when the aggies came to town...

i love utah state. sure, they have managed to suck all my money (and, unfortunately, any future money i may have) out of my clenched fists, but i still just love being an aggie... and i especially love other aggies.

similar to the south america study abroad cade attended the summer we met, usu has developed another great business program where students travel around and learn and so on... this semester, the participating students are lucky enough to travel around europe for a little while listening to speakers and studying business things. well, we were pleased as punch when we heard that many of our friends would be participating and that one of their stops would be right here in the fun capitol of the world: brussels!

being the seasoned residents we are, we gave them the grand tour- everything belgian. first we ate cade's favorite meal: dirams with andolouse sauce (turkish, not belgian- but since we have only ever eaten these meaty wraps here, we associate them with belgian culture). we thought it would be such a treat for them because we enjoy them so much- but then we found out that because dirams are the cheapest way to get full in europe, they had eaten like 20 of them already. they still manged to snarf them down with a smile.

next stop: grand place and the chocolate factories. we stopped off at neuhaus for a taste of their infamous chocolate. it is sooo good.

after the chocolate, we continued on to further famous sweets. a trip to belgium wouldn't be complete without a belgian waffle fully equipped with strawberries, chocolate and cream.

cade decided to save a little for later....

at the waffle shop, we introduced our fellow aggies to a typical belgian drunk. he sure loved to giggle, so heather, annalise and i agreed to take a 'giggle picture' with him. cade, the comedian, secretly took a video instead of a picture.

we all got a good laugh out of this guy, but he was kinda creepy and we were looking to ditch the drunk... but to our surprise, as we quickly started walking away we could hear the little giggles of our friend following close behind us. eventually he gave up and we were able to continue on the tour.

next we took them to see manneken pis, one of the most popular tourist attractions in town. this was our first visit to the peeing boy as well, and considering all that we had heard about it, we were expecting something a little different. the boy is only about 2 feet tall and guarded by a large fence, but it is still a great piece of belgian history.

the next day, some of the utah state business administrators came to obelis to discuss future internship opportunities and to see how cade's work is going (i am not a business student, thus they don't ask about me). this picture is taken at out work with our two bosses, doram and gideon, and two usu administrators, liz and krystn. our bosses must really like us because they let us take off for lunch with the usu students.

it was held at a nice hotel in the downtown area. we really were so glad to be there. the food was great and we got to chat it up with some fellow aggies. after lunch, we attended a lecture given by a nato representative...not really my area of expertise, but we managed learn a little bit and were glad to be out of the office on such a gorgeous day. the weather here has been so great for us thus far.

it was so nice having our friends come and visit. life in the states didn't seem so far away and people got our jokes. now that we have had a little practice giving the belgian grand tour, we are even more excited for our next visitors: my mom and her best friend, marilyn who are scheduled to drop in next week!