"cassie, do your readers know...

you blog in the nude?"*

chelsea june gregory

this past weekend marked not only my last trip of the semester, but also one of the best i've had since i've been here. the beauty of class trips is that there's really no planning involved, you just have to show up and everything else is taken care of for you. and so about 40 other people on my program and i hopped on a plane and headed to brussels for our european union business class. friday was the only day dedicated to class, which meant plenty of time to take advantage of the belgian beer situation. but i digress...
day 1: 

friday was a fascinating albeit exhausting culmination to our course. professor patania organized meetings for us at the european parliament, the european commission, and nato, where we participated in a conference discussing the war in afghanistan. totally over my head, but cool nonetheless. also, there's nothing quite like business attire to make the same old guys you see every day suddenly look like dreamboats. more on the super rage of friday night later...
day 2: 

for those still semi-functioning after the night before, patania led a little excursion to bruges, the venice of the north. i wish i could say we spent the day broadening our cultural horizons, but unless you call sitting in the sun eating french fries and rehashing the previous night's antics 'cultural' then no dice. 
day 3:

at breakfast, my friend ryan convinced me it would be a good idea to utilize the casino next door to our hotel. and so at the appropriate time of 10 am we rotted our brains and emptied our wallets playing roulette for a few hours at the grand palace. i now know where all the weirdo belgians spend their sunday mornings. afterwards we checked out an el greco exhibit, ate a nutritious  lunch of kebabs and waffles, wandered a bit, and then made the respectable decision to go back to the casino before we caught our bus to the airport. living on the edge, i know. 
lady luck was definitely not pulling for me in the roulette department, but overall the weekend was an absolute win. the combination of a bunch of strangers who only knew each other by last names, a total departure from real life, and excesses of every kind made for more laughter and lightness than i've felt in months. 

*false. for the record, i was in a towel.