Melissa Goes to Europe
Look out Belgium here I come. I arrived at the airport in Brussels and
met my roommate, Emily Hermesch from Indiana. 
We took a cab to our new
house. 
We had to carry our bags up the stairs 
to the third floor to
our room. These pictures are taken towards the end of my time there, so we
had made the room a little more colorful, messy and livable than it looked when
we first arrived. 
Leuven was a very historic old town. Every day we passed by the town
hall 
that was decorated with very detailed craved statues. The library was
destroyed in WW2 and rebuilt just recently. American schools donated money
for the rebuilding of this library,
and University of Illinois was one of those
schools. On one of the columns, University of Illinois is craved into the
stone. I sure felt proud showing that off to everyone!!
We traveled all over Belgium in the first two weeks before school started. We
went to chocolate factories and two different beer breweries 
;
we went on boat tours of Brugge
;
saw WW1
monuments in Iepen; we ate at outdoor cafes
we played medieval games at a
historic Belgian town; we visited different cemeteries and saw all the borders
of Belgium.
Then I got my Europass and started my travels that would take me to nine
different countries. This is my traveling partner, Katie Carden from New
York.
She and I both enjoyed the European way of laid back hygiene.
I'm back to the traditional American way of showering every day, but I don't
know about Katie!
These are the rest of my trips. Click on any of them that interest you!!
Info about the program and the budget
Ireland - Galway, Dublin, Limerick
Italy - Rome, Pompeii, Florence