 3^rd family change is April 17^th!) and checking off things on my Belgian Bucket list. I promise an update after break!! Thanks for the thoughts again! See you all soon.

Shelby