In Bruges’ Neighborhood

Please give us our Pain Quotidien

I took a day off today. Unexpectedly. Circumstances. Work. Need to clear my head and get rid of these nasty headaches.

My best friend came over early this morning for a cup of coffee and good talk.

Then I went to the market, bought goat cheese and a big bag full of red peppers.

In the pouring rain. Not just drizzle. No, pouring rain. But I didn't mind. It felt good to be outside and be in the 'normal' world. The normal world that seems to continue at all times, even when we are all hidden in our offices with artificial light and flickering computer screens and spreadsheets.

I need this escape from time to time. That's why sometimes after work I go for a walk. I live right in the centre of Bruges and absolutely love my city. I keep discovering new gems.

On one of those discovery trips I re-discovered Le Pain Quotidien, aka Het Dagelijks Brood. I simply love that place. I love the concept. I love the simplicity. You can just go there on your own, sit at the big table you share with people you don't know, eat good healthy food and read the newspaper. You can just as well meet up with friends there and brunch together or drink good tea or coffee.

It's simple, it's comforting. Friendly staff. Almost tempted to sing the tune to the series Cheers. They don't know my name, but they know my face and have the same honest smile for any customer.

Gotta go now, slice up a billion red peppers from the market.

The basic need of the human heart in nearly every great crisis - a good cup of coffee and Nutella

I just read an interesting article in De Standaard called 'De crisis maakt ons gek op speculoos'. It's about why Lotus & speculoos seem to be winners in this economic climate.

It's true I suppose. In 'bad' times we go back to that what we know and trust. We know exactly how it's going to taste and look and it gives us a feeling of safety and comfort. Nothing as comforting as a good hot cup of coffee or tea, a talk with a friend, and a 'boterham met Nutella', and now more recently a 'boterham met speculoospasta'.

It's very relevant, just a week ago, I bought myself a jar of Nutella. Now for some of you this may seem like the most normal thing to buy and eat.

I however rarely eat 'choco'. I buy Nutella and speculoospasta when my partner is home for a few days/weeks. And then when he's gone again working abroad, it just sits there and by the time I think about it, it has become to hard to chew. When he comes home, I just buy new jars.

But for the moment, I'm having issues, I feel frustrated and unhappy in my work situation. I'm dealing with it. Trying to. And last week, I suddenly had this urge for something 'known', something safe and comforting. I went for a long walk around the city and found a little shop open late on Sunday afternoon selling Nutella yay!

Hey, I could have gone for Havana Club rhum, very familiar and comforting.

But no, I chose Nutella. No hangovers, no risk of getting arrested for drunk and disorderly behaviour, only the risk to gain weight.

So, thank you mr Ferrero and mr Nutella. And Lotus!

Winter in Tasmania (a 5 day trip)

halans
Jun 14, 2009
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Last long weekend (we made it a 5 day weekend :), we went down to Tasmania, not sure what to expect exactly. We didn’t have any real plans, only thing we planned was a cabin at the Cradle Mountain Lodge, and four consecutive nights in Hobart (which I booked before the cabin, which meant we were going to forfeit one night there), making Hobart our hub to explore the island.

We got up early Saturday morning (3:30 am) to fly with Virgin Blue to Hobart (passing through Melbourne). We arrived in Hobart around 10:15, and picked up our rental car from EuropCar. There was a queue because their computer system was down (tip ctrl+alt+delete :), so there was a bit of a wait. Not a happy start to our holiday. As expected, it was raining in Hobart, and from the forecast, it looked to be rain for five days...

Read on at halans.com. (there are 5 parts...)
Photo set on flickr.com.

You can do it

halans
Jun 23, 2009
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I love Arnie's "You can do it!, whenever I can, I shout it out (in a bad Arnie voice): "Come on, you can doo it!"

You Can Do It Sale

Tourists all over the world: please STOP wearing socks in sandals!

Nathalie
Jun 1, 2009
1 comment

G'day. I just cycled to the supermarket and back. And yes it was beyond 250 meters, so yes certain bodyparts are threatening to just sue me right now.

On the way back into town, I decided to treat myself to a nice latte from that quaint little coffee shop near the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk. I love it, it's small, homey, pleasant and not part of any big chain such as Starbucks, Costa, ... Allthough I am a Starbucks fan, I have to confess, I have about 10 of their big mugs from all over the world.

Radica and JJ from Oz bought me the cutest 'nice' and 'naughty' mugs from Starbucks :-)
And I remember my first Starbucks coffee, I was very young, I was in New York city for the first time in my life, I was on my own, and I remember just feeling very grown up and trendy sipping my overpriced latte. A feeling I will never ever forget and still makes me smile.

Back to Brugge. Sitting on a bench, in the sun, near the church, watching the world go bye. All kinds of people: locals trying to avoid getting run over by tourists, tourists trying to avoid getting run over by locals, couples holding hands, friends taking pictures of each other, teenagers complaining to their parents that all the buildings in this city are old (somebody forgot to mention to them Brugge is medieval city...).

And then the groups of tourist, eyes open wide, panicking at the thought of losing their tour guide and being lost forever in this medieval city with little alleys and canals... Follow the umbrella people, whatever you do, hang on for dear life to that umbrella...

Suddenly I found myself surrounded by a group of Russian tourists. Bushy eyebrows I can live with. Bewildered ear hair, ok. But not socks in sandals please, it's got to be the most ugly sight in the world.

No, socks in Crocs has to be the most ugly sight in the world.

Anyway, it's not only the Russians of course. Any nationality. Any age. Any sex.
Make the world a better place, no more socks in sandals, thank you very much.

Have a nice day.

Lost but not in a lost kind of way

Nathalie
Jun 1, 2009
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Last Saturday, I went to visit my good friend C. who was in the hospital at that time.
She is back at home now and hopefully things will be okay (big hug C!!).

I decided to cycle there as it was such a beautiful sunny day. Also, I had a tiny bit of a hangover I needed to get rid of.

I cycled to the hospital Sint-Lucas in Assebroek.

Now, I have lived in Assebroek for 4 years, with my roomie in our super penthouse (those were the days!!). For 4 years, we managed to somehow get lost in the streets of Assebroek. That part of Brugge is just a maze I tell you!

Anyways, all went well, found the hospital, spent some time with my friend, and cycled back, piece of cake.

One wrong turn :-) And I ended up 5 kilometers in the opposite direction of Brugge... good thing I stopped to ask for directions, I might still be cycling now if I didn't. Search and rescue in Ver Assebroek for a lost city girl...

But, hey, it was sunny. I had time. And I absolutely enjoyed it, I felt like a tourist in my own city/region.

Note to self: invest in a decent bycicle, the one I have right now is fine for small distances, but anywhere beyond 250 meters is not fine anymore and tends to really hurt and overheat certain body parts...

E-toll pass rip off

halans
May 22, 2009
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We don't have a car, so whenever we want to go somewhere where it's hard to get to with public transport, we rent a car. I then register for an E-Toll pass on the RTA site to handle any toll roads, which is a lot easier then trying to avoid them. So, again, a couple of weeks ago, we rented a car, got an e-tag, and then get the invoice. You pay extra for the photo matching, no sweat. Now this week we got another invoice from Connector Motorways, for using the Lane Cove Tunnel. I immediately thought I already had paid for it through my RTA E-Toll pass invoice. But it turns out that the particular transit through the tunnel wasn't on that invoice. It's Connector Motorways (which favours RoamExpress over RTA) that should have let RTA know that I passed there again for that instance (they did for two other occasions during that same weekend). Instead they charge me an extra 10$ administration fee... I feel this is a sham. And, I guess as most would do, I just payed up because that 10$ isn't worth spending more time on a phonecall or an email. But I sure do write this 10$ blogpost complaining about it!

Mind the gap! The dynamic duo in London baby!

Nathalie
May 10, 2009
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I loooove London, just went back there last weekend for a quick visit to my partner.
He is working in the UK at this moment, on the filming of Gulliver's Travels, starring Jack Black.

We stayed at the Bloomsbury Holiday Inn (Russel Square) again, a nice clean affordable hotel. And they serve a very yummy breakfast! Yes I do splurge on a heavy, fat, rich, big english breakfast when I am in the UK or when I get the chance.

I must admit, my best english breakfast I ever had, was in Tamesloth near Marrakesh, Morocco. In the catering tent on the set of 'Prince of Persia, sands of times' with Jake Gyllenhaal. It was hot, even early in the morning but it was soooo good. I thought I'd never be able to eat again after that breakfast. But then came lunch, also very good lol.

Ok, back to London. We strolled through Carnaby Street, had excellent noodles at Cha Cha Moon! Discovered lots of cool little vintage shops and boutiques. We hopped on and off the tube, all over London.

It always amuses me how they (who is they anyway?) announce 'Mind the gap' on the speakers. In one train station they are really nice and pleasant sounding. In the next station it sounds like Hitler himself is giving you orders!

After strolling around, we made our way to Covent Garden. I love that place :-) But hey, Nine West, one of my favourite shops, is not there anymore??! Anyways, we then made our way down to one of our favourite places in London, near the Freemason's building (went in there for another film shoot, Green Zone with Matt Damon :-). It is a grand cafe called Lowlander

We sat down and ordered Brugse Zot, Kriek, belgian pintjes, had the cheese platter with fries and then an Angus beef sandwich, very yummy.

Then a walk and many tube rides later, back to the hotel.

That was day 1... much much more to tell you about, but for now, I'm going to enjoy the sun and an apero with some friends.

Bye for now!

Euro-u are a-star

Nathalie
May 10, 2009
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I travelled to London last weekend. Unexpected. Left on Sunday morning to come back on Monday night.

So, the day before, Saturday, I checked the prices online at Eurostar, expecting it to be insanely expensive. But hey, a trip to see my partner is worth it...

Much to my surprise, I found a rate for 160 euro, return ticket in first class, or Leisure Select.

Not too bad eh? Especially not when you book it 12 hrs before departure! And I must say I do like the service on board the Eurostar.

If you can travel to London at 80 euros for a return in standard class, go for it! But if you know you won't have time for dinner like when you are travelling in the evening or late afternoon, well then by all means, it is worth checking out the Leisure select rate.

Free champagne, a small but good dinner, wine, beverages...

Guess what, the girl at the travel agency, didn't know that sometimes first class tickets for Eurostar can be cheaper than standard tickets...

I love Eurostar.
For me, living in Brugge, it does mean an extra hour on the train to Brussels-Zuid but it is worth it. 1h51 later and you are in the center of London.

Euro-u are a-star!

Ikizukuri. Now I like my fish fresh but this fresh?

Nathalie
May 10, 2009
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After googling funazushi, I came across a 'dish' called Ikizukuri. (Had to read 3 times to make sure spelling was ok :-). Also known as live sashimi.

Now I like my sashimi and yes I like my fish fresh but this is a bit too much for me.

What is it?

Source: http://www.japanfortheuninvited.com/articles/ikizukuri-live-sashimi.html & Wikipedia

Ikizukuri usually begins with the customer selecting, from a tank in the restaurant, the animal (shrimp, octopus, lobster, assorted fish) they wish to eat. The chef, who is most of the time a sashimi chef who has undergone years of training and apprenticeship, takes the animal out of the tank and filets and guts it, but without killing the animal, which is served on a plate, sliced, with the heart still beating.

Ikizukuri of fish consists of thin, sheet-like slices or finger-sized pieces sometimes garnished with lemon wedges, a decoration of ginger, or nori (seaweed). Squid and small octopus are usually wrapped around a chopstick and eaten whole.

Ikizukuri is a controversial method of food preparation, both in Japan and in other countries.

Live shrimp is also 'known' to be a delicacy.

Hungry anyone?