Alright: First day. I wake up early, barely able to contain my excitement. Everything packed already, I fiddle restlessly with the stuff I am leaving behind. I won't be in this room for much longer anyway; one day after we get back is the third and final host family trade. Final. Even as the days get longer, everything about this year is getting shorter. But I've got two weeks ahead of me; two weeks with my best friends traveling thousands of kilometers around Germany!
Bonn: Around the corner from the bahnhof stands a massive green and white bus, ringed by exchange students. I dodge in, slide my suitcase to the packers, and dash up the tiny staircase. Bingo! I am the first on the bus, and the best seats are ripe for the picking. I take the seat right up front, upstairs, looking right out over the road.
First stop: The Haus Der Geschicte, a museum of German history going from the end of WWII up to today. It's a fascinating museum, but I and most of the others from here have seen it already. We spend the time catching up with each other and making excited plans.
After the quick tour, it's back in the bus for the long drive from Bonn to Brussels. The front seat doesn't prove as useful as I thought it would be; the window is very dirty, and my camera seems to think that's what I want to take pictures of. But it's fun to watch the landscape drift by. From really close to the glass, you can almost make yourself believe you are flying down the Autobahn towards Belgium.
It's easy to miss a border in Europe these days: at first we just thought the town names had gotten really strange. Belgium, though, looks subtly different: somehow, the villages, the fields, the trees are slightly more... Belgian. Brussels, however, is extremely cosmopolitan, almost aggressively so. I lost count of the number of EU flags. Every hotel has an extensive collection of flags over the door.
The old city is a different story altogether. Here, on the Grand Square, the city's medieval and intricately carved town hall rears its distinctive spire. There are some beautiful buildings around it; old guild houses with gilded tools of the trade, palaces, all the architectural treasure that old rich cities seem to collect.
Our tour guide for the day is an old guy who is a little put out by our tendency to favor talking with each other over listening to him. He talks about all 17 times that Brussels has changed hands in the past couple centuries, about the tension between the Dutch-speaking Belgians in the north, and the French-speaking Vallons in the south, and how Brussels is (because of being invaded, natch) a little francophone island in the Dutch-speaking north. He talked at length about Belgian beer, and Belgian kings, and Belgian this and that... I barely knew there was anything other than Belgian waffles!
But you know who else is from Belgium? Tintin! Apparently Hergé was a pen name for Georges Rémi, a Belgian! Brussels is apparently a very important city in European comics history: I saw many murals like this one, depicting other comic characters throughout the city. I think of "comics" as having come from superheroes and a largely American thing; it's weird to think that Europe was developing its own style at the same time!
The hostel is exactly as I expected it would be: bunk beds and a couple of sinks in the room, everything else down the hall. We eat, then quickly freshen up and head downstairs; tonight is our only opportunity to try Belgian beer!
Of course, with 60 people in tow you can't just walk into a bar and order a couple. We do quite a bit of walking before we find a place that can and will take us all. But it's a nice place. Belgian beer is different, and good; we talk and trade each other sips until the Rotex round us up at twelve.
Next morning: The word is up and out: we have a long way to go. I perform the miracle of getting everything back in my suitcase in record time, and am one of the first on the bus. 
Unfortunately we have to wait for the last; this results in a chill half an hour of miscellaneous exchange student conversation.
Eventually the bus lurches into motion, and we are on our way to the Atomuim, a strange construction built for the 1958 worlds fair. It's recently been restored, so it's shiny, but still covered in zeerust. The old man from yesterday had showed up while we were taking pictures, and he wheezed facts over the bus intercom as we drove around and continued to talk to each other. I felt kinda sorry for him; he did a good tour, but we were far more interested in each other. But we dropped him in the city, and then we hit the road, saying goodbye to Belgium and heading southward to the Mosel... But that's a story for another day.
Wow... I'm amazed how much came out there! I didn't even know I remembered all that! Anyway, there's a lot more to come; I'm not going to do things exactly one day at a time; I'll just cut it how I feel it works best. But if this post is any guide, I'll be writing these until I leave!
Here is my Flickr album, and here is another take on the first day by the inimitable Kaya.
