It is not often I see eggs and milk sitting on the shelf in the store. Going grocery shopping, an ordinary outing I would never think twice of back home, looked quite different here in Gent.
I was a BCIT student on exchange in Belgium and you can meet some of the locals I encountered in this piece. However, to my surprise, I was not the only BCIT student from Metro Vancouver.
Greyson Dubé is from Port Coquitlam and has been living in Gent since September 2025. It was nice to have someone from home to spend time with while living in Gent.
On my second week, he showed me around Gent, the city he’s been calling home for the past seven months, and in return, I unintentionally provided him with a new perspective on this city and how sometimes even the ordinary outings can be somewhat extraordinary.
During my time living in Belgium, I also took advantage of visiting different places and having new experiences outside of Gent. Some weekends I travelled to different countries, as well as different cities in Belgium. Gent is located in the North of Belgium and close to the North Sea. Once I made my friend group and met likeminded people, we spent weekends going on trips together.
I call these adventures, side quests, which are diversions from my everyday life in Gent. These excursions, however big or small, offered growth and excitement during my time abroad.