44!

day 44 here in Belgium land...dreary nose-running sort of day. TYPICAL! lets see...today i leisurely cycled to language class and arrived about 9:15, naturally class didn't start for another 10-15 minutes so i had time to do yesterday's homework that i procrastinated and ended up not doing. so i quickly wrote some answers down and finished on time. today we got our first test back..and my best friend KARMA caught up to me. remember that divorce joke i pulled in yesterdays blog post? turns out i spelled it wrong (in dutch)! just my luck right? i also made a couple other mistakes that translate to "she are" instead of "she is" and "she likes cook" instead of "she likes to cook" or something like that! so i got a 7/10..but i know what i did wrong so better luck next time!! today was an extra special day because my friends decided to go to the "tearoom" for lunch (the place that gives you chocolate and mini muffins with your warm drink...)! i had promised myself that the next time we went back there i would order PANNEKOEKEN! what is that you say? why, its the belgian version of pancakes of course! looks like a thick crepe or a thin pancake...tastes like heaven. you get two huge ones on a big round plate and i ordered mine with warm chocolate sauce. sadly i could only finish 1 and a half total..because the chocolate sauce was soooo richand so tasty..i could not handle finishing it. the weird thing about pancakes here is not that they are thin and large, but the way you eat them. you add a sauce, or some sugar, or syrup/jelly or whatever..then you ROLL them (like lefse..kind of?) and cut the roll with your fork and knife and eat it! so good, i am telling you..i will give up my peanut butter and jelly ANY DAY for pancakes...haha. anyways. i had amazing pancakes that i sadly didn't get a picture of but no worries because i am sure i will be back there within a month or so for more "pannekoeken met warme chocoladesaus"...(yeah you read that right, WARM chocolate sauce...try that one on for size, PERKINS!). so anyways! after the exciting calorie filled lunch we went to a study hall because the teacher was gone..no substitutesremember! then we had an art history class that i just did my dutch homework in..and then some class where they discussed how their "jury" went yesterday. i guess they had to read some thing or present something yesterday in front of a judge...all i caught from the discussion is the teacher reading the results, and she told a few of them they had poor dialect or something! so after that i got some cash from the atm and came home. on the way home i saw a pair of boots i really liked but sadly their 109 euro price tag is not in my budget..maybe if i stopped eating pancakes...nah. so i came home and took a shower, something about a runny nose makes me want to shower. then i hung around for a while and started to make dinner! it was taco night in the house..so we made some guacamole, taco meat, and had some toppings to put on a tortilla. here are my observations about taco making.

1) the meat. "hamburger" as we call it in america. normally we fry it up in the pan, sometimes drain the grease, then itsready to eat. not here! here you have to fry it in the pan, wait 15 extra minutes so the water or HORMONES evaporate, then move along with your cooking process. almost like you BOIL the meat in its own liquid..disgusting! luckily my mother sent me a pack of spices from home (mckormics?) and i added that like we do at home. my host father said it tasted "asian" ...hhaha okay then!

2) guacamole. no canned green chili's and no lawrey's seasoning like at home. added cilantro (or "coriander"), and more tomatoes than usual. tast

ed alright but my family called it "bland". fine with me.

3) cheese. normally we just top off the taco with some shredded cheddar cheese, that you can find on sale at hyvee for $1 and stock up on if you're anything like mother mary. no not here. "shredded" cheese doesn't exist, really. this is a SIY (shred it yourself) nation. so thus the little container of cheese you see at the lower right hand corner of the picture. a block of cheddar cheese.

in conclusion, today was a nice day, and tomorrow will be nice as well. i have no plans..but i do plan on trying to find a way to get out of gym class..but i don't think that will work. thanks for reading!