Sunday, August 29, 2010

Oostende, Belgium

*** I thought I posted this a while ago, but apparently I didnt. This was around mid June when Dad and I headed back to England for the second time ***

Alrighty, so Dad and I are on another adventure back over to England. When we were in Ypres, Dad and I took a massive amount of photos..sadly, Dads SD Card crapped out on him and he lost every single picture he took. Needless to say, he was quite the unhappy camper (can’t blame the guy!) and he wanted to go back another time and take the pics again. Well, today was that day.

We went back over to Cloth Hall so we could get his picture fix..luckily the weather behaved long enough so he could get some decent shots. ALL DAY..the weather has been bi-polar. One minute it’s gorgeous, the next it’s raining cats and dogs…then cue the sun and humidity…then it gets cold and monsoons again. Good stuff! After exterior pics were taken, we made our way into the actual Fields of Flanders Museum and checked out a lot of the exhibits again. I only took a few shots since the last time we were there, I managed to get a lot but some tourists were getting in the way (how dare they!). It was pretty quick and painless since Dad knew exactly what he was wanting to take pictures of..just in case, I took the same pics JUST IN CASE his SD Card decided to dump everything again. I don’t want a repeat melt-down like last time! It was ugly…

Made our way over to the gift shop and I ended up getting a cute umbrella (I stupidly forgot to bring mine from home), so I officially have a Red Poppy umbrella. It’s quite cute, actually. I also picked up two Red Poppy coasters as well as a water color painting that I’ll frame and put in my office. Every time I look at it, it’ll remind me of the trip :) From there, we dropped our goodies off in the truck and grabbed a bite to eat at one of the local cafes (it was awesome), but we were kinda quick to get out of there since the people who sad directly next to us had on an obscene amount of perfume / cologne on. It was giving Dad and myself a headache! Since we had some extra time to kill before making our way to Oostende, we did some window shopping …found a pretty interesting war style shop that was selling Trench Art. Now, what is Trench Art? It’s when someone uses the case shelling of ammo rounds (massive rounds about 45mm or more)…polishes it up and actually hammers or etches designs in the piece. Some people made vases out of them, or just decorative table pieces. Tell ya what, some of those were just AWESOME to look at! I would’ve definitely bought one if it were in a silver tone , but sadly, they were all made of copper / brass .


Once we were done window shopping, we finally headed out and made our way over to Oostende, which is only an hour away from Ypres. The last time we stayed here, we ended up at the Imperial Best Western which I don’t recommend if you’re wanting two people to a room..with separate beds. They apparently don’t do that, which sucked. If you’re there by yourself, then by all means, go for it. This time I ended up getting us a different hotel which is right next to the wharf. Loves it! It’s the Hotel du Bassin, and it’s right around the corner from Oostende’s GORGEOUS cathedral! I mean, it’s absolutely amazing! It’s actually right around the corner from my hotel room (score!).



The staff was VERY nice & so helpful. When I told them that we’ll be leaving early the next morning (before they serve breakfast), the gal at the check in desk asked if she could pack a lunch for us to take since we couldn’t have their breakfast. At first, we told them not to worry about it considering we didn’t want one of their staff members getting up extra early for the sake of 2 people, ya know? She insisted that they’ll make something..ok! Not gonna turn down food! Sure enough, next morning when we got up and were checking out, there were two lunch baggies with sandwiches, drinks, fruit and yogurt! Wow! Lots of food to take! All that stuff ended up being consumed while we were on our four hour ferry, hahaa.


Anyway…back to the Oostendes Cathedral; Dad and ventured over to it and took a lot of exterior pictures since, well, that’s what we do.


Me attempting to take pictures with Eric's tiny camera

 After a lil while, I figured it’d be best to get inside considering the temp dropped and the clouds were gathering overhead…it was about to rain any minute. Sure enough, a few minutes after we were inside, it started to down pour….gave us a good reason to hang out inside longer and check out some of the stained glass throughout the building.



The care taker for the cathedral was really nice and took it as a compliment that so many people love visiting his building, especially when they were taking a lot of pictures (can ya blame them?). After a lil while, I went over to the donation area and dropped about 20 euro considering they were nice enough to let us hang out in there when we obviously weren’t praying, plus taking a lot of pictures… there were two Belgian gals in there who happened to be talking to the care taker and they started making their way to the front of the building where the sermons are held. They walked past Dad and I and the care taker asked me something in Dutch, in which I said “Speke di Engels?”, and his response was “OH! Americans! Lovely!” ..hahahaaa. The gals also spoke English, which was really nice and they started picking our brains about the States. He asked “Would you be interested in a little history lesson?”..well of course! So, he opened up the partitioner and walked us past the tomb that was in the center of the platform area to another set of stairs (I didn’t even see these from where we were earlier). When we walked up the stairs, he opened up an iron gate and started talking about the architect who build the cathedral and all the drama that happened in the process of making it. Apparently all the churches in Belgium are build facing the West, but this architect build it to the East on purpose. May not seem like a big deal, but they’re build that way specifically so light can penetrate the building and make it seem even more grand (as if they weren’t already?). I thought that was pretty interesting…so from there, he walked us into another room where there was this amazing marble statue. You would NEVER see this thing if you were just in the main part of the cathedral. It’s in a room surrounded by stained glass and carvings in the window frames..definitely something you’d have to see in person to actually appreciate it!



The glass above the statue:

The statue represents the death of Belgiums first Empress. Apparently she was very loved by her kingdom and they made this statue as a tribute to her. The Empress was only 30 something years old when she passed away from TB. The way the statue was made, the Empresses expression is relaxed, but tired and ready for the angel to take her (she was very weak, hense her body posture), she was letting her crown fall since ruling was no longer a concern for her in *this* life since she was ready to accept the crown of the afterlife that the angel was presenting to her. She was essentially letting go of material things since you can’t take them into the afterlife (while sprawled out on a fur robe to signify royal blood). The face of the woman sitting next to her looks like she is mourning for the loss of her queen ; the woman is supposed to symbolize ALL of the people.

It was all quite very educational, especially since we (essentially) had a private tour and history class ..and we managed to check out a part of the building not too many people get access to. How cool is that??

Saturday, August 28, 2010

My Apologies.

Per request from STEFANIE and several other people, this blog is for you :) 

I was bored earlier this afternoon and randomly decided "Hey, I wanna make cupcakes". Truth be told, I like to experiment when I make stuff..sometimes it works in my favor, sometimes it doesn't. Eric rolls his eyes when he see's me adding food coloring to stuff... I like to play with my food, per say. Makes it a lil more fun when I make pink pancakes, tie dye cupcakes, blue rice krispies... random, but different. 

I'm really not a fan of chocolate. Given, I live in Belgium where I'm surrounded by AMAZING chocolate, but I just don't really indulge in it considering I'm more of a fruit type of person. Hell, I never have a cake for my birthday.. I always have pie (Lemon Meringue or Razzleberry). True story. 

By the way, I'll shamelessly plug Pampered Chef since I used my PC goodies to make this recipe.  *Grin*

So, I happened to have an extra box of cake mix left over from when I made the Black Forrest Trifle for a party I went to not too long ago. 


I followed the directions that were on the box, but instead of using vegetable oil (I didn't have any), I just used 1/2 a cup of Challenge butter (unsalted).  I melted the butter in my Micro-Cooker since it needed to be softened before I could blend all the ingredients together.I used my Stainless Steel Mixing Bowls (one for the batter, another for the icing) and used a lil electric mixer since I figured if I blended the batter like crazy, it should put a good amount of air in the cakes so they'd be fluffy (I was right!). 


 Using some Reynolds cupcake foils, I baked the cupcakes in my Muffin Pan for about 25 minutes at 325* (I used my Weight Watchers ladle to put the right amount of batter in the cups). 


While the oven was working it's magic, I started to figure out what I wanted to do as far as icing. I had a container of Betty Crockers Cream Cheese Frosting, but in all honesty, it was way too sweet for me. It was bound to give me a headache because of how distinct the sugar taste was. So, I started experimenting! 

Cue in: Almond Extract!


I emptied out the container of frosting into my 2qt stainless mixing bowl with my Small Mix N Scraper (it's a life saver and gets every molecule of whatever it is you're scraping) then proceeded to use my mini hand blender. Truth be told, the spout on the bottle of Almond Extract is a lil on the large side so when I was adding the extract, a lot came out. My ballpark guess is that I used about 1.5 tablespoons worth (it'll smell REALLY almondy!) Then I mixed in 3/4 of a stick of Challenge butter (softened). Yes, it sounds super fatty, but the butter really toned down all the sugar! To tone down some of the Almond, I actually put in a hefty spoonful of milk chocolate frosting (another flavor from Betty Crocker ). It gave the icing some color (a very light tan color) and it put a lil chocolate twist to it. Mixed it even more and set it in the fridge till I was done baking all the cupcakes and they were cooled. 

When the cakes were done, I had 'em hang out my Stackable Cooling Rack for about an hour to ensure they were completely cooled off since I didn't want the icing to melt off. Once they were ready, I pulled out my Easy Accent Decorator and started filling it up with the icing mixture (used the star accent tip) and started going to town on the cakes. Poor lil things didn't have a chance since I smothered them in the icy goodness. After all was said and done, my little army was almost complete. The final thing that needed to be done?

SPRINKLES.

 
I absolutely LOVE Pampered Chefs Sweet Caramel Sprinkles...I use it pretty often if I'm wanting to make a sweet snack (toast, a slather of cream cheese and this sprinkled on top). That, or I use their Sweet Apple Sprinkles (they're amazing!!)

Anyway, here's the finished result:


They came out VERY light and fluffy, even with the icing! Calorie-wise, it's not light. In fact, It's extremely fattening, but ya know what... we all deserve a splurge from time to time :) 

ENJOY!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Video Smush Mush

I really don't have anything of real value to blog about. Seriously, I don't. I've been busy with work this week and the only "thrilling" thing I've done is get an oil change. WHEEEE!!

So, I'll post about some video's that I've stumbled across and taken a liking to. K? Awesome.

Word to the wise: If you click on the actual clip, it'll pop up on a new screen that will show them full size since my blog is awesome and cuts half of the screen off. 

There's a Cadbury commercial that's been airing over here..not really sure if it's playing at all in the US. Anyway, it's actually started a real " Spots vs. Stripes" competition all across the UK to the point that people are Facebooking and Tweeting about games for people to meet up and participate. It's popping up all around London and so on. Anyway, here's the cute commercial that seriously makes me laugh (especially when the turtle can't catch a break with his balloons) every time I watch it:



Next is an A-Capella version of Katy Perrys "Teenage Dream". Just give it a shot and watch it... at first it looks weird, but it's crazy when you see that this guy is soley making all the instrumental sounds with his mouth. Nevermind the fact that he's kinda hot...



Then there's the real Katy Perry. When I saw her music video, all I kept saying was "Oh man, she's in Santa Barbara. I've been on that highway so many times..Oh I've been to that pier.. I know where that and that was filmed". LOL. Makes me miss California! I think she's such a gorgeous gal.. there's plenty of times where I wished I had her figure cause she's a knock out. Oh well, maybe in my next life:


Katy Perry - Teenage Dream
envoyé par EMI_Music. - Regardez la dernière sélection musicale. 

That's about all I have. Sorry there wasn't anything earth moving or revolutionary, lol.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Vroom Vroom!


WOO HOO!! I finally hit 200 kilometers on my moped!! 

You're probably thinking, "Uh. Why is that so important?"...Well, at the moment, my moped can only go 30 kilometers an hour. Even though it gets me places, it's painfully slow. People on bicycles pass me.

Stop laughing. 

Since it was a brand new moped, I needed to break it in and all that jazz so I wouldn't kill the cylinders or crack the block. If you go too fast on a new engine ( motorcycles / scooters / mopeds ) without properly breaking it in, you can cost yourself some serious money. 

Now that I've finally hit 200 kilometers, I can take it into the Scooter Shop and they can fiddle with the programming and I can vroom vroom a lil faster! I have a 50cc engine, but I opted for the upgrade so (technically) I'll have an 80cc moped. 

YAY!

My lil putt putt officially goes in on Tuesday and I should get her back on Wednesday. HOLLA!

Monday, August 16, 2010

Tapis de fleurs 2010

**** If you click on any of the photos, you can actually ZOOM in and see 'em in an unedited size (large) ****


This past weekend, Eric and I made our way over to Brussels since the famous "flower carpet" was happening. Sure, it doesn't sound all that impressive or anything, but that event happens once every two years. At least we can say we actually saw something like that, ya know?

We ended up leaving from Neerpelt around 8:30am since the train takes about two hours to get to Brussels. Luckily, some of our friends happened to be heading to the same place... So we had some entertainment for the majority of the ride.Once we reached Brussels Central, we all scattered to the winds since everyone has their own agenda. All Eric & I really wanted to do was check out the carpet, take the typical tourist pics, have lunch at a Chinese joint we found last time we were there, then roll out to Antwerp.

We made our way over to the carpet and the crowd really wasn't all thy bad. I guess I was expecting a total madhouse or something, but it seemed pretty mellow since we got there early enough.




We went over to the Grand Palace Hotel since they allowed people to use their balcony for the cost of 3€, which was pretty cheap, if you ask me. At first, the line looked insanely long, but it only took Bout 20 minutes from the back of the line to the actual balcony. Here's some pics from while we were waiting:


The statues along the building were AMAZING! I loved the detail on the womens dresses / corsets :





 Some surrounding shots of the Grace Palace courtyard..tons of cafe's, lil restraunts and chocolate shops:



Pool statue for the inner courtyard:


I was really diggin' the ironwork for the courtyard:


 Figured this would be kinda artistic looking:


LOOK! An actual picture of the current King & Queen of Belgium!

It was pretty cool since you walked past several different rooms that had to have been from the 1700's or so. Old furniture, carvings in the walls to hold light fixtures , damask tapestry for wallpaper...very elegant stuff! I wish I couldve gotten some pictures of it, but the security in the building wasn't allowing pictures (lame). So, once we got to the balcony area, I was able to find an opening and took some pictures without battling too many people. I was just getting slightly annoyed because some people were literally shoving me from behind to try to move me out of the way... I paid, you paid, we all paid to get here. Chill, people!

Here's some shots I was able to get from the balcony:

 




I went to the official site for this event (www.flowercarpet.be) and found some pretty interesting stuff this whole event. The following stuff is quoted from the site:

A Brief History

Officially, the first Floral Carpet as its present-day form was created in 1971 on the Grand-Place by the landscape architect E. Stautemans, but, in fact, it was the culmination of a whole series created in various towns in Flanders.

E. Stautemans, who was born in Zottegem, and graduated from the Ghent Horticultural College, had been experimenting since the early 50's making simple small carpets, more like rugs, mainly consisting of begonias (in Knokke, Oudenaarde, Sint-Niklaas, Lille…).

He very quickly realised that floral carpets would be an excellent vehicle for the promotion of his beloved begonias which he had always worked with, both technically, economically and aesthetically. After years of attempts and calculations, this architect, who was inventive and imaginative, and knew how to make the most of the numerous resources of begonias, became an expert in the creation of superb floral carpets with sophisticated colors and complicated designs.

His fame spread and he was asked to make carpets not only in Belgium (Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, Ypres, Courtrai, Hasselt, Tongres, Mons, Durbuy, …) but worldwide (Cologne, Hamburg, Luxemburg, Paris, London, Breda, Amsterdam, The Hague, Vienna, Valencia, and as far afield as Buenos Aires and Colombus, Ohio).
Some of these carpets were bigger than the ones created in Brussels (77 x 24 m), like the 1973 masterpiece at Sint-Pietersplein, Ghent that reached a gigantic 164 x 42 m. However, as E. Stautemas himself says, "Nowhere is the carpet more beautiful and distinguished than in the unique, ancient surroundings of the Grand-Place in Brussels".

Making a Carpet

The actual making of the Carpet is based on a plan worked out in advance, consisting of several stages. Everything starts, often a year in advance, with projects and scale models, illustrating a commissioned theme (such as the commemoration of great events, or the arms and shield of a town, and sometimes the proposals of local horticultural associations).

Once the theme has been produced in representation and symbol, the number of flowers and color combinations calculated and the outlines finally drawn on the ground, then the work starts.The skilful, dedicated work of a hundred experienced gardeners and their enthusiasm enables them to put together this giant floral jigsaw in under four hours.





The day before, the spaces between the floral patterns will already have been filled with rolled turf.  Did you know - that the flowers are packed together one by one, 300 to every square meter of the ground, (+/- 750.000 flowers!) so tightly (no soil is used at all) that they won't be blown away by the first puff of wind, and create their own microclimate? In heat waves, the turf has to be watered to prevent it from shrinking, but if the weather is too wet, the grass can grow 4 to 5 centimeters in 3 days? The wonders of nature!




 Here's some pictures of past carpets:

2008

2006

2004

2002

2000

Educational, hunh? :)

Once we were done checking out the floral carpet, we headed on over to a Chinese restraunt we found back in December when we visited Brussels for their Christmas tree display.


 We chowed down on some awesome food and made our way back over to the train station. When we first got into the courtyard where the flowers were, we spotted some local artists working on some paintings of the area. Eric ended up getting a pretty cool piece that's done in pen and I got a piece that the guy was finishing up of the actual courtyard (I had to wait a few minutes for the paint to dry before he rolled it up for me):

Eric's picture:


Mine: 


We're wanting to get them professionally framed, but since it'd be too expensive to have done here.. we'll most likely wait till we're back stateside. Most of our other pictures have been framed through Aaron Brothers in Monterey, so odds are, they'll end up doing these for us.

All in all, we had a great day between Brussels and Antwerp (all we did in Antwerp was hit up Starbucks and hit up LUSH again). Even though I'm sure some people say "It's just a ton of flowers. What's the big deal?"...well, it's actually pretty awesome to see in person. Not only that, but it's a show of artistic ability to create something like that on such a grand level. 

* Two thumbs up! *