Happy Holidays!

After a week of exams, a weekend trip with classmates, a social skills retreat for school, and some last minute group this past weekend I am now officially on holiday break.  Yippee!

Today, hopefully if the snow keeps away, I'll be boarding a plane with 5 other classmates.  We'll be spending an entire week in Italy - 2 days in Florence and 5 days (including Christmas) in Rome.  Our must-see list is not too full, just the usual...Vatican museum, Roman ruins, the Pope, etc.  We want to keep it as relaxing as possible because we are, after all, on holiday.

These past few weeks have been crazy.  I haven't had a chance to blog and I have 3 running through my head.  I'm so sorry wasn't able to do that, but since a picture is worth 1,000 words I'll share my photo albums - which are probably much more interesting anyway.

1.  A small Thanksgiving celebration me and 2 other USA-ers hosted:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Annie.Marek/Thanksgiving2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCOro0bXxk9LrwAE

2.  The Holiday spirit - from St. Nick's Day to a Holiday party and then to seeing Santa at the Christmas market:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Annie.Marek/Thanksgiving2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCOro0bXxk9LrwAE

3.  A train trip with 27 other classmates to Luxembourg and Trier, Germany:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Annie.Marek/HappyHolidaysAtVlerick?authkey=Gv1sRgCP2asOi0xfrYPg

Happy Holidays!  I wish you all safe travels and many moments of laughter share with the ones you love! 
-Annie

Groceries

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while and I can’t think of a better day to post it on then on the USA's Thanksgiving Eve.

I really didn’t realize I was so spoiled in the USA. Pre-MBA, I would hop in my car drive to my SuperTarget about 5 miles away where I could find groceries, meat, bread, electronics, and pharmaceuticals, all in 1 place! I would load enough provisions to last me for a month and take up every inch of space on my shelf or in my freezer.

It’s a bit different here in Belgium…

There is a local market on Saturday mornings where there is always a line at the large fresh fruits and vegetables stand. There are also stands at the market selling dried fruits, nuts, chocolate, olives, and bakery items, just to name a few things. I have 2 butchers near my place. I can’t tell which one is better because they both are packed each day with customers! And then there are the bakeries. Oh, the bakeries. I could write an entire blog on them alone. In fact I will. Stay tuned for the bakery post…must do more research. Mmmmm…

pics from the market

If you’re wondering yes, Belgium does have grocery stores. Since I don’t have a car, and I have to get all I buy home with my own two feet I have to go there almost weekly. I bought a fun little cart from a past student and it’s served me very well on my voyages to the grocery store. You’d be surprised how many things it holds!

Inside the grocery store still is a maze to me. I worked in a small grocery store during in my high school years, so I’m too stubborn to ask where something is located. I wonder around the store and make a mental note where things are. Today I found that sugar (granulated and powder) is conveniently kept by the coffee and tea, 3 aisles away from the flour. And the flour is kept in the baking aisle near to the maple syrup – YES! I found real maple syrup here!

O'Canada!

So I’m finding my way around the store, but many items are just different here. Vanilla extract for cooking is replaced by vanilla sugar. Bacon is only thin sliced. And there is no comparable peanut butter here. I really didn’t eat a lot of peanut butter pre-Belgium but now I miss it. One of the other USA-ers here reintroduced me to the jelly sandwich (which I don’t think I enjoyed since I was 12) – but it’s missing something, like a big smearing of Skippy. I miss it so much I asked my family to “Please send peanut butter” along with my winter wardrobe in my care package.

There are a few Belgium-isities in the grocery stores related to the country’s fondness to chocolate and waffles.

Here is a pic of the chocolate section of my small local store.

And here are some pics of the waffles area. Waffles here are a snack, not breakfast, and come in many shapes, forms and food-ness: ie. the honey filled waffle cracker a friend introduced me to.

One note on grocery stores is most close at 7/8pm and are not open on Sundays.  That just adds a little fun to this student's life. 

I hope you enjoyed this post and think about me the next time you're walking through Sam's Club, Rainbow, or my fav SuperTarget!  Would you be able to carry everything that's in your cart home?  :)

And last but not least HAPPY THANKSGIVING!  Thank you to everyone out there for letting me be in your life!  I have SO much to be grateful for this year: all my family and friends that are constantly supporting me, my new friends in Beligum that have taught me so much, and this year I'm especially grateful to all the Rotary family members who work each day to better the world - thank you for giving me this amazing opportunity.

See you later!

-Annie

Rotaract Road Trip: Brugge & Oostende

I did a quick recap of my vacations (aka. holidays) the past few years and realized that most have been because of Rotary - Chicago, LA, Ireland, Denmark, Germany. It’s pretty much guaranteed that each year I take a Rotary trip to the PreConvention and usually add on my own a pre or post trip on top of it. I go to the PreCons (our cool slang term) because they are loads of fun - there are so many incredible people from all over the world and we form instant friendships through our connection to Rotary!

Pic from PreCon 2010 in Montreal, Canada

So it’s no wonder when my Rotaract friend Lars (on the pic above - on the right in the hat) & I headed on a road trip to Brugge this last weekend we had a great time. I don’t think I’ve laughed so much since I arrived in Belgium. But that’s most likely because Lars has known me for years and not just months like my classmates.

If you’re not familiar with Brugge…well read about it on wiki or to see it with a Hollywood flair check out the movie In Bruges (warning – it’s a bit of a dark comedy and rated R). Some of my non-Belgian-familiar friends might be confused ... Brugge = Bruges, Brugge is the Dutch spelling and Bruges is the English.

Anyway, back to the weekend -
Shortly after arriving we went to the chocolate museum. Yes, I did say the chocolate museum and you can stop drooling now. It was a very educational and interesting place – I learned about the history of chocolate, what makes milk, dark, and white chocolate different, I saw a chocolate Pres Obama and even a chocolate “fountain” Manekin pis that pees chocolate.  I couldn't possibly make that up - see below.

Saturday we went on a night tour of Brugge in the rain. The rain made it a real Belgisch (yes that’s a word – see photo album link below) experience because it rains nearly every day or at least it looks like it’s about to.

On Sunday we hopped a canal ride for a new view of the city and the rain actually stayed away. But see, it still looks like it’s about to rain.

 

And since I’ve never been to the North Sea and Lars has a car, we went up to the coast to Oostende for a seafood dinner.   Still looks like it's going to rain, doesn't it?

Surprisingly, we made it the whole day on Sunday with absolutely NO rain.

It really was a great weekend, I had a lot of laughs, spent time with a good friend and for a weekend I forgot about all my classwork waiting for me in Leuven.

See you later,
Annie

PS – You can click here to see my entire photo album from the wkend.

A Festival of Nations

Last week we had an all campus celebration of all of countries (over 40!): The Intercultural Event. It was such a great time we’re still talking about it. There was great food, great drinks, awesome singing and dancing by our classmates! The only unfortunate thing about it was there was so much food I didn’t get to try it all!  Hopefully the night happens again and I make it over to the tables I missed this time.  :)

I’m sure your wondering what the USA brought to the party. Well after much discussion we decided on s’mores. S’mores are something known to the whole US AND is not from another country. Really what else could we have done? I know my friends in MN are thinking “Why not a hotdish?”, well I don't think that would represent my friends from Texas, Colorado, or NY. And of course there’s other dishes, but each of those (like we US citizens ourselves) comes from someplace else…hamburger, hotdog, chips, etc. So s’mores it was. Did you know that not many people outside of the US knows what a s’more is? We weren’t able to find a suitable fire, so we had to use a microwave but it worked and they were a hit! My favorite comment of the night was, “Leave it to the USA to invent something like this”.   Note to all s'more lovers - they are 110% better with Belgian chocolate!

me with the s'more and James demonstrating how big you have to open your mouth to eat them

I also cooked with a couple of my classmates from Slovakia. I have such a strong Czech ancestry (75%) I guess we could be cousins! So we held a family reunion of the former Czechoslovakia and cooked koblihy (or shishky in Slovakia). We made over 130 and cooked for 7 hours! It was a lot of effort but mostly tons and tons of fun. And as for our results – well the koblihy didn’t turn out as good as grandma’s but for our 1st attempt they were pretty good (besides grandma’s been making them for decades). I was also sharing with the guys that I grew up in Veseli, near a town called New Prague - which has Dozinky days.  I also shared with them the Czech phrases I know: “How are you”, “Give me a kiss” and “Lick my butt.”. Can you tell which ones I learned from my grandma and which one from crazy uncles?

Marek (his 1st name!) showing off the koblihy

So it really was a great time and I can go on and on.  But since a pic is worth 1000 words, I'll let them do the speaking!

a live music performance

dancing from all over the world

just one of the many many delicious tables

too many countries to count

Enjoy your week and see you later!

-A

The Great Pumpkin!

When I was a kid Halloween was easily my favorite holiday hands down, but not that I’m an adult it’s one of my least favorites. Well it was until this year…

When I was little, I enjoyed dressing up in a costume that you could show your grandma, and note that this costume could hold it’s own against the unpredictable MN weather (ie. the great Halloween bizzard of 1991!), and I also liked the pumpkin carving. Oh the pumpkin carving!

While I don’t remember the very first time I carved a pumpkin, I do have many fond memories of carving sessions. I remember going to the grocery store with the family and picking out a pumpkin so big we could barely carry it. Then my sisters, brother, and I would sit on the cold basement floor with newspapers surrounding us and our “tools” (real knives, screwdriver, you name it) scattered about. I have many happy memories about Halloween. And now I will add Halloween 2010 to that list.

Most of my classmates had never carved a pumpkin before. Even one of my classmates said – I’ve only seen that on cartoons. My reply was – we actually do that! So Friday night we had a pumpkin project at school. We went to the Colyurt to buy our pumpkins – since carving isn’t common here, we had to buy pie pumpkins (one-fifth the size of the ginormous carving pumpkins in the USA). Then we went back to campus, spread out yesterday’s newspaper and started carving!

...concentrating...

pumpkin guts

even our 3-armed classmated joined in the fun and made 2 pumpkins

I really had a really great time and I think my classmates did too! I want to thank each one of them for a super fun night and I won’t ever forget their first pumpkin carving!

Vlerick pumpkin project team 2010

 See you later!

-A

P.S. Thank you to Tracy & Debby for letting me take your pics from fb!

Mechelen, Be.

As promised, I went out and explored my new home instead of posting a "normal" blog.  I went with a classmate to Mechelen - just 30 minutes from Leuven by train.  Click on the link below to see the whole album!

http://picasaweb.google.com/Annie.Marek/Oct2010Mechlen02?authkey=Gv1sRgCMy1247BuJT3hAE

See you later!
-Annie

REM (not the band)

Last weekend (1 – 3 October) was the fall REM. That’s Rotaract Europe Meeting and not the band. I haven’t been to a REM concert but the Rotaract thing is super fun!

Living in the USA, I’ve restricted my Rotaract travels to the location of the Rotary International Conventions aka. RIC (2005 Chicago, 2006 Copenhagen, 2007 Salt Lake City, 2008 Los Angeles, 2009 Birmingham UK, 2010 Montreal). I always have a great time at these celebrations – yes that’s right the Conventions are a celebration. It’s a gathering of hundreds of Rotaractors from all over the world to share ideas, partner on service projects, and to get to know each other and celebrate together our common mission. Just look at these pictures below from the Birmingham and Montreal RIC. Doesn’t it look fun?

Ok, but now I’m in Belgium and I’ll count that as Europe. So I’m going to take every chance I get to go to the Rotaract meetings over here. The first one was REM in Amsterdam – it only takes 2 hours to get to Amsterdam from Brussels. The weekend went by very quick; I arrived on Friday night and left Sunday after breakfast. The committee put on a really good show: opening session in a “not that old” church (which means built in the 1800’s), local pub crawl with host clubs, more meetings, canal tour, Heineken tour, and a fancy dress gala.

But the best part about it was it was so good seeing my friends again – some of those Rotaractors I’ve been Conventioning with since 2005 and some I just met in June in Montreal. This time in Amsterdam I met another great bunch of them from all over Europe and I’m excited to see them again in January at the next REM in Belgrade! (Click below to look at my pictures.)

http://picasaweb.google.com/Annie.Marek/REMOct2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ_Fj_Kkre74ugE

See you later,
Annie

FYI - Amsterdam is far too big to see it all in just 36 hours so I’ll be back sometime this year.