My International Experience

My International Experience

My XP in Belgium

Hii!!! I decided to write something about my traineeship in Leuven, Belgium.
IEMA has asked me so many times that I decided to DO IT! ;)
But first of all let me introduce myself to those who don't know me. My real name is Simona Filote, but in AIESEC I am known as Figs(or Figus, Figusache, FigJig, Figulina, etc). I have been working in AIESEC Galati for over three years, in the first year working on Marketing and OGX, and in the last year as LCP. In between many things happened. Anyway, what's important now is that I am having a traineeship which started 3 weeks ago in Leuven, Belgium. I will be ending my traineeship at the end of March 2007. The name of the company I work in is LMS International(this does not stand for Local Motivation Seminar :)), a provider in the automotive, aerospace and other advanced manufacturing industries. I am working as Marketing Assistant, trying to make my way out in a field that I have never had contact with.

And what can I tell you about the 3 weeks here so far. Well, first of all I must tell you no one has waited for me at the airport when I got here...isn't that sad? When you know that in your LC every trainee(well, almost) is welcomed with bread and salt. But that's life. How about interesting things or cultural shocks I've experienced here you will ask...Hm, I must admit I have been in Belgium before, I've lived in Brussels for over 4 months, from March till July 2006. And the truly hard thing for me was that after I came back in Galati from Belgium in July, I only stayed home for 2 weeks and then I had to go back again in Belgium. This shift was kind of harsh and confusing. But anyway, one's got to move on. When I got back here I was glad to see places where I've walked before, but in the same time it was all new, as I am living in a different city, even if Brussels is 30 minutes away(which makes me want to go there every weekend, I like it a lot). You see, Belgium is divided in 3 entities: Wallonie, Flanders and Brussels. Wallonie is the lower part, and they speak French; Flanders is the upper part and they speak Dutch, or Neerlandais or Flemish(it's quite the same). Brussels speaks french, but really, you can hear all the languages of the world there. My city, Leuven, is in Fladers, so all I hear is Dutch. I am planning to learn it. Anyway, within the company, English is the official language.

What else? The thing that pisses me off the most is that shops close at 6 pm!!! Gosh, don't they want to make money???
The weather is very moody, it rains a lot, almost every day. It was so cold here when I heard in Romania there were 40 degrees. But now it's sunny.
I changed my house 5 times in the last 3 weeks, I feel like a nomad.
The AIESEC people are not very present, I haven't met any except Lili, but some of them sent me messages welcoming me and saying they are in exams.
Now...I really have to go if I want to catch my bus, the company is somewhere outside the city.
I'll write more soon.

Take care,
Figs.

i am in brussels!

that's right, i'm in Brussels! I got here exactly a month ago! I should celebrate this today! It's really nice here and now even nicer, as the spring is coming and everything starts to be greener, which I love!

Since I came here I moved around 2-3 times - i was starting to feel like a nomad: from Lili to Madou and from Madou to Schuman(these are Metro stations:). It was a little bit difficult to deal with the accommodation issue at first, cause I was new not only in city but in the country and I wasn't aware of how the accommodation system works here.

In the first week in Brussels I stayed at Lili's place, and she lives in an appartment with a Brazilian and a Polish guy in the appartment. So this gave me time to look for my own place. So by coincidence, in my search, I found a romanian landowner! I stayed there for two weeks, in a room with shared kitchen and bathroom with a Polish girl but then i found another place even better and cheaper, 5 minutes away from European Commission headquarters, and 5 minutes away from the company where I'm having my traineeship. And I am living in the house with Simonetta, one of the italian colegues from the SLOS Master. And the house has wireless internet ! I feel much better here.

There are a lot of romanian people around here, i keep hearing them speaking romanian language(that's how i can tell that they're romanians :) Sometimes it feels that i'm in Romania, but a cleaner and a more civilized Romania...

Tomorrow will be the Easter here, but romanian Easter is next week...
Today I went to the arabic market, as you can find cheap things there. And I did:I found a blouse at the price of 3 euro when normally it costs 20! What else did I buy? A lot of fruits: bananas, apricots, pears, rasberry...see, i'm trying to eat healthy...

I am doing things that i wasn't doing before coming here: going to the supermarket, cooking my own food(- but i only made piure, fries, fried chicken legs...so nothing major so far!), washing all my clothes.

bye for now but coming more soon,
Figus.

dutch again

another one

this is one of the pictures taken this summer(2005) by the Dutch girls arrived in Galati through Dutch Ambassadors Programme.
They were the nicest Dutch girls I've ever met ;) - Esther and Nienke