Dernier Weekend

Hello lovelies! It is my last weekend here in Belgium, and I am so excited to go back to the States! I’m so glad I did an exchange year in Belgium, but it’s time to go home, ya know? I of course have missed my family and friends this year, but not in a need to see them right now way. Sometimes this year I did cry, but it was more in a ahhh having a hard time, feeling out of place way and consequently I felt homesick, but I wasn’t really crying for my family. But the other day I thought about my mom and I started to cry thinking about her, even though I’ll be seeing her in only a few days! The closer I get to my arival date the more anxious I get to see my family, which I guess explains the tears. Phew. Emotions are complicated.

Yesterday started with some 30 Day Shredding. I’ve been seriously slacking in the strength training department. I’ve always been more into cardio, and I kind of got into a habit of thinking that the 30 Day Shred is only 25 minutes or so, what difference does it make? Well then I realized, 25 minutes is a heck of a lot better than no minutes, and can certainly do some good. So glad I welcomed that crazy mofo Jillian back into my life. Afterwards I was starving for my bowl of Swiss oats with the European version of Light and Fit vanilla gunk yogurt.

This bowl included medjool dates, chopped cashews, the most delicious cherries ever, and diced banana. And thanks for the bowl compliment Janetha! Host mama MC doesn’t have a lot of dingingware options, but you’ll see new bowls when I’m finally chez moi, and hopefully pimped out ones when i go to Anthro and Target!

I had a few more errands to run including, unfortunately, another trip to town hall because they forgot to give me some papers, which ended up costing a few euros. But I ain’t complaining, at least I don’t have to go to Atlanta! (though I would love to go one day, but not after flying from Europe after staying there for a year and I just want to go home and not wait at some consulate for papers for customs). Then I got some shoes repaired and dropped off some German books at school. I know, you’re all thrilled right now. But I did see these beauties during my travels:

I’m not a big fan of hydrangeas, but I just loved the rainbow of color here. Literally this house’s entire front yard is hydrangea haven.

I lunched on a huge jass salad and baguette:

I have to say, you can’t usually find carrots like that in your average American grocery store.

My salad included my new favorite dressing: creamy herb blended with 1/4 of an avocado:

My salad included shredded carrots, chopped tomatoes, chopped red pepper, cucumber, spinach, and the dreamy dressing. I topped my multi grain baguette with raw goat cheese.

Look ma! I ate almost all raw without meaning to!

Then I took the train for the last time (whoah bizarre) to Brussels, because July means les soldes! The major shopping sales in Belgium are only in January and July, so when its soldes time il faut en profiter, meaning grab your wallets, ladies!  My exchange student friend met me there and I dragged her she accompanied me to the stores of Rue Neuve (equivalent to Fifth Avenue). She only complained a little that I shopped for 3 hours and only bought one shirt, but in my defense it was cute and only 8 euros.

Shopping tires a girl out, so I snacked on the fruit I packed:

The famous Wépion strawberries with canteloupe. Then my friend dragged me I accompanied my friend to buy Belgian souvenirs for her family. We were both b!tching at each other like none other, but it was the fault of our tired feet (but at least well pedicured feet) and we’re basically sisters, so we know we still love each other. While searching we found these huge crazies:

A couple of beers gets me kind of tipsy already, I can only imagine the damage those would do!

We met up with another friend and they had Thai food while I kept them company. I had my own dinner plans, because a friend of my family’s works for NATO in Brussels and, as I’m interested in international affairs and political science and all that jazz, we meet up for day trips and dinners. He has lived one CRAZY life. He worked in the foreign service and basically lived and travelled everywhere, including Kenya, South Africa, Haiti, Kazakstan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia, and so many other countries. I always hear new stories when we meet up. I didn’t photograph dinner but it was Moroccan and cooked in this:

a Tagine, which apparently moistens food. My dish was like a vegetable stew with couscous, very good though the appetizers disappointed me a bit with the dry pita bread. NATO man told me he admired my year in Belgium, and I thanked him, but later on during the meal he told me about the time he worked in Kosovo in the 90s and worked 120 hours a week for 10 months. He slept 4 hours or much less a night and worked basically non stop on organizing teams and crisis resolving. he survived on coffee and lots of cigarettes. When he came home to the States after his tour he slept for 4 days straight. And homeboy admires me!? Let’s just say he’s lived quite a life.

While looking for my friends NATO man and I found some Medieval reenactment going on in the Grand Place. I didn’t really get what was happening, but it was cool to watch.

Those were the best pictures my camera could manage, and trust me I tried my hardest for all you lovelies.

When I was six my family had an AFS exchange student from the Dutch speaking region of Belgium, Flanders. He now lives in Brussels and we reconnected before I came to Belgium. I spent the night at his apartment, as he lives near the Grand Place. I’ve been sleeping so intensely lately with crazy dreams, I think it’s because of the anticipation of going home soon. I gave host mama MC a blueberry plant for Mother’s day which suffered from some disease for a while (it’s better now!) and last night I dreamed that MC’s backyard was next to my house and the blueberry plant became all green and giant. My mom explained that she took care of it. The blueberries were as big as apples (too bad this isn’t real life here). I guess this symbolizes the fact that no one can fix a situation like your mama? When I woke up this morning I was surprised by how sore I was, then I remembered my session with Jillian yesterday? And that my friends, is why we do strength training. Lest I ever forget. Anyway, today my Flemish friend and I went to the Magritte museum.  I am a wannabe art buff and I was so excited to see this new museum, especially because I love Magritte. He is a Belgian artist and this museum has received a lot of hype recently. This is my favorite painting of his,

entitled Les Amants and this is one of his most well known works,

which is often referenced to. Unfortunately, the museum really disappointed me. The paintings didn’t have any explanations, which means you had to buy an audio guide if you wanted to understand the paintings better.  The collection didn’t include his best works, which I’ve seen at MOMA in New York. I can spend hours in an art museum and we were out of there in less than an hour. I’m glad I went though. Probably my favorite part of the museum was the exterior:

I remembered seeing an Ethiopian restaurant and my Flemish friend had never tried the cuisine so I said faut y aller (we must go). We took almost two hours walking around to find it, which was fine because it was a wonderful walk and we were starved when we did find it.  I also don’t have any photos of this meal, but try Ethiopian food, it’s very unique. It’s served on injera bread, made out of teff flour. It’s sort of like a crepe but with a sourdough, fermented taste. You eat with the injera by scooping the food and there are no utensils involved. Ethiopian food often includes lentils and lamb. Our meal included lentils, fish, stewed cabbage+carrots+potatoes, and spicy goat cheese+spinach salad.

I took some last photos of Brussels:

At the Grand Place.

Also a Grand Place pic.

The Bourse, the Belgian Wall Street. A very convenient meeting place by the Grand Place.

King Albert's humble abode! Brought to him by the wealth of the former Belgian colony, the Congo.

So strange to think this will be my last time in Brussels for a while!

My train ride home included some more coma like sleep, and host mama MC and I went to her parents’ house for some champagne. We also picked cherries and raspberries, and had some of her mom’s delicious vegetable soup. That and cherries will probably be my dinner, Ethiopian food is always a big feast for me and my tum is still enjoying all that injera goodness.

Tomorrow is my last day en Belgique. I can hardly believe it. This year feels like a long nap and I’m only now waking up.

Enjoy the fourth of July with your family and friends, I’ll definitely be thinking of mine! We usually spend the fourth at my mom’s best friend’s farm, with beautiful scenery, absolutely delicious food, and my dad’s attempt at fireworks. I’ll be there soon enough!

A toute à l’heure!

Maya

Loony Lundi

Happy Monday everyone!

Lundi in French means Monday. Today wasn’t particularly loony, but I liked the title idea.

Anyway, I woke up bright and early at 7 am to go for a run. It’s so great now that the sun rises early that I can run in the morning, I like the endorphin rush at the start of my day! I ran about three miles. My shower was positively GLORIOUS, for a long time the water pressure in my host mom’s shower was funky and would go from very hot to frigid to very hot again. I had to turn off the water every couple of minutes and then crouch in strange positions when the cold water blasted again. No more!

Breakfast was overnight Swiss oats. I combined this “fromage frais” or fresh cheese:

Don’t let the cheese name fool you, it’s really more like yogurt with more protein. I used half the container with 35 grams of multi grain oats (which is I guess between 1/3 and 1/2 a cup?) about 1/4 cup of skim milk, mixed it with chopped dates and let that sit overnight in the fridge. In the morning I mixed in a golden kiwi, diced:

 Have you ever seen golden kiwi before? I hadn’t. I also added 1/3 of a banana, diced and some more milk until I was happy with the consistency. Swiss oats bliss, enjoyed with my daily Earl Grey.

Luckily I had the endorphin rush to power me through a math final. Want to know what’s even worse than a math final? Taking a math final when grades don’t even matter for you. As an exchange student, I have to sit all my exams, but I don’t have to pass them. I shouldn’t complain though, there are way worse things to do than take an exam that doesn’t count! I spent about two and a half hours writing random numbers on my test, erasing them, and rewriting them (to make everyone think I was working). Then I played snake on my cell phone and texted my exchange student bff. I wrote my math teacher a note at the end, telling her I’m sorry I didn’t write more and that I enjoyed her class. This isn’t true, as she is allergic to all scented products, even soap and shampoo, and therefore has a body odor like none other I have ever smelled. Even worse, we had class in a room that had no windows, one of the only ones in the school. Good times right there. But I figured writing that note was the least I could do. I’m not a total glandeuse (slacker), I did well on my French and religion exams last week. But the 4.0, perfectionist student in me died a little today. I enjoyed, however, the first and last time in my life when I could really not give a f!ck about exams. When I left early, the kid who sits next to me in most of my classes (he’s 17, so I call him mon petit frère belge, or little Belgian brother) snickered, and I told him ta geuele.

My host mom leaves money in the kitchen drawer if I ever need to buy groceries. There’s two stores in my town, and a Delhaize about a 25 minute walk away. It’s worth going to Delhaize sometimes, because they have veggie burgers/meatless meatballs, hummus, organic products, and a good dried fruit/nut selection. It’s my Trader Joe’s this year. I walked there after my exam and bought some necessities, like yogurt and medjool dates. On the way there, I listened to a podcast of Radiolab on race. I’m an NPR podcast nerd. I learned if you recite all the letters of your DNA, one letter per second, it would take you a century to recite yourself. Crazy. On the way back I listened to Joni Mitchell, because it was that kind of day.

After a 3 mile plus walk, plus a revved up metabolism from my morning run, I was ready to eat my arm when I got home. Luckily I waited, and had a crack sandwich:

Whole wheat bread with a wedge of laughing cow cheese light, hummus, two chopped sun dried tomatoes (the PERFECT touch), paninied. On the side: some not so sweet melon and red currants from my backyard. That sandwich was delicioso, but I’m looking forward to getting Flat-Outs and trying the wrap version.

The afternoon was pretty mundane–I watched the Daily Show (basically my #1 source of American news here. To think I used to be a news junkie addicted to the Washington Post), read blogs, read a book. It was raining today, again. When they say it rains a lot in Belgium they aren’t lying. I needed a sugar/caffeine rush in the afternoon and had coffee with 1 tsp raw sugar and skim milk (I almost never drink coffee). I did Level 2 of the 30 day shred on youtube, a level I particularly like because my arms scream for mercy when I do military extensions and then the V raises. Seriously, sometimes I yell at Jillian. And while I found them annoying at first, I’m kind of digging those plank jacks now. After I made my version of a green monster, same as yesterday.

I wasn’t really feeling dinner yet at 7, but I hadn’t seen my host mom much this weekend and she ate at that time, so I chowed down on:

A baked sweet potato topped with a concotion of black beans, yellow pepper, a bit of tomato sauce, corn, onion, garlic, and cumin. The sauce creeping in the back there is samourai sauce. When you go to a friterie for Belgian fries there is a plethora of sauces to choose from. They go way beyond just ketchup here (plus they have curry ketchup, mmm) and most sauces are mayonnaise based. This one is SUPER spicy, I sometimes use it as a sauce, but often I use it as hot sauce. Just 1/2 a tsp stirred into these beans in the end gave plenty of hot flavor to my dinner.

Then my host mom and I watched Gilmore Girls in French. I watched the whole series in English with my mom in the U.S., and introduced it to my host mom, who has since become accro (hooked). To any of you GG fans out there, remember Michel the concierge of the inn? In the U.S. he’s stereotypically French, but in a French dubbed version where everyone speaks in French, to keep his foreign flair Michel is Italian. My host mom was like wtf you talking about, he ain’t French he’s Italian! and then I explained to her why they had to change it in the French version. Moving on.

After dinner I decided to visit my  “other” Belgian family. I met them halfway through the year and they adopted me, basically. My host mom doesn’t have an kids, so when I want a family ambiance I go down the street to chez les Granvilles. They have a 12 year old son, a 9 year old son, and a 2 year old daughter. The daughter is frickin adorable. The boys like to poke fun at my accent. In French they make this deep r sound, which is very hard for an Anglophone to make. I’m a lot better at this sound than before, but certain words are still hard for me. Clemence, the girl, is too little to properly say her r sounds, and the boys tell me she speaks French like me. I speak French like a 2 year old. Chouette.

I went on a bike ride with the mom, Anne, and Clemence. It was a wonderful ride, but it did kind of blow that in the middle of June I have to wear a coat. I want real summer weather.

Anne is as much of a tea fanatic as me, and after the bike ride we had Moroccan mint tea with turkish delight, a gift from one of her students. It’s kind of like jelly, covered in coconut, with pieces of pistachio inside. It’s super sweet, so a little nibble with my tea sufficed. Anne is so sweet, we had a long conversation after the kids went to bed about the festival in Mons, the lazer hair removal she’s doing tomorrow (expensive as sh!t, 60 euros per session and it can take up to 10 sessions to work, but it might be worth it), and bats (Which, she informed me, translates to vleermuis, or bald mouse, in Dutch. Wtf?)

No exams for me tomorrow! Yippee!

A toute à l’heure!

Maya