Louise Louise

Everyday come 6 p.m. I watch Two and a Half Men ( by far the best American show on here, next to the Nanny and Everwood). Anyways, right after 2 1/2 Men - this show called Louise Louise comes on. I have no problem with the show, other than the theme song - which happens to be "Man I feel like a Woman". I really like this song - but only when its sung by a WOMAN - its the whole point of the song!! Well, Louise Louise has decided to use some man with an awful voice instead of Shania. Take a listen for yourself.

Hide & Seek

Coincidentally, this post is also about food. I have a pretty big sweet tooth- so I typically avoid buying candy/cookies etc. at the store because I will eat too many. Buuut, I also like to have a little something around to satisfy the hunger. I've been craving brownies lately, but I can't make them since we don't have an oven so I bought a package of them at Carrefour. After we busted them open last night, Justin joked that he would have to take them to work today to keep me from eating them throughout the day.

Fast forward to today at 5 p.m.

After getting back from the gym, I ate a turkey sandwich as a late lunch but that didn't quite fill me up and I decided a little chunk of brownie sounded really good. I go into the kitchen, only to find that the brownies are not where they were last night. I thought maybe Justin hid them from me as a joke - after searching the cupboards I realized they were GONE.

The following playful conversation took place once I knew he was up to something.

me: ok
you're on my shit list
BIG TIME
Justin: why's that?
me: you took my freaking brownies!
Justin: haha
i wanted some for work but was in a hurry so i just grabbed the whole thing
me: thats so mean
Justin: no its not
you would have eaten them all and i wouldn't have gotten any if i didn't bring em
me: that's NOT true
i didn't even know there were gone until 5 minutes ago
meaning i would not have been eating them all day
Justin: true
and for that you can have them
they are in the cupboard above my spot on the bed
me: ugh i looked up there!!
Justin: must not have looked very good
me: ohhh buddy you're in trouble
Justin: why's that?
i gave up the goods
and i didn't even take a big bite out of them
me: because you tried to pull one over on me
Justin: and it worked
i won
me: no - you definitely lost
1. i am going to shove the rest of the pan in my mouth in 30 seconds
Justin: nnooooooooo
me: 2. that means you don't get any!!!
Justin: you're mean
me: and you're very sneaky
Justin: i was nice and told you where they were so you could have '1'
not 1 pan
me: well maybe you will think twice about hiding food from me again
Justin: i would make fun of you if you ate them all
me: well i will make fun of you when u do p90x again
Justin: then i won't do P90X, you eat all the brownie you want and we'll both be fat and happy
me: perfect

What I saw the FIRST time I looked for the brownies


Hmm, I wonder what is under those boxers (I hope they are clean)


BROWNIES- yay!

Grillin' Machine

After 2 weeks of only having a microwave and cook top - Justin bought a electric grill at Carrefour that was on clearance (that's a given). We have been overloading on carbs, so it will be a nice change to eat more meat. Justin wanted an action shot of him wearing the apron and glove that came with the grill. The pork chops were a nice reminder of home and tasted great!

Carnaval in Maastricht

Thanks to a little research, Justin planned our weekend trip to coincide with Carnaval in Maastricht, Netherlands! I've learned that places all over the world celebrate Carnaval and it holds different meanings in each place. We wanted to experience everyone's crazy costumes and observe the celebration and the opening parade on Sunday. We checked into our hotel on the edge of town and headed into to Maastricht to grab food and to join in the festivities. I have never seen anything like it - thousands of people dressed up in weird costumes, drinking waaay to much beer, dancing and singing at the top of their lungs! All we could do is laugh because it was the perfect combination of Halloween and VEISHEA all at once!

After dinner and a few beers with the masses and a viewing of Slumdog Millionaires( BEST MOVIE EVER - go see it if you haven't already!!!) in a cute little theater, we headed back to our car - only to find out it was being towed away! We saw our car turn the corner and we started sprinting to the spot where we had left it. We weren't alone, at least 6 other cars had been towed or were in the process. The spot we parked in turned into a bus lane at some point - who knew?!!?! We certainly had no idea, and neither did other Dutch people who had parked there which made us feel a little better. That pretty much put a big damper on a fun evening, and our relatively inexpensive weekend getaway doubled in price :(

On Sunday we didn't feel like watching the parade in the rain, so Justin drove us to the town square so we could grab a few pics and then we headed off to explore before heading back to Brussels.

http://www.maastricht.info/

We thought this float was going to fall apart on the highway - it was bouncing around behind the truck at 60 mph!


Clearly this guy has more than 1 costume going on...


Red, green and yellow balloons were EVERYWHERE!


Crowd waiting for the parade to start


Cute sign


When we discovered our car was towed, the policewoman pointed to this sign.. From now on we are going to play it safe and pay to park underground whenever we can!


Everyone was riding bike/cart contraptions to the celebration. This group had people in front of the card and the bike rider had someone on his back - too funny!

American WWII Cemetaries

Per Justin's request, we visited 2 different World War II cemeteries. It was an amazing experience to see the resting places of almost 16,000 American soldiers who lost their lives in the war. It's difficult to imagine they represent only a tiny fraction of American soldiers lost.

The Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery & Memorial in Belgium
http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/hc.php

The Netherlands American Cemetery & Memorial
http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/hc.php


Belgian Cemetery











Netherlands Cemetery

Kasteels

We LOVE our GPS- it is by far the best purchase Justin has ever made (the GPS woman butchers the Dutch/French street names almost as bad as we do :) Whenever we go anywhere, Justin searches for local attractions and by some miracle, we find the point of interest every time. We really like checking out all of the "Kasteels" we can find. Here are a few that we stopped at.

Yay for Garmin


Biggest castle in The Netherlands.. it was huge and had an awesome moat!




I'm sure this castle was awesome back in the day - before they built a GIANT cement plant across the river, what a shame


My favorite castle so far!! I think this one will be hard to beat- I love the fairytale vibe that it gives off.




Least impressive castle ( I could have jumped across their moat, backwards) - we did a drive by photo shoot - this one turned out the best

Liege, Belgium

On Saturday morning we hopped in the car and drove in the general direction of Maastricht, Netherlands. Maastricht is the home of Carnaval - a crazy, drunken celebration! On the way there we stopped by Liege, Belgium to climb the Montagne du Buren steps.. all 374 of them! The steep climb made us out of breath but we thought the view was worth it. Overall, Liege isn't a very pretty city - it's actually dingy and sad looking. We only spent a few hours there.. here are a few pictures to prove it.



Looking down the 374 steps


Before climbing up


Cool Masonic Temple near the bottom of the steps


Our travel book listed this statue as something worth seeing. They lied. It was dirty and lacking charm - we only took a picture because we went out of our way to see it

Laundry Night

I love doing laundry - but only if I have my own washer and dryer. The apartment complex we live in has between 40 and 50 units and only 1 washer/dryer in the basement - I'm completely creeped out by the basement set up and I refuse to go down there alone.. it doesn't help when the lights don't turn on half the time. At home, we never have dirty clothes because I'm always doing laundry - here, we let it pile up for 10 days before finally going to the laundry mat down the street tonight. It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, but still a hassle none the less. I appreciate many things about Brussels/Europe in general, this is not one.

5 Things we struggled with...
* None of the instructions were in English - we finally figured out the machines accept token coins instead of real coins
* No scooper in the powered detergent - we guessed with each load :)
* Fitting all of our clothes into teeny washers meant to hold 2 shirts and a sock
* Paying 3.30 euro PER LOAD!!! GIVE ME A BREAK - thats just to wash it!!
* Paying .50 euro to dry clothes for 9 minutes. what a crock.

20 euro, 40 pages read in my Sister's Keeper and 1 mini meltdown later, we came home loaded down with half wet clothes and a pact to do laundry at least once a week.




Cute








Oh the joys of laundry

Brussels City Center

Our tour through downtown was rather quick and we just touched on the highlights. I was freezing and have a bad memory so I don't remember many details about the pics.

Street right next to Manneken Pis


Manneken Pis (means little pee man in Dutch). Very famous landmark in Brussels. There are many different legends as to the statues meaning.. check out wikipedia to read some of them