I AMsterdam.

         It has been a very busy week! After an exciting/exhausting weekend in Spain, we had about a day and a half to rest up until our trip to Amsterdam: Part een. (a.k.a. one... #sonederlands!)

        Shayne, Cait, Tissy & I hopped on a bus for three hours to hit up the concert of our beloved Wiz Khalifa. Wiz (we are now on a first name basis, you know how it is), a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, inspired us to be reppin' black and yellow across country lines. 

The Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam

Members of nine west: reunited once again at the concert.

        We headed to the concert at the Heineken Music Hall in the heart of Amsterdam, and we were spending the night with some Loyola students studying there for the semester. It was a lot of fun to experience a concert in a different country with an entire different population. It was a surreal experience...is this really my life?!?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lVZQ0FekuU

  Here is a sneak peak of the concert, its not the best footage, but its the thought that counts, right?




         We got up pretty early the next morning to get on the bus back to Brussels. Yes, many may think we were crazy to travel back to Belgium, just to head back to the Netherlands the following day, but when Dutch class calls, you must listen. After an extremely exciting Dutch class (NOT), we packed our bags for Amsterdam: part twee (a.k.a. two, I suppose you got the drift by now).

We couldn't bring cameras inside, so I took this from the bus. Its just here to give you an idea about the type of security around the area.
#LEGIT

         A few of the Loyola students woke up extra early Friday morning to head into Brussels and visit NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). It was a great opportunity because it is such a classified place that we needed to have our passports checked as well as thoroughly checked by security before entering. We had a women speak to us about the organization for a while before we headed back to Leuven to ride back to Amsterdam.

      It was about a 3 1/2 hour ride to Amsterdam, but I was an old pro by that bus ride. We arrived at Hotel Nadia and left our luggage in our rooms so we could get a quick walking tour in before dark. I'm really starting to feel the lack of sunlight...short days are rough!

Our hotel in the heart of Amsterdam

This is the staircase in the Nadia Hotel.
These are what I like to call "the stairs of doom." I was lucky enough not to fall victim to them, but they were SO steep, I probably am one of the few. Since the property taxes in Amsterdam used to be solely based on the width of the front property, everyone just built up!

          After the tour we had a free night to explore, but we had to be aware of our early start on Saturday! We met for breakfast at 8:30 am Saturday morning in the "Breakfast Room," in the hotel (duh!), before walking to the Rijksmuseum. There was a lot of amazing art there and we spent a few hours taking it all in. After that we went to a hidden church, walked through the Red Light District (not with Dr. Hughes of course...), ate some fro-yo (obvi), went on a boat tour, and just took in the sights. We were free for dinner and the night so a few of us met up with the Loyola students studying abroad in Amsterdam (again) for them to show us around.

The boat we took out for a spin!

         Sunday was our last day in Amsterdam and we were ready to see as much as we could. We had a pretty busy day heading to the Anne Frank House first. It was definitely my favorite place in Amsterdam because I had read her diary and it was amazing to stand in the very place she stood. It also gave me a little motivation to study Dutch, because I learned that was the language her diary was written in! Hearing all the details about the "Secret Annex," and everything that went on was mind-blowing. I can't believe that something like that happened not too long ago. It was such a privilege to have the opportunity to go to the house.

This is me in front of the Anne Frank House. 

          After visiting the Anne Frank House we headed to the Van Gogh Museum (nbd). It was a really cool place, the building is set up in such a modern and artsy way (appropriately enough). It was four floors of countless paintings created by famous artists like Van Gogh and Monet. DH gave us an assignment about the paintings we saw in the museums, so I had to take a lot of notes! I believe it is important to mention that there was free wifi at the museum! Its the simple things in life that make it so sweet.... After the museum we hit up the big I AMsterdam sign, it must a must see of course. We had a few extra hours before loading up the bus again and heading home. 

This is the whole group of us with the mini I AMsterdam sign outside the Amsterdam museum.
(Did I mention we went to a few museums?)

Amsterdam is such a beautiful place, I was surprised how much I liked it! I'm going to take a leap and say it was my favorite city so far!

Well I guess its back to Leuven to prepare for our international Thanksgiving dinner! Yum!
                                               
                                                                   Tot ziens!

¡Hola España!

So this past weekend I headed to Spain to meet up with a bunch of my favorite Loyola ladies!  My Nine West peeps, as I like to call them (because we all lived on the 9^th floor of Newman West last year) reunited in Madrid to spend some quality abroad time together! I had been soooo looking forward to seeing everyone because for some of us, we haven’t been together since the last day of school in May.

Reunited and it feels so good!
(not everyone made it in this picture, but you get the idea...) 

People flew in from Italy, England, Denmark, and Belgium (of course), to meet up with the lovely ladies spending the semester in Alcala de Henares, Spain. It was a very long day traveling from Leuven to Alcala on Friday morning. We started our journey biking to the Leuven train station, hopped on 2 trains and a bus to finally arrive at Brussels Charleoi Airport. From there we flew into Madrid International around 6pm, where we proceeded to get on the wrong metro and have to backtrack to the airport (#awkward).  We than hopped onto 2 more metros and than another train line to make it to our final destination. All the hours of tedious traveling were worth it when Gianna and Claire finally met us at the station closest to where they live. We walked through Alcala to head to our hostel where we met everyone else. There were countless hugs to go around, as well as stories about what have been happening in each of our lives the past 2 ½ months.

The Tapas restaurant we went to on Friday night.

This is one of the dishes that came with the sangria, it is salsa,
and egg sunny-side up and some delicious bread.
Eggs were in SO many of the dishes I saw this weekend.

We settled into our rooms and got ready to get some Tapas at a local restaurant. We had sangria and some delicious authentic Spanish dishes. It was one of MANY dishes from the weekend that I thoroughly enjoyed. By the time we were eating it was 9:30pm, so around 11pm we headed into Madrid to check out the nightlife. We took a 40 minute bus ride into the city for 3 euros and spent a few hours there before heading back to Alcala for the night.

Saturday we stayed around Alcala to spend some quality time together. We had a long and relaxing lunch, which lasted about 3 ½ hours….(we’re definitely not in America anymore, the waitress REALLY took her time).  After lunch, we got some fro-yo (frozen yogurt, of course) for dessert, because that is something I am deprived of in Belgium…tough life. After a few hours of walking around and shopping, it was dinnertime! Are you sensing a pattern? There was so much food, and so little time, but lets be real, I didn’t hate it!

Katie, Cait & I after dinner on Saturday.

For dinner we had some more sangria and croquettes with ham, or “jamon.”

I enjoyed exploring the grocery store in Alcala, it is interesting how all the food shops are so different from country to country. The most interesting find was definitely the wine juice boxes…yes, there were juice boxes with wine---Only in Spain! There were also actual legs of lamb hanging all over the place…quite interesting.

I suppose its 5 o'clock somewhere during lunch time in Spain...

There were so many Christmas goodies, and I couldn't have been happier to see them!
¡ Feliz Navidad!

On Sunday we packed everything up early to put our bags in lockers at the Madrid International Airport because we were heading to the El Rastro Market in Madrid. We were warned that there were a lot of pick-pocketers around, so we didn’t want to tempt them with huge backpacks in a crowded market. We also had an encounter on the metro with a pick-pocketor.  My friend Katie (yes, this is the same Katie who solved my pick-pocketing dilemma!) spotted one in action and stopped him before he could take anything from another man on the way to the metro.

So back to the market, it was quite an astounding sight. There were streets and streets packed with people and vendors. There was everything there from food, to scarves, to soccer equipment. I picked up a few souvenirs to remember my fabulous trip to Madrid. I had an chorizo empanada as a snack to hold me over at the market, it was “soooooo Spain,” and so delicious!

El Rastro Market
Madrid, Spain

There I am, enjoying my authentic chorizo empanada at the market!

We went to Plaza de Mayor for lunch/dinner. I had some Paella, it was my first time having it and it was very good. I am not a huge seafood person, but I figured I should embrace the culture and try the authentic dish. That was our “Last Supper,” so to speak because after we ate everyone had to split up, some heading to the airport, some staying in Madrid, and some heading back to Alcala.

Paella with seafood and chicken.

Angelica & I after dinner.
Who would of thought from New Hyde Park Memorial High School, all the way to Madrid, Spain?

Just casually touching down on the actual center of the country
before we headed back to reality. 

The Leuvenites (myself included) headed back to the airport in the evening to spend the night…yet again. It was a lot colder than our last airport stay experience, but we made it alright. 

Roomies for the night!  So comfy, right?
(Yes, I am a poet, and I didn't even know it.)

What a wonderful world!
The breathtaking view of the sunrise over the clouds from the plane.
One of the few perks of a 6:30 am flight...

We ended up back in Leuven around 11:30am for a well needed rest. Overall it was a great weekend, but I was very happy to be back at the huis! "Home Sweet Huis," as I like to say.

                                         Amsterdam is next, adios for now!

Halloween at the Huis!

To set the mood, click on this link so you can listen while you read...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTcIgMzIa3A


          HAPPY HALLOWEEN errybodyyyy! It is tradition in the Loyola Nachbahr Huis to have a kitchen decorating contest between the different units in the house every year. Our house is divided into six different units with about 10 people in each unit. Each unit shares one kitchen and it is where we first came together to get to know one another. In all of the units there is a mix of Americans, Belgians, and other international students. Halloween is pretty big in the house because the Americans are in charge of getting all the other residents excited! Most people outside of the United States don't decorate, dress up, or trick or treat for Halloween like we do, so the end of October is a time for the Americans in the house to share their traditions with everyone else.
           For the decorating contest, each unit has to come up with an original but spooky idea! Unit 3 decided on a scary circus theme because we felt it was very original, being that it strayed from the usual witches and ghost associated with the holiday. Astrid, one of the Belgians in my unit, works at a summer camp that had loads of clown costume and props, so she was our MVP of the week! Once we got all of the supplies we went to work!

Unit 3 kitchen pre-decorating....

We started off by covering ALL of the walls with black garbage bags to make it more dark and mysterious than the usual white and yellow. There is Mayank (from India), Pavla (from Slovakia), and Stipe (from Croatia), hard at work! It got a little dangerous standing on cabinets, but it was all for the good of the unit!

We decided to name our circus Carn-Evil! Muahahah
We had to put on a little skit when DH and Christel came to judge our kitchen, so we went with the theme "Are you happy?" Earlier in the week, Stipe anonymously slipped sheets of paper with the message "Are you happy?" on it. A few days later, the day of the compeition, he slipped another note under eveyones door in the huis that said "You will be happy very soon." It was very funny to see everyone freak out about the anonymous notes, knowing exactly who they were from. Our story was that our old ring master was not "happy enough," so all of the clowns came together and killed him... gruesome I know, but its Halloween--so what did you expect?! Our new ring master was a clown who took control, Clara (a Belgian in my unit).

That is Clara decorating the kitchen (pre-costume of course), with ketchup...I mean, blood, on her hands.

There is Kristien (also from Belgium) putting on my clown make-up. 

There I am...not exactly fresh to death...but pretty creepy!
It was Halloween, so I didn't hate it!

        After everyone was all dressed up and ready to go, it was show time! DH and Christel came to judge our kitchen and I believe we did a GREAT job in completely freaking them out. We had scary halloween music playing and we all went along with the skit! It was so much fun to dress up as something really spooky! Back home, I never actually dressed up as anything "scary,"so it was a welcomed change!

(From left to right) Mayank, Tessa, Pavla, Kristien, Astrid, myself, Clara, Stipe, and Shayne as the bear!
What a good lookin' crew! 

Shayne, Cait, and I were the "Drie Blind Cats," this year. As much as I loved my clown costume, I thought I should redeem myself with something less frightening.  'Drie,' means three in Dutch, and we just thought it would be fun to put a Belgian twist on "Three Blind Mice,"....

         On the actual night of Halloween we had a huge Halloween party in the common room. Dr. Hughes & Sue came to announce the winner, and they told us that in 20 years, there has never been such a great display in ALL of the kitchens. There were a bunch of different awards given out for creativity, most frightening, etc. all leading up to the first place kitchen. And the winner is....UNIT 3!! (aka our unit!) We won a waffle maker! (So Belgian, right?) It was a great night. We introduced the internationals to a bunch of different American games, such as bobbing for apples and flip cup (yes, a drinking game, but what else did you expect?!).

Unit 3 with our prizes!

Cait and I bobbing for apples--an oldie but a goodie!

Halloween in the huis was fun, but next week...off to Spain we go!