sadevil.org

Easter was to be spent together in Belgium, resting and having fun together and so on. Full recollection ahead!
Read more »

I spent my newyears in Madrid, went there the 28th (evening). After an uneventful flight, we went to Diana’s place, didn’t do much and went to sleep.

The 29th we first went to check into the hotel, did the grocery shopping in El Corte Ingles. We bugged the cheese-salesperson because we needed a fondue cheese mix that contained no cow cheese… he was so kind to find a mix, try it out if it melted well, and gave us a nice cheesy mix.
In the evening we met up with a good friend of ours (who’s a member of the Marmotfish Studios and who gave us a copy of Freakmen 451 - very cute magazine!). We walked around a while, I lost me bankcard in an ATM (when it gave my card back I couldn’t reach it *sniff* so I pushed it back in completely with another card), and had dinner at Ginos.

The next day we went to the jokes market on the Plaza Mayor - all kinds of fun masks, wigs, and whatnot - strange people those madrileños! Afterwards we went home and were lazy…

On newyearseve we stayed home all day, Diana killed the chicken like a pro and stuffed it with a lovely Mixed Mushroom and Sweet Potato Stuffing.
Around midnight we exchanged some gifts… I got a ton of them *blush*

The first of the new year we didn’t do anything really. Not that there was anything to do - we stayed at home/hotel and were lazy :p

On the 2nd of january we went shopping for a cute fondue set for making a fondue sometime during the next days. Really the only thing we did. Yeah, we’re lazy :P

The next day (3rd) we went to a lovely Artisans market in Madrid, where I bought a penguin shaped candle for myself, and a 1/12″ doggie for mum.
In the evening we had to rushrush because I decided last-minute to buy a portable dvd player for on the hotel and on the flights - so they’re less boring.

The 4th of january we didn’t do much. Diana made a very tasty ciabatta at home, which we ate with the lovely cheese fondue in the evening. Diana also made the beginning of the Roscon de Reyes - traditional cake for the three wisemen day.

The fifth we finished the actual Roscon, and it came out very nice! Other than that, it was really quiet that day, as it also was the the sixth… the sixth I had to leave unfortunately, and I miss Diana very much…

(ps: pics are here)

Jan

I flew over to Belgium last Saturday the 3rd and on landing there and after picking up my suitcase, Jan and I went to do some shopping at Ikea. We bought a small dining table, two chairs, a low table for in front of the couches, and some nice boxes for our ‘little’ living room. Then we had fun putting all the stuff together and decorating the room. For dinner we had mum2’s chilli sin carne and rice with the family.

On Sunday we woke up late and had brunch at home, and then idled before meeting up with Chris, Joke, their Benjamin, and Joke’s sister at the irish pub in Ghent. We had some drinks and ate something while chatting over different things and hiding Ben’s playing car. After that, we went home and rested a bit, and called our favourite chinese for a take-away dinner, and passed by Jan’s sis’ to pick up chopsticks for eating our meal. We enjoyed duck with veggies, thing noodles with chicken, and fried rice, with some white wine and while watching some Red Dwarf (season VII).

Monday was time for more Ikea shopping (we had to exchange a book-case, wrong colour!) and bought some more boxes and the book cases, and dishes (only for two) and munchies (chocolate, vanilla cookies and marzipan). We put together all the stuff and had pizza dinner (with extra cheese). And more Red Dwarf *giggle*

Tuesday we went to Brugge for seeing the Ice Palace, a show of ice sculptures that was very cold and nice. There was even a bar to have drinks while seating on cold skins, and a barista with a frozen ass (his hands were kept warm thanks to the thermo filled with hot cocoa). We saw the Christmas (food and drink) Market and bought some chocolate from our favourite shop. And ate a real Brussels Waffle too (suikerwafel) warm, big and mjummy! After getting back home, we called the vegetarian restaurant Panda for booking a table, and had to rush down to Ghent again cause they close earlier that we thought. They had a fix menu (at a very affordable price) with orange lentil soup, a dish of seitan with various veggies and rice, and dessert (choco cake for the chocoholic, yogurt with fresh fruit for Jan).

On Wednesday, Chris was supposed to be at ‘our’ place around 10 for driving to Maasmechelen Village and meeting Dave there. He only got here one hour later though (bad Chris!). Once at Maasmechelen, we took a quick walk around the shops (nothing interesting *pout*) and drove off to Maastricht to eat there, take a walk around the (again food & drinks) Christmas Market and do some shopping at Media Markt. After that we dropped Dave at his place, and drove back home - don’t ask me how was the drive, cause I fell asleep pretty soon after leaving David and only woke up when we got to Brussels, and then fell asleep again! We showed Chris our living room before he left and prepared some veggie lasagna for dinner.

Thursday shopping after brunch! We went to a family run clothes shop (SKM) that was hideously expensive, and after 15 minutes or so we drove off scared to death. We stopped by Ghent and bought a pair of jeans at H&M and a laptop backpack at Fnacs. SKM was so depressing I really needed retail therapy! We went to have dinner at K.Roes.L, a nice restaurant that serves giant pancakes and oversized salads at a nice price, and then we headed off to the cinema to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Since we got there too early, we played some free videogames (Soulkalibur III I think it was, on the PS II). I kick ass! (literally) The movie was great, go see it if you haven’t yet :-)

On Friday we went to Brussels to see an exhibition about Asterix. And then drove to Grote Markt to see the huge Christmas Market there. It is spread over several streets and squares in Brussels, with a couple of hundreds of chalets that sell different things, including food and drinks, and with nice carrousels with old looking mechanical parts. I bought some glass figurines (christmas decoration) and before heading home we had pankaces and hot cocoa at a pub. Mum2 had prepared a vegetarian rice for dinner that we had with lots of soy sauce. Afterwards, we prepared some salty microwave popcorn, chilled white wine (and cookies and chocolate) and watched more Red Dwarf season VI before heading to bed.

Saturday the 10th was the come back day. We had quiet breakfast and packed, talked a while with mum2 and relaxed a bit before going to the airport and taking the plane back home. It was a quiet flight, except for my headache - caused by me hitting my nose the previous night. And then I am back home and missing Jan so much…

I went, had fun, came back (unfortunately)… It’s all on Diana’s blog!

Oh, she’ll be here sooooooooooooooooooooon! The beginning of december!

Last thursday, the 30th of June to be precise, Diana landed back in belgium :) After going through hell traffic we got home, spent a quiet evening there. We watched The Tuxedo) and went to sleep.

Friday the 1st, our anniversary day :p we moved out to Ghent for some relaxing days in the Ghent River Hotel, a nice ‘old-style-ish’ hotel near the River in Ghent (as you probably would have guessed by the name ;p). We did some impromptu walking about in the city, and then moved off to Brussels to go to the vegeterian restaurant L’Element Terre, one of the really cute real vegetarian restaurants in Belgium. We got lost going there tho, driving off on the wrong side on the ring around Brussels.. *shame* but we got there in the end.

On saturday we got out of bed late, had a small meal (Diana had poffertjes! and I had an omelette), and we went to Wellnesscentre Bijtebier in Drongen, where we spent a lovely 4 hours in different sauna’s, turkish steambath, swimming pool, jacuzzi, bubblebath, and a good backmassage too :)
Totally relaxed we went to the veggy eathouse Panda in Ghent, and afterwards met up with Chris and his girlfriend for Sin City, a weird black/white/red/yellow movie ;p take your pick of the color you like best ;p
Afterwards we went for a drink on the Friday market, where we basically closed the only ‘decent’ pub that was still open (djeez, everything closed at 1am…), going to bed around 3am.

Sunday ‘morning’ (more around noon) we left the hotel and went for pasta brunch on the friday market (goooood paaaasta ;p too much tho). We walked about a bit in the city and then went home to felicitate my sister for her birthday, and hand over presents.. and eat pancakes! Mjummy mjummy pancakes ;p and lots of them *g*
In the evening we went to Pinocchio, a true traditional Italian pizzeria, with veeery good handmade pizza’s (watch the chef while you wait), good wine, deliceous desserts.. *daydreaming* that was so good :)
Afterwards, trip back to the hotel and a relaxing night :)

On monday we signed out of the hotel, stuffed our stuff in the car, went home, and had a quiet day really. We went out to Aalst to buy some fresh veggies and other assorted stuff, and Diana cooked a great dinner at home :)
We did get some rather bad burns from ze evil polenta, but well, one’s gotta pay for good food…

Tuesday I had to go to work, and after getting home we walked around the rustique environment of Erembodegem (looking at the house-styles too, some ppl make weiiiiird buildings). We watched part of Princess Mononoke, a sort of classic anime, and went to sleep.

Wednesday we went first to my work’s offices in Capelle aan de Ijssel in the Netherlands to pick up a shipment, and went through to Rotterdam. Damn weird city, weird streets and too many roadsigns! We did some impromptu shopping at Albert Hein, went home and Diana cooked a lovely dinner for us both (I did help a little bit ;p)

On thursday I had to work again, and in the eve we went off to the cinema to go watch Madagascar! Great ‘kiddy’ movie! I like to move-it move-it!

Friday we met up with Kim (a good friend) in Ghent, and went to the Quetzal Chocolate-bar in Ghent and had a veeery good Chocolate fondue there. After that we walked around Ghent a bit more (shopping streets!), bought some general stuff (including a Belgian mobile + prepaid card for Diana ;p), had an icecream and went home again.

On saturday we had a big family meeting, lots of people (14 in total!), with cake, cheese, bread, … which basically took nearly all day.

And finally on sunday Diana had to go home again.. It’s been short, yet felt long, but too short all the time. Sad to see her go again.. but she’s back in August :D :D

Jan

So I went to Belgium :-) And it was really fun. The flight to Brussels was a little pain in the ass. Since 2nd and 3rd of may were holidays in Madrid, seems all the people here wanted to fly outta here. So the airport was full and we had some delays first thanks to some people that didn’t pay attention to the arriving two hours prior to departure time, and they got stuck in the police check and then didn’t get on time to the gate. And then the control changed our take off lane, so we had to wait more, since they put us at the end of the queue. After the flight (I wanna kill kids, honest… well and parents that don’t teach them how to behave). That night we went to have dinner to a chinese restaurant. Very good food. But we came across some people we weren’t expecting to find there (or anywhere). But it was okay :-)

Saturday we woke up early-ish cause we were going to The Efteling! We spent the whole day there :-) taking a ride in (almost) every attraction: rollercoasters and bobsleight and even the boats. Really really fun :-) Then we headed to our hotel in Den Bosch (I’ll skip thewhole name of the town, too complicated for this little girl), Moevenpick Den Bosch. We had dinner in a very good vegetarian restaurant, called Samtosa. We had a mjummy crep with courgette and mushroom and cinammon oil! And then a thai fondue (cheese fondue with spices and veggies and bread to dip in), and tiramisu and tea. All verry good. And a looooong sleep night.

We actually didn’t hear the room service knocking on the door with our breakfast ready! So after a very hearty breakfast, we headed back home. It was too early, so we stopped by a kind of zoo, called Plankendael where we spend the whole afternoon. Luckily i had taken along my sunscreen, cause it was HOT and SUNNY! The poor animals were all taking a nap and ignoring most of the people. Very peaceful. The evening at home was nice. Played some with the computer and had icecream! They still have a guy that sells icecream cones door-to-door *sob* I wanna… We had dinner at home: left over cauliflour with cheese sauce, boiled potatoes, and quorn burguers (that omg I cooked). And watched Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a very good movie :-) very fun.

Monday morning we spent the time looking for colours to paint a room. Djeezs, we’re doing normal couple things again :p *panic*. We decided for bourdeaux and a very light yellowish for the walls… And we chose another colour for the ceiling that didn’t turn out that well, so we have to change. I cooked lunch: quick pasta dish with orange, apple, tomato and carrot ;p sounds weird, but it’s tasty. We spent the evening playing a bit with the computer again, and deciding where we’d have dinner. Another chinese, called China Garden. We had china garden soup, mini chinese loumpias (*ahem* “mini”… they’re the size normal loumpias are in Spain). And duck in prunes sauce, icecream (we want traditional chinese desserts!) and Jasmine tea. We had rented Shark Tale to watch after dinner, but I fell asleep half through it (again…).

Tuesday was leaving day again… Waking up, packing, eating something, heading to the airport… It’s so hard to leave once more… The plane had technical problems… the light for the landing gear didn’t work, so we had to change planes, and that was another hour delay… and getting home…

Diana