Grocery Store

I love to go to grocery stores in other countries. I think it's fascinating to see what they have on offer, and I also like to take mental notes for things I can use to cook some of my favorite meals. While we were out we decided to stop in at the Carrefour, which is usually equivalent to the average super Walmart. I felt the need to take a picture of a few things:

Belgians LOVE their beer. There were two giant isles.

Fruit beers

Mini kegs

Each beer has its own particular kind of glass. These glasses were made so that they could hang from your carriage without spilling.

They also had 2 entire isles of international food. There was a small Mexican section with assorted meal kits. I appreciate the effort, but sorry Carrefour, that is not a burrito.

Finally we found these bad boys and decided to splurge (they were only 50 cents anyway!). They are made with real sugar, so they taste like the Dublins (not my favorite) but hey, not bad for being across the ocean!

They were also playing Vampire Weekend while we were in there, which was an odd, but awesome choice.

Waterloo

Today we got to get outside of the city a bit more. Janee had a doctor's appointment this morning in a little town just outside of Brussels. While we were out and about and had the car for the day we made a little trip over to Waterloo (the battlefield where the English and Dutch finally defeated Napoleon in 1815--for those of you who had football coaches for history teachers like I did). The town itself was cute, green and peaceful. It is amazing how everything changes when you get just a few miles outside of the capital.

Part of the battlefields

There were lots of bikers making the trip out to Waterloo, too.

William of Orange wanted to build a monument on the battlefield to mark the spot where his son was wounded in battle. Because they used almost 400,000 cubic meters of dirt to build the mound they actually ended up changing the topography of the actual battlefield quite a bit.

It was really cold and windy so we looked through the gift shop rather than climb to the top.

A look from further away.

Napoleon did get a little statue across the street--but it is obviously not that well kept (see lettering).

A Bit of an Introduction

OK, I've got a wee bit of time before dinner, so I thought I would throw out some introductions and a bit more from around town.

First off, this is Janee and Hary when we went to look at the Atomiam at night (we don't live to far from it).

Janee is from Illinois but has lived here for over 6 years and Hary is from Syria but he has lived here for over 10 years. (They have been married for 2.)

Hary has been trying to get his Beglian papers for a long, long time now, and finally this last week we went down to the city hall to pick up his temporary papers (his official ones will be ready in two weeks). After waiting for 10 years it was a pretty exciting moment.

As you can see.

Now for a bit more of Brussels:

This is in front of the Royal Palace where I thought I saw the princess. Turns out we are pretty sure it was just a part of a wedding party.

Part of a nice old cathedral.

There was a nice little park by the church...

With a statues of famous Belgians. This guy is the most famous--he is the one who figured out how to put the map on a globe.

This cemetery is in our neighborhood and has one of the original casts of the Thinker statues on someone's grave. It was randomly closed today, but I'll check it out again.

And finally this is the neighborhood cathedral--I can see its steeple from my bedroom window.

Chocolate!

Well I have been in Belgium for almost a week now. There are lots of things I could talk about and lots of things we have done so far, but I'd rather talk about chocolate! Yesterday afternoon Janee and I got out of our neighborhood and went for a walk and tour of what I am going to refer to as the chocolate district. It is really just a nice area of town that has all of the famous chocolate shops in it. We tasted our way through--It was kind of like a wine tasting...but tastier.

We took the tram and got off at the palace and had a walk through the gardens (which are supposedly mirrored after the gardens of Versailles...although they were not that impressive). There was a statue of an angel baby slaughtering a pig (pictured up top, although it is a bit difficult to make it out). I thought that was interesting.

We saw an American flag flying at one of the buildings bordering the gardens, and after Janee told me that it was not the embassy we went to investigate what it was. After staring for a while I crossed the street to ask the guard what it was. It was the embassy. OK, so it was the back side (which apparently looks really different) so I guess that is why she was so confused. Anyway, the guard then told me that I couldn't take a picture (not that I wanted one) because if I did the van full of cops next to him would cross the street and delete it from my camera. OK. I kind of thought he was joking at first, so I asked him if I should try it out. He said I could, but that it was kind of scary. All right. Duly noted.

Anyway, from there we went into all the different shops looking at, smelling and tasting all the best chocolates.

We stopped at the only Côte d'Or chocolate shop in the world and picked out some interesting fresh chocolates including pecan and peppercorns, cranberry almond, marshmallow nougat, pistachio and sea-salt, pineapple, and cherry and green tea.

From there we went into a couple of well known shops such as Leonides which is really good and probably the most reasonably priced.

Then! We went into what Janee called the Tiffany's of Chocolates. Everything gets wrapped up in black boxes with black bows and, no joke, there was a consultant explaining different kinds of chocolates to a couple at a desk helping them to purchase what they wanted. Everything was also ridiculously expensive. They had fresh chocolates you could pick out and buy by weight, so considering it was the best of the best chocolate I figured I would splurge on a single piece. The guy behind the counter recommended his favorite--dark chocolate with a caramel espresso filling--and then gave it to me for free! I don't know if it would have been worth what I would have had to pay for it, but for free, it was a delicious bite of chocolate.

We stopped at the real Godiva shop for some fresh truffles.

This is my Irish Coffee truffle

Then we rounded out the day with a trip to Neuhaus for one last bite.

These were milk chocolates with toffee and a coffee/fudge/caramel-y center. Delicious.

All in all it was a great day! For one thing it was nice to just be in a different part of the city and it was a good reward for the 1500 ESL fliers we stuffed into individual mailboxes the evening before.

I MADE IT!

I made it! I am here! And...I am going to bed!

Turns out Belgian plugs require a different adapter, so my compy has been dead for a few days now. I just got a new one, plugged it up and its ready to go. Except...it's been a long day and I am headed to bed. Tomorrow starts early and it looks to be a full day.

But I am here! And I am loving it so far. So, just for fun, a few quick updates:

--I am horrible at refusing offers of chocolate.

--I have eaten a whole lot of chocolate.

--I have already created awkward "hello cheek kisses" moments.

--I have tasted Syrian food. It's yummy so far.

--I have learned a handful of French and Arabic phrases.

--I found my old nemesis: cobble stones. They are not friends of the clumsy.

--It has rained every night since I got here, but thankfully has only sprinkled on us once or twice during the day. Also, each morning I feel like it is going to be very cold by looking out and touching the window to be pleasantly surprised with a mild temp outside.

--I've eaten "Hawaiian" kebabs, ie. a gyro with lamb, pineapple and a thousand island-ish sauce. Tasty.

More interesting things to come...

Anti-Pet Peeves List

I read a blog a while back where the blogger talked about all the simple things that made her happy. She noted that there is really no word to express the opposite of the tiny annoyances of a "pet-peeve" but nevertheless set out to make a list of these kind of simple moments that made her happy. I realize that I have been doing too much complaining about all my to-do list tasks lately, so I thought I would sit down and do the same. There are hundreds more, but here are a few I've come up with:

• The feeling I get after two sips of coffee when my eyes pop.
• The way the grass at my parent's house looks after my dad mows it.
• Unexpected jokes (especially when it is 3rd grade/laffy taffy-esque humor!)
• Postcards in the mail. (Or just checking the mail in general.)
• When the perfect song for my mood comes on the radio or my ipod.
• Driving on a traffic free freeway at twilight.
• My Saturday morning routine of eating breakfast and reading the NYTimes' weekly travel stories.
• 80's music and bad dance parties.
• The look my students have when they figure out a new word in English.
• Waking up to a chilly room and being snug under the covers.
• Opening the door to a house that smells like food cooking (bonus if it is roast in the oven after church on Sunday).
• A made-up recipe that comes out yummy.
• When songs, poems or novels have really long titles. (See almost anything by Sufjan Stevens)
• When I walk outside to realize I am having a brief moment of exceptional depth perception (...I'll probably have to explain more about that one later).
• Wearing boots and crunching acorns.
• When I catch myself smiling at the TV, movie, book or a random thought. (Mostly because Lindsay used to make fun of me for this.)

And honestly, I'm smiling at my computer now just thinking about all these little things. Which is probably the point. : )

ROAD-TRIP!

This weekend the girls all got together for a mini road trip to San Angelo. I'm pretty sure it was what we all needed. We got to celebrate Abby's birthday, see the Hamilton's and Bakers, relax and kick up a little dust. For me it was nice to just get out of town on a road that wasn't I20 (and I didn't even have to drive!) and not write papers for a day. It was also nice to drive through all the windmills (or wind turbines for the technical). I get antsy out here, but I do love West Texas.

We had a great time having lunch at a cute little deli (even if we were getting plenty of stares...!), getting pedicures and just getting caught up. On the way back to Abilene we had to make a road-trip-esque pit stop at the giant spur we passed on the way. It even had a visitor center! We had a look and tried our luck at a few jumping pictures (which...were interrupted by the residents driving up. Oops!). Overall it was a great day catching up with the girls. It's going to be too long before it happens again, but a December road-trip is in order!

And just for laughs (I think we need more practice!):