Day 83- (Sat) Pizza oven
After another scintilating saturday studying(!) it was time to revive an old tradition from home - pizza night! Armed with 1.50 euo pizzas from Jumbo('elke dag beter'- 'everyday better' proclaims the bright yellow sign of our favourite Dutch supermarket chain) we cruised round to fire up the oven. And now my favourite part of living in this guesthouse - the dinner company. As we waited for our mix of margherita, pepperoni, chicken and corn (on pizza, not a soup!) etc to crispify we sat around effectively a card table that passes for a dining table in or excuses for kitchens (have I mentioned all the units are the same, right down to the crappy furniture - in each kitchen there even seems to be the same combination of one good and one dodgy broken IKEA chair - it ends up being a game to see if you can take your chair to someone elses place for dinner and come home with a better one!) ... anywho, where was I, oh yes ...cramped kitchen conversation .... so sitting around this tiny table (or perched on the kitchen bench if ur unlucky enough to come last and no more chairs will fit in the room!) were 2 aussies, a scot and two canadians (and that's positively bland as far as multiculturalism goes here) but the conversation ranged from a crazy Dutch politician having a crack at Muslims, to the Canadian Mayoral race to the benefits of Milo versus European drinking chocolate. No matter what meal of the day, or in what language (when my Dutch girls pop round for dinner or Tess tries in vain to teach me some Korean) ... its never just "pass the salt pls" around here :)
Day 84 - (Sun) Muffin better to do than bake
In need of yet another study break I busted out the fall-back muffin recipe from home and filled our tiny unit with a smell yummy enough to entice Tess out of her room! Apparently the sight of fresh baked goods was enough to send her back in there to retrieve her camera! (For anyone who's interested, the muffins are now doing the rounds on FB, tagged as me!) Who knew two red-hot elements with a tray between them, housed in something suspiciously resembling a microwave could bring so much joy :P
Observations: Although I've just spent this blog talking mainly about food I'm now about to complain about the side effects - I calculated the other day that I ride at least 8km each day, to and from uni, sometimes more if I make multiple trips, yet my pins are no closer to being "insurably toned" nor has my waistline all but disappeared ... Belgian chocolate, you gotta lotta 'splaining to do! In fact, instead of resembling a two-wheeled goddess, most mornings (now that its getting foggy) I end up hurtling into the uni bike-park sweating like a pig and desperately searching for a tissue to wipe my running nose/dribbling eyes/damp forehead, before peeling off the layers to see steam floating into the air! Its been single-digit temperatures here (yes, already! grrr) but I still manage to work up a sweat, and going downhill too! Hrm....
Mistakes: And while I'm on the subject of bikes ... I have come to th realisation that mine is in fact a piece of crap! As much as I love the Moo Mobile (and beieve it was worth buying purely for the novelty factor!) I must admit it is rusty, with bald tyres, terrible sqeaky breaks, with portable cheap lights and a creaking seat! I'm sure its only a matter of time before the whole thing falls apart from underneath me one day! So I've resolved I must begin the search or a new bike, in earnest, after exams. But for now, let's not tell Daisy... she's still got to carry my at least 8km each day and I don't want my only mode of transport to feel unloved and take it out on me over a speed hump!
Dutch I've learned: "Ik hep geen broers of zussen maar Ik hep twee honds" = (oooh a whole fancy sentence!) means "I don't have any brothers or sisters but I have two doggies! (who I keep seeing on skype every time I talk to Mum and Dad :P)
For now though, "Doei ..." ("Byyyyyyyyyyeee")
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