Brussels

There are few weeks of my life that whose greatness can compete with the one I just spent in Belgium. Already, when I think back to it, I become jealous of myself. And I don't want to forget it. It was incredible.

I went with the 35 students at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad that share my core class, the European Union. They were so dang great, and I'm glad they were stuck in my vicinity for a week. We all had different lifestyles, beliefs, and quirks. If you know those jokes that begin with "A Priest, a Princess, and the town drunk walk into a bar..." that's about how dissimilar we appeared to be at first glance. And second glance. Maybe even up until now. And several times we did all walk into a bar together, ironically. That's right, we're a joke.

I want to tell you about a few of the people I spent most of my time with. There was Claire, who was the group mom and who, if she had a spirit-animal would absolutely be a hen. I don't even know what that means, but she suggested it to me and I found it an apt description. Then there was Matt, a super nice gay guy who bears a striking resemblance to the actor that plays spider man. Samantha, whose level of bluntness is only comparable to her own obliviousness to reality. For the first few days, I couldn't figure out if she had a mild, albeit fantastic social disorder. Finally, there was Ian. Ian, the New Jersey Italian, a real live-fast-die-hard type who drank whiskey with lunch, and who, to his own surprise, found himself enjoying the company of some Mormon girl. He also had anger-management issues, maybe. 

We had such amazing group chemistry, we were sort of like a social version of alchemy. We all fell in love with each other before long, except Ian who couldn't decide whether he loved or hated Samantha. It was love; he was just confused.

Little by little, my classmates found out that I was LDS in one way or another. Ian, I told after sitting with him for an hour at a group lunch. I told him that I was a Mormon convert, and he responded by chuckling and saying, "No, you're not... Wait, really?"  I told Matt and Samantha the same night as well. We were just skirting around the conversation so I told them what I believed. They both proceeded to conduct a thorough interview after that, which lasted about an hour, one question after another. Somehow we ended up having an awesome conversation afterward, which lasted all of dinner and beyond. Ian sat at our table for dinner that night as well. From that night on, Matt made me the unofficial dinner discussion leader of mealtimes. It was so edifying that I'm pretty sure we all left every meal feeling like we understood ourselves and the world a little better.

But our talks were more than that. They were some of the most fun I've ever had, and I think they were for the others too. Even Ian would rather come out with us to get waffles and ice-cream and only end up at a bar after the sober group had exhausted all of their evening plans. We were just so dang silly.

We went to one Mom and Pop waffle restaurant in particular, and it was hysterical. Sam no sooner sat down with us than decided to leave to find a Haagen-Dazs waffle. When she didn't come back for 20 minutes, we figured we had lost her to the night, but she came back finally after half an hour with a waffle and a bag full of souvenirs. We tried to explain to her that it was shameful to bring a Haagen Dazs waffle into the restaurant, but the advice fell on deaf ears. Presently, a man at a table behind me spilled something and the waiter came by to wipe it up, but when I turned to see this happening, it sort of looked like the waiter was shining a customer's shoes.

"Wow, they shine shoes here!" I joked.
Sam turned to the waiter and asked him how much he charged. We all laughed, then realized that Samantha hadn't caught that I was joking. Also, she was wearing converse sneakers, so I don't know what she was planning on getting shined. Meanwhile, Ian kept asking all of us if we were going to get drunk tonight. We ignored him, except once or twice to say, "Yeah, are you going to stay in and read the Bible all night." Or, "Yeah, I'll get drunk when you start believing in Jesus." Ian is Jewish, so I was off the hook.

One day on study tour I was walking with Ian when I casually mentioned his anger problems to him. "What are you talking about?" he responded.
"Yeah you know, you curse everything, are angry all the time, etc."
"No I effing don't."
"Well, all I was going to say is that it's okay. It's going to be alright. You met me early enough in life that you can still bounce back and probably have a decent life."
"Oh, good," he said (or something like that).

The last night of our last night the group stayed in a hotel in the Hague. I remember this part in little images in my head. There's an image of my on a dolly flying down a Dutch hallway in full Titanic posture. There's an image of me pushing someone else doing the same thing. And lights and funny streets and an Asian restaurant.

I remember that Claire and I were rooming together that night. While we were getting all settled and readying ourselves for bed, people started coming to visit us. Matt, Keanu Reeves (Brett), Mary-the-sweet-and-Catholic. It started with Mary and Matt. I had been collecting euro-pennies because I had some idea about making them into jewelry when I got back to the states. They were the most darling little coins. I had been asking around to see if anyone would donate to my cause and even offered to do a dance to celebrate any donations to the euro-penny fund.

My victory dance was me rolling around on the the bed and plowing over Mary, who had also been sitting on the bed and exclaiming unintelligible things about my excitement. I though I might kill Mary by accident because she is the tiniest frailest looking human you could ever imagine, but the rolling and flailing couldn't be stopped. I remember the look of horror on Mary's face when she realized this. And after I rolled over her once how I saw her again and she was laughing.

When Matt came over, he sat down on the bed before also contributing to the fund. So naturally, I rolled over him a few times too. We sat around and talked and looked out the window completely thirsty for everything and felt nostalgic for the place we were rather than the places we've been, when Brett came over. He too, gave me a few euro-pennies.

The group told me that I reminded them of Kristen Gwinn. I thought that was an honor.