Holiday "break"??

Carl's winter break has officially begun, but there's a catch: he has three major essays of 15+ pages each due when his classes start up again on January 14th! I guess that's how it goes with a condensed, one year MA program - even your "breaks" aren't really breaks. That's okay though, he's making some good headway and is on track to have two of the three essays completed (and the third researched) by the time we leave for Rome on New Year's Eve. That way he'll only have one of them to finish after we return. That's the plan at least, we'll see how it goes!

On tap for this coming week: a 10 mile run today (should be fun in the current freezing temperatures!), our last French class tomorrow, my last two Dutch classes of the year on Tuesday and Thursday, and an overnight trip to Aachen, Germany next Sunday! Believe it or not this will be my first time leaving Belgium since we arrived here (not counting the U.S. trip to get my visa), and I'm excited! Thalys, one of the inter-city European train companies, has a train that takes you there in only 90 minutes. Aachen is not only the closest German city to Brussels, but it also has a Christmas market that's supposed to be nice to visit. I paid another visit to the Brussels one yesterday, but I'm looking forward to seeing a German version of it. Keep an eye out for a trip report with photos next Monday! After we return from there we'll stay close to home in order to allow Carl to get his work done, then it's off to Rome!