I have finally begun my year abroad, though my late start was not for lack of job opportunities. I knew that before getting stuck in to something resembling 'the real world of work' I needed a break from speaking French and so I arranged to go to Barcelona for two and a half months. With a vast stretch of beach and an infamous nightlife, Barcelona is the city many 20-somethings dream about. It was incredible place, and I had a load of fun, while occasionally writing articles for a tourist magazine. In the end I was only there for seven weeks for two reasons: 1) I ran out of money, and 2) partying, sunbathing, and lazing about can get a bit old after a while, as hard as that may be to comprehend. I was keen to start work, and I had an internship in Brussels coming up in October working in a federal migration centre.
Two days ago I arrived in Brussels-Midi, the international train station located in the South of the city. It felt much like any other international train station in a major European city, except for the unfamiliar consonant-loaded language written everywhere. Signs were labelled very similarly to they were in Barcelona, except instead of Catalan and Spanish, it was French and Flemish. In Barcelona I was able to read a fair amount of Catalan given my knowledge of French, Spanish, and (limited) Latin, but with Flemish it's a whole new game.
The journey to Brussels was pretty painless; travelling on the Eurostar was about as simple as a journey from the UK to the continent can be. Passing through security into a little French London microcosm I was greeted with "Bonjour" as I showed my passport to a French police officer. I have always had a quintessentially English face, and so I was somewhat keen to demonstrate to this officer (whom I didn't know and would most likely never meet again) that I was a Brit who did indeed speak French. Unfortunately, the most one can squeeze into a conversation with a police officer at the French border is "Bonjour monsieur" and "merci", though I got the impression that my rather-too-formal addition of "monsieur" amused him.
My journey to the shared house where I will be spending the next three months should have been easy. I only had to take a metro line five stops and then a bus two stops. However, as is always the case in a new country, especially if you are carrying three pieces of luggage and cursing yourself meanwhile for bringing so much, you get a bit lost. Brussels' metro is fairly unique in that some platforms only have escalators going down to the platform and no easy way of getting back up. I'm sure the designer thought the idea of getting on to the metro from one side of the platform and off again on the other side was very logical and created some kind of a convenient one-way system, but it didn't really leave space for a bumbling cloche (Belgian slang for 'clumsy person') like me, who managed to get on to the wrong one.
In Brussels you can still sense the fear that hangs over the city following the terrorist attacks in March earlier this year. Intimidating stern-faced army soldiers with guns line the station corridors. I am originally from the somewhat small cosmopolitan city of Bristol, and so the presence of army officials was unnerving to say the least. I was reminded of the anxious responses from my relatives when I spoke of my placement in Brussels. But, I reminded myself, if we hide away in our homes out of fear of being attacked, then, as far as I am concerned, the terrorists have won.
I start my internship on Monday, though the timing of Belgium's public holidays means that I will only work three days that week. I will be doing a mixture of attending meetings, translation, and (most likely) committing to memory the coffee orders of each team member. After two years of being stuck in the student bubble that is the small town of Oxford, I can't wait!