Brussels March 2019

Our week in Brussels

Sunday

We landed in Brussels on Sunday evening, on the 17th of March. We then went to our hostel
and shared a dinner composed of all the specialities from our respective countries.
The Spanish ham was much appreciated, as well as the Slovak korbace (traditional Slovak
cheese) and the French crêpes (very thin and sweet pancakes).

Monday

On Monday morning, we left the hostel to go on a city tour, on foot, with a guide.
We visited La Grand Place (the big square), which is surrounded by beautiful Gothic
monuments.

We then walked through gardens in the city and saw Le Palais du Roi (The palace of the King), as well as the Jeanneke-pis and the Manneken-pis, two emblematic statues of the city.

We went by bus to the school for the first time, where we had lunch. After lunch we worked the whole
afternoon on our scripts for the final video and on the presentation of the project that we were going
to do on Thursday afternoon.

After this great work, we came back to the city centre and had some free time. We bought chocolates
and ate waffles! On the way back to the hostel, we also ate Belgian fries. We went to bed full up!

Tuesday
After breakfast, we went to the European parliament. There, a guide gave us a presentation
about the European Institution. We learned a lot about European laws, history, governmental
institutions, and how the European parliament and the commission work together. We also
visited the Parliament.

After this visit, we walked to the “Arcades du Cinquantenaire” and we went on top of it. There,
the headmaster of the Assumption school from Lyon joined us.

We had lunch in an Italian restaurant.

After that, we walked to the school and we started working on the scripts again.

At the end of the afternoon we went to the city centre and we had dinner in a very beautiful restaurant.

We all ate specialities from Belgium.

We took pictures of the city at night.

Wednesday

           We stayed at school all morning, and while some of us worked on the presentation scheduled
for the following day, others finished writing the scripts.

With that completed, filming the videos was next in line. After lunch in a little fish restaurant, we went
to the European Parliament to take part in a role play activity.

It was really realistic, effective and accessible to anyone who would like to understand the process of
passing a law. Each of us had a “phone” which gave us directions as to where to go and how much
time we had to do so. Several rooms were accessible in the game, such as the reunion room of our
political party, the hemicycle, debate rooms, and other spaces like the library, and the café in the street.
The goal was to pass a bill or not according to the values of your political party.

The simulation required speed, attention and quick thinking. We all got to see the mechanisms that
take place in the passing of a law and that experience was much more effective than any courses we
could have had about it.

 Thursday

In the morning we worked on the presentations we would be doing the afternoon. We had many
rehearsals to be ready, and after a good lunch at the cafeteria of the school, we met up with three
different classes to present them our project. After each presentation we met outside the classroom
to talk with the pupils.

It went really well and we truly appreciated the time we had with each class after our presentation.
Far from a formal setting, they had a lot of questions for us and we talked about the differences
between our countries.

It allowed us to discover a new aspect of school in Belgium.

Then, we had some free time in the city.

We had our last dinner together in a cosy restaurant.

The teachers gave us presents from the Parliament and we had a lot of fun that evening. Back at the
hostel Spanish pupils gave everyone a little book filled with pictures and we all signed each other’s
book.

It was a tearful evening, an unforgettable one too.

Friday

After packing our belongings and having breakfast, we went on a guided tour of the painted walls of
Brussels.

We learned a lot about the artists and it gave us a different perspective on the city we had been visiting
for a week. We went back to streets we had been on ten times before during the week and we just
noticed an enormous painting. That was fun.

We also took a picture of the whole group making “body letters” to complete the word Erasmus +.

It was really funny because we were in strange positions in the middle of the main square of the city,
and people were trying to “read us”.

Unfortunately, it was time for goodbyes. We parted on the Grand Place of Brussels, promising to keep
in touch with one another after those two years of European adventure.