The Goods Have Been Delivered

So, I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed right now. This morning I woke up to an e-mail saying that I should have received a package with all the information about my trip a month ago!!! I am home from school for the summer. So, I was pretty much freaking out. Online it says that you have to be one of the first 50 people to sign up in order to live on campus. (Which with me still not having received my package a month later...I thought I'd be pretty much homeless.) After numerous phone calls, the package was nowhere to be found. Miraculously, it showed up damaged by the USPS that same day. In addition, about an hour before it was received, I got an e-mail from the Study Abroad Coordinator at my foreign institution telling me my room had been reserved.

Well, I never reserved my room and since they put that on their website...what am I supposed to think?!? While I wish that someone would have told me, my point is that you are going to get some serious curve balls thrown at you when your studying abroad. It is also going to get frustrating. What would normally take a quick phone call to cleared this all up, takes a few days because of long distance phone charges. No way was I calling Belgium to get put on hold at God knows how long per minute!

Anyways, in my packet was an acceptance letter from the school I am attending, alongside an informational booklet for study abroad students and a local town magazine (written in English highlighting things to do). Sounds great right?!? Well while it is all written in English, I still can't understand a good 1/4 of it. Thus, I am experiencing what I think is my first taste of culture shock. I would like to get involved on campus. However, when my options include organizations known as Mercurius and Erasmus Student Network, it is rather hard because I have no idea what either of those are.

Furthermore, I'm getting mixed signals on the language most individuals speak. So far I've heard Flemish, French, Dutch, German, and English. Seeing as how I only speak English, this could be a slight problem and I am going to be "that American" for some time.

While I am still slightly nervous, I am sure that everything will turn out just fine. I'll be sure to give you guys a heads up on how these things actually go once I get there. Also, if your going to start reading the blog...I would read it all the way through till the end. This will probably read more like a story when its done and I'd hate for you to be turned off from studying abroad because I was experiencing slight culture shock. I am confident that this will be the best experience of my life.

Travel Safe,

Some Study Abroad Girl