Showing posts with label Belgium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Belgium. Show all posts

Friday, July 26, 2013

Fancy Food Friday

Oh, hey look! It's actually Friday this time! Bonus point for me!

I should probably devote my posts to something other than food....like our day-trip to Brugge a couple weekends ago or how I missed the coronation of the 7th king of Belgium because of my ridiculous insomnia problems or how we've booked flights down to Venice and Rome for my last full weekend here or that we're headed to Paris in the morning....

I'll post the stories and pictures later. Promise. 

Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures from our dinner Monday night. We were invited to dine at the house of our boss's colleague Patrizia, who has been volunteering her time to help us with our project. She and her husband are from Italy and are some of the nicest and most well-educated people I've ever met. Being Italian, of course, the "small pasta dinner" they promised was not exactly small.

We started with wine glasses full of apple juice, fizzy water, and regular water (not all at once, obviously). The first course was a delicious spaghetti plate.
Next, Andrea dished each of us a scoop of cold mashed potato, tuna, and caper salad 
as well as a delicious Greek cucumber and garlic salad. 
Once we finished with that (and we were already starting to feel full...), 
they brought out the bread and ratatouille. 
Dessert consisted of a raspberry chocolate cream cheese tort (cake) and a chocolate mousse tort,
and then we finished off the evening sipping mint herbal tea and having pleasant conversation. 
Such a lovely evening with such lovely people.

Besides that amazing meal, I mostly just eat potatoes. 

Except this blasted, muggy, sticky, Europe-doesn't-believe-in-air-conditioning, energy-draining heat has led me to discover something magical. 
We've been sticking everything we possibly can into the itty-bitty 5" x 6" x 12" freezer box in the top of our tiny refrigerator. So one day, I stuck a little cup of peach yogurt in there. A couple hours later, I pulled it out and scooped it onto a warm Belgian waffle dripping with gooey apricot jam. 

YOU GUYS!!!! 

Heaven. 
Absolute perfection. 
And dare I say it, better than Nutella. 
So this is my current obsession/daily, after-work snack. 



MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. :)


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Saturday, July 20, 2013

Fancy Food Friday

ok. So maybe it's Saturday now. But this was meant for Friday.


I've never been one of those people who sees a need to photograph everything they're eating.

But GUYS!
Food is so yummy!!!

Especially the stuff I've been making and eating lately.
I'm obsessed.

So enjoy and drool and go eat yummy food.

Authentic pomme (apple) scone, hand-made framboise (raspberry) gummies, and sugar-roasted almonds
from the medieval fair

Street waffle.....but they're just as good when you buy them from the store and stick them in the microwave

lunch one day.... toast with tomato/pesto, gouda, and oregano

melted Belgian truffles... Super cheap from the supermarket

This is called a Chocolate Bomb

It's basically a giant chocolate mousse truffle

This has been a frequent meal this week.
Tomatoes and fresh basil and fresh mozzarella
(and please notice the amazing tarts also on the table)

I don't even like tomatoes usually, but I could eat this every day.
YUM.

Gelato.
Framboise, Citron, et Melon
(raspberry, lemon, and the most delicious melon I've ever tasted)

On slow mornings, I make big breakfast.
Hashbrowns with a "yokey" egg and ketchup, toast with amazing apricot jam, and orange juice




I like making pretty food. 

and I like eating pretty food. 

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Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Adventures of an Archivist: Brussels and Work and Allergies and Neuhaus and Waterloo

So...remember how I live in Belgium? Oh yeah. So I should probably blog about it. Actually, I should blog about a lot of things, and especially finish The Story, but life happens, and I'm getting around to it, ok?

Anyway. So Belgium. I live right in the middle of Brussels, one block west of Grand Place, kitty-corner from the Police Station, 4 stories above a small frite and kebab shop called Snack Family. There. Now all you internet creepers can stalk me. :)

The panorama view from my window



our apartment. Tiny kitchen on the left, bathroom in left corner, bedroom straight ahead with entryway just to the left of it.
view from the top floor of the church building
(about a 25 minute walk from our flat)

While it's amazing living in Europe, it definitely doesn't feel like a vacation. 

I wake up early every day, walk 15 minutes to the archive through a sketchy part of the city, past all the corner markets and coffee shops with middle-aged men sitting outside with their newspaper, coffee, and cigarette smoke. And then I work for 8 hours, scanning and republishing antique collections from the archives of the local theatres before walking home somewhere between 4 and 5 every afternoon.

The entrance to the archive. This is inside a courtyard that's blocked off from the public.
Rockin' the T-shirt and jacket and bed-head and sticky-fingers. Yay scanning thousands of pages!
Receiving a shipment from the archives of the local Theatre Royale to add to our project.

My afternoon ritual usually includes a Belgian waffle with Nutella and strawberries, followed by a two-hour nap. Most evenings, I'm able to Skype my family and text the fiance a little bit. The 8 hour time difference makes schedules kinda hard to coordinate. Dinner is usually around 9 PM because the sun doesn't set until 10:30 PM, and then bedtime is usually around midnight or 1 AM.


Typical lunch: Crackers and brie, or bread & gouda, usually with a plum.
But don't worry. I can't get fat because I get to go up and down these several times every day. Not my favorite.

A big difference between the big cities of the U.S. and the big cities in Europe is the speed at which people live life. While Brussels is big and full of tourists, it also has a "sleepy" feel. Mornings are slow and leisurely. People don't bustle down the street in a hurry, but rather take their time, stopping to look in shop windows or light a cigarette or read a book. Dogs follow their humans without a leash. Cars stop for pedestrians. And people stay out on the street all night long. Literally.

The weather is nice, if a bit bipolar. Mornings are usually drizzly, and we walk to work wearing light jackets. Afternoons are usually sunny, and we keep the windows open most of the time. Unfortunately, I am somehow allergic to summertime in Belgium. Severely. I've never experienced allergies this bad for this long. I sneeze every day. A week ago, we went to a barbecue with some of the Young Single Adults in the area, and I almost died. Maybe literally. We were in a back yard most of the time, and I started having sneezing fits (where I sneeze every 3 seconds up to 30 or 40 times, yes, it's exhausting. yes, it makes me wish I was dead.). I went inside to blow my nose and wash my hands so that I wouldn't spread any itchiness to my eyes. Too late. Soon, my eyes were watering and getting red, splotchy patches around them. Everything itched - eyes, nose, ears, throat, everything. I started coughing and wheezing. I could barely breathe and sounded like a smoker when I tried to talk. So we left and took the bus home. It only got worse, so as soon as I got in the door, I jumped in the shower to rinse whatever I was allergic to off of me. Then I found some clean clothes and laid in bed with a cold washcloth over my swollen eyes. I felt much better by the next morning, though my voice was still pretty raspy. On the way home from work, we found an apothecary, and the lady gave me twenty pills for "city allergies". Whatever they are, they definitely work. Now I'm back to only sneezing a few times a day. Stupid allergies.

The amazing backyard where we had the bbq

and the super cool, kinda creepy room on the top floor of the house



and allergies making me pathetic and miserable.
And of course, being in Europe, I have to take advantage of the food and history and culture, right?

Well, I'm happy to report that for my birthday on Friday, we left work early and took the metro to the Neuhaus Chocolatiere. Not just a little chocolate shop, but the actually factory where they make the stuff. And the best part? The unlimited free samples of anything you could possible want to taste. Oh. My. Gosh. Lindsey and Elise took to splitting chocolates, but I just ate them whole. And I probably sampled a great majority of the collection. It takes less than 20 minutes for the intensity to hit you. People with average rich-chocolate tolerance would be sick, but I endured and was mostly just really, over-the-top happy about life. Uh...I'm pretty sure I avoided the alcohol-imbued chocolate. ;) It was a fantastic adventure, and I can't wait to go back to stock up before returning home to America.

Elise, Lindsey, and me

You really have to concentrate to make sure you get all the subtle flavors ;)




On Saturday, we were supposed to go on a beach trip with the YSAs, but the weather wasn't great, and we like our sleep, so instead, we planned an afternoon outing to Waterloo. Yes, as in the Battle of Waterloo, aka: Napoleon's downfall. So I suppose I can provide you with some pictures from that. I've gotta say, it was pretty dang cool.




Visitors' Centre, Lion Mound, and the Panorama painting

Napoleon's death mask, which is kinda cool.

Lion's Mound



And then, we missed our bus home by 20 minutes, so we had to wait 2 hours until 8 PM for the next one. Luckily, McDonald's was close by, so I got a chocolate parfait to keep me happy. :)

This week has been kinda crazy with work so far. We've run into a lot of problems with the technology and the software systems that we work with, so there's not much we can do besides deal with it. It's really slowing down our progress though. We've been working about 10 hours per day, so come Friday, I guess we'll just get off early. And on the calendar for this weekend? A trip to Brugge, one of the lace capitals of the world. :)


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Saturday, March 16, 2013

The Opportunity of a Lifetime...Again.

Funny how plans that have been set for months suddenly change after one day.

I was really looking forward to a long, hot summer in Arizona.
The pools.
The popsicles.
The water-fights at the park.
The late-night runs to Sonic and Pizza-Mart.
The family.
The boy.
The friends.
Fourth of July with everyone.
The swimsuits.
The barbecues.
The sunshine.
The heat.
The monsoons.

My four months of Arizona summer have now been cut in half.

I'll move out of my apartment up here mid-April, and move home.
The boy comes home mid-May.
(EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
And mid-June, I'm leaving him (yay for Skype) and everything else behind
to move to Brussels.

As in Belgium.

For 10 weeks.

And I'm getting paid to go.

Um...WHAT?!



Right now at work, we're doing this massive project that consists of scanning thousands of antique music scores from operas and ballets and putting them (along with all the current research on them) into a giant online database so that researchers around the world can have access to them. We're spear-heading the project, but we've been able to convince archives around the world, including Harvard, to scan their special collection archives as well to add it to the database. One of these archives happens to be in Brussels. Last summer, five of my coworkers went. This summer, my boss received funding for two (maybe three) students to go, and he's offering one of those spots to me. He also said that if I go this year, he'll probably send me back next year for a few days to present at an international conference. 
Once again, ummm...what?!

Oh, and did I mention that I'm getting paid?
As in, my food, housing, and flight are all completely paid for,
PLUS a paycheck on top of that.

So really, I could go for free if I want.
Except I'm going to do a lot of travelling on the weekends.
And probably buy a lot of stuff. :)

So...Yeah. I'll be gone probably from June 14th to August 24th-ish, ten days before Fall semester starts.
It's going to be awesome.
And hard.
And exhausting.
And life-changing.

I can't believe that this will be my third time in Europe, and I'm not even twenty-one.
I'm turning  into one of those people.
And I'm not sorry. :)

As for weekend travels, I'm already making my list.
London
to do all the stuff I didn't have time for last year.
Salzburg
didn't think I'd make it back to my favorite place in the world so soon.
Paris.
Spain.
Italy.
Germany.
Greece. 
Switzerland.

My friends who will be in Europe this summer, anyone care to meet up at Notre Dame Cathedral and split a baguette and some cheese?
Or how about some gelato on the bench outside Mozart's house?
Let me know! :)

Time to brush up on my Italian and German.
And time to learn some French.
I hate French.
Anyone wanna help me?


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