Université de Liège, Belgium

The university has two dorms; one is in the city center, the Home Ruhl, and the other, the Homes Sart-Tilman, are at the Sart-Tilman campus. Both have the same setup; there are apartments of 8 rooms sharing a small kitchen and two toilets, each pair of rooms shares a shower, and each room has a sink. The dorms are furnished with a bed, desk and shelves, and bed linens are provided. The walls in dorms are thin, and the dorms are rarely quiet. Food is not provided like it is in dorms at Illinois, so you must buy and prepare your own food. Living at Sart-Tilman can present a problem since the grocery stores are all located in the city center, a 30 minute bus ride away. A taxi to the town center costs around $12.00 and takes 15-20 minutes. But then classes are a 5-10 minute walk, and you live in a beautiful forested area. The dorms are the easiest place to meet the other international students, and also the easiest accomadation to arrange before arriving in Liege. They do fill up quickly, so be sure to reserve in advance if you want to live there.

The Homes du Sart-Tilman, the dorms at the Sart-Tilman campus.

I lived in a kot, a house I shared with 6 Belgian students. My kot was in the city center, with a dry-cleaning shop on the ground floor. We each had our own private room furnished with bed, closet, sink, desk and shelves. We shared a kitchen, 2 toilets and 2 showers. Each person in the kot signs a separate lease. Kots range from 4 to 20 people, usually students, and the larger ones have multiple kitchens and bathrooms. Most are furnished (meublé) and rent includes water, gas and electricty. There is an excess of kots in Liege, so it is not a problem to find one when you arrive. The university has a database of kots. The youth information center (Centre J), on the Blvd. d'Avroy also has listings of kots, and will review your lease with you. Living with Belgians is the best way to learn about Belgium and to learn a lot of French quickly. On weekends almost all Belgian students go home, so if I didn't travel I was alone in the house, but most of the exchange students in kots lived within 5 minutes of my house so there were always people around. The middle building, the dry cleaner with the pink sign, was my kot. My window faced the back.

My kot, 3 Rue Louvrex, the middle building with the pink awning.

Living with Belgians you may even get to go home with them for a weekend! When I went to Anne-Sophie's house for Easter, we saw a kangaroo farm!

The kangaroo farm in Nassogne, Belgium.

Private apartments tend to be nicer than kots, but more expensive, and generally don't include utilities. They are not very popular with students.

The dorms have telephones for receiving calls only, and then pay phones in the lobby for calling out. Kots and apartments rarely include telephones. I found the easiest and cheapest telephone is a "GSM" (cell phone) with a prepaid card. Liege has phone shops everywhere, and you may be able to find a used phone and then buy the prepaid card. When I was in Liege a new phone with $30 of calling cost under $100. To call the US the cheapest way is to buy phone cards, at newstands or night shops, and tell the cashier that you want the cheapest rate for the US.

To pay bills in Belgium, people make direct transfers between bank accounts. Thus if you live outside of the dorms you will need a Belgian bank account. Your landlord will give you his account number, and each month you make a transfer to his account. You follow the same procedure if you have telephone, electricity, gas or water bills to pay. The easiest way to make payments is to set up a Belgian bank account; otherwise you can pay in cash at your landlord's bank. To open an account, just take your passport to the bank, and don't forget to close it when you leave.