Χριστός Ανέστη !

The title of this post says "Christós Anésti", which is "Christ is risen" in Greek. Our Greek bros that we met on the ferry/cruise back to Athens taught us that that's how they greet each other during Easter times.

That being said, Happy Easter! Hope all y'all had a great day; I know I sure did! I did jack diddly squat, literally. I woke up, went to the grocery store, and spent the day watching The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Side note: that was my favorite movie as a kid, and now I'm watching it (at 21, mind you) and it's TERRIFYING. Seriously, SCARY.

We had Easter dinner round mine tonight, which was fun! I made (i.e., bought) crepes and ham, but I also made (as in, from scratch, by hand, etc.) béchamel sauce, which, if I say so myself, was delicious. I didn't have nutmeg (it was super expensive at the store), so I substituted cinnamon and it was just as good, if not better. Who's a culinary boss? I am.


Easter dinner! Eliana brought the vegetables, rice, and made the deviled eggs. Mike brought the wine and the Coke (and dessert, which is not pictured here), and Karen brought the beer. We will talk about the beer in a moment. See my sauce in the pot? Yayaaa.

Belgium has a lot of hang ups about beer. For example, you can only buy beer from one of the trappist abbeys once every 6 months, and it's illegal, literally against the law, to pour a beer into a glass that's not the brand's glass for that particular beer. You can't pour Chimay into a Rochefort glass, or Leffe into Guillotine. That being said, they also like to have fun with their beer, by which I mean there are beers for certain holidays. Every brand of Belgian beer I've run across has a Christmas beer (available obviously at Christmas time), and apparently there's Easter beers too! Karen was awesome enough to bring us the Leffe Easter beer for Easter dinner, and it was delicious. I'm a little biased though; I like Leffe best of all.

Aw yeah holiday beer yeah! That's Karen in the back :]

All in all, today was a good day.

What? Tease!

Hey guys! I'm back from my bajillion day long vacation, feelin' all refreshed and lookin' all tan (read as, "darker than I've ever been in my life") and what not. I've been travelling for 2 weeks none stop, pretty much, and, needless to say, I've got a lot to talk about and even more pictures to show. I'm pretty sure I have upwards of 300 pictures from Greece and Germany, and since I definitely can't do all of those in one post here's what the plan's gonna be:

1. Easter post tomorrow
2. Germany post Monday or Tuesday
3. Greece post Wednesday or Friday

Here's a little teaser so you know what you're in for:


The Japanese Garden at Homburg


Oia, Santorini, Greece

Be jealous :p

I made it!

I've made it to Greece! I'm currently fending off Mosquitos in the port café we're passing the night in before we catch the ferry to Santorini in the morning, but whatever: I'm here in one piece.

So Greece. The countryside is beautiful. The water's really beautiful. Athens? Sketchy. Sketchy looking and dirty. We think we may have found the nicer part of town on the train, but there was no time to investigate.

The ferry tomorrow is out at 7:55 in the morning, and it's SEVEN HOURS LONG. I will try not to cry. Y'all know I don't do water. After that, though, it's 4 days of beach and sun and wonderfulness. I'm excited.

Things I've Learned:
1: Greek food is cheap
2: Greek food is delicious
3: Greek food is filling
4: Greece is diverse. I've seen more different types of people here in 7 hours than I have in 4 months in Belgium

Deutschland Deutschland

Hey guys! How's it hanging?

Spring Break has officially begun! This week, Nick, Annie, Grace and I are in Germany staying at Nick's house. I'm not quite sure where it is, and he's gone on a run so I can't ask him, but the googling weather says I'm in Steinach am Glan. Either way, I'm close to Trier, which is where Clemson chemical engineering majors go to study abroad.

The weather. Here. Is. PERFECT. It's presently 19° C, which is close to 70° F. I FEEL LIKE I'M BACK IN SOUTH CAROLINA OH MY GOODNESS. Yesterday, we took a walk through the woods and sat out by a lake forever and played with Nick's dog. It was a good day. We even got to go to Ramstein, AND THERE WAS HAIR CARE PRODUCT I FLIPPED OUT ALL OVER THE PLACE. Seriously, I've never been so excited over hair grease. Ever.

Germany is so pretty I can't even stand it. It's all rolling hills and pastures and farm animals and deer and giant bunny rabbits and perfectly placed trees. Unfortunately, I can't put up pictures right now (not that I've taken many thus far) because I don't have my laptop on me, but they're coming. Oh they're coming.

Later this week, we're touring castles. A lot. Because it's Germany, and what is there to do? Tomorrow, we're going to Mannheim (I think)!

Check back soon for castle rants :D

Things I've learned:
1. Germany is gorgeous
2. Germany has perfect weather
3. Yes. They really do drive 80 bajillion mph--excuse me, km/h.

Napping on castles because I'm a boss

Last Saturday, Nick, Annie, Grace and I went on a day trip to Gand! Gand, of course, is the French name for Ghent. The Flemish name is Gent. Oh Belgium, you confuse me so with you interlingual politics.

Anyway, Ghent was great! It's got canals and awesome churches (y'all know how I love churches) and castles and parks and oh my giddy goodness! I can show you better than I can tell you.

This is Gand. Gent. Ghent. Whatever. It pretty much looks like a Disney movie threw up all over it, except for the lamp posts with Michael the Archangel slaying dragons on top of them. I love Disney movies, so I'm cool with that.

CASTLE. I love castles! This is the Gravensteen which is literally just sort of hanging in the city center. It was built in 1180, and was falling apart until the 1880s when the people of Ghent started reconstructing it. Now it's a museum with lots of castle-y weapons (spears, maces, GIANT SWORDS WITH 5 FOOT BLADES; y'know, the usual) and pretty rifles. Seriously, the rifles had ivory-looking panoramas carved into them. Ridiculous.

And this is me. Laying out on the lawn on top of the Gravensteen. I definitely fell asleep there. That's right. I napped on a castle. Be jealous.

There are a couple of interesting churches in Gand. One of them is Sint-Jacobskerk, which we passed by but didn't go in (it has purple window shutters!), and then there's Sint-Niklaaskerk (which is a MONSTER oh my goodness it looks like a castle but it's a CHURCH), and, my favorite, Sint-Baafskathedraal. This is Sint-Baafs:

Impressed already, aren't you? I know. I know.

Y'all know how I love big old impressive/imposing churches. We walked up to it and my mouth was open. It was really undignified. It got worse when we went inside. Pictures aren't allowed inside Saint Bavo's (the English way of saying Sint-Baafs) but I love it so much I found some on the internet to show you. Seriously, this is my favorite church in Europe thus far and I must share it with you folks back home.

That is the altar. Just the altar. There's a big walk around the altar that you and it's got all these little side cubbies with shrines (I use the term loosely, and only because I have NO IDEA what to call these little rooms that are everywhere in Europe) with impressive sculptures and paintings of Jesus and one of them had a narrative painting of the crucifixion and oh my.

I love Saint Bavo's. Everything is black and white. More specifically, everything is black and marble. You heard me. Marble. Think the altar was something? That's not even the best part. This is:

THAT IS THE PULPIT. THAT IS THE PULPIT. THAT IS THE PULPIT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW EXCITING THAT IS? IT IS OAK AND MARBLE AND THE SERPENT IS A DRAGON AND THE APPLES ARE GOLDEN AND THERE'S A DOVE ABOVE WHERE THE PREACHER'S HEAD GOES DO YOU SEE THIS.

I wanted to curl up in a ball and live in it. I still do, actually (just in case you couldn't tell).

We ended the day by sitting in a park near the train station. If you didn't notice, it was a gorgeous day. It was 75° and perfect, and lying on top of the Gravensteen was the most peaceful moment I've had in the last 8 or so months--heck, let's make that in the last year. Someone build me a castle at home so I can nap on the roof when the going gets tough (or when I otherwise feel like it).

Easter Break starts this weekend and goes through the 22nd! Friday I leave for Germany for a week, and then I'm on to Greece (Santorini, specifically) to lay on a beach and drink fruity drinks all day. Updates will be few and far between (or nonexistent) until I get back because I'm not taking my computer. I will, however, take lots and lots of pictures and post a good percentage of them here so you guys can see :]

Things I've learned:
1. Ghent is the city of French Bulldogs, epic mustaches, pregnant women, and people who speak really really good English.
2. It does get warmer than 55° in Belgium
3. 70° F is 20° C
4. Canals are cool
5. Castles are good places for naps

Poetry, etc.

Hey guys! Not much going on in the world of me, sadly. It's been sort of a dead week.

It's spring. That means trees are blooming, things are sprouting, and pollen is everywhere in the air. It's by no means as bad as South Carolina here in Belgium, but it's all newfangled European pollen and what not that my poor, southern body has never had to inhale before. Said body is therefore flipping out. I missed 2 days of class this week because breathing outside my bedroom is difficult. Oy.

Yesterday (Friday) I had a poetry reading of sorts at a school sponsored event. Truth be told, I got suckered into it by my Japanese teacher--if I had actually been paying attention I would have NEVER agreed to do it. It was simple: just recite 2 haikus in Japanese at the shindig and be done, but I was super nervous about it. It's sort of nerve-wrecking to perform in your third language in front of a room full of people who speak your second language as their first language, you know? I didn't choke, though, surprisingly enough, and it turned out well! The program's supposed to be put on youtube; when Mariken gets me the link I'll post it so you guys can see!

Exchange rate is still bonkers. This is breaking my poor, cheap heart.

There's something else I'm supposed to tell you all, but I definitely can't think of what it is!

I think I speak better French when there aren't any Americans around. Actually, I know that for a fact., I say that because I know me. I'm lazy. The Americans speak English, so I don't put my best effort into speaking French because I know I can fall back on English with them. When they're not around, I don't have a crutch, so I have to step my game up.

Greece in 2 weeks! :D Get excited.