Shiza!

Hey! Hope you’re all enjoying my blog so far. If you have any questions/comments/or recommendations, please tell me! I’d love to hear how I can improve this blog, and your ideas are greatly appreciated!

So I thought I would run this morning, and put my alarm on for 6:30. I woke up and said not happening. I thought I would sleep just for another half hour or so…and then I woke up at 8:45. My German exam started at 8:30. Shiza! Honestly though, I needed the sleep and I’m glad that I slept well. My German teacher ended up not minding at all, and I stayed just a bit later than everyone else to finish.

I had to rush breakfast a bit, which I hate, but tant pis:

Swiss oats with fromage blanc (plain), multi grain oats, chopped medjool dates (love the chew they add) and milk with raspberries, blueberries, and 1/3 a banana.

The exam was alright. I wish I learned more German this year, but it’s hard to learn a foreign language in French, and also I only had it two hours a week. How can you learn a language as complicated as German with only two hours a week?

I had another stupid moment today. I signed up for Google Reader and added blogs to it, because apparently it’s what all the cool kids do. But I didn’t see how it was helpful because I couldn’t see when new posts were added with numbers everywhere. Then I realized there’s a tout marquer comme lu boutton (mark everything as read) and voilà! I can actually see new posts now! This really shouldn’t have taken me this long to realize.

I threw together random things from the fridge for lunch, and it ended up being quite tasty. I made a tofu scramble with bell peppers, firm tofu, some roasted veggie tomato sauce, cury powder, and caramelized onions at the end. I need to keep caramelized onions on hand at all times, it’s wonderful. The sweet onions and the spicy curry went really well together. I stuffed the scramble in half a toasted whole wheat pita and had a fruit medly on the side featuring my love:

fresh pineapple!

The medley also had cherries, honeydew, and straberries.

Le diner all together. In France, breakfast is petit dejeuner, lunch is dejeuner, and dinner is diner. But in Belgium breakfast is dejeuner, lunch is diner, and dinner is souper. I get really confused when I just read a French book or watched a TV show in French and we start talking about meals with all the dejeuner and diner inversions.

Anyway! Today it was gorgeous outside.

And when the weather is this nice, you have to profiter (take advantage). Which I did by going on a 5-6 mile walk while reading the 7th Harry Potter.

I love Caitlin’s Operation Beautiful idea, and while looking in the mirror today I laughed a bit at my ringlets.

Sometimes I hate on my curls (especially in humidity, ya know what I’m sayin?), but really, so many people pay a lot of money for what my hair just does by itself. And I have to love it, because it’s what defines me.

Not the best picture of me after a 6 mile walk, but whatevs. Then it was time for a green monster, because it’s been a while:

Of course, made in my ghetto fashion. I don’t have much to talk about in between this monster and dinner. Today was just a lounge around day, which is TOTALLY fine with me, considering I have two back to back trips this week and won’t be home until next Thursday.

So for dinner we had salmon, risotto with some dying spinach wilted in, and a chicon salad. Chicons are what we call Belgian endives. In France they call chicons endives, but Belgians insist that is not the right word. I read once that the biggest dispute amongst Wikipedia users to date was whether the proper word for a Belgian endive is endive or chicon. Some people have intense pride for their national veggies. I never really liked Belgian endives raw (they’re very bitter) but I got used to the taste here and now really enjoy them in a salad. Belgians often eat them cooked in the oven with ham wrapped around it, bechémal sauce, and grated cheese on top. I take mine sans ham, bien sur.

There isn’t a picture of my plate, because I dined with host mama MC, and she probably would have found it a bit strange to take a picture of my dinner (she finds green monsters strange enough as it is). What do you bloggers do? Do you tell people about your blogs? Or just snap pictures and not really explain?

Because today was boring, I thought I would explain more about Belgium, because it’s a funny country. But I think I’ll do that another time, this homegirl is tired and needs more beauty rest because I have a German oral exam tomorrow. I barely know how to write in German! German sounds are fairly similar to the sounds made in French, so my classmates don’t have a problem. But I can’t distinguish between ooou and ooooouu (that’s my attempt at spelling out sounds that are imossible to explain without hearing it). So once again: shiza!

So instead, I leave you with this song. It’s played a lot here (maybe in the U.S. too? I have no idea anymore.) It’s called Walking on a Dream, and the video is kind of strange, but it’s a great song! I’ll probably post songs a lot, because I can barely go a day without looking for new songs.

A toute à l’heure!

Maya

Doudou Degradation

Hope you all had a glorious weekend!

I spent this weekend in Mons, a nearby town with an annual blow out festival, Ducasse de Mons, nicknamed Doudou. As you can imagine, the nickname always makes the American exchange students snicker.

Anyway on Saturday, after going to bed at 3:30 trying to figure this wordpress sh!t out, I woke up at noon. I almost never do this. My thoughts immediately turned to breakfast, and I devoured this beauty:

Multi grain oatmeal (about 35 grams) cooked in 1 cup of water on the stove with a 1/3 of a banana. When the oats absorb the liquid, I add splashes of milk and cook longer until I’m satisfied with the consistency. At the end I added cinnamon and a chopped nectarine. If you’re wondering what’s all over that spoon there, why it’s:

The infamous speculoos spread. Think lightly spiced gingerbread cookie in spreadable form. Yes, it really is as good as you’re imagining. Mmm this oatmeal was like peach cobber in a bowl!

I then facebooked a bit, called my parents, and took a nap. I needed the sleep reserves knowing what the night had in store! I wasn’t that hungry, but knew I should have something before taking the train to Mons, so at 5:30 I made a green monster…

…with 2 cups tightly packed spinach, the rest of my breakfast banana frozen, and 1 cup of milk. I watered it down until I liked the consistency, which doesn’t affect the taste. I’m doing a little 30 day glow challenge because I want a summer glow to my face.  And yes I do use a hand blender, because my host mom doesn’t have a blender! When I get home in Maryland I’ll make a green monster as it should be made, but this will do for the time being!

With my green monster I had a piece of whole wheat bread with walnut butter and a chopped medjool date. P.S. date and peanut butter sandwiches are the bomb.

I found this walnut walnoot butter in a grocery store in Amsterdam, hence the Dutch on the label. I think from now on I will always call walnuts walnoots. It’s just really fun to say.

With some strawberries because I can. That green monster with the little spinach bits that don’t get totally chopped in my hand blender is so attractive, right? And yeah, I drink it in that big plastic cylinder and don’t bother with proper drinking glasses, cause I’m classy.

I then met my friends on the train to Mons (I’m going to miss accessible, cheap trains in the U.S.!) and we walked around Mons for a bit before the night festivities.

I’d never been to Mons before, it’s a beautiful town! 

Ducasse is basically about reinacting the game of St. George, called the Lumeçon. It also has to do with the plague and the middle ages, and something about Trinity Sunday, but really, it’s all about the dragon. That big stuffed dragon right there cost 50 euros. I passed.

I said non, merci to the snails. I also said non, merci to the Belgian fries and other street foods, because I brought a veggie burger on whole wheat bread and an apple.

We then hung out in a park, where we drank bottles of 2.50 euro rosé wine. Gotta love Europe, where wine, and not bad wine at that, can be cheaper than juice. I had half a bottle, but over a night, so it didn’t do too much damage (this may be due to the fact that my half finished bottle was thrown into the bushes by an angry, and intoxicated exchange student, but enough about that).

As the sun set, the crowds in the main square (the Grand Place) started to form. It was legit rediculous. We spent most of the night in the park, but ventured out into the Place when we had the courage to face the mobs. There was music pumping everywhere, beer flowing from the taps, and of course (in true Belgian festival fashion) the side streets reeked of…well…piss (Just telling it like it is here).  At one point in the night, a group of guys came over to us in the park, peered into the girls’ faces, and then responded with ouis and nons. We were like wtf? to which they responded, “Sont les niveaux d’amour” (it’s the levels of love). Uh thanks for grading us in our faces, you biatches. Degradation #1.

One of my friend’s host sisters has a studio apartment about 10 minutes from Mons, so my three friends and I crashed there at 4 am. The dragon fight takes place at noon, so we left the apartment at 11 and fought our way through the crowds to the Place.

Seriously, the crowds were out of control. When the dragon started coming through, festival organizers shoved people together to clear the way, shouting “Reculez ou avancez! Reculez ou avancez!” (Move back or go forward!) I never felt more like an animal in my life. Degradation #2. I got shoe marks on my feet. But it was worth it to experience the festival! The dragon has a tail made of horse hair, and you fight to grab a hair. The tail swings over the crowds, and if you do snag a hair, you have a lifetime of bonheur or luck. Unfortunately, it rained in the morning and during the fight.  Typical Belgium. Apparently, even if it rains in the morning, it’s supposed to stop raining during the combat, and it’s never rained during the fight in centuries. It did. Oh well. We couldn’t make it to the dragon combat bit, so we watched a bit on the giant screens. It would have been lame to take a picture of the screen, so here’s a picture from Google for you:

We left right before the end of the battle, because we were starved (packaged chocolate covered dinosaur cookies don’t make the most filling breakfast) and we could only imagine the chaos of the mobs after the fight. We devoured pizzas near the Place, and then took the trains home.

After a long weekend, I couldn’t wait to come home, go on a run, shower, take a nap, and have a snack. My host mom leaves the back door open for me, but for the first time ever, she locked it yesterday. Chouette. She didn’t answer her cell phone, and as it is Father’s Day today, the adorable Belgian family who lives down the street (they’ve kind of adopted me as their American daughter) wasn’t home. I took a nap in the back garden and then sat around listening to my ipod. Nature eventually called, and I met a neighbor down the street who let me use her WC (they say that a lot in Belgium) and we talked about my year here, how Venice is sinking, the new French global warming documentary Home. She was très sympa (very nice). My host mom Marie Christine (or MC in the hood) finally came home from her outdoor excursion with her parents for Father’s Day, and I attacked a plate of whole wheat spaghetti and tomato sauce.

That was a supa long post! Hope you enjoyed it! I’m going to read some blogs now and, despite my better judgement, drink a green monster. Probably drinking a monster so late at night isn’t a good one, but my face needs its greens for the day!

Question: In a not so smart move, when I registered on wordpress, I made my URL mayapamela.wordpress.com Then I realized that I just wanted that to be my username, and not my URL but it was too late. I made a second URL, the American Gourmande one you see here. When I comment on most blogs, my name links to AG, but when I comment on a blogspot blog, it links to the mayapamela URL. Argh! Can I permanently delete the mayapamela URL? Any other suggestions?

A toute à l’heure!

Maya