Ramsey's First Article

When I first arrived in Leuven, I had very little knowledge of the city. Although I was tired, we had a wonderful tour guide that showed us the area surrounding ICL, and different historical parts of Leuven. I thought it was super interesting how the city walls, over time evolved, and they expanded the area of the city. She mentioned that it was because they could hold farms in the city walls, for warfare reasons. I also did not know that originally Leuven was the capital of Belgium, and after the war between two different dukes, the winning one moved the capital to Brussels, which effected the economy of the area. The essence of Leuven is very academic, along with lots of energy but peaceful and warm. It has surprised me how walkable the city is, and compared to Brussels it is a lot easier to get around. I also appreciated my time at NATO; I enjoyed listening to each speaker’s perspective and the building’s architecture. One of the speakers, Mr. Terrance Ferrigan, who was head of the Cyber and Hybrid Policy Section, had an impactful and down-to-earth lecture about the power of data, and misinformation. He gave personal experiences of how misinformation has affected his life, and how it is important to spot and educate yourself and others about misinformation that is spread through the internet. He also specified that his work with NATO, he sees countries push out misinformation to make populations have severe hate and rejection of each other with the creation of networks of fake websites. The sincerity of his speaking made me appreciate and understand his work more and how data can impact people’s ways of thinking. The NATO building was also stunning, and it featured gifts from countries that are in the organization, such as Greek relics and a Portuguese boat design. My experience in Brugge was fantastic, there was so much history to see, as well as beautiful architecture.