Channeling My Inner Belgian: An All-American Weekend

Saturday & Sunday, November 19th-20th, 2011

Well, I figured that I should probably finish up on November before January rolls around... So here goes nothing!

Quite some time ago, Pascale and Eddy had asked me to make a Thanksgiving dinner for them, to experience one of my favorite holidays of the year. Although I was definitely hesitant to prepare such a HUGE meal all by myself, especially when I don't really enjoy cooking, but I wanted to do something to let them know how grateful I am for everything that they do. So, I got my mum to send ahead the Lancaster Family Recipes, spent about three hours translating the ingredients and converting the measurements (now THAT was the real doozy), and then gave the shopping list to Pascale. I knew first off that there were going ot be some foods that we would just simply not find here. The plan was to get my parents to send that stuff over to me, if it wasn't too big and an imperative ingredient for a dish. But the Pascale brought up that she knew someone that works on an American military base over here, and has access to a store stocked full of American goodies. But it turns out, he doesn't have access because he is Belge and just kinda helping out or something... At that point i had a mini freak-out due to the fact that it was too late for my mum to send over ingredients, and there definitely were a few key ones missing. But then, I discovered just possibly my new favorite place in Belgium: The American Food Store!

So anyhow, we made plans to go there on Saturday. I also invited along my friend Katie, from Texas, because she was also planning on making a Thanksgiving dinner and she needed to buy ingredients too. I was literally sooooooo excited to go to the American Food Store, to have a chance to buy some delicious, fully processed, so good that you don't care how bad they are for you, American food. When we finally got there, about an hour later, I freaked out. The actualy store was A LOT smaller than I thought it was going to be. Like by quite a bit. But it still had really good products... I probably walked around the store at least 10 times, just to take everything in. I found everything I needed for Thanksgiving (pumpkin, a turkey, marshmallows, cranberry sauce, a turkey bag, etc.), as well as some ingredients to make a couple of Mexican meals (crazy Belgians, don't know how they can live without good salsa, green peppers, or refried beans!). Despite my insistence that this was my meal and that I wanted to do EVERYTHING for it, including buying hte ingredients, Pascale and Eddy wouldn't have it. So that gave me the chance to go a bit crazy and buy some fun things for myself. After much debate, I bought a box of poptarts, Reeses, Kraft Mac & Cheese, and ingredients to make s'mores. Oh, and of course, PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I bought extra of that, but not for me. I volunteered to buy the ingredients for my exotic dinner night. I was in a group with 6 other Americans, and the goal being to make some main dish that is unique and common to your country, we decided to make PB&Js. But alas, that is another day...

Although it was extremely overpriced, going ot the American Food Store just absolutely made my day. And even though it's about a 2 1/2 train ride to get there, which actually involves making a couple of changes, I know I will most likely pay that store a visit again. Seriously, the man who came up with the idea and opened that store, kudos to you. I bet he is rolling in the dough. Because, although it is probably expensive to ship things over to Belgium from the U.S., when we went in the store was jam packed with Americans who are living over seas, and the occasional curious native. And when people go there, they don't tend to go for just one or two items. The go for the motherload, filling an entire shopping cart and then ending up paying like 200 euros or something crazy like that.

Katie and I were SO excited to get home. For lunch, we had a box of Mac&Cheese and spoonfuls of peanut butter. I swear, it was so good that I could have cried. I miss "normal" food and normal meals, even if what I bought isn't necessarily my favorite foods in the world. In fact, other than peanut butter, I really don't even eat the other things that much. Like at home, Mac&Cheese is a last resort. But here, it's like gold.

For the rest of the day, Katie and I just hung out like any other normal teenager would. It feels so weird ot be so... well, normal. Just hanging in my room, talking, listening to music, and having fun. We even took a walk around my street, just to do something while we talked. Back home, I wouldn't think twice about just hanging out with my friends and speaking English. But now, here, it's just weird. Like, it feels like such a rare moment, to just slow down my life enough to do something like that. Every other second, I feel like it's "let's see how many things we can jam into Morgan's life!" time. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE it when my life is like that. I am always more happy when I am super busy. But time here is moving so bloody fast, having a weekend like this, just hanging out and not trying to go somewhere or see something, it's nice. A nice little break from my otherwise very busy life.