Dinner Party

Last night Iria, Els, and Geraldine decided to cook us a fancy dinner and decorate the kitchen and living room. The place looked amazing. There was tons of candles lit, nice silverware and plates, champagne and fine wines, cheeses, breads, and olives. And that was just the beginning. We had a three course meal for dinner. The starter was a delicious shrimp dish made with a wine cream sauce. I don't even like shrimp but there were absolutely amazing. For our main course we had these special french chickens cooked in a wine sauce and another cooked in a red sauce with capers. It also was delicious. For dessert we ate a cherry crumble pie...mmm...i think I put on about 15 pounds by the end of the meal.

At dinner we got into some pretty intense discussions of politics, and I was forced to bite my tounge a few times. But it felt good to hear different points of view on the issues of today. Not saying I agree with all of them, but thats alright. Geraldine (the women who lives upstairs from us) had her step-father over also, a man from France named Louis, and he was very nice.

After dinner we decided to share a taxi ride with Louis so that we could go to our Thursday night Karaoke spot (we are trying to go every Thursday). We met some other Vesalius students there and ended up singing a few songs. Karaoke is so damn fun! We met this crazy German guy at the place who was in Brussels on business, and lets just say, he was interesting.

Speaking of Germany, Matt and I are beginning to plan a trip for the weekend after next to Cologne, Germany, as it is fairly close and cheap, and will be a good first trip for us.

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On another note, yesterday I went to the pharmacy with my friend Adam because he needed to pick up some cold medicine, and I wanted to see how pharmacies worked in Belgium. It was pretty cool. All of the pharmacys are owned by the government I believe, so each one is the exact same. Rather than in the United States, where you get your drugs at a CVS type place, the pharmacys here are strictly pharmacies. When you go in you speak with the pharmacist, tell them your symptoms, and they find exactly what you need and tell you what dosage to take etc. It makes life alot easier!

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My favorite thing about Belgium so far is the fact that they care about food. In French class, my teacher was speaking about how in most cases people in other countries care more about money than food, but in Belgium, food is the number one concern. Every single thing I have eaten here you can tell takes time to cook. They care about freshness alot too, and rarely will you find packaged or preserved foods anywhere, its all fresh. The food quality here is alot higher too. True, the foods we eat here may pack alot of calories because they rely heavily on creams and sauces, and meats and breads, but the overall quality of the food here seems better. (Don't worry Mom, I still think you are a good cook haha).