Louvain-la-Neuve, Not Leuven

I feel I need to clear up something, but I don't know the french for penicillin. To all those, including members of my family, who ask how I'm getting on in Leuven, I repeat: I live in Louvain-la-Neuve not Leuven.

What wit it cuming up to the crimbo and all...

Well he's gone. Leaving a trail of debt and destruction, the infamous (un-famous) T. Kinsella's gone back home to Dublin after a whirlwind weekend in Brussels, Louvain-la-Neuve & Leuven.

We went to the Heisel centre in Brussels. It was my first time to stand under the Atomium, very impressive close up, three-hundred feet tall if it's an inch… which it's not. Then it was off to the Oceade. They've got slides there. Extreme slides. Going down one is unwise going down all of them is not quite as intelligent as a mildly retarded woodchuck suffering from late-stage syphilis.

We also made the Trip into Flanders to the city of Leuven. Twas the best fun a group of Irish people had had since Mike & Liam Earl took the 16:07 Ryanair flight. Other stuff also happened but like an underage gay, I can't be arsed.

The weather here is pretty cold so I'm saving up for a snow-melting machine. It's beginning to look like quite a slush-fund.

As the smoker of time steps outside for the cigarette of fate and learns just how dangerous smoking is if you step out of a cable car, I notice it's time to sign-off. Once again it's seems that life, like Eric Cantona, can sometimes leap up and give you a kick in the head.

No words of sadness or regret could express how I feel... However, words of joy and excitement probably could.

On yer bikes...

The Louvain-La-Neuve 24 Hour Cycle is on at the mo. The whole town is packed with revellers, tourists, students and cyclists both professional and amateur. Anyone with something to sell (the students union, the societies) has a novelty bike. Woolly mammoths, cows, Volkswagen vans, pirate ships; pubs, all with a set of bikes inside are doing laps of the town while others are competing to register the most number of laps possible in 24 hours.

Meanwhile for the spectators, every square has a stage with bands etc. performing at different times with a big concert from 6p.m. to 6a.m. The train company have a special ticket so people are coming from all corners. There's a kids' square with balloons, magic etc. and and teenagers square with all the games you'd see in rag week, (tho not in trinity because rag week in trinity has all the entertainment features of the west Clare paint drying championships - repechage). Apparently someone died here last year due to too much of the old biére, so the shops aren't selling any liquids, alcoholic or not. On the other hand all the associations of students from each Belgian area, have bars open with cheap booze.

All the statues/fountains are boarded up so that a) the cyclists don't cycle into them, and so the rest of us don't damage them.

No lectures today/2mo because of the event.


Good times.

I could murder a brownie, or maybe a beaver, just any sort of uniformed six year old.(c)

Le Grand Place and the streets around it are swarming with scouts n guides of all ages today.

(There's almost as many scouts as there is here.



... almost)



Some sort of treasure hunt, shopping trip/urban jamboree thingie, I dunno. I suppose a student town is a good place to be if u want to avoid looking "intimidating", as I've been told we look when in large groups (3up).

So far I've seen two groups in Walibi Wavre, 1 in Aqualibi, 2 last weekend and 5 this weekend. The Spirit Lives on.

Anyway there seems to be a lot of le craic around. Good times.

Unfortunately Cub Leaders are as ugly here as they are at home.

I think I'll write a letter about it, Cheddar Gorge style. Who's with me?

White water - Rapid!

The water in my room has white bits in it.

Lots and lots of white bits.


I'm told it's just calcium. It scares me, although it is good for "them bones", apparently.


In other news I bought roller blades today. The town is basically pedestrianised and smooth, so why not "go out on a limb"?- that's where the phrase comes from.

I just have to find a way to sort out my dodgy ankle, the bane of my ice-skating past. (Little known fact: I could have speed-skated at the Olympics, but for the lack of training, motivation or any particular skill)

"I would do anything for Luna Neuve, but I won't do THAT...

registered today, in and out in 5 mins, with a student travel card: free, login details & a provisional student card. My card is provisional, (I'm not, as there's no local SF Cumann) is provisional because it's only a piece of paper until my real card arrives in the post in the hostel.

UCL has a student-web:tcd-local type online sign-in thingie with Squirrell mail which i was able to access. Unfortunately, a successful on-campus PC login has yet to occur so i gotta visit the pc helpdesk. barrells of fun.

Went to the ciné yesterday and saw le version français (VF) of Ratatouille, typicle francophones too lazy to even invent a french word for 'rataouille.'

Also did my first bit of supermarket shopping today, and my pennies are pinched harder then my ass was back in my rugby school days. I could rattle off the comparitve prices of 17 brands of footpowder in terms of fungicide gms per euro but sure the excitement might kill you.

later.

Planes, Trains and autobuses...

An ordinary private computer science student from the College Historical Society, Aughrim Street Scouts, National Venture Scout Programme Team and Da Northsoide began his year abroad with a 6.25 flight to Charleroi (Brussels South). Now by 6.25 I mean 7.10 and by Brussels south i mean Frankfurt, Germany. Turns out Belgium was under heavy fog so the guys couldn't land the plane. It actually worked out well the best because I was only 4.5 hours away from my actual destination - a new record for R***air.

Anyhoo, queue a walk up to the nice people in the info booth in Frankfurt and the use of my best German. Discovered that the bus to Charleroi would shortly be outside the door, marvelled at the distance between Frankfurt and Brussels on a nearby map and got on the bus. 50 mins later the driver felt it was time to start moving. On the way we crossed the Moselle, and saw the only castle remaining on the river to have survived the war, which was nice, (the castle, not the war).

Despite the fact that UCL told me I could get a direct bus from the airport to the town, I decided to accept the advice of a kind stranger and hopped on the shuttle bus to Charleroi, the town not the cattleshed ("airport"). When we got to Gare Charleroi Sud, I heaved my 3 bags of over 35kg up the steps to platform 5 and it was off to Nivelles with me. In Nivelles i got a suburban train which went north to Brussels and back down to L-l-N.

Having taken several breaks on the way up the stairs on to the main street of L-l-N, I saw it. The best college town in the world ever.

Imagine if you would if Connolly station was placed smack bang in the middle of new square of TCD. Now imagine if only students got the train there, and the next station on was for a theme park. Now imagine if Stephen´s Green shopping centre was also placed in Fellows Square, but had the shops from Dundrum, and a basement bit with a Louvre-esque glass covered sous-terrain. Now imagine if all the main roads around TCD went under it, and every building (apartments, newly relocated Connolly and Stephen's Green SC had underground parking. What you are currently imagining is Louvain-la-Neuve.

After finding the hostel in which i would be staying temporarily, I went for a stroll around the batements. The place was quite noisy as 5 or 6 fraternity/sorority type groups were initiating their new recruits; press-ups, rolling around in beer and food, and generally being shouted at.

Then i went into the aforementioned Shopping centre and found the greatest toy shop ever, better indeed the ones I'd visited in NYC, Oberbeieber, Cologne and Brussels. They've got 6 foot tall Marsupilami's and loads of board games in a strange language called French and the best selection of Top-Trumps I've ever seen.

Nehoo, tis off to the lecture type thingies with me 2mo.

G