Belgian Sickness Food

First, let me just say that I had an extremely eventful past weekend and have SO much to talk about. I am currently typing up a long entry about my first night out (Friday), which was simply unforgettable and makes me think, If every night out in Brussels this year will be like that, I will living one hell of a crazy life. It may not have turned out in the end to be exactly what I wanted. But during the night..it was so much fun!

So anyway, when I have finished with part 1 of this weekend, I will be sure to post it ASAP.

For now, I just come home from the cinema with Esra, a German au pair. We saw Magic Mike (hehe). One thing that I find very interesting here is that all the movies are always shown in their original languages, and then have French and Finnish subtitles if the movie is in English. So, this was nice because I could still understand what was going on, but also practice my french by quickly reading the subtitles. A fun and good exercise, not like my brain is really craving much more strenuous activity at the moment. every time I walk into a store and need to ask someone something, I think in English then the German translation promptly pops into my head because that is what I am most used to speaking (I speak it with the family at home most of the time), but the I realize people speak French here, not German, and I then struggle to translate the whole thing into French (which usually comes out wrong but oh well, I'm learning). Then, the person usually responds in English because they're realized my French is bad and their English is better. Great. That's the one problem here. I can hardly ever practice my French because everyone is so damn good at speaking English. Brussels is just too international and educated:P 

Anyway, look at this building I saw on my way to the cinema:

That is Brussels architecture for you. An old, beautiful building built in the 1700s, and then some ugly, modern LED sign on top of it.. They even made an official word in the "architectural dictionary" for this type of building, called Brusselism. 

Anyway, this is what I really wanted to post about. I came home from the cinema feeling extremely tired and with a scratchy throat. So, I prepared myself a little meal of Belgian "sickness food." 

Here, you can see a giant mug of chemomielle, vanilla, honey tea (in a Milka mug of course!), crackers with Speculoos spread (a tartiner in french, this is like my new favorite thing. Its basically these popular cookies they make here called Speculoos ground up into a paste. Speculoos taste kind of like gingerbread a little, but not so gingery and more sweet and buttery. The spread may be even better than peanut butter..and that's saying a lot coming from me!!), and some dark chocolate (made right here in Brussels of course!), and finally zinc tablets (yum:P) to fight that cold!!

Here is a close up of the Speculoos spread:)

While we are on the topic of food, here is what I had for dessert yesterday! The white thing is a petit suisse, and is basically really think creamy unsweetened yogurt/cream. I sprinkled sugar on it because it's a little to sour for my taste. But it really brings me back to when I was little and my family went to France and I had these every morning with sugar:) I was so excited when I found them here! They boys, especially Jonas, also love them. The chocolate is a truffle with mousse made here in Belgium as well:)

 Here is the sandwich I ate yesterday. Was called Italia de l'ete (Italy summer), it had fresh parma ham, mozzarella  roasted veggies, fresh tomatoes and arugula. So good!:)


One also really random thing. While I was working on my blog at the kitchen table yesterday, Jonas saw the picture of the Mannekin Pis and said "I was listening to the radio today and someone asked which hand the Mannekin Pis holds his...." Pause. I laughed and checked..  Then he said, " Dass ist eine witzige Frage!!" (That is a funny question!). Yes, yes it is. 

He holds it with his left hand, in case you really wanted to know. guess the Mannekin is one of the minorities of the world and is left-handed. Go check the front page of my blog if you don't believe me:)

So, I am going to bed. Tomorrow hopefully I will post part 1 of this past weekend, including my first night out and "the day of no cars" in Brussels:)