Research, supermarket shopping and such

So I've been trying to get my assignments done, and as such haven't been doing the usual ticky-touring in the weekend. But I did go to the supermarket, (wohoooooo!) where I found this delightfully tiny bottle of Fanta. I was too cheap to buy it, so I got Orestis to take a photo of me. Also, had dinner with some people up on the 12th floor of Boudewijn, where there was whipped cream for dessert. Hence the patriotic dessert plate - but it wasn't done by me!

Other than that I'm not very exciting, head down, bum up, will be writing papers for the next couple of weeks.

Hope Waikato gets some rain soon!
xxx nelle

Daylight Savings - Time's a changin'

Hello everyone!

Just to let you know that Belgium is going into the future this Sunday 30th March, so we will then be only 11 hours behind NZ time. BUT then it changes again on Sunday 6th April when you lot in NZ go back one hour, meaning that Belgium will be only 10 hours behind.

So if you want to talk to me, I will be 11 hours behind from the 29th NZ time until the 6th April, and after that I will be 10 hours behind.

Ok? xxx

Luxembourg - Winter Wonderland!

I think yesterday took the cake of all my travels so far. We went to Luxembourg, a small country to the south, smooshed in between Belgium, France and Germany. It's the last Grand Duchy of the world (its leader is a Duke) and its capital city, also called Luxembourg, is just a 3.5 hour train ride from Gent. So, we all decided to get up at 5am and catch the earliest train, so that we could spend the day there! It was still snowing when I biked to the train station, which is the craziest thing ever. I mean, who bikes in the snow? Me! and it was rad!!

This also means I travelled almost the entire length of Belgium in one day - from Gent to the southern-most city, Arlon. And the amazing thing was that I got to see it all covered in SNOW. It was so awesome. Then from Arlon it is just a 10 minute trip to Luxembourg. Also, the train we took also went to Zurich in Switzerland! How very exciting!!

Luxembourg is different from Belgium because of the landscape, and the building style. Firstly, unlike Flanders which is completely flat because its mostly reclaimed land, Luxembourg has hills and ravenes and stuff. I can't describe to you how nice it is for me to see land contour after living in a completely flat place for only 2 months. Also, In Luxembourg they speak Luxembourgish, which I am told is a dialect of high German. Also there is a lot of French spoken there.

One of the most amazing things is that the castle establishing Luxembourg was built in the year 962 AD. We even got to visit the casemates/crypts below the castle, and the rooms. It was pretty darn cold and creepy down there though so we didnt stay long. We walked a tour route of the city that included all the historic buildings and history of the town. We didn't really make it to the modern city on the outskirts, but did visit the main squares etc. There was a music festival on in the city centre for Easter, and lots of bands from New Orleans had come to play. So we had lovely music over lunch and listened to all the Americal accents. Also, because it was Easter Monday there was a big fair and lots of stalls in the street. Luxembourgers make bird-call okarinas called Peckvillchens, they make lovely sounds just like real birds. Lucky I have to travel light or I would have come home with a lot of neat stuff from that fair!

Then we took a bus to the European Commission buildings - the European Parliament and the Court of Justice (which is just being finished and is possibly the most heinous set of buildings I have ever seen). Then arrived back to Gent to find that the snow is starting to thaw and re-freeze. Isobel's chain came off so I walked home, which is probably lucky considering how slippery the ice is!


I had a great time in the snow, and Luxembourg is a lovely city (we didn't get to see any other towns yet) so if anyone is passing by I would reccommend it!

SNOW FIGHT at 11pm!

I was just getting ready to go to bed tonight, on Easter Sunday, and I looked through my blinds to see what the weather was like (we have a trip tomorrow). It was SNOWING. I'm using capital letters because I'm so excited! Proper snow, building up on the trees and fences and stuff outside.

So of course I flew downstairs with my camera to have a play. And while I was outside, someone threw a snowball at me. So I threw a snowball back, and ended up having a massive snow fight with 2 Belgians. Until my hands got so frozen I thought they were going to drop off. I also made a snowman, and trudged through the fresh snow on the grass (which makes that neat squidgy sound like cornflour). Unbelieveably awesome!!!

Easter Sunday

Most students went back home to their respective countries for Easter, but a few of us who are staying in Gent for the holidays decided to have Brunch together. We had a lovely array of food, pancakes from me, a rice pudding from the Portugese, stuffed eggs Italian-style, and yummy sandwiches. Also plenty of chocolate, and champagne! We learned about what each person does for Easter in his/her country, and discussed all our different beliefs too - Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim and Atheist. Mum will be proud that we had the little yellow chickens too :)



Had a great, relaxing day. Then had to bike home in the rain/snow/sleet!


Happy Easter to all my lovely NZ folk.
Lots of love, xxx nelle

International Dinner at Home Boudewijn

On Wednesday night (after making waffles) we had the International Dinner here at Home Boudewijn, because the kitchens here are the largest of all the student residences (and our group is getting large!). It started off well; I managed to source tables and chairs for the 20 people that were showing up. But then the fire alarm went off just as people began to arrive! So we had to go through the evacuation process, which took far too long and the warden informed us that we would all have burnt to death if it had been a real fire. At least I know where the fire escape is now!

The dinner was great, we had a really tasty variety of food from all over the place – Italian pasta, lentils and pork, Hungarian chicken, Turkish pastry and meat, French salad, Ecuadorian salad, German leek and pasta dish, Greek dessert. I made garlic bread and offered some Marmite to people who wanted a little try. I got some great photos of people’s responses to the taste, so it was worth the sacrifice of a little of my precious marmite to share with everyone!

Don't think anyone really liked the Marmite, but it was funny to watch them try all the same. All in all a good eating day - with the waffles and the dinner! ;)

Suikerwafels !!!

Today I got to make WAFFLES. Belgian waffles, or to be precise, Liege Waffles (because they are the sugary ones). The Low Countries Studies class gave 30 students (out of 250) the opportunity to go to the local hotel/chef school to learn how to make traditional Belgian waffles. So I had to get in quick to register!

We had the most fabulous time. The 3rd best chocolateur (from competitions) in Belgium was there to show us how to make them. We split into groups, put on our aprons and hats, and then began to make the dough. First you start with a ring of flour and mix in the egg and milk with your hands, this mixture also has yeast so you have to knead it and let it rise a bit to get that proper doughy texture of the waffle.


Then you have to smear it all over the bench top to knead it!

Then, you add in some special lumps of sugar, knead it some more, let it rise, and voila! you have waffle dough!! (you can even see the lumps of sugar in the photo below - they go nice and crispy and gooey when the waffle is cooked);

Then the dough is cut into little strips to put in the waffle iron. The Iron is about 200 degrees, and you just put the dough on, and shut the lid!


Then when they are cooked (so they are soft on the inside, and crispy on the outside, mmmmm), you take them out! Check out my awesome cooking skills! (We all got a turn cooking our waffles)

Now comes the interesting part, we got to dip our waffles in CHOCOLATE. So, we were shown the proper way to make hot dipping chocolate. It is heated to 50 degrees, then spread out on a cold marble surface to cool it down to a temperature where it will set on the waffle. The chef told us it takes 3 years of training to learn how to control the temperature and structure of the chocolate, these Belgians really know their choc! So he just 'knew' by looking at it, when it reached 28 degrees (which is the exact temperature when the chocolate forms some kind of crystal that makes it set on the waffle properly) and then we were good to go with the dipping. He told us all kinds of interesting stuff, like did you know that Belgium produces most the the world's chocolate? Cacao beans come to Belgium, and it is made to cacao butter in huge factories, and then exported around the world to be made into chocolate? Except for the USA, who apparently do their own. AND also, chocolate is transported in LIQUID form!! Like in tanker trucks!! At 40 degrees! Amazing.



AND we also got to try some famous Belgian hot chocolate milk. The chef makes really nice stuff with real vanilla beans, cardamom beans, and lots of melted chocolate. He showed us how to prepare the vanilla beans etc, and apparently they are very expensive because Coca Cola bought out ALL the vanilla bean plantations to guarantee supply and limit competition for vanilla coke!


And then, the best moment of all, we got to eat our efforts ;) You can see I got chocolate all over my face...


I had so much fun! And I have the recipe too, so if i find a waffle iron, I'll surely be making waffles back home! YUMMM :)

Trip to Leuven

This weekend's trip was a little impromptu. We had decided to go to Ypres /Ieper, which is where the battle of Paschendaele took place (and there are Commonwealth and NZ memorials there as a lot of ANZAC soliders were killed there in WWI). But having then discovered that the memorials are out of the city centre and we needed to pre-arrange transport to visit them, we decided to leave that for another time and go to Leuven instead. I have been through Leuven twice already, once on the way to Aachen and again on the way to Namur. But we had never stopped there.

Leuven is one of the three University / student towns of Belgium - Gent, Antwerp and Leuven all have Universities. It wasn't a very nice day and rained several times, but we still got to see some great stuff. Our weekend trips seem to go as follows; someone suggests a place to check out, we all agree, we meet at the train station, someone is always late, we run to catch the train and always somehow make it, we arrive at our destination, make a bee-line for the tourist information centre to get maps, and then get some lunch before checking out all the tourist spots. Then we do lots and lots of walking, take many photos and do looooots of talking, before catching the train home once it gets dark.

Today we had lunch at an Italian pizza place as there were 5 Italians travelling with us. They are hillarious. They really do speak with the crazy hand actions and intense intonation of their words, like we see on TV etc. Anyway lunch was nice, we got free olives as a starter and also some kind of liqueur shot after our meal - its called Amaretto and it tastes very almondy. So we staggered out of the pizzeria feeling quite good. We saw the historic buildings of the city, the Botanic gardens (which are beautiful, and also they have NZ natives like Kowhai!!! naturally I was very excited about that). I also met an Australian in the middle of the town square. They are as rare as NZers around here. We were all being tourists and taking photos with a statue (as you do) and talking about how we were going to find the information centre, when this guy walks up and tells us (in an Aussie accent) how to find it. So of course that then lead to much banter about Aus and NZ. And I was buzzing for the next half hour. Who'd have thought I'd be so happy to meet an Aussie?

We also visited a statue of Erasmus, a Dutch philosopher after whom the ERASMUS exchange program is named. We also visited the original post office, the fish market, lots of churches etc. All in all a great day! AND we saw a guy who looks just like Anthony Hopkins on the train home. And it was a double-decker train!

Hope you all had a good weekend too. xxx nelle

Just so you know...

Home Boudewijn

Thought I'd better put up some photos of where I live. Luckily for those of you who are coming to stay with me, Home Boudewijn has the largest rooms of all the student residences. Biggest kitchens too. But the crappest bathrooms hehe. Mind you, they are also currently being rennovated.

I tried to get a photo of me doing a handstand in the doorway but it just didnt work haha. More photos on my flickr page :)

Yep. So that's where I live. 9th floor of 14. 32 rooms on each floor, so there are around 450 people living in the building.

p.s yes, I have a peep-hole in my door!

Sauvignon Blanc Nieuw-Zeeland?

Hello! Just a quick update. Weather here is so mental, I think I'm being tested with a different extreme weather pattern each day. We've had snow, hail, heavy rain, and today is extreeeemely windy. Thoroughly entertaining trying to walk outside. Can't ride bike as I just get blown off. Its hillarious!

Went to get some fruit today and found NZ wine at the shop! It was in one of those bargain bins they put by the checkouts. There was a big sign above it saying 'Sauvignon Blanc Nieuw-Zeeland'. And sure enough, it was made in NZ. I got so excited, decided to buy some, then realised I wouldnt drink it anyway so put it back. But still!!

Good o'l NZ

Sick again Grrrr

Well today I met the real Gent I think, the one I have heard about, with the terrible winter weather and such. My cold has come back with a vengeance so I've been feeling pretty nasty. But ran out of tissues so decided to make a dash to the supermarket while there looked to be a fine spell. Alas, it started sheeting rain just when I arrived at the supermarket. Mucked around in supermarket for as long as possible to see if weather would clear. Weather did not clear. Rain got lighter so decided to make a run for it. 5 minutes later it decides to hail, which jolly-well hurts, especially if you're heading into the wind. So there I was, wet, freezing, sick, being hailed on, in gail-force winds I couldn't ride in so I had to walk. I was most unimpressed. BUT on the plus side, I found a supermarket that has some products with names in English! Always a bonus, after several bad experiences in buying things I thought I understood, but turned out to not understand the labelling once I got them home and opened them!

So now Im sitting here drinking multitudes of cups of hot cocoa, making the trip to buy it worth it. Hehe. And I now have 30 packets of tissues, which I got cheaper than buying a box. yay. At least I was smart enough not to go to Antwerp yesterday, as the whole day was rainy and nasty, everyone got wet. I hope the weather improves soon!

p.s free tip #001 for staying alive in Belgium - avoid cobblestones at all costs when wet! Skinny bike tyre + wet slippery bumpy cobblestone = disaster! And its not just me that's unco enough to fall off my bike either, another girl had an accident the other day and has badly bruised knees and a fat lip! poor thing. Evil cobblestones!

International Dinner

Just got back from our International Dinner, which now seems to be a weekly event where we all bring some kind of food from our home country. I got to try real authentic Hungarian gulash which is yummy (like a soup with meat, potato, carrot, spices etc), and some interesting Turkish dishes which I can't pronouce the names of (one was a rice rectangle wrapped in grape leaves.. very tasty, and then a yoghurt, carrot and garlic sauce. so yum!). I think I made a pretty great pikelet and fruit salad dessert - I managed to cook some nice pikelets in my small frying pan, and then I made a delicious salad out of peach, pear, mango, strawberries, kiwifruit and banana (I even made the kiwifruit into those florette things, ooooh fancy!) For the pikelets, I had yoghurt, honey and cream. Mmmm. All in all I think I managed to keep NZ's good reputation here intact. It was really nice to try some different foods, had a lovely evening. But now I'm pooped! Nice sunset here tonight, red sky at night = sailor's delight!

Riots, Tequila and Criminology

Yesterday I had my first class for Organised Crime. I find it difficult to understand the lecturer, so I have no idea how all the other exchange students cope, but other than that its a very interesting topic. Human trafficking, drug smuggling, even illegal dumping of waste. Anything to make money, people will do. So now I have to do a research paper on organised crime in NZ. I'm not entirely sure what organised crime NZ has but Im sure there's some. Not as much as all the shinanagans going on in Italy I'm sure! So I have now started all my classes, and I have research papers and class presentations for all of them. For Penal Systems (are ya laughin maa?) I'm doing prison labour, for Drug Policy I am looking at hard-to-treat drug users, I think I will focus on youth and methamphetamine (because over here they don't call it P) and for International Nature Conservation I havent got a topic yet. So now I just have a whole lot of work to do :S Plus keep up with my Dutch which I am finding veeerrrrry difficult at the moment.

Straight after class we then had low countries studies which was on the history of the Dutch language. On the way home from that, we got ourselves stuck in the middle of a protest/demonstration/riot amongst student groups. I'm not sure what was going on as all the news sites I have found about it are in Dutch, but there were riot police EVERYWHERE, there were helicoptors, trucks with water canons pointed at the crowds, the works. At first we didnt realise what was going on, but then bottles started flying and we tried to get the heck outa there. But the Police had cordoned off the square that we were in (which currently has a circus/theme park/show thing in it) so we had to wind our way through this creepy park at night, get our bikes over a fence, and then go around a couple of blocks to get around the police cordon. I think they were expecting a lot of trouble because there were so many police around. Even police on bicyles. I don't think I've ever seen so many police in one place at the same time.

Got back to homes vermeylen and fabiola where most of my friends live, and decided to still go to the tequila party. Found out that it was actually a party at a pub called tequila. hehe. That's the way things work around here, word gets around like chinese whispers about events, but its even worse because the exchange students sometimes get very confused about words in English! For example, I was told there was a shindig on some guy porter's house. I asked who porter was. Turns out they meant The Porter House. They do pretty well really though, English is the second or third language for everyone here. Anyway, discovered I really like Tequila sunrises, stayed there for only a while as I had class the next day, got home at the very respectable hour of 2am. The music in the pubs here I find really not good. I would even opt for the Outback over what I've heard so far hehe. That and the smoking. But of course there are lots of places I haven't been to yet, for example Cafe Centraal, the Salsa bar which I am going to tonight. Am missing home a bit so keeping busy as best I can. Also, we have our weekly International Dinner tonight, with Hungarian gulash, Greek salad, some kind of Portugese octopus dish, some Italian pasta, and NZ dessert - with fresh fruit salad and pikelets with strawberries and cream. Thanks to those of you who came up with ideas for me, I am a bit limited because there is no oven here so everything has to be cooked in a pan!

Anyway hope you are all being good.
xxx