ابانا (dlrow ebara eht ni eb ot tnaem yltinifed)

What up? Feel free to drop a word, I won't hurt you! 

Well... Something interesting happened to me indicating that I may have been born in the wrong culture! Strike that, next to the wrong culture (cause officially I'm born in Belgium but don't tell anyone that, we make fun of the belgians). Why, you ask? Aha! Soooo glad you asked, cause otherwise I would have told you anyway! (makes sense... in an emotional way)

So I decided to go shopping for vegetables, cause I wanted to try to eat a bit, a little, a LOT more healthier... I ended up robbing a leader price of it's finest specimens such as: a small leek, some carrots, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and a beautiful broccoli! Later in the week I decided it was time to cook, so... I cooked. Cut it all up, put it in a pot with a bit of water and let it cook. While it cooked in absolute healthiness I fried up some chicken legs as well (meat never hurts...) with hot pepper paste and some secret spices  (very randomly picked some out) with onions (don't EVER forget the onions) and then mixed the all! 

Now what I hadn't realized all this time but dawned on me in absolute flavor abounding sparks when I tasted this... concoction was that my subconscious was preparing a long stored recipe that I didn't even know about! I had made perfectly astoundingly yummy couscous!!! I must be arabic somewhere... don't ask me how....

The Subconscious CousCous

Oh and lately I had Blue day (literally) cause I couldn't resist as my hand reached out for this carton of blueberries... I don't eat them very often, actually I probably could count the number of times I've eaten them on one hand! It... really hit the spot... Thank you God for Fruit, I don't know how I'd survive without them!

Blueness awesomeness! 

And by the way, as a follow up on my previous post, I have officially quit my job and signed a new contract with the new company! A new page turned in my book, hopefully things will look up on the work side. I'll keep ya posted as I will work for a week in June with the gas lines engineer.

Good news, saying goodbye to lazibumness.

Well that's about it, oh I did forget to mention that we suddenly have gone from winter to summer here with a punching 25 °C (77 °F) if it's because of global warming, THANK YOU GLOBAL WARMING! Because we were freezing... in the month of MAY!

Pit Stop

“And the crooowd goes wild as all the contestants zip by the n° 59 M. Jerry K. who has decided to pull a last minute pit stop!”

(Tire screech as vehicle drives up to the pit crew.)

“He seems to be going in for a full wheel change and a full tank top up. Oh? No!? Word has just dropped in that he is even changing the sponsor stickers on his racer! This race has just taken a different turn as N° 59 M. Jerry K. pulls out of his pit stop fully equipped with even a brand new sponsor to spur him on!”

How does this apply to my life? Well… as you could read, it involves three things:

Wheel changes:

I’ve been enjoying getting back into roller-skating, but my wheels had been worn down to the plastic frame because of our famous Kapi-Aldiparking-Hockey tournaments that would draw crowds miles around. Therefore I finally got a full pack of 8 wheels and changed them all!

What rollerblades consists of

Me BEEautiful Blades

A worn roller wheel

The roller bearings

Oh and I also forgot to mention that I bought myself a racebike to start practicing for next years’ 1300km trek across France, getting excited!

Tank top up:

Men and shopping... a never ending love story.

Nope, I don’t have a car and with the price of gas these days and I consider myself blessed to be a bike dude. People may have forgotten because it’s become routine to them, but we, as humans, have to eat. France still remembers that eating is meant to be enjoyed and I was reminded this as I enjoyed spending time with an old friend of mine (as in we go way back) who dropped by for the weekend. He had a car. So I decided to do some big shopping (for a single guy). I was replenished food wise, but more importantly I was also replenished socially with the time spent with this good friend.

Tartiflette... a true love story!

New sponsor?

       May become

 

Yup, it is official. I’ve gotten sick of trying to look busy in the midst of a company that does nothing. (No names mentioned) Therefore I’ve been looking around and found a company that specializes in energy sources and they’ll take me on as the assistant of the engineer in charge of all the natural gas projects. Hopefully the transition will work out!

C'est le NOOOORD!

Setting the stage:

I'm at school, it's my last hour of working on our fire security document. The classroom is quiet, all for the gentle tapping of rain on the thick cellophane window from the ceiling. I look at Louis pleadingly... "I came here by bike..." I begin to explain. "Oh all right... I'll take you home", with his two seat camionette it isn't a problem to take my bike with, I'm relieved that I won't get soaked on the way back.

Engrossed in our work, I have to be reminded that the electronic bell has gone off and it's time to go. I go get my bike in the garage, come out and find that the sun is shining! There a few big, mean looking clouds, but biking is faster anyway, so I tell Louis that I'll be ok. About half way home a huge thunderclap belts it's way into Lille... still no rain. I bike faster, but it eventually starts hailing and ... hailing ... and hailing harder until it's the size of peas and it's stinging me enough that I go for some kind of shelter under a garage entrance. I sit there awhile collecting ice and crunching it until it finally dies out into gentle rain and I make my way home. I'm sitting in my room looking out the window: it's sunny again. Only in the North. Le NOOOORD.

Deii Nederrlaands (looks and sounds dutch anyway...)

Yes, so I spent the weekend in the Netherlands; land of tulip fields, wooden shoes and ice skating... Well... ok... so I didn't see any of those three :) which means I'll have to define it with other things I did see such as: REALLY tall people (or I'm just REALLY small), Gouda (don't be tricked, it tastes just the same! Well... that kind did anyway) and Bikes !!! (I think they have a real bike infestation, I can't believe I'm saying this but I think there's more bikes in the Netherlands than pigeons in Paris...)

There were other cool things such as a "normal" ferry crossing; as you get to the end of the road, you run into a ferry (I mean really... quite normal!), drive on board, flip the man a coin, one minute later get off on the other side. Voila! (Why don't they build a bridge you ask? Hmm... I dunno... maybe to let ships go by?)

We also went for a late evening bike ride to the dike which I did like (another tongue twister coming up?) and got to see this mooi sunset! (see first picture and check out what mooi means! Ask google, he knows)

AND NOW! A game of "spot the jerk"! Try to find me at the bike waiting rack of Utrecht train station (Guess what... I still have a spare Dubai magnet if you find me!!! :D)

These were a few of the fun things (without forgetting that I didn't share about Music, Church, Shopping, Eating, Weather, Museum visit and so forth) that I did during my short visit.

I stayed at an awesome dutch family's house (well, I meant the family was awesome, not the house, but the house was ok too!), which is the family of my friend Maria from the Logos Hope, cause I needed to find someone that spoke local Hopian... Did me a lot of good! :)

As for our Saturday it was entirely invested in making... you guessed it... (or not) CHOCOLATES!!!

Here we are hard at work... we came up with 17 different kinds and made about 137 of em!

Here's one of them called "Cœur d'Encre", you can ask me for our catalogue to order some, but we don't take orders under 500 pieces... (per kind)

Noooovarch break?

Hello! It's been so long that I've been virtually... gone, that people may have forgotten to even notice that I was virtually invisible! :) Lots of "normal life" stuff going on combined with my ultimate world record breaking laziness brought me here, to this point. (which I'm rather not proud to point out is a four month... lack of posting perfectly purposeful posts)

Anyway... I'll try to get back into regular posting, for there isn't a lack of : most incredibly amazing life moments to share!!! (That was sarcasm... I think?)

Well, for those that have happened to forget, it is officially SPRING! [since the 20th of march (and for those wondering where I got this extensive knowledge of mine... yes. I googled it.)]

So I went out just for you forgetful people in our beautiful and hot (thank you global warming!) 22°C (71,6°F for you Americans) weather to take a few pictures of the landlady's flowers:

Ok so I got an expert on the matter to clear up the names of the flowers, the little white ones are: Scilles

This purple one is an Anémone!

I hope this has been a good reminder that spring is well on its way! (and this red one is also an Anémone, just a different type)Merry Spring!

Snap Challenge: If you send me your address and a video of you saying 5 times in a row "posting perfectly purposeful posts" at the rate of once per second I will... hmmm... (glances around the room, until look rests on the fridge...) send you a fridge Magnet of Dubai by night!

(You can simply post the video on YouTube and send me the link, best pronunciation gets the magnet!)

It's the knitting...

Haha, couldn't help but share with you the thought that I am doomed to be a family man, wearing a knitted sweater whilst renovating a "ever falling to pieces" house...

Who said students can't cook!?

Well, life has seemingly begun once again... I've started my two year apprenticeship in thermal and sanitary conception (broader plumbing studies) since september in the student town of Lille (a town of about 250 000 people).

I'm actually doing this apprenticeship with the French train company SNCF which is 6 minutes from my apartment by bike! Why a train company you ask? Well it's such a big company that it needs people that manage just the plumbing coordinating of all their stations and buildings. It could be interesting but it's also a lot of office work... My tutors being gone doesn't help and things have been kind of slow, hopefully it'll get busier soon!

I've also appreciated the liberty of living alone, learning to cook my own food, taking bike rides in this city, doing my own shopping and such. I guess I'm pretty much learning to live a boring normal life! Lille is also a nice change from my little village... yet straight away there are bigger needs: beggars, immigrants and such are not uncommon.

I was recently blessed by the visit of a ship friend: Maria Derksen who came by for a few days, we were able to spend an evening with Ruben and Betsy, two more ship people! Considering everything going on it was really nice to be amongst people that understand what you're going through.

I have one week break right now, but I am looking forward to going back to school, I really appreciate learning new things!

My student room that I'm renting in Lille, apple green, such a nice color!

Living proof that students can cook... (pyrogies, a polish specialty) One of the train maintenance centers, right next to where my office is.

Somewhere in the heart of Lille.

Ruben, Betsy and Maria spending "ship time" together, we enjoyed a funny bollywood movie afterwards!