Rivers & Roads

If you were not already aware, Christmas is this week! How did that happen?? For some reason it feels like it should still be a few weeks away to me. That may be because it has been surprisingly warm here in Gent, in the 50's, and that I am not in my usual Christmas setting in upstate NY! It is quite strange hearing from all of my family being together and me not being there but we are trying to keep things festive here too! This weekend I went out to the Christmas market in Gent with a few of my classe mates from Dutch class. We have a break from class from today until the 5th of January, so it was nice to hang out with everyone outside of the classroom setting. We are also planning after new years to hopefully have a potluck dinner because there is a group of about 6 of us, all from different countries (USA, Thailand, India, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Nigeria)  , so it would be fun to try a traditional recipe from everyones home!
Yesterday Simon and I took went to a fun little food festival filled with some of our favorite food trucks and then took the train to Brussels to check out the Christmas market there! It was very fun, they have lots of different light shows projected on the beautiful buildings that happen every half hour or so (I included a video of it below, I also included a longer version of the carousel video from instagram) and then of course lots of little shops and things to eat and drink. I also finally saw the famous Manneken Pis statue that Brussels is known for. If you are not familiar with it, it is just a very small statue of a little boy peeing...no one really knows why it is so famous but there are always big crowds huddled around it trying to snap a picture. On Wednesday Simon and I will drive his hometown and go to a big christmas party his family has every year which should be fun! Simon unfortunately has to work Friday and part of Saturday, but has most of the next week off. I hope everyone who is traveling gets to their destination safely and that you have a very nice and relaxing Christmas break!