The NEVER Ending Lunch

First off, before I catch up on my blog from this past week, HAPPY 3 MONTHS IN BELGIUM TO ME!!!!:) I can't believe I have been here that long! I mean, being away from my family is difficult beyond words, but 3 months, really? It's crazy. I guess, if I ever feel homesick, all I have to think about is how fast these past 3 months have gone. And, in the end, when I am wondering where my 11 months in Belgium went, I will definitely be cursing this very fast moving time. But at this point, I am mutual. Don't want it to go any slower, but I definitely don't want it to any faster either! And now on to today's post...

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

So this day started out like most Sundays here, sleeping in pretty late and gettign up and being lazy. I thought I might as well be a bit productive, so I decided to head out for a run. It was a bit weird, but Pascale made me unload the dishwasher before I headed out. Normally she is more chill, like just by the end of the day, but I figured that was just because she had said last night as she started it to do it tommorrow. But whatever, I know if I didn't do it then anyhow, I probably would have forgot (but don't worry Mum, here I have actually been really on top of things!)

But when I walked up the driveway with a strange car in the driveway and someone waving at me, I realized that we had some guests over. More specific, Becky and her host parents. I said a quick hi, and ran inside really quick to get... less sweaty and gross. Come to find out, they were here for a nice lunch of the mussels that we had found yesterday. We all just hung out and talked for a bit, and just when I thought I was going to die from hunger (it was like 2 or 3 at this point..), Pascale brought out some bread and the barbeque was ready.

For the preparation of the mussels, it was super simple, but a bit time consuming. He just set the mussels on the barbeque, and once the heated up enough, and were apparently fully cooked and ready to eat, the shells popped open and we put in this sauce called aioli, which is basically like a mayonnaise with garlic in it. Delicious! Eddy kind of let the sauce, well, the best word I can think of is melt and turn into a melted buttery substance, and then the were ready to eat. And, boy, can I tell you is that they were AMAZING! Seriously, Becky and I probably ate like 30 mussels between us. But, it was a justified over eating, because the meat of a mussels is no bigger than your pinky generally and we thought that since we were eating lunch so darn late, we wouldn't be eating anything else.

One of the 4 buckets

Some mussels grilling!

I was so stuffed by the end of the meal... They just kept on coming and coming. Since the barbeque is a small one, there was only a limited amount of mussels that could be put on at once, so it was kind of an on going lunch with lots of breaks to cook.

After lunch, it was probably like 5, Becky and I went to my room for a bit so I we could look up something (son't remember what...) and then we ended up staying there a bit and looking at this little booklet that Pascale had picked up for me at a tourist place with different cool activities throughout Belgium and Luxembourg. If I remember correctly, there are 365 different activities, one for each day. Sure wish I could do that! Anyhow, we got to thinking that we should do something tommorrow before she left for London on the rotary trip (lucky girl...). So we planned out an activity, which you will learn all about when I get around to posting again, and went out to be with everyone else.

When we came out, Eddy and Michel (Becky's host dad) told us that us that we were going to Michel's friend's Chinese restaurant. Apparently, in Belgium it is common for a gathering of friends to start at one place and then just transfer to another place, all together. At first I was worried that we would be eating again, but then we were informed that the restaurant was closed. Turns out that the reason we went there was because the restaurant had been permenantly closed. The poor owner, he seemed really upset about it. Michel helped a bit, but it was really Eddy who helped with the whole thing because his business is bulidings. And from what Rebekah and I understood from it (at bit more understanding on her part, but I was in there too..), the firemen closed it down because of "safety reasons" and the fact that apparently there were some rooms, used as personal rooms but attached to the restaurant, that weren't included in the building plans. But actually, the true reasoning behind the whole shut down is that someone that has an in with the whole safety system has a personal vendetta against the Chinese guy. Don't ask me why though... So a long time was spent discussing the situation and such, as well as to calm down a very upset owner. Around 10:00, a women who I assume was his wife, came out and set more places at a table that had grill and raw food surrounding it. All I could think was "Oh my goodness, not more food."

But apparently my stomach was thinking something else... Because I managed to eat a meal. It was legit Chinese food, how could I turn it down? The only things that I really ate were prawns/scampi and this delicious Chinese salad. After we finished eating, Becky was lucky and escaped with her host parents. But we continued to stay there, because Eddy was really trying to help the guy out, and we stayed until 12 when they finally realized how exhausted I was... But I did get to try this delicious Chinese tea that at first I thought was water with leaves in it, but ended up being DELICIOUS with a bit (ok, quite a bit...), of sugar in it. Needless to say, after a 12 hour long "lunch" with Becky and friends, I was exhausted and immediately went to bed, especially since Becky and I made plans for tommorrow! But that is another post, and another day.