Le Palais Royale

Yesterday I went with some friends to the Royal Palace of Belgium, where the royal family historically lived and conducted business and still does, to a much lesser extent. It is only open during the month of August and is free to enter, so we lucked out being able to see it. The palace is, in a word, ridiculous. I think it's pretty typical for a royal palace, but there are basically dozens of rooms, each of which are very open with 30-40 ft ceilings, gold-plated everything, and really intricate carvings, sculptures, and furniture. It makes your jaw drop to see how beautiful it is in 2009, so you can imagine how amazing it was a couple hundred years ago.

Yesterday I also officially registered for classes, and I got all of the courses that I wanted, so I was quite pleased. I will be taking a required class that's all about the history and culture of Belgium, along with beginning French, policies of the European Union, the E.U.'s approach to security and development, and international law. Some of those classes probably sound terrible to most people, but to a political science loser like me, they will be amazing because the E.U. classes would simply never be offered in the U.S., and on top of that, are being taught in the city where the E.U. is based. I'm excited to hear political analysis from the European perspective too, since it will certainly be different than the U.S. view.

The class schedule is way more chill than in the U.S. There's only one day that I have three classes, and on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays I only have one class. I think there will be an equal amount of work but it's less time in class, which is nice. My first day of class is on Monday, but it shouldn't be too stressful since I don't start until 4:30 p.m. and end at 6.