Max during his internship in Brussels, Belgium

Max: “Putting my little plastic bag of sandwiches on the table made me feel very unsexy.”

Why doesn't anyone here speak Dutch? Beware of this: if a place has several official languages, this doesn't mean that people on the street speak them.

Lunch

People eat pretty elaborate lunches here, which made me feel very cheap and unsexy and well, Dutch, for putting my little plastic bag of sandwiches on the table in between the plates of fries and elaborate salads.

Watching shows together

I did feel homesick, and Skype helped. If you have a shared Netflix account with a friend or a lover you can watch the same show together and chat over Skype, which is a lot of fun, particularly if you can hear the other one laugh. This does require somewhat decent internet, though.

Little differences

It was somewhat different in Brussels. Belgium is not that far away, so it was more a matter of little niggling differences than any major culture shock. Like how Flemish people are somehow both a lot more modest and a lot more pushy at the same time.

Befriend your housemates, but be wary of those who come up to you and immediately want you to come to this thing they're organizing.

The best cinema

Brussels, where I stayed, has the single best cinema I have ever set foot in. I'm not even exaggerating. Tickets are two euros each, and they show amazing celluloid prints of great classics on a literal daily basis. Checking out bookstores in other countries is also always nice.

Belgians in 3 words:

Basically Dutch, except...