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Dallas Anne

Dallas Dog Toaz it read on her bottle of Prozac. Twenty milligrams a day, the same as her mom, which is why it is distinguished with ‘Dog’ on her bottle. Sometimes when her supply ran out, I interchanged them with my extra pills, and vice versa. Like mother, like daughter right? And when it was time, we both came off Prozac at the same time, too. We’re a special team, Dallas and I.

Dallas’ story is one I love, not unnecessarily because I get to play the role of heroine in it, but also because I think it’s a story of fate and one of when my life was made better because her insubordinate little self came into it. She’s a dog of many names: Dallas, Dallas Anne, Dallas SugarAnne, Dallybear, Dal, Damn It Dallas (I swear she used to come by this name). And a dog of many personalities, something I saw in her on that very first day, when my heart was broken and I didn’t know how to mend it.

Dallas is named after the dog who came before her, Houston. I have no affiliation with Texas and in fact have never been there. It just happens I’ve had 2 dogs named after cities in that state. I adopted Houston from the Humane Society when he was a year and a half old. I had wanted to name a dog something Irish, like Morrison, or Guinness, but I found I liked Houston. It was original, so I kept it. Houston was a terror. I’d never been much for dogs, but my sister had gotten it in my head that a cute little puppy was something we both really needed. This roughly translated to, a cute little puppy was something I needed and she wanted to play with it on occasion. I’m not sure it was my most well thought out idea, but regardless, that fall day in 2011, I brought him home. Houston ran away at every chance he had, which ended up being his demise. When he was killed by a car a few months after adopting him, I was devastated and blamed myself for not taking better care to ensure he couldn’t escape. I struggled to accept his death and move on. Most weekends, I would return to the Human Society and look at dogs, take some for walks, frantically searching for a replacement, but nothing felt right. 

Then one day, I stayed home from work to move into a new bedroom in our house. I was feeling sad that day, and decided to take a break by driving over to the society. I made my usual rounds, and was heading back towards where the older dogs were kept, the ones not on display as easily. There in the first cage as you walked through the doors was the most pathetic looking little dog I’d ever seen. She was laying on the floor, head on her paws, staring ahead, the saddest look in her dark brown eyes. Her name was Sugar and I decided she was the perfect candidate for a walk. She bounded ahead once we got outside, running down the path, me trailing behind, until her energy wore out and we sat together on a bench. When we returned inside, I took her into one of the rooms you can bring dogs in to play with in your own space. She immediately curled up in my lap and fell asleep. I sat on the floor with her and cried. 

The next day, my roommates wanted to go look at puppies at the Humane Society, and I was only to happy to oblige in the hopes I could spend some time with Sugar again.  When we arrived, I darted back towards her cage while my roommates went towards the puppies. She wasn’t there when I looked, so I searched through all the other rooms and cages, but couldn’t find her anywhere. I tried asking an employee, but was brushed off. So I asked another employee, who still couldn’t tell me anything. So I kept asking people while searching for her, until finally, one exasperated employee told me Sugar was in the back where she was scheduled to be put down in a few days. She had ringworm and they couldn’t risk it spreading around to the other dogs. They liked her so much though that they were holding off on putting her down until Tuesday. 

The news broke my heart, and I asked if I could see her anyways. The lady agreed to bring her outside. As soon as Dallas got out, she started crying, her little whines destroying me further. I knew I couldn’t let another dog die on my watch, let alone a 16 week old one. I didn’t want to keep her, but I figured I could take her long enough to clear up her ringworm and then adopt her out. I told the lady that I would take her home, if that was an option. As long as I took her by Tuesday, she was all mine. On Tuesday afternoon, the kids I nannied after school and I made the trip to pick her up. As soon as she was brought out of her cage into the main room, she peed everywhere. Twice. That was my dog.

I renamed her Dallas immediately and should have realized at that point that she would never be going anywhere. Dallas (Sugar) Anne Toaz was home. It was a long road that we were to travel from that point on. Her ringworm ended up being a secondary condition, to demodectic mange. By the time we figured that out, hundreds of dollars in vet appointments and medications had already been spent. She’d also been in quarantine for over a month at this point, as there was another puppy in the house and she was contagious. I ran laundry just for her twice a day, disinfecting her doggy beds and towels. Cleaning her cage was a multiple time a day feat as she wasn’t potty trained. She is terrified of crates to this day. Once the mange was diagnosed, she had to get twice a month ‘dips’, which were also insanely expensive and required her to spend full days at the vet (consequently, she also is terrified of and hates the vet). I adopted her in early February and she wasn’t cleared with a clean bill of health until around June. She was a hot mess. She is a hot mess (but she’s now a hot mess with insurance, as that was an expensive mistake I don’t make anymore).

Over the years, Dallas had driven me insane more times than I can count. I’ve threatened to give her away multiple times, twice seriously, when she was a puppy because she was so ill behaved. Dallas is her own dog. Rules don’t apply and she can’t be bothered with consequences. She will shit in the house when she’s mad (mainly at my parents house, unfortunately). She pouts in corners when she isn’t getting enough attention. We went through an underwear eating phase that infuriated me to no end (and resulted in me being a regular at Victoria’s Secret). That being said, she also has one of the funniest personalities of any dog. She’s weird. She loves carrots and will sneak them if she sees them left out. She likes to hump pillows when she is happy, but stops when you walk in the room. She hates baths and tries to hide if she even suspects one (she’s mastered dead weighting). She requires her own full size bed if she can’t sleep in bed with you, and prefers to be tucked in. She likes to lay in the grass when it’s sunny like a lion. She is scared of wind, and won’t go outside if she senses it coming. Same goes for rain. She paws at you if you’re on a computer (and apparently, with my dad, on the piano) so that you’ll only pay attention to her. She perches on people and the edges of couches and stares intently at nothing. She loves to cuddle if she likes you. And if she doesn’t, then she tries to eat you, which can be rather difficult to manage at times. 

This post has nothing to do with us moving abroad really, but when we moved, she didn’t come with us. She’s in Cleveland with my parents and brother. We worried that, as she’s always had a yard of her own, moving into an apartment would be difficult for her. I was also really stressed about flying her beneath the plane, in a crate, and the effects that would have on her. Ultimately, we felt for now, that she would have a better quality of life in Cleveland. I knew my brother and dad would adore her (I knew my mom would not adore her) and that she would have lots of room to run and lots of people she could cuddle with. But as she has been with me for 5 years, I find myself at days missing her quite a bit. I wonder if she will forget about me, or be angry at me, or if I’ll stop being her favorite. Then I watch a video of her and giggle, or talk to her on Skype where she largely ignores me, and know I’ll see her before I know it. And she will probably shit in my room to let me know how she’s felt about the nine months we’ll have been gone, and all will be right.

Perched on Jason

This is her pouting, but Jason called her name to get the picture of her. You can see the pathetic-ness exuding from her.

She loves to sleep on couches, so we compromised and she was only allowed to get on it if there was a blanket down.

Sometimes I dress her in my clothes. She loves it.

Putting herself in the corner. 

She was angry at me for being away when I picked her up, and showed it by doing this the entire car ride home. 

Best cuddle buds.

My mom watching a video of Dallas humping a pillow. She wasn’t too pleased. They still aren’t good friends yet.

Just an average day.

[pelztells-blog]

New Clothes

I washed my clothes on Friday like I do any other day of the week. My red pants were in the wash, as they’ve been hundreds of times before in the 2 years I’ve owned them. However, they decided to dye all my clothes a lovely shade of pink this time. Thrilled with my slightly new wardrobe of pink. 

[pelztells-blog]

Paris

We went to Paris for five days, to bring in the New Year. Our original plan had been to go to Italy, but the visa drama was going on, and it didn’t seem like a good idea to risk a plane trip. The train from Brussels to Paris is pretty cheap, so it was a good happy medium. We had a good time overall, despite it being miserably cold and me doing a bang up job of booking our lodging (again). 

*Our train was meant to leave at 10am on Friday from Brussels. We arrived at the train station with 20 minutes to spare, only to be met with an onslaught of crowds. People were teeming everywhere. Turns out a deep fog had descended on Paris and was stopping the trains. No one spoke any real English nor could they tell us where or when to pick up our train. After a lot of confusion and stress, we finally were on our way over two hours later. 

*I booked us the World’s Worst Airbnb, that happens to be run by the Sweetest Guy, which makes for a very difficult time writing a review. It was a studio, and managed to make the one in Madrid seem plush, which I hadn’t thought possible. There was a single bed. Like, a bed meant for one person, that Jason and I would be sharing. Dishes were washed by a sprayer that connected to the toilet (we didn’t use dishes--there wasn’t a kitchen anyways, just a microwave and toaster oven). The shower was roughly the size of a coffin, and I’m not sure it had been cleaned prior to us getting there. The entrance door was all metal, and looked like it was a former bank vault door, or possible prison cell, as there were at least 5 different locks on it. There was no wifi. NO WIFI. Usually, I guess people are able to access the coffee shop next door’s wifi, and that is what our host uses when he checks off that he has wifi. We were never able to connect to it. Needless to say, we spent as little time there as possible, which was unfortunate being that it was below freezing in Paris and walking around all day was a feat in itself.

*Paris was exceptionally cold. Like, bitterly, hurts your bones, cold. It was also covered in that deep, dense fog for days. We only found the Eiffel Tower the first night because it lit up with sparkling lights every hour and we happened to see them when they were going off. Once they stopped, we lost the Tower to the fog again. We ended up walking 7 or so miles in 5 hours that first night, which left us hurting pretty badly and with that came a realization that we are getting older. And maybe need better shoes. 

*We went to the Louvre and stood with 500 others to get a glimpse of Mona Lisa. So many had to get the perfect selfie with her. I was reaffirmed in my hatred for selfie sticks, despite the fact that we have one. We spent a good 2 hours there, during which time Jason took some liberties in renaming some of the art on display. We left to take the Metro to our next stop. Some of the Metro stations have glass doors in front of the tracks. When our train got in, so many people got off that by the time we were able to get on, the warning bell rang, and the glass doors as well as the train doors started to close. It wasn’t in my plans to have my arms ripped off my body, so I jumped back onto the platform. Jason was on the train. We stared at each other as the train pulled away with him on it and me on the platform. I lost my phone a month ago and still haven’t gotten a new one, and Jason had our backpack with the iPad (and everything else functional like maps), so I had no way to get ahold of him. Panicked, I reasoned I would get on the next train and hope he was waiting at the next stop. He was, and that was the end of the train saga. We did make a plan for if that were to happen again, ensuring that it didn’t.

* Saint Chapelle was up next, which Jason called Dave Chapelle most of the time we were there. It’s older than Notre Dame and has all these amazing stained glass windows. We found Notre Dame afterwards, where we stood in a line wrapped through the square to get in. We stayed an extra long time once we got inside because neither of us could feel our feet and it was slightly warmer in there. 

*We brought the New Year in in a bar called The Moose, a Canadian bar that was showing the Alabama game. I’d wanted to go to the Champs-Elysees to watch the fireworks, but we’d read that they were cancelled due to the terrorist attack in Germany a week prior and heightened security in Paris. However, it seems from videos we’ve since seen that there were in fact fireworks. I was okay with not going because it was stupid cold, and if there weren’t fireworks, a cozy bar was preferable to 600,000 of our closest strangers. Regardless, it was a nice night, and we got to try the closest thing to buffalo wings since moving here.

*The next day, being New Years Day, meant most things were closed except churches, so we went to Sacre Couer. I wish it hadn’t been so miserable outside so we could have wandered a bit more around Montmarte, but Sacre Couer itself is beautiful! I loved being there, and the surrounding area was really cute. We’d read rumours that from the top of Sacre Couer it’s possible to see out to many of the sights of Paris. Thanks to the never ending fog, that was largely impossible. We ended up leaving and going to the Arc de Triomphe, the Place de la Concorde, walked through a Christmas market, had a crepe, saw the Grand Palace, wandered over a bridge, and when it hurt to walk because my feet felt like ice cubes waiting to shatter, we went to a restaurant where we drank some wine and then went and saw Star Wars: Rogue One. When in Paris, right? Mainly it was cold and we were out of things to do and trying to avoid going back to our prison cell. Also, Jason really wanted to see it.

*Monday, we went to Versailles, which I had not looked into enough because upon completing the hour long train ride, we got there to find out it was closed. Fortunately, the gardens were open. We spent enough time there to make the trip worth it, and both agreed it was probably an exceptionally beautiful place when it was above 30 degrees and not covered in tarps. 

*After Versailles we went back to the Eiffel Tower. The fog had lifted enough that we could see the top of the Tower, the first time in 4 days. Our goal had been to go to the very top of it, about 1,000 feet up. Being that I’m both claustrophobic and afraid of heights, there didn’t seem to be any kind of flaw in the plan. We waited in a pretty long line, during which time, despite my three pairs of socks, my feet went numb for the 437th time this trip. By the time we bought tickets to the summit, I was ready to get in an elevator that would take me to dizzying heights as long as it was indoors. We made it to the second floor of the tower, and as a result, I had a difficult time not sitting on the floor and clinging on to a pole to ensure I didn’t get blown over, despite all the protective barriers. It was far colder up there and the line to make it to the summit was pretty long. Between the freezing winds and my fear of being up there, we decided to wait until warmer weather to make the full trip. Plus the fog was still hovering around, so we concluded it probably wasn’t super worth it. I closed my eyes and held on to Jason as we made our descent down in the elevator. We rewarded our efforts in the cold by going to a small Irish bar, where we had a great conversation with two Irish teachers. I was in Irish heaven. 

*On our last day, we went to the Catacombs. After descending beneath the streets of Paris, we walked through the labyrinths of limestone, the bones being the last part to see. And what a sight they were. Bones were everywhere (like about 6-8 million of them). The architect of the bones had created some pretty exceptional designs, including a rainbow of skulls, a church of skulls, a cross of skulls, a heart of skulls, a large vase like structure decorated with skulls, and a variety of other skull pieces. Skulls on skulls on skulls. Not my preferred style of decorating, but then again, I have frames hanging on my walls with the pictures they came with still in them, so I’m no expert. 

*We went to Lock Bridge, which apparently doesn’t actually exist anymore. Something about the 45 tons of locks weighing the bridge down causing part of the railing to collapse. Ugh. 

*No train delays meant that at 11:45pm, we arrived back in Antwerp, where it was a balmy 41 degrees, we got to sleep in an actual bed, and wash our dishes in an actual sink! 

Despite the near hypothermic temperatures and terrible Airbnb, it was a nice trip. We’re looking forward to doing Paris Part 2 when the weather is warmer! 

First night shot of the Eiffel Tower

Jason called this the WHAZZZZZZZUUUUUUPPPPP statue, because that’s what he imagined the guy to be saying

Harry Potter and the Basilisk

Someone thought to sculpt Dallas.

Perfect bed for two......babies.

The crowd of perfect selfie takers to see Mona Lisa. She’s the square dot in the background.

This guy. He had time to put on his shoes, but decided against pants.

This is what fear looks like while pretending to be happy.

Jason is way better at this picture taking thing than I.

Heart of Skulls.

Skull Church

Alabama football for the New Year, y’all.

Versailles, still bringing it despite the cold. 

[pelztells-blog]

Registration

Being that both Jason and I were born in the U.S. and have only lived in the U.S., we have no idea what the moving to another country process is like anywhere else. That being said, with no real experience or knowledge of anywhere else, Belgium’s registration process is the dumbest thing that’s ever existed.

When we were deciding if we should accept the job offer, we had a Skype phone call with the school to ask all our necessary questions and discussed the registration process. We were told it would take about 6 months for registration to be complete. During that time, we weren’t to leave Belgium. Not the EU, but this small country that is roughly the size of Maryland. I wasn’t thrilled at that, as it meant we would most likely miss Christmas, and limited our travel in the beginning, but we decided it was worth the possible risk. A six month travel ban wasn’t the best news, but we knew we’d be settling in for a part of that time, and figured it wasn’t the worst news either.

We were wrong. It became the worst news. 

Registration has been a mess for us since we set foot in the country together. It was decided we wouldn’t begin my registration until after Jason and I were married and both in the country, so nothing was started until after September 7th, when we landed in Belgium. My original date with registration was in mid October. I’d carefully gone over every document I would need to bring with me with our HR, and she would be accompanying me and Jason to Duerne, where registration is held. We’d gone through EVERYTHING, made a checklist, checked it off. We showed up to Duerne on that cold October day, signed in, walked upstairs, and were seen by someone within minutes of getting a ticket. This was so easy! 

About 4 seconds after sitting down, we were told we could leave as my paperwork could not be processed. My mouth agape, I fought the urge to shriek when we were given that news. I know who holds the power in these situations and I figured it was best not to start screaming uncontrollably even if my application was being refused. My HR colleague exchanged some Dutch with the lady working, while Jason and I stood there hoping for a change of mind. It turned out that the police have to come to your apartment to verify that you actually live there. The police had come 5 times, but couldn’t find me, as my name wasn’t on the outside of the building. They therefore could find no way to leave me a message to let me know they had stopped by, so registration couldn’t be sure I lived where I said I did, which ended our appointment (this causes me to question the skills of the police department and the ability to problem solve, but that’s a separate concern). 

This was the first I was hearing of police needing to come visit our apartment. I had no idea that was a thing, or I would have mentioned that it hadn’t happened yet. The police were correct that we did not have our name on the outside of building when they came by 5 consecutive days in September. For starters, I hadn’t known how crucial it was to have your name outside. My landlord had also not put my name there like they were supposed to. The names of the residents are tucked inside plastic holders that clearly someone who works there is supposed to take care of. I know this because, after being turned away, I printed out and laminated our names before taping it outside our apartment next to our doorbell. Two days later, it had been peeled off, and my name had it’s own pristine spot underneath the plastic holder. Thanks, building owners.

This date with the police pushed my registration back an entire month. I wouldn’t go back to Duerne until the day before my 90 days expired. This meant it pushed back Jason’s ability to go to registration. We’d also already bought plane tickets for November, thinking I’d have a card and be legally able to travel because my 90 days would be up (we risked it, see Madrid’s post). This wasn’t news we were happy with, but there was little we were able to do. They told me that if the police came quickly, we could probably call to get an earlier appointment. That seemed reasonable, so I hoped for the best and that we would see the police soon. A week before my new registration date, the police still hadn’t made a visit to ensure I lived where I said I did. A couple phone calls had to be made before they showed up later that week. A nice man came upstairs, sat down, checked something off on a piece of paper, and about a minute after walking through our door, walked back out. That was it. That was what held up our registration by a month. When I had my second rendezvous with registration in early November, I got to stay for the full appointment, and everything went fine. They told me I should have my registration card in 2-3 weeks. As I’m writing this, at the end of December, I have still yet to receive it. Belgian government strikes again! [Edit: I received it while in the process of writing this blog post]

Jason received his appointment with registration shortly after. He would be going to Duerne on December 1. Another month would pass, which again we had no control over. I was riding the train one morning with my HR co-worker when she mentioned that it could take up to nine months for Jason’s registration to be processed. NINE MONTHS from when he would meet with them in December. I gawked at her before exclaiming that there was no way we could wait that long. We had friends coming in April who wanted to go to Ireland. We hadn’t seen our families in months. We moved here to travel Europe. Nine months would be September 2017. A full year since we moved to Belgium. One year gone in an initial two year contract. To say I was unhappy was an understatement. This was a radical departure from ‘it could take the first six months’ as we’d been told before moving over. We decided to wait and see what happened when he went to registration.

On December 1st, he had a conversation at Duerne that went roughly like this: “Don’t plan to leave the country for the next 9 months, or you’ll risk not being allowed back in. Again, do NOT leave Belgium, or you’ll be denied re-entry. We’ll make an appointment for you for September to receive your registration card. See ya later, stupid.”

Making this move was a huge sacrifice on Jason’s part, and fueled primarily by my need to travel, something he recognized I needed to do. Not many people would be willing to make that sacrifice. To be landlocked for what would end up being a year since arrival completely defeated that purpose. I felt heavy with guilt for doing this to us, even though we hadn’t received full information. My guilt remained, but anger took over pretty quickly after that. This was stupid, and this was not fair to my husband, and it wasn’t fair to us in general. Life isn’t fair, I get it, and in the scheme of things, it’s not the end of the world. But it was going to impact a lot of our immediate lives, including when our friends visited, and having to get home in July for my sister’s wedding. 

So, I spoke with my HR colleague and told her what happened. She encouraged me to email my headmaster, as we were not the first people at the school to have this happen (but we would be winning for longest time landlocked in Belgium!). I also went to my principal and told her to see if there was anything she could do. I ended up emailing my headmaster expressing our concern with this situation, and especially at not being given correct information before moving over. He and I met, and he said they would try to do what they could as a school, but he doubted there was much he could do. After Brussels, things are a lot stricter, and influence doesn’t go as far anymore. In the meantime, someone my Mom knows had given her the name of a guy who worked in the government who was willing to try to help us. He and I exchanged a few emails while he tried to get ahold of the Belgian government. My grandma began saying a full novena for us. I emailed the American embassy (which got no response, so I’m not sure it had much effect). We even went to Christmas mass (although my Mom threatened to stop talking to me if I didn’t go, but regardless, we were there) and said a prayer that all this resolves itself quickly. It takes an army. That, and persistence. 

And it paid off, because on December 26th, we walked downstairs to get our mail, and in that little mailbox that had caused us so many problems in the beginning, was an envelope for Jason from registration. They were summoning him to come back on December 28th to get his registration card. I hadn’t even gotten mine yet, and he was going to be getting his! It was a CHRISTMAS MIRACLE you all. Neither of us could believe it. Not even a month since he was told not to plan to leave until September 2017 and he was going to get a card. We went in yesterday, and I was given my card, and he will be picking his up in 3 weeks (they have to make it still). Our files were in disarray, probably because everything was granted so quickly so that all the people that were annoying Brussels would leave them alone. We had a really nice lady who was super patient and put everything in correct order so that the process would be streamlined for us in the future (we were there for 2 hours). At the end of it all, she told us what a wonderful couple we were and she had really enjoyed working with us, before wishing us the best.

It’s been a rough few months. Moving is hard. Being away from everything you know is hard. Making mistakes all the time is hard. And humbling. Finding jobs is hard. And discouraging. Missing holidays is hard. Not traveling sucks. 

This, though, this gave me hope. Yes, we’ve had some rough times, but something had finally worked out for us. Something really big. We were doing this. We CAN do this. Jason will find a job eventually. We’ll go to Ireland with our friends. We can come home in the summer without mounds of inefficient paperwork. 

You just need a little hope sometimes. It’ll come together. It always does.

So with that, Happy New Year. We’re heading to Paris to celebrate (and mostly legally!). Let’s do this 2017!

[pelztells-blog]

Christmas Spirit

This will be the first Christmas for both Jason and I that we won’t be spending it with our families. Being that it is our first year married, this does seem like the best time to begin our own traditions. We decided to start this past week. Our friend Leah was recently in town on her trip around the world and was staying with us. I’d heard that Antwerp gets pretty dressed up for Christmas and had wanted to make the trip to the square to see the lights. Having her in town gave us a great reason to make the walk down. Sometimes, when I haven’t been down to the square in awhile, I forget how beautiful Antwerp really is. That night was no exception. All the big buildings were covered in lights, and a Christmas tree sat in the square. We’ve been going through a rough couple of days (because, that’s apparently how life goes when you make this kind of move), and it was a really nice reminder of the good parts of living here. 

I’ve never been a big fan of decorating for Christmas. I’m a self-proclaimed Scrooge about the whole thing. I like to see it all set up, at someone else’s house, that I did not have to partake in. I just don’t have the patience to take down all the decorations in a house to then put up different decorations, for a month, to then take them all down and put up the old ones again. Like I said, Scrooge. However, since we aren’t going to be home, and we should start our own traditions, at least in small part, I, of all people, ended up begging Jason for a tree. He reminded me that I’m the one who never wants to put anything up and he doesn’t care one way or the other. We would be getting a tree. 

My colleague and friend offered to buy us a tree at a store close by her home. She’d bought the same one for her boys and thought it might be a good happy medium for us. It was small, but cute. I agreed immediately. 

I came to school Monday morning to find our boxed tree, lights, and a bag of miniature ornaments perfect for our first little tree. After we finished seeing the lights of Antwerp, we decided to put up the tree and decorate it while listening to Bing Crosby on Spotify. We went all out, at least for us. Once the tree was up, we sat down with a beer and watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I mean, we couldn’t have been more basic about the whole thing, but it was a really nice evening.

On Saturday, the Christmas market opened in Antwerp. Christmas markets are a huge thing in parts of Europe, and especially in this area. Germany is probably the most known for their markets so we are planning a trip to Cologne for next week. Anyways, it seemed like a big deal here so we wanted to be there for the opening night. 

It was insane. There were people absolutely everywhere, little stall after stall selling all kinds of fun things, from food, to drinks, to clothes, house decorations, soaps, everything. All the buildings were covered in lights, including the cathedral. There was ice skating, tubing, a ferris wheel. A massive light show projected onto the government buildings, set to music. It was really something to see. As our first Christmas market, we were very impressed. 

Belgium markets have a drink called jenevers, which are little shots of ‘gin’ that come in dozens of different flavors (there isn’t a hint of gin flavor in any of them). We met one of our friends at the market, and it was the first thing she mentioned that we needed to try, as Christmas market newbies. You could get 6 little shots for a decent price, and sure enough, there was quite the selection of flavors at the stall we stopped at. We ended up sharing cactus, lemon, melon, chocolate, vanilla, hazelnut, berry, waffle (yes, for real, that’s a flavor), and apple throughout the night. They’re quite sweet, but good. Again, they taste nothing like gin, which is why I could get behind them. Another popular drink at the markets is gluhwein, or mulled wine.  Being that it’s freezing cold and winter, it’s a good choice drink for wandering around the different areas for hours at night. I’m intrigued by other markets now, and am hoping we can see another one in a different city in Belgium as well our upcoming Germany trip.

It’s nice having these holiday things to do. I thought I’d done a lot of my ‘grieving’ if you will about missing Christmas with my family these past couple months. I find that as we creep closer to the actual day, I am having a bit harder time with knowing I’ll be missing everything and not seeing everyone. Despite our decorations and trips to the market, I try not to think about the fact that we won’t get to be in the States this year. As break gets nearer (Friday is our last day!), and everyone is getting ready to go home, it gets a little more real. As always, I’m glad we’re having these experiences and memories, but I’d love to be having them while being able to go home. We’re lucky, because we’ve met some really great people in these few months who take us in and include us in the holidays so that we won’t be alone. We’ve got a place to go on Christmas Eve. We’re making Christmas cookies this week. We’ve got friends to explore with. We’re making Paris our New Years Eve party. All of that makes me so grateful. But, we’ll be thinking of our family and friends as December 25th gets closer, and I know we’ll be wishing we were having a white Christmas with them all. 

[pelztells-blog]

Madrid

This past weekend was another long weekend for me (third one in a row, not that I’m bragging or anything) (except I am), so we had decided to go to Madrid. I’d traveled to Madrid during The Great Backpacking Trip of 2007, but it was at the very end of my trip and I have very few memories of Spain. I was so exhausted at that point, I don’t know how much sightseeing I actually did when I was there. I was therefore excited to have the chance to re-explore the city that Lonely Planet claims ‘no city is more alive than’ (and was the tipping point for booking).  Leading up to leaving though, I wasn’t as excited as I thought I would be. The political events in the United States left me sadder and more overwhelmed than I had expected to feel. The depression was strong, coupled with the fact that Belgium’s typical weather had arrived in full force. The last week had been cold, grey, and constantly rainy. It’s enough to make you curl up in a ball and weep (well, if you insist). So, as Thursday approached, I felt tired at the thought of going anywhere. Jason is never as enthusiastic about traveling as I am, so the two of us were a real pair. 

However, the sun does continue to shine, and shine it did in Madrid. I am so, so glad we went. It was exactly what we needed. Technically, I am not supposed to be traveling as I don’t have a registration card in Belgium and my 90 day visa has expired. We’d booked the plane tickets back when we thought I’d have my registration card and didn’t want to lose the money, as we had booked nonrefundable tickets. However, there is something called the Schengen Area, which involves 26 countries in the EU that have abolished passport control and any other type of border control. Essentially, it makes it like one big country for travel purposes. Both Belgium and Spain are in the Schengen, so we’d heard from multiple sources that we should be fine to travel as no one should be checking passports except as verification of ID. We decided to risk it, figuring if we got stopped at Belgium’s airport, that would be it, and we’d head back home.

I left a period early on Thursday and met Jason at the train station, and from there we headed to the airport. We made it through security without showing a thing, as we were already checked in. We were through and at our gate without any issue. The hardest part was Ryanair’s boarding process as we had to walk half a mile to the plane, which explains how they are able to offer such cheap airfare. You just need to walk to the nearest suburb surrounding Brussels to board your plane. They gave us a free pudding cup and a bottle of water though, so I was good to go. I used that water to help gulp a Xanax and I was ready for night time flying.

I do not like to fly, which is an understatement, so I take medication to be able to do so successfully. I especially hate night flights, because there is a greater chance of turbulence at night (I’ve looked it up), and I don’t like not being able to see outside (...and also am a control freak). I used to just suck it up, which meant endlessly harassing flight attendants and crying whenever we hit turbulence. Then about 5 years ago, I flew with my sister to New York for my uncle’s wedding. It was dark and rainy, so while it wasn’t a terrible flight, it sure wasn’t smooth either. We shared a row with another lady who didn’t like to fly either and carried zen beads with her to help with her anxiety. Throughout the bumpy flight, Erin tried to distract me with crossword puzzles (my go-to when I’m feeling particularly panicky on a flight), but they weren’t working. After I’d repeatedly asked the flight attendant when the turbulence was expected to stop, why we were experiencing it, and when we would be landing, all to his extreme exasperation, while being on the verge of tears for most of the ride, the lady turned to me and gave me the zen beads, declaring I needed them way more than she did. I thanked her and shortly after made an appointment with my general practitioner to get a better grip on my fears in the most medicated way possible. She prescribed Xanax and I discovered how to fly successfully. It involves me being unconscious for the whole of a flight, so it’s a winning situation for anyone who happens to be sharing a plane with me.

So with appropriate measures taken, we boarded our plane. I fell asleep 30 seconds into the flight and everyone had a lovely flight experience as a result. We landed and then taxied. Then we taxied some more. I’m pretty sure we took a quick drive around Madrid in the plane before coming back to the airport where they finally let us off the plane.

We’d been given a couple Airbnb gift cards for our wedding and had decided to use some of that towards our stay in Madrid. I had booked the place, again, and my streak for amazing sleeping quarters continues. I had a place picked out originally that had a cute little terrace and other nice amenities that I’ve forgotten now. I was just about to book when something messed up with my browser and I lost the place. I started looking for it again when I stumbled upon another apartment. It was a brand-new posting, and it was clear the guy was new to Airbnb, which meant his place was SUPER cheap. That was about all it took for me. He was verified by Airbnb, and I’m a big believer in everyone has to start somewhere, so why not by us being his first stayers? The place looked clean and cute, and honestly, we’re only sleeping there. Most of the day is spent exploring. Anyways, I guess I didn’t tell Jason all of this, except to show him pictures before going ahead and booking it. 

We were to meet the guy at a station called Lavapies, which meant switching trains 2 times from the airport. It was that or take a taxi, which was recommended on blogs I’d read. I know it would seem like after our incident with Snagov, that it would make the most sense to get a taxi, but I am actually pretty good at navigating trains (just not random buses in the middle of Romania), and was confident I could figure out how to get to the corect station from the airport. I did get us there, because I am amazing at navigating train stations, it was finding the train in the airport that was the hardest part. It was buried deep within Madrid’s airport, or so it seemed, and it took a lot of wandering around to find it. Once we did though, we were golden. We rolled up to the correct station, albeit 20 minutes later than planned, and met up with our host. He was a super nice guy, despite the fact that he spoke no English and us no Spanish or French. It was pretty late by the time we got to him, close to 10pm, and the dark of night doesn’t always make everything seem so nice. It seemed like we were possibly staying in the sketchiest part of Madrid. We arrived at his apartment building and walked up to his place. In the pictures, it looked like there were a few rooms to the place, like a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, dining area. All of that was indeed there, but it was all in one room, with a little closet space dedicated to the bathroom (which I promptly flooded upon my first shower). As we looked around our small bedroom/dining room/kitchen, I could practically hear Jason’s thoughts. The guy left us a bunch of helpful brochures of things to do and free coffee which I appreciated. However, after the door closed, Jason again informed me that this was another example of my planning skills. I reminded him that he was supposed to plan this trip, but had decided to defer to me again, so this was actually his fault. We logged on to the terrible wi-fi and fell asleep to Netflix.

When we woke up the next day, we got ready for an adventure filled day of exploring. Jason showered, but I did not as we did not have shampoo again. We can’t find travel sized bottles of shampoo anywhere (in the two stores we checked) and aren’t checking bags on flights, so I’m not sure what the solution is. I have a small conditioner bottle left over from when Erin came to visit and have been refilling that, so we had conditioner again. Since we were once more going with my method of traveling, we had nothing planned that we wanted to see. To avoid any meltdowns, we each picked 3 things we wanted to tick off while in Madrid, decided what to see first, planned some directions, and were off. We’ve already come so far! 

We went first to Chocolateria San Gines, which was recommended for the churros and hot chocolate. We were super lucky to find a spot outside, and eating there was relatively cheap. More importantly, the churros and hot chocolate were ridiculously good. Fattened up by fried bread and chocolate, we wandered on to the Plaza Mayor, which is the big main square. We didn’t want to eat anymore or drink yet, so we just did a quick walk through and moved on. The day was super warm and sunny and just perfect for wandering around. We went to the Mercado de San Miguel, which is a large covered market with tons of little stands selling cheap drinks and tapas. We tried our first tapas--one grilled octopus and a honey mustard cod one, and they were so good! We left there determined to come back to drink all the cheap wine. We strolled on past a church, stopped in for a look, basked in the sun for a bit on the Plaza de la Villa, and then found ourselves outside the crypt of the main cathedral, the Santa María la Real de La Almudena. I’m not sure what I thought the crypt would be like, but I had underestimated the amount of graves in the floor that we would have to try to negotiate walking around. Nothing like a nice full crypt on a bright sunny day. After being appropriately creeped out, we left and went into the actual cathedral. We’re getting to be cathedral snobs at this point (from the 4 or 5 we’ve seen), so we weren’t swept away or anything, but it is a nice place. The ceilings were painted really bright colors and there was a huge gold centerpiece with a long line of people extending down from it. We decided a zoomed in camera picture would suffice over waiting in line. Next door to the cathedral is the Royal Palace of Madrid (Palacio Real). It was huge (the largest palace in Europe by floor area), and the outside looked really grand, so we decided to do the tour of the palace. It’s amazing to see all of the detail and famous art in all of those rooms and to know someone used to walk the halls hundreds of years ago as their place of living. It’s definitely worth the €10 price tag. We left the palace and saw a park to our left close by, so we thought we’d take a walk through there. As we approached, there was a little group of men at the entrance to the park. One was playing violin, one the keyboard, and the other was singing opera. It was the kind of moment that made you stop what you were doing and just enjoy the music. It’s those little experiences that I am so thankful to have. At this point, we’d traversed around half of Madrid and decided to stop and have a drink and maybe some food. We stumbled in to Puerta del Sol, another large and extremely busy square in the city. There were a number of little cafes, and we found one to sit at outside and people watch with a drink. Nicely buzzed, we decided to head out towards Buen Retiro Park. We’d basically blown through our original 3 sights plan and it was still afternoon, so we figured we might as well keep going. Buen Retiro Park had been mentioned in multiple sources we’d read as a must see, so off we went. 

Everyone should go to Madrid just to sit in that park. As soon as we walked in, I had the first (and only) memory of being in Madrid nearly 10 years ago, sitting in that park for a day, just reading a book. The park has a large pond, so you can rent a boat for €6 and spend 45 minutes trying not to crash into any other boats (not successful) and floating around (successful). I highly recommend it, as it was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip. We spent a decent amount of time at the park after we finished boating and probably still only saw a very small part of it. On the way in, we’d passed by an Irish bar (I can spot one just about anywhere), and as the sun was now setting, so we thought it was a good time for a beer. Plus we’d been walking for about 6 hours at this point and needed to sit somewhere. We spent a good hour or so there chatting with the bartenders in which I learned that a band would be playing that evening, but not until around 11:00pm. It was about 6:30 at this point and we felt that drinking for the next 4.5 hours would have some detrimental effects. We were starving, so we decided to find food in the in-between time.  Jason and I both get hangry hungry if we haven’t eaten for awhile, and it always seems to just go off like a switch when it happens. It switched about the second we stepped out of the bar.  No particular direction in mind, we ambled off towards what looked like a busy part of the city. We ended up on the Gran Via, one of the main shopping streets. It seemed as if all of Madrid plus every tourist that was currently visiting Spain had decided to roam this street along with us. People were streaming about everywhere. This did not help our hanger hunger, especially since we were only seeing shops and not restaurants. We finally pushed through the throng and darted down a side street, away from the current of people. There were four restaurants on the street which due to my indecisiveness and inability to eat a slew of foods, still ended up taking us awhile to choose from. Once I established that Jason and I were absolutely going to murder something if we didn’t eat, it made choosing the one closest to where we were standing a lot easier. 

There were about 3 things on the menu I could actually eat, so we decided to split those things. One of the items we ordered were 4 mini-burgers, with one of them being a chicken burger. While we were eating the chicken wings we’d ordered first, I thought the chicken looked possibly undercooked, but the lights were quite dimmed and I decided that was probably what was causing the chicken to have a pink glow. Then the mini burgers arrived. I bit right into mine, and noticed the texture seemed off. I examined it a bit more closely, where I then realized that the chicken was most definitely still a nice shade of pink. Horrified, I showed Jason who proceeded to bite into it to taste it (because apparently that’s what you do with potentially raw meat). Doubly horrified, that was the end of meat for me (for the night). After we finished eating, Jason rated the 4 mini-burgers, and the undercooked chicken won second place if that’s any indication of our enjoyment of the food. Feeling nauseous at the thought of the chicken, it seemed like the only thing to do was to head back to hear some (non-Irish, what the actual hell, after waiting all that time) music to end the night. 

We woke up late on Saturday, but having seen most everything we wanted to the day before, we weren’t in any rush. I was forced to shower, and this time I used body wash on my hair. I had enough conditioner that I was able to comb through most of my hair afterwards and only ripped out 1/4 of it. After cleaning up the pool I left behind in the bathroom, we went back to the Plaza Mayor to find some coffee for me. The plaza is covered in restaurants, and all of them have outdoor seating. The sun was out again, and it was another warm day, so the goal was to choose a spot to sit outdoors. We didn’t have to think hard as a very persuasive waiter whisked us into a seat when we hesitated outside his restaurant. I ordered my coffee and Jason asked for a mojito. Unable to accommodate the mojito listed on their menu, the waiter suggested a gin and tonic, which just happens to be one of Jason’s favourite drinks. He readily agreed. A large sangria type glass arrived filled with ice, the bottle of gin in the waiter’s hand. He instructed Jason to tell him when to stop. A couple of times Jason said ‘That’s good’ but that doesn’t translate to mean ‘stop’ in Madrid (or possibly anywhere besides the United States), so the glass continued to fill as Jason’s eyes grew wider. Finally, when the glass was nearly half gin, the waiter paused and asked, ‘Stop?’ slightly incredulously and a little surprised by the possibly alcoholic American at this point. Relieved, Jason concurred that he should indeed stop pouring gin. One of us would not be sober much longer. I mentally prepared myself for the likely €20 drink on our eventual bill. 

An hour later, large gin and slight tonic drink consumed, we walked back to the Mercado to put food in Jason’s alcohol filled stomach and sampled some paella, wine, mojitos, and olives. I also accidentally tried vermouth thinking I was asking for wine, so now I know I don’t mind vermouth. The crowds were pretty intense since it was a Saturday, so we decided to go to the Museo Nacional del Prado, the big art museum. We got there around 4:30 and saw that it was free to get in at 6:00pm. It seemed stupid to pay €20 if we could just wait an hour and a half to see everything for free. As we left to go find a bar to sit in to pass the time, we noticed there seemed to be a large line forming, but naturally we ignored it completely and journeyed onwards towards beer. An hour later upon arriving back at the Prado, we observed that the line now seemed to have multiplied about a hundred times over and was stretched down the entire length of the building and then some. Figuring this seemed peculiar with the closeness to the free admission, we inquired into the purpose for the line. 

It was the line to get in for free. We walked a quick mile and found ourselves at the back of it. Once it turned 6:00pm, the line started to snake forwards and then picked up steam. We were able to enjoy a casual stroll on the walk back towards the entrance. As the ticket window drew closer (because we had to get an admission ticket to enter the free museum, which seems to defeat any purpose), a girl sidled up next to Jason and I, cutting into the line we’d just spent the last 45 minutes standing in. I stared at her, nudging Jason.

‘Are you seeing this? I’ll be damned. Scoot in uncomfortably close to the people in front of us.’

Then I heard the girl behind me talking to her boyfriend.

‘What is she doing? I will kill her.’

Feeling better about my reaction as I hadn’t proposed murder, we all tried to shoulder her out. No one would actually say anything though, so she ended up getting in ahead of all of us despite our best passive agressiveness and threats of death.  Whatever, it was still free.

We made it in around 6:30pm and did the art thing. Neither Jason nor I are hugely in to art, so his enthusiasm started to fade after about 15 minutes, and mine didn’t last too much longer. When you’re in for free though, you feel like you should get your lack of money’s worth. We knew there were some Rubens in there, and as he was an Antwerpian painter, we’ve developed a small allegiance to him and wanted to find his work. Once that was completed and we’d seen every other name we recognized and felt cultured enough, we left. Food was calling again, but preferably well cooked food. We found a nice outdoor spot right by the Plaza Mayor and ordered enough food for for 4-6 people to eat comfortably. Properly overly stuffed, we decided to head home as we had a super early flight the next day. 

The next morning, before dawn, we took the train(s) with ease to the airport, mingling with the still drunk people who were just heading home, and avoiding a pizza box that one drunken man randomly threw towards the train while we were boarding. We breezed through airport security, hopped on our plane where we both passed out, and landed back in Brussels two hours later, where it was freezing, gray, and raining. Home sweet home. 

The little musical group in the park

First beers after landing

When in Madrid, be sure to buy a Budapest souvenir magnet

 World’s Largest Gin (and tonic)

You can understand why I got confused and ordered vermouth instead of wine. The sign saying ‘Vermuts’ is clearly misleading. 

I made Jason take a selfie while standing in the mile long line at the Prado. Can you sense his joy?

Boat buddies 

Tales from the Actual Crypt

Plaza Mayor

I mean, it’s the basic bitch of churches, amiright? 

Royal Palace of Madrid

Buen Retiro Park

Madrid City Hall

Even after all this time?

Always. 

[pelztells-blog]

Romania

I was on fall break last week, so Jason and I decided to take our first ‘international’ trip in Europe for part of the week break. We’d initially written down 4 choices each of places we’d like to go to, and each pulled one out of a hat. My top place, Croatia, and probably his top place, Greece, were pulled. We originally decided to head to Crete, but after looking at flight costs, and only having 4/5 days, it just wasn’t doable. So we switched directions completely and started looking at the cheapest flight options. Romania was one of them, and Jason was sold on visiting Transylvania and ‘Dracula’s’ castle (he spent the entire trip rasping ‘ah, ah, ah’ in his best Dracula voice).

Back when I backpacked Europe nine years ago, I read a book called The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. The story often takes place in Romania and is based around the history of Vlad the Impaler, the 15th century prince of Wallachia (southern part of Romania). After reading it, I was intrigued by Romania and it made it on my list of places to visit. I’m often inspired by books or songs which eventually dictate the places I want to visit. The song Vienna by Billy Joel is one of my favorite songs and was the reason I visited Vienna during that backpacking time. During long train rides, I read Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, which took place in Carcassonne, France. I loved that book so much I made a detour to the south of France to see the city for myself. I read all the historical fiction books that take place during World War II, and went to Germany and Poland, including Auschwitz because of that. So, all that to say, I wanted to go to Romania because of that book.

As Jason and I begin to travel together more, we are learning slowly about each other’s preferred travel modes. I tend to do minimal research and just show up in a place with a general idea of what I want to do, and no real clue of how to do it. I just figure I will figure it out. Jason likes to have a more structured plan and know what we are doing each day and how we are doing it. Most of this we discovered on this current trip, as I had ‘planned’ it. Jason has since created an Excel spreadsheet for any potential upcoming trips.

We flew into Romania on Wednesday afternoon. For whatever reason, I had told the guy at our ‘hotel’ (it was more like a nice hostel, except we didn’t have to sleep in bunk beds and we had our own bathroom) that we would be ready for check in at 6pm. We landed at 1:30pm, so I’m not sure why I thought it would take us 4.5 hours to get from the airport to the hotel. It didn’t, and no one was there to check us in. As it was, the place we were staying at had no real sign outside of it, and was up 3 flights of stairs. After finding it, knocking on the door, getting no response, going back downstairs to where there was an eyeglass store and confirming we were in the right location, we carted our luggage across the street to the $200/night hotel and decided to have lunch while we waited to be able to ‘check in’. This marked the first instance that Jason remarked that perhaps he should take over planning trips from now on, or at least lodging (when we went to Gent, I booked us a private room in a hostel. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that meant we would still have bunk beds. Jason got stuck with the top bunk).

In Romania, their monetary system is the leu. Five leu is the equivalent of 1 euro, which made for a great exchange rate for us. It meant we could afford to eat at this ritzy hotel, with a 2 course meal, an appetizer, and a glass of wine each for about twelve euro. During our lunch, I emailed our hotel and found out someone was now there to check us in. We were happily surprised by our room, and the guy who owned the place was extremely helpful (and Jason retracted his statement about me not being allowed to book lodgings). He ended up booking us a ride with George, the taxi driver who became our BFF for the trip. George was willing to take us to Brasov to see Bran Castle for less money than a tour bus, so we signed ourselves up. And just like that, the next day was planned! See how that works? ;)

My sister and her fiancee had been in town leading up to our trip so we were pretty exhausted, and passed out for a couple hours. We woke up in time to eat again and walked to Old Town for dinner. We didn’t have anywhere specific in mind (of course), and were just wandering around, when a girl on the street asked if we needed a place to eat. Before we could really even confirm or deny whether or not we did, we were following her down the street. The next thing we knew, we were seated in an old restaurant that was empty except for 2 other girls that no doubt had found themselves in the same situation as us. While we were there, we watched that girl bring in couple after couple, so props to her. She hustled hard. The food was fine, we had pizza and salad, very traditional Romanian fare (it’s not, that is not traditional).

The next morning we were up early to meet George who would be taking us to Peles Castle and Bran Castle. Due to my lack of research, I had no idea how far away it was. It ended up being over 2 hours away, which is a long ass time to be in a taxi. However, George was a Romanian gem. He had all kinds of good tips, a funny sense of humor, and one of the most peaceful, lulling voices ever, which was slightly unfortunate as I found myself drifting off during long conversations. I should have recorded him for sleepless nights. Anyways, he was great, and he pointed out all kinds of things during the drive that we would have otherwise never noticed, like a giant cross on top of the mountains, and little facts about cities we drove through, as well as history lessons on Romania.

We went to Peles Castle first. I’d never even heard of the place until the night before when I was flipping through a brochure that came with our room, saw it as part of the tour with Bran Castle, and immediately decided we also needed to go there. I’m glad we did though, because it is a beautiful place. It isn’t terribly old, having been built in the late 1800s, but it has a lot of history. Romania has unique ways of getting money out of tourists, and one of those was by charging a photography fee. You couldn’t take pictures inside unless you paid it. We both scoffed at this and decided that was stupid and we weren’t paying for the right to take pictures.

We probably should have paid to take pictures as it was really cool inside, but whatever, we have our memories...until we forget. Our tour group was about 50 deep, which is an appropriate size for walking through small castle rooms. The tour guide managed to give the entire tour in the exact same flat tone of voice, which is a pretty impressive feat. Not an ounce of emotion ever snuck in for the hour the 50 of us spent with her. Jason spent the afternoon conducting fake tours at the other locations we went to in her voice.

From Peles we journeyed on to Bran Castle. Dracula’s castle in October?! This is what Halloween dreams are made of (insert ‘ah, ah, ah’ in Jason’s Dracula voice)! There isn’t actually any real connection to Vlad III (or Vlad Tepes/Impaler), who is the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and this castle. He may have possibly visited it or stayed there, but it wasn’t where he lived. Vlad’s father was Vlad Dracul, which translates to ‘devil’ in modern Romania, but at the time referred to Dragon (Vlad the Dragon). Vlad III kept the name, as was referred to as Drakula even back then. He was known for impaling people, and leaving their impaled corpses on display. Touching.

We learned while there that had Bram Stoker not written Dracula, Vlad III probably wouldn’t have the notoriety he has today, and would have gone down in history largely unnoticed (well everywhere except Romania). Most Romanians view him in a positive light, as he fought for Romanian freedom from Ottoman rule, and was considered a fair leader, only impaling criminals and those he was fighting against. Apparently he took up for the poor as well. Regardless, he’s fascinating, and we were excited to visit the castle if for folklore only.  

The castle is the opposite of creepy, but it is up a steep hill, and with the wind blowing the way it was that day, being blown off the path and down the ridge, was not that far-fetched of a reality. We did a full tour of the castle, which the royal family used to live in sometimes, in the 1920′s-1940′s. They had lots of facts in every room, explaining the use of everything (sometimes too many facts and we stopped reading it all). There was also a torture room, but we couldn’t get in (separate ticket, and it looked closed that day), so we just tried to guess what each horrifying mechanism did to a person. We bought a super overpriced magnet like the gullible tourists we were, and off we went back to find George.

I think George was mildly surprised at how fast we went through everything, so he offered to take us to another place, Rasnov Citadel. As he told us about spending childhood summers in the city below the citadel and waxed poetic about how beautiful the views were, we couldn’t help but be sold on going there. Rasnov is up a super steep hill, which we had to pay to be escorted up (honestly we should have just walked it, but hindsight). It’s all original buildings, and had amazing views of the countryside. It was pretty bare though, which apparently it had not been, because George called its current state ‘bullshit’ before promising to send photos of what they used to have on display (still waiting on that). We enjoyed the views, but were exhausted as we’d been gone for about 8 hours at this point. George offered to take us to a cave but there was no way in hell. We drove 3 hours home (as his beautiful voice again put me to sleep). Having spent a large amount of our budget on that trip, we ate at the famous Romanian Pizza Hut for dinner and went to bed.  

We took it easy Friday and woke up at the crack of 11. Hush. At this point, I should mention our showering situation. The hotel’s website said that it had toiletries, so we brought only the bare minimals--for me, that meant conditioner, for Jason, that meant nothing. When we got there, toiletries were no where to be found. Rather than inquire about this, we did what anyone in this situation is forced to do--use hand soap. My hair is currently far too long to begin with, but never in the history of hair has showering with hand soap been beneficial. So when I was forced to shower on Thursday, mine was a nest of knots and tangles, and the conditioner might as well just pissed off because there was no way it could win in this situation. Post shower, I tried to get Jason to help comb out the snarls, but he was about as bad at it as I was, so I gave up and put my tangled, wet hair into a bun and called it a day. Hand soap shower success. Jason endured daily hand soap showers, but I refused and could only deal with it every other day. He showered when we woke up, and my knot of hair and I laid in bed and watched Netflix for an additional 30 minutes.  I think I came out on top.

We decided to go eat lunch at this restaurant called Caru-cu Bere that had been recommended by both George and the hotel owner (I think his name was Claude--that’s what I called him anyways). It was legit Romanian food, unlike our previous Pizza Hut experience. For 22 leu, you got an appetizer, salad, main course, and dessert, which is just over 4 euro. Sign us up. I liked all of mine alright, but Jason wasn’t as big a fan of the skinless sausages that are so popular in Romania. To be fair, they looked super unappetizing and I had no problem giggling uncontrollably over their appearance. One of Jason’s other courses was a tomato and cucumber salad, which he figured would be dressed with oil and balsamic or some kind of dressing. The bowl literally showed up at the table with plain tomatoes and cucumbers and nothing else, which also set me into a fit of giggles. Jason wasn’t as amused.

After lunch we wandered to the National Museum of Romanian History and spent a good couple hours wandering around ancient stuff, trying to see who could find the oldest artefact. We’re pretty cool like that. From there we saw this little old church George had also recommended called Stavropoleos Church, built in the 18th century. The entire inside is covered in top to bottom paintings and is really quite pretty. Go see it if you find yourself traipsing around Bucharest. Jason had been disgusted with the length of his hair for awhile but had refrained from cutting it because a certain wife of his likes it longer. I gave in as we passed by Mr. Blades Barber Shop (how could I not?). For less than 20 euro later, Jason felt lighter and freer than he had in at least 6-8 weeks. We strolled on, and found ourselves staring at the equivalent of the Holy Grail for my husband. There in front of us stood a gamers bar. Joy filling his face, we went in and had a beer while looking around and watching the bartender play Tetris. We ended the night with some delicious drinks at a local bar also recommended to us before dining on a classic McDonald’s dinner. Healthy choices abound (it’s cheap, don’t judge our poor choices).

In The Historian, much of the book took place around Snagov Monastery, the place where Vlad the Impaler is rumored to be buried. Therefore, it was on my priority list of places to go to. Jason has since demanded that I delete the book off my iPad and never read it again, but joke’s on him--I have it in paperback form. Snagov is a city about 45 minutes away from Bucharest and I’d read that you can get to there by bus. From there, the monastery is on an island in Lake Snagov. We had thought about having George drive us there, but after some internet research, we wanted to save money and we both felt like we could figure this out on our own--the adventure of travel. From what we had read, there weren’t a lot of signs indicating how to find Snagov Monastery once you got into the city, but we (I) thought we would be okay. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how this story ends. I will though.

We left the hotel around 11am. Our first set of directions was to take a bus, the 783. We followed our map to where the bus was supposed to pick up. Bus stops in Bucharest sometimes have numbers on the side, and sometimes they look like they should just be caught on fire and put out of their misery. Ripped papers cover them, bird poop litters itself around them, and no where do they have any mention of what bus stops there. We crossed the street, and walked up and down staring for any sign of the bus, but the few numbers we did see were double digit busses, so that was perplexing. Luckily, I had emailed our hotel owner asking for directions and he had given us a Metro tram to take (when he found out we weren’t going to use George to get there, his email back to me read, and I quote, ‘Okay Meghan, as you wish. We keep in touch if you need anything’. Even he knew this wasn’t going to end well). We found that easily, purchased tickets, and successfully completed the first part of the trip, which called for a congratulatory high five. We were so good at following directions!

From our tram stop, we were to walk to the Arc de Triomphe and look for a mini/maxi bus (they were called both in different sets of directions) going to Snagov. This didn’t seem that tough, but surrounding the Arc de Triomphe is a large roundabout with at least 5 lanes of traffic, and no clear marking of a bus. Also, this mini/maxi bus only came once an hour. We didn’t know where on the roundabout it stopped, what part of the hour it came, nor did we see any numbers on bus stops matching the number of bus we were looking for. We walked around the roundabout (which is huge, so it took forever), at least 2-3 full times before realizing it was fruitless. We had no internet because that is our new normal, and weren’t sure what to do next, which created a very tense situation. I stalked around the roundabout hoping something would catch my eye while Jason trailed behind commenting about how lame this monastery was inevitably going to be causing me to have to restrain from punching him.

There was a large park near the roundabout, and I had remembered reading in an earlier post regarding getting to the monastery, to walk through a park nearby, and figured this was that park. We stopped a worker as we entered the park to try to ask for directions. He spoke no English, but he tried his damnedest to tell us where to go and pointed for us to keep going straight and make an eventual right. We nodded vaguely, thanking him, and went off on his directions. We found another worker farther on, and tried again to see if we were indeed going the right way before making an unidentified right turn. He also spoke no English and also tried to give us directions. His directions directly contradicted worker number 1′s directions. He had us going back the way we came in. Frustration was now boiling over and we hadn’t even made it through step 2 of this trip. There was a small festival going on in the park, and some delicious looking desserts were being sold. It seemed like a good time to try to diffuse the situation with sweets, and the sign said you could buy a piece of Romanian cake for 5 leu. I tried a few samples before asking for one of them. The lady cut a chunk off the cake and asked if that was a good size.

“Sure, that’s fine. That’s the 5 lei size? I just have a 10 lei, can you cash that?” “10 lei, that is fine. I will give you piece for 10 lei.” “No, no, I just wanted a 5 lei piece. That’s what the sign says right? No? Okay, nevermind, that’s fine.’

And off my money went. I stuttered a bit about not wanting 10 lei worth of cake before surrendering and taking the cake. It wasn’t 10 lei good.

We walked back to the tram station and decided to start over, following the original set of directions that had us walking through the park, but this time starting from where the original posters started, which was at a different section of the park. We walked for a solid 25 minutes and came out where we were supposed to (we ended up going perpendicular to the way we went in the first time which is why it worked. The first worker also had directed us correctly). We ran across a busy road illegally and up to the bus station. We walked in 4 minutes to the hour, which, it turns out, is when the bus leaves, and saw the #444 bus we were looking for right away. The odds were back in our favor!

The directions had said that the bus drivers on the maxi busses were super friendly and spoke English. We did not find this to be the case. When I asked the driver if the bus went to Snagov, because we were taking no chances, he grunted at me before taking my money and moving on. We had never had a clear directive on where to get off the bus, just that we were to go to Snagov. It had been mentioned to get off by the train tracks, and I figured we would see them and then hop off. The bus was supposed to take about 45 minutes to get to this unknown destination. Around the 40 minute mark, I was paying close attention but just seeing suburbia and super run down bus stops. I walked up to the bus driver and asked if we were near Snagov monastery. Not only was he not friendly, he spoke no English. He gestured at me a number of times and I stared blankly at him, getting increasingly confused. We were at stop, so he turned to the bus and must’ve inquired if anyone could speak English to the two dumbasses on the bus in the middle of nowhere, Snagov, as the entire bus started snickering and staring at us. No one else spoke English. The driver yelled at us to get off the bus, wildly thrusting his arms toward the door. It was now drizzling and we had no umbrellas. He wasn’t trying to be rude and yell at us, it’s just how Romanians spoke to us when they were trying to instruct in a different language. I found this out later. The driver did grab a random teenager off the street and ask him if he spoke English before sending him over to us and screeching away. As I inquired about how to find Snagov monastery, the kid kept telling us it was ‘in front of the pizza place’. His English wasn’t too great either, and we think ‘front’ had a different meaning for him. His friend he was with kept laughing at his attempts to help us, which boded well for this new set of directions. Regardless, we were to walk down in front of the pizza place. We ambled that way, found the pizza place and saw no signs indicating the monastery was sharing a space with it. Unsure of where to go from here as we were literally in a random neighborhood, we just followed the street the pizza store was on. We’d seen the lake in the distance and thought this meant we were at least around the right area. 

We saw two girls wisely carrying umbrellas and clearly consulting an iPhone that had internet, making us think they were also looking for the monastery. Jason went up to them and found they were indeed on the search for it, and thought we were on the wrong side of the lake. Off we went to continue on the trek. We’d been up and down in Snagov for over an hour now and didn’t seem to be anywhere near anything of value. As we rounded a corner, a dark patch of woods loomed up ahead. It was approaching dusk soon, so this seemed like the best case scenario: wandering through dark woods in the middle of nowhere Romania on the quest for a creepy monastery. We walked on and came to a fork in the path. Neither roads looked great, so we went right. By this point, the other two girls had given up and clearly turned back as they were nowhere to be seen. We did not take this as a hint and instead hiked on for ten more minutes when Jason spotted two dogs up the road. They were laying down and seemed unconcerned with our progress, so despite Jason’s concern, I thought we should press on. We got a little farther when the dogs jumped up and began sprinting towards us, barking profusely. I’d remembered thinking it was important to stay calm and not appear afraid, so we turned around and began walking in the opposite direction, hoping they wouldn’t attack us and having no real plan B if they did. Fortunately, they stopped running at our retreat and just barked at our disappearing backs. We came back to the fork, and decided to go left (perseverance at its best). Again, we walked on and on until we ran into what looked like private property. After the dog incident, we didn’t want to risk what might be hiding for us now, so we again turned around and walked back. It had been close to 6 hours since we’d originally started this adventure and I was willing to concede defeat. Back to the bus stop we walked, and the same bus driver took us back to the bus station where we walked back though the park, to get back on the tram. The tickets we had bought for the tram were good for 2 rides, so we didn’t have to get new ones. We scanned our tickets. Jason’s worked fine, and the gates opened for him to walk through. Giant red ‘x’s appeared when I scanned mine and wouldn’t let me through. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I tried scanning it again. While I was doing that, the door next to me swung open to reveal a worker inside. In Romanian, he shrieked at me while wildly gesticulating with his hands in a manner that implied I should go through the gates. Flustered, I attempted to crawl under the gates, which only got him more worked up. Now frantically yelling ‘No’ at me, he kept making the same motions with his hands that indicated I should GO but without any clear way with which to do so. I was panicking at this point, because his tone of voice indicated that this was clearly a Level 5 emergency, and the entire tram system was likely to explode if I didn’t get through the gates RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND. There was absolutely no one behind us or any kind of implied hurry but by God if I didn’t get through those gates, he may have busted a vein. Jason finally realized the gate next to the one I was trying to climb under were lit up green and would allow me to pass through. Head held high, I ran through them and far away from the screaming man. I was ready for the day to come to a close, as this was more than my fragile ego wanted to process during this day of defeat. Instead, we got on the tram and made it back to our neighborhood. We treated ourselves to a non-fast food dinner and drinks before heading home. I immediately emailed our hotel owner and asked if he could see if George would take us to the monastery the next day on the way to the airport. He seemed unsurprised by our failure and readily set it up.

The next morning at 9:30 we joyfully greeted George and off we went on the easiest journey ever to the monastery. We were nowhere near it the day before and would have never found it on our own. As it was, we were the only ones there when we arrived. We crossed over a large bridge and entered the monastery grounds. It’s actually super small, but there in the middle of that tiny church was the (possible) grave of Vlad the Impaler. I had finally seen it. The monastery actually creeped me out the most of everything we saw on that trip. Maybe because it was basically deserted, on a foggy, rainy day, and screamed of murder (like one of those places you would just suddenly disappear from, never to be seen again), but regardless, we didn’t need to stay long. I will say the inside of the monastery is also fully painted and quite beautiful, and that I am glad we went. George dropped us off at the airport 4 hours early, which was fine with us. We were too tired to want to do anymore sightseeing and sat in the airport bar until it was time to fly out. We both slept the entire way back.

Here’s the thing I found about Romania. It brought out all kinds of emotions in me (clearly). It both takes your breath away at the beauty of it’s countryside while leaving you feeling depressed at times by the grey and dirtiness of it’s major city. At times I loved Romania and at times I wanted to find a giant power washer and spray down Bucharest.  It’s a beautiful place, but you have to look a little harder to find the beauty sometimes. That being said, I am glad we went and experienced it, and are looking forward to the next crazy adventure we have together.

[pelztells-blog]

Meltdown Monday

[Edit: I wrote this last week, and actually had a really good second half of the week. Just needed to get it all out, which just goes to show the ups and downs of moving somewhere so new--even if it is something I’ve wanted to do for a really long time.]

Meltdowns were a constant during my school years in the past, both for me and my students so I nicknamed it Meltdown Monday a few years ago. Yesterday, I had Meltdown Tuesday (you can apply it to any day, but it obviously sounds way better with Monday--I always preferred for my kids to melt that day so I could use the phrase. Usually someone melted everyday, but for 1/5 days it sounded good). Meltdowns are usually good for my soul, as I feel a lot better afterwards, but I can be a wreck leading up to them (I don’t know, maybe I need to work on processing emotions...). This one was no exception. I’ve been moody and emotional for a little while as is, and yesterday it all came to a head. 

I woke up just feeling blah. I haven’t been working out like I did in Nashville since moving here because I get home so much later in the evenings and I’m tired. However if you know me, you know that I don’t do well when I’m not working out. Neither does my body, and when I tried on clothes yesterday, everything felt tight and horrible. Commence meltdown number 1. As I stood in the mirror, I sobbed quietly about how grotesque my figure had become. My stomach was huge, my pants tight, and I was ashamed at how I’d let myself go. Possibly I am a little tough on myself. 

So I left for school in tears. Not to worry, I’ve taken to listening to my Adele soundtrack on my walks to and from the train station, so she hit right into all the feels. I felt like I was in some movie drama, where the music gets real and dramatic, and it’s just a close up of the person walking, contemplating life before coming to some huge revelation or something (I had no huge revelation except that I really still like Adele’s album). Anyways, I got to the train station early enough to be able to buy a coffee. I treat myself to a Starbucks once a week, a nod to my American ways, as I did this at Percy Priest as well. Once a week, I’d stop and get a coffee for myself and whatever fun flavoured latte was out for Jeanne. I don’t have a Jeanne here (how could I?), so I just treat me. I got my coffee and bumped into a work friend. As we walked to the train, the lid popped off my coffee and proceeded to spill all over myself, my phone, and the floor. I was already too mentally exhausted to care much, and felt like it probably wasn’t super appropriate to meltdown in front of people that barely know me, so I said a simple, ‘Well of course’ before proceeding on to work. I wore a white shirt yesterday, so my coffee stains were incredibly visible. Why not?

I got to work. As a whole, the morning was uneventful as the big kids were testing, so I had a break (there aren’t special accommodations, so I don’t test a group separately or anything). I’m still figuring out my place at work, which is to be expected as a new person, but I struggle sometimes with it. How do I fit in? How do I best help kids? I’m used to working with kids with pretty significant needs, and while I don’t miss IEPs or the threat of lawsuits hanging over my head or being beat up by a child 1/2 my size or having my room destroyed, I do miss feeling like I was making a difference with kids that needed me. There are a few special cases here, but as a whole, that just isn’t the need base. And, really, that is okay. A child doesn’t have to have significant needs for me to be able to make a difference in his or her life. I can make just as much of a difference in any setting I go in to--it depends a lot on my mindset. It’s easy to remember all the good and forget the bad when you leave somewhere and restart. I’d forgotten feeling worn down, feeling burnt out, and feeling like I was no longer effective in what I was doing. I’d forgotten coming home in a bad mood most nights of the week, tired from tutoring hours after school to try to make ends meet, as my salary wasn’t enough alone. I’d forgotten all of this as I’m imperfect and, emotions. Slowing down is tough. It’s good, but it’s an adjustment. Needless to say, in my already weepy mindset, I didn’t think all these wise things I can think in the aftermath, and I called my mom to have meltdown number 2. Sometimes there is nothing more in life you need than to just talk to your mom. I cried it out, got good advice (I said a lot of it above), and tackled the rest of the day. 

That being said, I lasted until I got home. Still feeling weepy, I broke down upon walking through the door. Sometimes you need to let your husband know that life is feeling rough too. Bottling it up works well (not), until you get to Meltdown Day. I got lucky and married a good one, who listened and reminded me that there are going to be tough times, that we knew it, and I was just going through one of them (also similar to what my mom had said). I went to a yoga class, my first in 2 months, and cried in Savasana. It felt great to practice again and feel those old muscles working. I walked out feeling so much better than I had in awhile. I came home to a dinner made, laid on the couch with a glass of wine and watched some Friends as we celebrated a month of being married. It was calming and what I needed to end a tiring day.

I don’t tell this story to make anyone feel bad for me. Don’t. There are a lot of upsides to moving abroad. I am often grateful for this experience. Read any blog about moving abroad though, and it’ll sound similar to what I have been going through (I don’t know if they all cried as much as me, but whatever). I tell it because this is all part of the journey, the good parts and the harder parts. It is tough figuring out a new country, a new job, a new life. It’s tough being far away from all the support you had in family and friends. It’s tough when you don’t know how to find things, or how things work, and you feel like you’re constantly screwing it up. It’s part of it. We had a super eventful time during the move with the wedding, and now we’re finally settled and regular life is sinking in. With that comes the emotions of it all. I wanted this for the experiences and a change of pace. We have lots of trips coming up--Ghent, Romania, Madrid. I can’t wait to go to all those places. I’ve got other places on my mind, and just knowing that they are in my reach, a possibility that won’t cost me months of saving, is exciting. This too will pass, as it always does. 

That being said, I think I’ll go pop an aspirin and drink a Diet Coke (or a Coke Light as it’s called here). Crying all day gives you one hell of a headache. :)

[pelztells-blog]

I guess I don’t know how to add pictures to drafted blog posts still. Anyways, the first picture is our Tempurpedic mattress. As you can see, it is getting a lot of good use being a coat rest.

The second is the crate disassembled. You can’t tell from the picture but it takes up half the guest room. Sorry, guests. 

The last picture is an adorable one of Dallas, who we (I) miss a lot! 

[pelztells-blog]

The Crate

I started this blog last week and it got deleted. This defeated me so much that I haven’t been able write again. Also, we’ve just been busy and tired. Mostly that.

Right before I moved to Antwerp (like, the day before), Jason and I filled a 50 cubic foot crate with all the things we held near and dear, taped it up, and left it outside to be picked up. These things usually take anywhere from 4-6 weeks to sail over and following that, they go through Customs. I’m not entirely sure what this entails, as the box is so taped up, it cannot be inspected. All they have to go off is the list you’re supposed to write as you pack. If any other shippers are like me, they forgot to fill out the list until after everything was completely sealed and guestimated what all was in the crate. Seems pretty legit.

I got an email about a week before the wedding saying the crate had made it to Rotterdam and was awaiting it’s very thorough inspection. From there it would be delivered. My school was quite helpful and took care of calling the company to help with logistical information that was needed, as well as to let them know that I would be out of the country for a week soon and that would be a very poor time to deliver. Because the crate is rather large, it won’t fit through standard doors. Being that we live on the 3rd floor of an apartment building, this meant that the crate would need to be unloaded on our sidewalk. Should it be delivered while we were gone, it would have nowhere to go but to sit outside. I wouldn’t have been worried about it being stolen as it weighed roughly 4 tons, but I would imagine most pedestrians to our busy street would be less than thrilled with its presence and that could have some detrimental effects on our belongings. Regardless, they weren’t going to be ready to deliver it while I was gone and promised to give a decent amount of notice before it would come. 

When we returned to Antwerp post-wedding, my first Monday back, I was forwarded an email from my school that the moving company had sent them. As it was in Dutch, I didn’t bother to translate it, but my work colleague mentioned that the crate could be delivered on ’Wednesday at the earliest’.  However, because she had been on vacation the previous week as well, and hadn’t been able to respond to emails, she doubted they would be able to get everything ready to deliver that quickly.  Armed with that information, I made no plans to take any time off work, as I once again assumed I would have plenty of notice (plenty refers to at least 24 hours prior--I don’t ask for much). 

Wednesday came and went, and we heard nothing from the company, as predicted. We’d gotten used to using the stuff we already had and were actually kind of dreading the crate’s arrival, so the longer it took to show up, the better it was for us. Thursday morning I was at school, having a day with important meetings scheduled. My phone rang, which is really unusual for me now that I’ve moved. I debated ignoring it like I do most phone calls, but decided to risk it and answer it. Turns out it was the moving company letting me know they were trying to deliver our massive crate RIGHT THAT MINUTE. 

My initial thought was ‘What the actual f@$%’ followed by immediate panic. My school is not that far from our apartment but I am absolutely dependent on the schedule of the trains to get home. At that point, it was 11:30am and the next train wasn’t until 11:57. I texted Jason and told him to look for a large blue and red truck with the words ‘Transmission’ written on it. As soon as I leave campus, I lose internet, which is my only way to contact the outside world as we still don’t have Belgian phones (this has been it’s own amazing process). I ran to the train station, even though I knew I had at least 20 minutes to wait, but it made me feel like I was productive somehow.

As a side note, Belgium went through an extreme heat wave this summer. Prior to moving here, all I ever heard about was how shit the weather was, but on this particular day (and many other days in August and September), it was an easy 90 degree, not a cloud to be seen, day. Normally, I would be happy about nice weather, but normally I’m not forced to unload large crates on the sidewalk in it.

I was at the train station sitting around when I get a text from Jason saying he couldn’t find the truck. Like in Brussels, I was forced to pay money to access the wifi (although for far less than I paid there) so that I could repeat the same vague instructions about finding the truck. I ended up calling the moving company (another financially responsible decision) to tell them that we know the truck is in the area, but we just haven’t located it yet. During this, and after I’ve had the guy who answered the phone put out a variety of phone calls to various people letting them know we can’t find the truck, Jason located it. By now, I’d spent so much time texting and calling, I missed the train. I was literally at the train station, but on the wrong side of the tracks (the internet only works on one side and it wasn’t the side I needed to be on). I’m 98% sure the conductor saw me sprinting across the bridge, sweat streaked down my face, giggled, and sped off.

The next train wasn’t until 12:27, meaning by the time I even got home, a full hour would have passed since I ran full speed out of school. An hour spent sitting at a train station, missing trains. Also, I knew I had another 29 minutes to kill in 90-degree heat. I opted to collapse on a bench, not caring in the slightest if anyone gave me any form of a wondering look. 

I made it home sometime around 12:45 or so. As I walked up to our building, I spotted Jason standing awkwardly outside next to our large crate, still all taped up. He had been standing outside for almost an hour, just guarding the box. He didn’t have internet access down there either and wasn’t aware I’d missed my previous train. I suppose he just thought I was walking extraordinarily slow from the train station.

We got the tape off, got the box unloaded into the lobby, got a lot of really weird looks, and were dripping sweat (thanks a lot past Meghan and Jason for thinking we needed a 30 pound Tempurpedic mattress cover (that doesn’t fit our new bed) and 40 pounds of books (okay, that last one was me) ). We hadn’t even started the moving everything upstairs process. As I refuse to take our elevator most of the time, I was running up and down 3 flights of stairs for trip after trip after trip. By the time we had dumped everything through our door, my clothes were legitimately soaked. Not a pretty picture? Well it wasn’t fun for me either. I had to shower and change clothes before I could even think about heading back to school, to finish the last hour of the day and just in time to have successfully missed all my meetings. 

Should we ever ship stuff again, I will demand a very clear delivery date. Mostly, I hope we can afford to hire someone to just do it for us. 

[pelztells-blog]

Brussels

Jason and I decided to go to Brussels this weekend. Being that it is close to Antwerp, this seemed like an easy and full proof plan. It’s been almost 10 years since I last was in Brussels, not including the airport trips, and I was happy to have the chance to see the city again. Prior to Jason’s arrival, I’d joined some MeetUp groups to try to, yes, meet people. One of the ones we joined posted that they were going to a bar to watch the NFL kickoff. As everyone who knows me knows, I was STOKED. 

No, but I do want this transition to be as easy as possible for Jason and since he does love football, I thought this would be fun (I only watch football to try new pumpkin beers when out). The meetup started at 7pm on Sunday. Brussels is a 45 minute train from Antwerp, so we caught the one that landed us in the city central at 6:58pm. We would be sightseeing nothing but the bar. 

In true Meghan fashion, I had done approximately 0.2 seconds of research before making this trip (I had briefly looked at the name of the bar before immediately forgetting it). I had decided that this was the best way to introduce Never-Been-To-Europe-Except-For-Three-Days-In-Antwerp Jason to the glories of traveling to a new and unfamiliar city. Antwerp has city-wide free wi-fi, so I decided it made sense that Brussels would as well and we could just use that to map it to the bar. I decided incorrectly and now know without a doubt that Antwerp is the superior city while Brussels can kiss it. 

So we get to Brussels 2 minutes before meet up begins. We had absolutely no idea where to go, and no real way of figuring it out. I thought I had 20 euro on me and was wiling to splurge for a taxi to just drive us, but when I inspected my wallet further, there was no 20 to be found (not sure what I did with it either). At this point, we had now wandered about a block randomly, just hoping the bar would magically appear, and trying to (unsuccessfully) connect to any wifi. Tension rising, we ended up having to walk back to central station and pay 10 euro to use their wifi for the 45 seconds it would take me to locate this (definitely well worth it) bar on a map and get directions. By now, Jason had decided we should just get on the train and head back home. I was immediately appalled as this was an ADVENTURE, damn it, and also we’d paid 16.50 euro to get here so we were going to find this bar and love every moment of it. I finally locate the bar on a map and it’s just a short 31 minute walk from the station. I hate everyone. It appears Jason does as well. 

We stomp off in the general direction of the bar, immediately getting lost as all the streets have extremely long and unpronounceable names that boggle my brain just from looking at them. As we’re no longer on wifi, the map can’t recalculate so we have no option but to figure it out. We do finally and discover it’s literally just a very long straight shot. As we’re trudging along, I turn to Jason in an attempt to turn this around, and exclaim, “This is all part of travel. You just go somewhere new and figure it out! That’s part of the excitement!” He pauses and stares at me, before declaring that that is ‘the stupidest thing’ he has ever heard, and until we get cell phones that work in Belgium, he will be going nowhere new. I stew over this, silently agreeing that’s not a bad idea, and we continue on. 

We’re about halfway there when Jason yells out. I was concerned he had twisted his ankle (because, why not?) but he thinks he’s stepped on a piece of glass. He takes off his flip flop and proceeds to walk one foot barefoot to find a chair so he can sit down and investigate. Brussels is not notorious for its cleanliness, so I wasn’t sure this was the best idea (see glass in foot). We sat down and saw a mark on his foot but couldn’t locate any active pieces of glass. We took this as good news and started walking again. Jason starts limping as his foot is still bothering him and sending out sharp pains. I’m ready to piggyback this shit so we can just sit down and chug a beer. Instead I hold his hand as if this has some restorative powers against possibly embedded glass. 

We make it to the elusive (except not really) Fat Boys bar, and it seems to be slightly Irish (they have Irish beer) and this slightly pleases me. We see a few groups of people wearing various jerseys, so any of them could possibly be our meet up group. We each take turns randomly going up to groups and asking if they are here with MeetUp (which definitely didn’t get us any weird looks from these strangers), and as it turns out NONE of them were (and shockingly, none of them invited us to just join their group). We’d just spent 45 minutes on a train and 40 minutes being lost/stepping in glass/walking to meet up with 0 Americans. I sent a message via the app to no response. Either they saw us and decided we weren’t their type, or they weren’t there. We were disappointed but then we saw that there were buffalo wings being served here and no longer cared about the flaky Americans (side note: I’ve since posted a message on their message board as well, and still NO ONE will respond despite other posts getting responses. Pretty sure they hate us). Europe is not known for having buffalo sauce and since we’d been here for 4 whole days, we were going through extreme withdrawal. We ordered the wings. The guy we were ordering from was having a hard time understanding us, and vice versa, so we ended up just agreeing with whatever was being said, which, as it turned out, was not buffalo sauce. It was a sweet and spicy chili sauce, but I was about 2 beers in and no longer cared. Belgian beer cures just about anything (mainly because it gets you drunk). Cincinnati was also losing at this time which brought me an additional small sense of joy. Bring on the non-buffalo wings.

It was 9:30 when we decided to leave. Jason was adamant that we didn’t need to walk the 31 minutes back to central station, as he has found a closer train stop. I explain that this would mean switching trains and still having to walk (a much shorter walk) to central station (which is ultimately where we need to end up to get the train back to Antwerp). He doesn’t care so we decided to try it. We arrive at the station and can’t figure out what ticket to buy, or how to get to central station, and look like morons to all the dead silent others just sitting around, apparently able to navigate the train station and successfully purchase tickets. We turn around and leave and walk the long walk back. We’d now missed the 2 trains we were aiming for, having walked up just in time to hear one of them pulling out of the station. However, in true Belgian fashion, the other train was running 17 minutes late, which put us right on time for it! 45 minutes on the train back, a 10 minute walk, and close to 60 euros later, we were back in our apartment. Not our most successful trip, but we saw (a bar in) Brussels. 

Until next time,

2Egg and Sweet Chuck

There are no pictures because we were too busy being lost to take any. 

[pelztells-blog]

We Made It

We’ve officially made it to Antwerp and today we finished unpacking. I’m pretty impressed considering we’ve only been here for 3 days, and it took me over a week to unpack the first time. Jason did some rearranging, got the Xbox set up (essential), and is cooking more than I did in the month I was here, and much fancier things than my standard eggs and chicken sausage (he made potatoes and peppers...). We’ve been working hard on our beer tasting skills, and I expect we’ll be experts before long (so that would be a good time for you all to start planning your trips here ;) ). 

So why Antwerp and why now? Well to start with, Antwerp was the only place that offered me a job. This recruiting season was filled with a LOT of heartbreak, and I was pretty sure we weren’t going to be making a move overseas as the school year wound down. It wasn’t until the last week of school that I was offered the position that I ended up taking. 

When we started the process this year, I asked my grandma to put me on her prayer list. Grandma has a direct connection to the Man Above, and what goes on her prayer list has an uncanny way of working out. A little while after she agreed to pray for a job for me, she told me she prayed that whatever happened was the best fit for both myself AND Jason. This was a different prayer than the ones she’d previously done. As rejection after rejection came in (usually telling me that I came in second place, which somehow makes it worse after about 10 of those), I became more and more discouraged and Jason and my mom got more and more crying phone calls (which they both immensely enjoyed, might I add). Jason got to the point where he was agreeing to look into jobs overseas if that would help. 

And then Antwerp came along. We’d never heard of the city. I wasn’t necessarily thrilled about Belgium. Not all our family was thrilled about the close proximity to Brussels. Here’s the thing: Grandma knew what she was doing. Belgium is in an amazing location and depending on the region, (like ours), most everyone speaks English. It is close to many major cities that have a strong IT presence (for Jason). Antwerp is itself a hidden gem of culture and beauty, and is slightly less expensive than Nashville. The school is small and sweet and I’ve found myself with lots of support and love from people that hardly know me (thanks, wedding!). Had some of the other jobs that I wanted (re: Rome) worked out, we’d be in trouble. There wouldn’t be the job opportunities for Jason, there’d be bigger language barriers, cost of living would be higher, etc. It really worked out and we’re both so excited about exploring the new place we call home, meeting new friends, and having the opportunities to travel.

So why now? The short answer is: Really, why not? We’re newlyweds (although I would agree if you’re thinking of moving overseas while planning a wedding, mentally prepare yourself for quite a bit of stress--but also quite a bit of love and support) and we don’t have any kids yet, so the timing seemed (mostly) right. I’d tried for years to move abroad without any success, and it was right before I met Jason that I discovered international teaching (muahahaha). It took a couple years of convincing but here he is. I have to give him a LOT of credit for making the jump with me. 

So, we’re hoping to write about how this all goes as we adjust to being married and living abroad. We’re excited and we’re hoping we’ll be seeing a lot of you in the upcoming months! 

Lots of love--

The Pelzes (<---- I think that’s how you pluralize it?)

Also I don’t know how to format pictures or explain what each one is yet, so above are pictures of Antwerp and below are pictures of our apartment. I thought that might be easily confused and wanted to make sure everyone knew which was which.