A Wonderful Day

Now I know that I've been posting a lot recently, but I had such a wonderful day that I simply had to share it.

This morning I woke up (reluctantly) and headed for my 8:30 AM class. Now, you are probably asking yourself "What kind of an idiot goes abroad and signs up for class at 8:30 on a Friday morning?" I was asking myself that same question this morning. I hopped on the tram, made it to school quickly, and hoped the three hour class (that's right, I'm THAT masochistic) would go by quickly.

The class was a pleasant surprise. Titled "Theory and Practice of Diplomatic Negotiations," we spent class last week pouring over the text of the "Banana Project". The project outlined a UN plan that would fund research for discovering ways to fight disease in bananas, and to come up with more varieties of bananas. Though it seemed legit, it turns out that the plan was basically just a cover up for a budget transfer to save the tail of the person that accidentally left a Honduran lab that studies bananas, out of the budget. This week we held a UN simulation where our goal was simple: Be diplomatic, but don't let this "project" through.

I admit I was not excited about today's simulation, but it ended up being a blast. My partner an I chose to be the delegation from the Dominican Republic, and we crafted a beautiful and diplomatic speech about how the project was far too important to implement hastily, and needed to be more carefully considered. The other delegations had their speaking time (the highlight was when someone representing the UK and Northern Ireland actually pulled out a banana to illustrate its importance), and the chairman nearly ended debate before the delegation from Senegal called for the project to be tabled for careful consideration. It was about to be tabled for a week before I jumped in and proposed it be tabled indefinitely. Unfortunately, it appears that my colleagues had forgotten that their objective was to stop the project from passing, and my motion failed, haha. It was a really good way to start the morning.

Lori , Celeste and I decided to take advantage of our Friday afternoon, and we set out to go walk around the Parc de Bruxelles. The weather was gorgeous, and park was sooooo pretty. We walked around, examining the statues and just enjoying the pleasant afternoon. As we were enjoying the park a man with a camera approach us, and ask if any of us would mind posing with a bottle of yogurt for a newspaper article. Celeste posed with the smoothie while Lori and I lauged hysterically. We'll look for the article in tomorrow's issue.

Then we just went for a leisurely stroll (and stopped for a waffle, of course!). We ended up walking past some of the stuff that we saw on our walking tour, but saw a lot of new stuff. We stopped by the Place du Petit Sablon, and were very impressed by the beautiful fountains and statues.

Overall, it was a lovely walk and a great day to be in Brussels. I can't wait for Ghent tomorrow!