Date Day al la Hasselt

It's been a lil bits since Eric and I had a date day, so, we ended up heading over to Hasselt due to the fact that we were wanting to watch "Snow White and the Huntsman" at the awesome Kinepolis theater. . Not only were we wanting to catch a movie, we were jonsing for some sushi! Normally, we go up to Aachen to our favorite sushi place, Crazy Sushi, but we were willing to try out a difference place since we weren't gonna drive an hour and a half for sushi, then an hour and forty five minutes to catch a movie, lol.

After looking up information on a sushi place, I realized that there was an Oil & Vinegar store as well as The Body Shop within a short distance from where we were gonna eat. SCORE! We were needing to hit up both of them since Eric swears by The Body Shops shaving cream, and I was needing to top off our garlic olive oil bottle.  Done and done!

My three favorite were places right next to one another! EEEEEE!!! The Body Shop, Panos (a sandwich place) and Oil & Vinegar. If only there was a Lush store ...le sigh... then I'd be in heaven..

While Eric went over to The Body Shop to pick up some more shaving goodies for himself, I made my way over to Oil & Vinegar. I'm seriously going to miss this place when the time comes for us to move back to the States! This particular location has TONS of Turkish seasonings and stuff to use in Tagines. Ahhhh!! They even have preserved lemons, which I need in order to make Lemon Chicken Tagine (I always forget to make lemons for it and it's a two-ish week process). SO, now I know where to go in order to get my goodies!

 We ended up finding a really killer Wasabi & Ginger sauce that I'll use the next time I make a stir fry meal. If it works out well for us, I think I'll pick up some more and send some to my Dad since I know he's a fiend for wasabi flavored things. In addition to that sauce, we also got a Chili & Garlic sauce that we'll be test driving tonight with some eye of round we'll be cooking up. Of course, we got another liter of our beloved garlic olive oil and I even got a REALLY cool glass bottle to store it in. I have a Polish pottery bottle that holds my walnut olive oil in it, so I thought it'd work out to have a different kind of bottle to hold the garlic one :)

By the time we finished up at those stores, it was time to make our way over to Oishii's, which is a sushi bar & grill. Apparently, it's been around since 2010...which blows my mind cause I must've walked past it dozens of times and never noticed it, lol.

I was loving the paper lanterns they had hanging over our seating area! Tons of cherry blossoms everywhere :)

Juuuuuuust in case anyone was interested in going to Oishii's, I snapped a picture of their sushi menu. I tried finding their menu listed on their website as well as prices, but they weren't listed which made it a lil hard to figure out what we were looking at in terms of cost. Given, they're a little expensive compared to other sushi establishments, but after having some great conversations with the waitress that worked with us..it turns out that labor costs in Belgium are much higher than those in Germany. They actually have another place in Aachen (go figure!) and most of the items on their menu are half the price as to what they are in Hasselt. Good to know!

If you're really wanting to know what the menu says, you can translate it yourself :)

Eric ended up ordering the "Best Friend Special Rolls" and LOVED it! Given, only one of the rolls was deep fried (his sort of thing), but he really enjoyed the flavor since none of them had that overly "fishy" taste like some rolls have. If you know my husband, you know he can eat like a machine. Shockingly enough, these filled him up! I'm IMPRESSED!

I ordered myself a Volcano Roll as well as a Tempura Roll...they were AWESOME and definitely hit the spot for me!

We were the only customers in the place and the staff was amazing! I think we hung out in there for an hour and a half because we got caught up in people watching and talking with the waitress about the sushi making classes that they offered. In fact, I'm actually trying to get a group of people together from our base for a class there later this year (thinking around September) since it'd be a lot of fun. Might as well if you're a fan of sushi, right? I'm definitely looking forward it!

Speaking of people watching....when we were on our way back to the parking garage to head over to the movie theater, I couldn't help myself and snapped a picture of this couple. YES, a couple was dressed like this. I'm the furthest from being a fashionista, but come on. What's with the fad that's going on right now with pastel skinny jeans. I mean, really? The wife (top picture) was wearing a hot orange shirt with an oatmeal colored cardigan while wearing teal pants...while her husband was wearing a blue stripped dress shirt, grass green cardigan with orange jeans.

REALLY.

Made it to the movie and was pretty pleased with it. I think the only thing that kinda made me laugh was that Kristen Stewart really didn't have that many lines. Think about it..she's running alot, looking frightened, smiling, then dances around with dwarfs, then sleeps after she bites the apple. After that, she comes back to life, makes a speech before raging into battle and wins. When she's crowned Queen, she doesn't say anything to address her subjects! Just....what!? LOL. I'll give her credit though..her facial expressions have vastly improved since the whole Twilight series.

To top off a fantastic day, we spotted a P-51 Mustang taking off from Genk's airport when we were heading back home.

  

 Ahhhhhh..I love date days :)

 

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DW's in Polska

Alrighty, since it's been a little bit since I've done a blog with some "substance", I'm cramming tons and tons of pictures in this post for ya. Don't you feel special? Yes you do! It's been a week since the trip, so please bare with me if I happen to be all over the place...


Last year, I ended up renting a 9 seater van from Enterprise and named him BOB since it was a beast of a vehicle. Since it worked out very well for us, I went ahead and rented BOB 2.0 again for this trip due to the fact that we had a total of 6 gals going...which means LOTS of pottery would be coming home with us!

You know how it is when you're doing a long road trip..you end up buying some junk food along the way. Well, I came across kebab flavored chips (say what!?) when we rolled into Poland so I figured I'd take my chances and try it out. Honestly, they tasted like kebabs, lol...but the ladies in the van weren't fond of the smell because it reminded them of wet dog / cat food. Nice, right? hahaa. Oh well, at least I can say I tried 'em.

 

KFC in Poland? Looks legit..

After another hour of driving and taking a detour through Bolesławiec to do some shopping (WHAT! The stores were open for another two hours! Might as well take advantage of extra shopping time!) The drive outside of the town was gorgeous! The last two times I came to Poland, we stayed in the actual town which is pretty run down looking. This place, on the other hand, was out in the countryside away from all of that stuff...so we were surrounded by lush green hillsides and tons of meadows:

... we finally made it to our lovely destination which is the Palac Brunow. I learned my lesson after last years MISTAKE, so I took some recommendations some from friends who have stayed at this establishment before.

The grounds for the Palac Brunow were GORGEOUS! Very very pretty and was easy to get around. The main building is where you check in (they had their official Polish flags out), and it's also where their bar and restaurant was located. Plus, the "premium rooms" were in the main building.

The grand foyer where they had the dining area set up since the original dining room was being used for several conferences that were going on.

Towards the end of our stay, we were able to get into the actual dining room since the conferences were all done:

LOVED the staircase!

Once we got checked in and did our thing, I walked around to check out the other parts of the property since they had a grand hall where they had a party going on. If I was a really ballsy person, I would've just gone inside to check it out..but I didn't wanna be *THAT* American. So, I settled with just taking pics of it from the outside.

Quite possibly my most favorite picture of the place! I totally loved the shaded lounges they had near the fountain area so you could just hang out and get some sun.

And here's the building we stayed in:

Just kidding. The picture above was how this building looked before it was restored. HERE'S how it looks now! I was SO cute and perfect looking!

The foyer before you go upstairs to our rooms:

There was even a pool table for us to play around with. Thing is, we couldn't find any of the balls!

Finally made it up to my room to get settled in. LOVED it! TONS of space and I loved the older wood furniture! I checked out the other ladies rooms and they seemed to fit every ones style, which was really cool.

I even had a decent sized bathroom with a heated floor! The only thing that was really missing was a hairdryer (I didn't bring one since I was supposed to have a premium room which had one, but got bumped to a standard room due to over bookings).

Here's the view from my room :)

After we all unpacked then freshened up, we all met down stairs and enjoyed the weather while sitting out on the patio. Of course, we ordered some dinner. I ended up getting some perogies (sorry, no pic of that) and felt like I need a Mojito (or three) to unwind after the eight-ish hour drive. Tell ya what, those were some of the best Mojito's I've ever had!

Followed up my dinner with a pear strudel with vanilla cream. It was FABULOUS!

OK...little back story here: Ahem. While at dinner, one of the gals made a new friend. By friend, I mean a stray cat. This cat was a little charmer and knew how to work it's magic on her. So much so, that the gal ended up giving the cat a good chunk of her nice chicken dinner that she had ordered. By giving the cat the food, it sealed her fate. This cat was now our official floor cleaner and was her little shadow. As we're all going our separate ways for the night, I said "That cat better not follow up to our rooms" in a joking manner.

Ahhh....

So the next morning, I'm up early and I wanted to take some pictures of the staircase in our building since they had a shabby French sort of look to it. Keep in mind, I'm trying to focus the lens since the lighting wasn't cooperating...then I hear little thumps. Thumps like little feet running up stairs. I didn't notice anything right off the bat till I heard a little "mew". That lil booger was running up the stairs!

Of course I'm thinking "The girls are never gonna believe me that this fur ball came up the stairs for us". Luckily, I heard some of the girls bumping around in their rooms, so I knocked on their door to show 'em out little visitor. This cat was a total ham with striking poses and trying to look extra pitiful for attention!

Being good...caring friend that I am, I went up to the third flood where the gal who fed him was staying. Knocked on her door and reunited her and her little buddy. What are friends for? Apparently it was too early to deal with furballs, so the kitty got to enjoy the comfort of the hallway while I made a quick exit down to my floor to finish getting ready for the day.

After breakfast, we all loaded up and made our way into town to begin the official "Pottery crawl" to the various different stores along the main street.

Vegas in Poland? Seems legit to me.  Saw this place on our way into town..lol

 Some of the gals were amazed as to how run down some of the buildings looked...I wasn't kidding when I said this town looks like it never really recovered from past wars.

When we finally got to where we needed to be, of course, I hit up my ultimate favorite area that has four stores right around one another. One was where I was standing when I took this pic while the other three were directly across the street. Apparently this strip was also a favorite for the other ladies because I think we haunted it at least ten times through out the trip.

Annnnnd now you see why it's my favorite! This is where I manage to get 95% of my chile pepper pattern for super cheap compared to some of the other stores who carry a piece "here and there" and cost about 30% more. When it comes to pottery shopping, of course I want the most for my buck...errr...euro!

The ladies on our final run through with this shop:

I didn't buy this quirky lil guy, but he seemed to mimic how all the ladies looked whenever they walked into a new pottery store to see ALLLLLL the various things they could score.

MINE?!!?

My second favorite store! Henry's never seems to fail me when it comes to find bright colored goodies and a variety of random things for fairly reasonable prices.
If you're looking especially for teapots (with warmers), kitchen utensils / accessories, this is definitely the place to hit up!

The whole time I was planning this trip, I was REALLY looking forward to having lunch at Elric's! You wouldn't think anything of the place when you drive by because it's in a pretty shotty looking neighborhood....well.....I take that back. The whole city looks like that. Anyway, they're just around the corner from Henry's and I ranted & raved about this place.

I kept telling the ladies, "You can eat like a king at this place and it barely costs anything". The prices are EXTREMELY reasonable and the food is absolutely amazing. When we plopped down at a table on the patio, I noticed one of the paintings they had on the side of their building. It said "Food fit for a king"! Yeaaah!!

We unwinded for a little bit, which was pretty easy to do since there was a nice little water fountain running right next to us. Very soothing..

...so soothing in fact that one of the ladies nodded off while we were waiting for our lunches to come out :) As you can see, one of the gals was reaching to take her sunglasses off since she didn't believe that she was actually snoozing. She was!

Shortly after that, my "appetizer" showed up which was their delicious onion soup with garlic toast and a mocha milk shake. I know I know..the combination of flavors doesn't exactly sound appealing, but I promise, it was fabulous!

Then...the masterpiece. Spinach perogies! OH MY GAWD...I love these things to death! I'd eat these till I pop if I could. I definitely need to find some sort of recipe that's pretty similar to these since I don't I'll be going back to Poland any time soon. And to my relief, the other gals who happened to order them as well agreed that they were UH-mazing since I was ranting and raving about them the whole time we were driving there, lol

Once we were pretty burned out on shopping, we made our way back to the palace to unwind the only way we knew how......by drinking! I had several Bahama Mama's that bordered on Long Island's, a blue drink that tasted like coconut and happiness...Mojito's...and...blah blah blah...

We eventually got around to ordering actual FOOD (I barely remember ordering something solid) and enjoyed a fabulous dish of lamb topped with truffle sauce, fried mashed potatoes and asparagus. Honestly, it was AMAZING and I think my bill came to a total of....hmmm...18 euros. Lost of fancy drinks and a great dinner for a fantastic price..hells yea!

When we originally arrived at the Palac Brunow, this cow was just chillin' outside of the estate, soaking up the sun. I thought it was kinda funny because she didn't have a fence or anything to keep her in a certain area. I suppose she knew she had it made cause her owners would come out from time to time, brush her out, give her treats and returned back to their house so she could enjoy the simple life.

 

 The only time I saw her move around was when the farmer came out to mow the pasture, then she promptly reclaimed her spot once he was all finished. Hard life, right?

 

After all the shopping we did, multiple pillaging of stores repeatedly, here's how BOB 2.0 looked at the end of the trip:

There were a few boxes in the back seat as well, lol

And here's all the stuff I ended up with. YES! More chile pepper stuff!

Of course, here's the price break down since people tend to ask me how much some of the stuff cost. My pillaging wasn't as severe as my first trip, but I still ended up with some pieces I *know* I can't find on the internet once we move..nor am I willing to pay internet prices!

zł = Zloty  :)

Chile Pepper spoon rest: 20.50zł = $6.10

Chile Pepper bowl plates (each): 44.30zł = $13.18

Chile Pepper dinner plates (each): 44.30zł = $13.18

Chile Pepper sipping ladle: 17.10zł = $5.08

Red flower shot glass: 10.10zł = $3.00

Butterfly trivet: 57.00zł = $16.96

Butterfly bell ornament: 24.10zł = $7.17

Chile Pepper cereal bowl: 37.40zł = $11.12

Butterfly bowl: 19.60zł = $5.83

Soccer ball cup: 30.00zł = $8.92

Butterfly pitcher: 111.20zł = $33.08

Chile Pepper soup cup (each): 33.70zł = $10.02

Chile Pepper soup tureen: 142.50zł = $42.40

Chile Pepper baking dish: 207.10zł = $61.62

Chile Pepper coffee pot: 73.20zł = $21.78

Chile Pepper warmer: 50.00zł = $14.87

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I couldn't help myself..I had to get a stool! It actually matches the teapot I bought last year. Not to mention, it's EXTREMELY sturdy and the wood matches the rest of our furniture.

Flower  wood stool: 124 zł = $36.80

Chile Pepper pinch bowl (each): 9.20zł = $2.73

Chile Pepper design spoons (each): 13.90zł = $4.13

I LOVE tea! That's why I bought a teapot last time, but sometimes I want just a cup without having to make a whole batch of it. SO, I came across this really pretty combo cup!

Floral tea combo cup: 69.90zł = $20.79

It comes with a strainer for the tea packet and a lid so you can keep the heat contained. Love!

Random butterfly egg I *needed*

Butterfly egg: 38.50zł = $11.45

Aside from the goodies I picked up for myself, I also grabbed some goodies for some friends who also enjoy the quality of Polish pottery. I ended up snagging these goodies for Stefanie..

Cow print rolling pin: 35.00zł = $10.41

Cow print teapot: 78.00zł = $23.21

Cow print warmer: 32.00zł = $9.52

Butterfly bell ornament: 22.80zł = $6.78

Butterfly coffee mug: 30.80zł = $9.16

...and Shannon asked if I could find some bowls to finish out her dishware set in addition to some ornaments she can use as gifts for her kids teachers.

Tulip bowls (each): 69.29zł = $20.62

Tulip warmer: 55.20zł = $16.42

Poinsettia ornament: 21.00zł = $6.24

Butterfly ball ornament: 26.20zł = $7.79

Peacock bell ornament: 13.20zł = $3.92

Blue flower bell ornament: 17.80zł = $5.29

Red flower bell ornament: 16.50zł = $4.90

Once I was finished unpacking all the stuff, Cole was rather disappointed I didn't get him a spiffy Polish pottery dog bowl. When he realized there wasn't anything for him, he decided to look extra pitiful in one of the empty boxes..sorry darlin', no stuff for you. Not even perogies...

All in all...the third trip was definitely the charm! I have a fabulous time with the ladies, lots of laughs and wonderful memories! :D

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