Travel with me abroad

Travel With Me Abroad

Hello to all. I’m very excited for the opportunity to share my upcoming adventures through Themetrip. In the next couple of months my husband and I will be starting a new chapter in our lives with our big move to Brussels, Belgium.
A little about the upcoming blog and myself:
I love food! While eating breakfast I’m already talking about dinner. I will be posting notes and pictures of where we dine, what we eat and sometimes what I cook.
I love adventures! With my husband being in the Navy, we have had and have the ability to visit and experience places all over the world. I will post about our travels and experiences while living in Belgium.

Contact Nakoma

Breakfast Cookies

1/23/2015

4 Comments

I have been on a cookie-baking marathon over the last two weeks. I really enjoy having a cookie in the morning with my coffee. Doesn’t everyone? I know it’s not healthy, but neither is eating a croissant everyday for 2 months, which is so nice to do in Brussels. So I decided to bake, bake, bake until I came up with a cookie that I could eat and not feel guilty about eating in the morning while drinking my coffee.
This is not going to be a sweet cookie. It’s a breakfast cookie. I really like having four or five (Yes, I eat four or five of them with no guilt) of them in the morning with my coffee and a banana. Place a tbsp. of peanut butter on your plate too for some extra protein. Enjoy.
Recipe adapted from Cookie and Kate’s Low Fat Chocolate Chip Banana Cookies.

Breakfast cookies:
1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
2 cups mixed oats (I use Dorset Cereals with hazelnuts, brazil nuts, raisins and dates) find a mix that you like.
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 tbsp. flaxseed
2 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tbsp. maple syrup or 2 tbsp. brown sugar. I have made them both ways. The brown sugar makes it a tad sweeter. You can also try 2 tbsp. sugar.
1 large egg
1 large banana
1/2 tsp vanilla

·      Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit (180 Celsius) Line baking sheet with parchment paper
·      Whisk together flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and flaxseed
·      Cream together the butter and sugar of your choice.
·      Add mashed banana, egg and vanilla extract
·      Combine dry ingredients with wet ingredients
·      Place about a tbsp. or a little more onto baking sheet. Bake for 10-12min

4 Comments

Wine Tasting

1/15/2015

6 Comments

Last week I was in Le Chemin Des Vignes (wine shop). I introduced myself to one of the employees and explained that Adam and I were still learning about French wines. He was very nice and invited us to his upcoming wine tasting. I asked him the price and he said that there was no price, because he invited us. I took a picture of the shop as I was leaving so I could remember the name and where it was.
Unfortunately, Adam came down with a cold that weekend. I didn’t want to cancel so I asked my friends who have a little one if they could join me. “One of us will go with you, not sure who…” I was pretty excited that the last minute invite worked out.
The walk to the shop was not very pleasant. Down pour with winds up to 25mph. The umbrella was useless. I was a wet mess by the time I walked into the shop.
There were a total of 8 persons tasting. Guess what we tasted first? Moonshine! Moonshine from Tennessee. This was the best Moonshine that I have ever had. It was so smooth and tasted like a dessert. The first one was cinnamon apple. I said first one, because we had two more Moonshine tastings. After the Moonshine we started with wine. 3 white wines and 4 red wines. During our tasting we were given a plate of prosciutto, salami and bread. The employee would talk in French about the wines and then he would talk to Colleen and I in English. One of the wines we tasted reminded me of a Zinfandel. Nobody at the tasting including the employee new what a Zinfandel was. When I got home Adam and I were talking about Zinfandel. After I did some research I think people around here might know Zinfandel as a Primativo. Zinfandel has an interesting background.
The wines at the tasting were delicious. The wines we tasted ranged from 6.95 euro to 10.00 euro a bottle. The Moonshine was 29.95 euro. We started at 2:00pm and didn’t leave until 4:45pm. That was a great way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon. We are going back for a Scotch tasting at the end of the month.
Cheers!

6 Comments

Weekend in Bruges

1/12/2015

0 Comments

Adam and I were itching to get out of Brussels and explore. Our plan was to go to Bruges and then a week later spend Christmas in Paris. Well, we got a little Christmas miracle.  The moving company contacted Adam right before we left for Bruges and told us that our furniture would be delivered on Christmas Eve.  Yippee!!!  We postponed Paris by a week.
The train ride to Bruges from Brussels was about an hour.  Bruges was stunning. The architecture, the canals, the little side streets, it really was picture perfect.
We stayed at Hotel Aragon.  Couldn’t have asked for a better location.  Waking distance to everything and only a 3-minute walk to the Christmas Market.  The hotel had a very friendly front desk and a good continental breakfast.
December, Friday 19 – Sunday 21
Friday 19

Christmas Market – This was beautiful! Bruges actually had a few Christmas Markets around town, but my favorite was in the square, which had an ice skating rink. I found these really cute troll ornaments in one of the Christmas tents. Adam thinks they are ugly and does not understand what I see in them. I wish I had taken a picture. I already put them away with our Christmas stuff. I was tempted to keep one out year round. It would have been fun to leave it on Adam’s side of the bed and then move it every few weeks to creep him out. One ornament I got was a gold cherub and behind it was a little troll smiling. The troll has a porcelain clay face, and soft fluffy white hair.

Saturday 20

9:30 Bell Tower – 366 windy narrow steps to the top of the tower. It was magical to be at the top. We were able to watch how the bells ring. Reminded me of a huge music box. So many beautiful views too.
10:00 Tour Burg Square – Lots of little chocolate shops, beer shops, silk shops and antique shops.
11:00 Groeninge Museum – Walking to this museum was so relaxing and we couldn’t stop saying how beautiful everything was. The museum exhibits Flemish Primitive Paintings. I really like this style. A lot of the paintings have elongated bodies, or irregular body proportions. In some of the paintings Jesus as a child looks like an old man. I like the symbolisms used in the paintings and the colors too. When we looked at the first painting in the museum, I really wanted to know the story. I have a really hard time looking at an abundant of paintings and not knowing some of the stories or symbols. I went into the museum shop and purchased a guidebook. An hour later Adam and I hadn’t even made it through the second room of art. We decided to only read about one or two of the paintings in each room after that.
1:00 Tour/Lunch at De Halve Maan Brewery – There is no way this tour would be allowed in America unless waivers were signed or the brewery rebuilt some things for safety. Walking up narrow stairs, having to turn around because the stairs were too steep to walk down forward. However, this tour was awesome and the rooftop view can’t be beat. Our tour guide was very enthusiastic. I couldn’t understand a lot of things he said, but I appreciated his enthusiasm. At the end of the tour we got a free beer. Yummy! Adam and I stayed at the brewery for lunch and had a few more beers. These beers have a higher alcohol content than what we are used to. Adam’s last beer had 11% alcohol content. It was called Strafe Hendrik. The atmosphere, food, beer was really good. We will definitely be going back.
3:30 Ice Magic, The Land of The Hobs- Huge tent filled with gigantic ice sculptures, ice slides and an ice bar.
4:30 Dumon Chocolate shop – Rick Steve’s rated this as one of the top chocolate shops in Bruges. The shop we went into was tiny and very busy. We were able to get some chocolate and it was excellent.

After resting our feet back at the apartment we decided to go on a horse carriage ride before dinner. I knew I would enjoy this, but I didn’t realize how much I would enjoy it. I would highly recommend going on a horse carriage ride in Bruges. It’s a 30-minute tour all through town. It’s very romantic, and beautiful. I thought that it was going to be bumpy on the cobble road, but the entire ride was smooth.
Sunday 21

9:30 Basilica of the Holy Blood –Relic of the blood of Christ
10:00 Salvador Dali Museum – LOVED! I didn’t really appreciate Salvador Dali’s work until I went with my mom and Uncle Frank to the Dali museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. I was very excited to see another exhibit of his. Adam and I got the audio tour, which was free after showing them our train tickets. I also upgraded my ticket (5 euro more) for a glass of Cava and a Belgian Praline. Cava is a sparkling wine from Spain. We can’t call it champagne. That’s an interesting law. I accidently called it champagne in the museum and the woman giggled and politely told me, that it’s not champagne, it’s Cava. 2 ½ hours later we completed the wonderful exhibit.

Before we left Bruges we stopped to see the statue Madonna and Child by Michelangelo in the Church of Our Lady. The church itself was not very impressive on the inside and the statue was very far away. I wouldn’t recommend going. However, I’m glad we went, because we would have never known about the Picasso museum across the street from the church. Picasso museum is on the list for our next visit to Bruges.
I’m very excited to go back to Bruges and to bring family and friends.

0 Comments

Paris!

1/5/2015

0 Comments

December 29, 2014 - January 2, 2015
We planned a last minute trip to Paris.  It really was last minute.  We decided to go to Paris for New Years and reserved an apartment a few days before Christmas.  I would highly recommend staying in an apartment over a hotel.  The prices were lower and we took advantage of eating a couple of meals in the room.  We used VRBO website and if you use your phone the app is called Home Away.
We were told by many people that getting to Paris is so easy and not very expensive.  Well, that’s not really the case if you don’t plan three months out.  There is a bullet train that leaves from Brussels and goes to Paris in one and a half hours.  Tickets can be as low as forty euro each way.  If you plan a last minute trip expect to pay a few hundred euros each way.  The night before we left we decided to book bus tickets.  Our round trip tickets were a little over hundred euro.  The bus took about 3 ½ hours.  The ride was really relaxing.  Spacious seats, free wifi (didn’t work well), bathroom, trays behind each seat.  I would have no problem taking the bus again.
I made a Paris itinerary for us the afternoon before we left. I don’t think this surprises any of my friends and family.  I have itineraries for everything.  We had been so busy unpacking and putting our house together, which is still not finished, we didn’t really have time to plan.
Paris Monday 29 – Friday 2
Monday:

2:30 Train Station for Bus
6:20 Arrive in Paris, walk to apartment
8:30 Dinner

Tuesday:

9:30 Notre Dame
- Archaeological Crypt
Deportation Memorial
12:00 Lunch/shopping Ile St. Louise area
Walk around Boulevard St. Michel and Boulevard St. Germaine
2:00 Sainte-Chapelle
4:30 apartment
7:00 dinner
We ended up not going to the Deportation Memorial, because it was closed off. We also did not go to Saint-Chapelle, because the line was too long. I would really like to go back to Paris to visit both. After resting our feet at the apartment we did this:
Sacre Coeur and Montmartre – Lookout point
Arc de Triomphe
Champs-Elysees (High end shopping street)
Christmas Market (near Champs Elysees)
10:30pm Dinner in the apartment

Wednesday:

9:00 Louvre (arrive 30 minutes before opening)
10:30 snack/coffee
12:30 Lunch
3:30 apartment
5:00 O Chateau – Wine tasting
- 1 champagne, 5 wines, cheese and meats
9:00 L’Epigramme for New Year’s Eve dinner

Thursday:

9:30 Eiffel Tower
11:00 Pompidou Center

Nope, this didn’t happen. I don’t know what I was thinking to plan something so early. 1:00 went to Pompidou Center, 8:30 Dinner and no Eiffel Tower. I know what some might be thinking. You went to Paris and didn’t go to the Eiffel Tower? Yep. However, I did see it from many beautiful look out points. That was good enough for me.

Friday:

11:00 Bus Home

Notre Dame- Recommend arriving early.  We went inside the church and paid extra for the audio tour.  We avoided the lines to walk up the tower.
Louvre – Overwhelming with people! It was hard to appreciate the art, because you are constantly getting elbowed, or brushed on while people walk by.  I also think the Louvre should have a no camera policy.  When we were viewing an art piece, it wasn’t the people that were blocking our view it was the amount of hands going up with cameras, ipads, iphones to take pictures.  Why do you need a picture of the art piece?  Purchase a post card, buy a book, go online.  Take advantage of enjoying the beauty of the art while seeing it.   The Louvre is definitely an all-day event.  We paid for the audio tour, which I always enjoy, because you get to hear the stories of the art pieces.
On New Year’s Eve we went to O Chateau for a two hour wine tasting course on French wines.  This was fantastic!  We went down into a cellar with about 15 other people.  The sommelier was enthusiastic and the champagne and wines were fantastic!
A little while after wine tasting we headed to dinner.  We found L’Epigramme through Tripadvisor.  It was excellent.  We were there from 9:00pm-1:30am.  This span of time was all the courses of dinner.  We finished our wine with our dessert right before we left.  It was a very nice and relaxing way to enter into the New Year.
The next day we went to Pompidou Center.  Oh my goodness, I want to go back. We were there for a little over four hours and we didn’t finish.  We missed one whole floor and an exhibit on another floor.  This is more of a modern and contemporary art museum featuring the late 19th and 20th century artists.  The sights from the top of the building are amazing too.
Food.  While in Paris I tried snails and frog legs.  Both delicious and I would order again.  I especially enjoyed the frog legs.  They actually had a good amount of meat on those little legs.  The meat was tender.  I would like to try snails again.
Enjoy the pictures.  I did not take a single picture of us on New Year’s Eve or of our dinner. Oops.

0 Comments

I want cookies!

1/5/2015

0 Comments

I just wanted to bake cookies. We have been working on putting our house together, and I thought that I had everything to make cookies. I wanted my Cookie and Kate cookies! Adam and I already walked to the market and to the grocery store. Usually this is a fun morning and a nice walk. However, when its 34 degrees and pouring down rain somehow into your face no matter what direction you walk, it’s not too fun. When we got home and put everything away I started on my cookies. I had the music going, I was feeling good and then I realized I had no baking soda. Hmph! To go or not to go back into the rain? I stood in the baking aisle looking for baking soda, which was nowhere to be found. Lots of baking powder, different flavored sugars, and crumbled speculoos (speculoos cookies are so delicious. I call them my breakfast cookies, because I like to have them with my coffee. Oops getting sidetracked) but no baking soda. I asked someone who works there and he understood what it was and then asked someone else for help. We did another search and still no baking soda to be found. He went and asked another employee, did another search and he found it! I had such a huge smile when he brought the baking soda to me. I almost hugged him. I’m not sure where he got it from, but it was not in the baking isle. Mmm… Cookie and Kate cookies. The kitchen is starting to feel like my kitchen.

0 Comments

Interesting Happenings

12/16/2014

1 Comment

I walked over to a gym that is very close to us. It’s located on the second floor in the Stockel Square Shopping Center. I was given a tour to see all the facilities. The gym was not very busy. It had an Italian man (guessing 70’s, who was in slacks and a jacket) flirting with a woman (guessing 70’s in gym clothes), one man walking on a treadmill and a yoga class that had about six people in it. In the sauna and Jacuzzi room, I was told, “room for both men and women. Bathing suits or no bathing suites, it’s ok.” The gym was very nice and offered many fitness classes. It’s 80 euro for the application fee and then 84 euro monthly. If two people join the application fee is waived. There is no contract and no fees to cancel. If away for a week or two and notify gym they will take those days off your next month’s bill. I think that’s how it was explained.

I waited 20 minutes in line at a Carrefour Planet (Carrefour is grocery store and more) to pay for 4 items. Why did I wait for 20 minutes? Because I walked to the store and was determined to get what I came for. Well, I’m glad I waited. The store had a special going on, if you spend 100 euro, you get a free bottle of wine. Now, that’s my kind of store. I’m sure there was a sign in French and Dutch about a free bottle of wine, but it was a nice surprise for me.

Begging. A younger guy with braces, nice jeans, nice shoes, was begging on the streets. A woman on the metro clean clothes, hair done, was begging. People cleaning car windows, in nice clothes, begging. People who are younger (teenagers) and older stop to give those who are begging money or food. I don’t’ understand how someone can have braces and nice clothes needs to beg. I saw a woman having a long conversation with this younger guy who was begging. I wonder if she was telling him to get a job, or go to school. Not sure. I should learn French.

I tried foie gras and it was delicious! Foie gras is made from liver of a goose or duck. I had it at the Christmas market in Stockel. It was listed on the menu as Foie Gras poele, pain d’epices, pommes caramelisees. This translates to, stove foie gras bread spices, caramelized apples. The way it was prepared made it taste like French toast. It melted in my mouth and was so rich with sweet flavor. I’m looking forward to trying foie gras again.

The other night Adam and I went to the Christmas parade in Brussels. The floats were really beautiful. Would I go again? Nope. That was a check in the box. Being freezing and then trying to puzzle your way through thousands of people, not worth it. We also found out afterwards that a lot of the metro stops had already shut down for next day’s strike. So we had to walk more than we wanted to find a metro that was open.

Strikes, strikes and more strikes. In two weeks there has already been three strikes. These strikes have completely shut down airlines, railways, buses, pretty much all public transportation. A lot of business shut down during the days of the strikes too. Today the police are going on strike. The strike has already effected people at the airport. I read thousands of people were stuck at the border control and all the luggage in baggage claim was completely backed up. The police are going on strike over pension reform.

I added some photos below. Some I discussed in my Interesting Happenings post and others I just wanted to share. The video is of a street performer in Antwerp. The other video is a carousel at Brussels Christmas Market. I talked about in a previous post. Enjoy!

1 Comment

No More Hotel

12/8/2014

0 Comments

Last Wednesday we had two moving companies at our apartment. One company was there to deliver loaner furniture and the other company was delivering our unaccompanied baggage. The unaccompanied baggage had more of our clothes, toiletries, bedding, towels and some basic kitchen items to get us by until the rest of our stuff arrives. It is really nice to be out of the hotel, but it’s still tough not having all of our things.

The way they deliver furniture and other items is crazy. Not only do they have a moving truck, but they also have another truck with a lift on it. This truck is pulled up to the front of the house/apartment and delivers the furniture through two big French doors, a sliding glass door or a gigantic window. In our move they had the lift go to the third and fourth floor. They put the tables, chairs, couches, bed, and armoires on the lift separately. I posted a video below of the movers setting the truck up.

We don’t know when the rest of our house goods will arrive. We hope to have it before Christmas. It could possibly be after the New Year. Adam wanted to make a nice Christmas dinner and I wanted to make a yummy Christmas breakfast. The good thing about food, is we are surrounded by amazing fresh food. If for some reason we do not get our things, we can always pick something up premade and eat it on Christmas day. I know premade sounds nasty, but premade foods here are delicious and fresh.

This weekend we purchased our Christmas tree. The markets were selling Christmas trees, but they were very pricey. A tiny tree started at 45 euro and went up to 150 euro. Of course the 150 euro was the one I wanted. Another popular place to buy Christmas trees is Ikea. 20 euro for the tree 17 euro for the stand. When I saw the Ikea trees, they made me sad. They were very small. We left Ikea without a tree. After seeing prices for Christmas tree lights we decided to go back to Ikea for a smaller tree. MY GOODNESS! The prices for Christmas tree lights are ridiculous! We got one strand for 54 euro. When we went back to Ikea people were standing near the person who was unwrapping the trees. These were bigger trees for the same price. YIPPEE!!! Lines, well, that does not really happen here. You kind of take turns, but have to be a little pushy or act like you don’t really know what’s going on while trying to get to the front. We were able to get a pretty good size tree. I tried to be creative with our string of lights, but it didn’t work. Now our tree is decorated, but has no lights.

Adam and I have decided not to get each other gifts this year. Instead of gifts we will be spending money on a couple of trips. I hope we can have these trips planned before Christmas. We keep talking about them and looking them up, but have no set dates.

Our one string of lights.

Watching the movie Christmas Vacation.

0 Comments

Brussels Christmas Market

12/4/2014

0 Comments

I brought a big bag so I could place all my purchases in. I was so excited! We started at Saint-Catherine and when we came out of the metro station we were smack dab right in the middle of the action! Christmas Lights everywhere, smells of warm waffles would drift passed our noses and seeing all the decorations made me smile. The market was lined with little huts that had fake snow on the roofs. Each hut had a seller. My friend and I purchased items from the first two huts we visited. Afterwards we walked a little more and then Adam got us mulled wine. Yummy! It had cinnamon and apples in it. It warmed my body up. I was thinking the huts would be full of Christmas items. Nope, I was wrong. The huts had jewelry, soaps, sweaters, hats, little crafts and lots of food, wine, beer and my favorite champagne with oysters. I say champagne and oysters are my favorite, but I have yet to try it. It’s so cold! I keep telling myself when we go to the local market this Saturday I’m going to try it no matter how cold it is. By the way, it’s only getting colder. Today is a high of 34 degrees.

Back to describing the market. In the area of Saint-Catharine’s Christmas market there was a gigantic Farris-wheel, and a carrousel. This carrousel was like no other carrousel I have seen. It was so unique, it had a steampunk style. We saw a few more during the night. They were all different, but had the same style.

After Saint-Catherine, we walked towards the Grand-Place. During our walk, we passed more and more Christmas huts, carrousels, and a church that had a fantastic light show. We were getting a bit chilly so we decided to take a break and ate at this little Indian restaurant.

After dinner we walked up to the Grand-Place. We were a bit worried because this was the first time we were squeezing through people. When we finally shoved our way left and right it opened up to the huge Grand-Place! We figured out that the light show just ended and people were leaving onto the thin street that we were coming in on. THIS WAS AMAZING! A 15 minute light show with beautiful music. I felt like a kid again!

We hope to go to more Christmas markets this month. When we do, I will post all about them. There is one not too far from us that takes place in caves. It’s called Les Grottes de Wonk.

0 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving!

11/28/2014

1 Comment

We had our first Thanksgiving in Brussels and it was great. If it wasn’t for Adam’s sponsor’s family inviting us over, this day would have been a sad day. This family has been so good to us. I feel very fortunate getting to know them and being able to call them our friends.

We left our hotel in the morning and rode the Metro to Stockel. This is the town/commune where our friends live and where we will be living starting December 3. It was weird seeing everyone around us going to work or school and not celebrating Thanksgiving. They are missing out on a fantastic holiday.

When we got to Stockel, which is a 15-20 min metro ride from our hotel, we ordered cappuccinos, picked up some croissants, rolls, champagne and of course wine and then walked over to our friend’s home for Thanksgiving.

Colleen purchased a 9 pound turkey and brined it for 2 days. This turkey just fit into the oven. She actually took the back bone out and flattened it. Cooking in such a small oven is a challenge and a fun experience. They were calling it their Barbie and Ken oven. The turkey turned out juicy and so flavorful.   All the sides with the meal were homemade and everyone was in the kitchen helping out with the food, dishes and/or keeping our glasses full.

I did none of the grocery shopping for this meal. I think Colleen’s sister mailed her pumpkin puree, which sounds like it’s either difficult to find here or very expensive. I’m not sure.

Fantastic champagne, wine, ice wine, lemoncello, and laughs throughout our day.

Couldn’t have asked for a better Thanksgiving when being so far away from family.

1 Comment

I'm on Instagram!

11/25/2014

1 Comment

I'm thoroughly enjoying sharing everything that is happening with us in Brussels. For those who have an instagram account and would like to follow me here is my instagram name, rosensweet_abroad.

1 Comment

<<Previous

Forward>>

About Nakoma

I have always had a passion for Art. After attending five colleges (Navy families move…a lot) I earned my BA in Art History. I’m thinking our first few tours will be art, art, art and then food, food, food. I will post information about the tours we do.

Please note, that my blog posts will not be consistent. We have a very busy, and fun schedule ahead of us, that might limit my time to post.

For those who plan to follow, enjoy!

Cheers!