A real vacation... wow

Last week I was on vacation, really... on vacation... I mean I didn't do more than 1h30 of work in the past ten days and that has to be a real record! It was a fun week, spent between Germany and Belgium, trailing history and sampling the best food in this part of the world. If you don't believe me, check out some of these pictures!

Pond ponies:)

Hi everyone,

Sorry for my silence... Between an amazing Christmas with family, magnificent travels through Lisboa, Porto and Galicia with friends, SICB in Charlestown and getting back to Belgium, I have been busy! Two weekends ago I went skiing in France with a great international crowd and last weekend was the Light Festival in Gent, which was pretty amazing! (photos on fb) But because many of you keep asking me about my seahorses and to post pictures, here are four taken today of my H. abdominal, AKA as Ana C. says barrigudos;)

Seahorses, reindeer and Kerstmarkt:)

So my pot bellied seahorses arrived last Thursday:) It was great! They were a little smaller than what we were expecting but other than that they are doing really well, feeding on frozen artemia and giving me a hard time with filming, lol! Friday I went to Brussels for Nikos name day party and I got to see the Brussels Kerstmarkt:)

My beautiful pot bellied seahorses:)

 Reindeer Andreia and I:) at the party

 View from the arch in Brussels

 Military museum

 Brussels Kertsmarkt

Night at the Museum

Yesterday was the Museum Night in Gent. Nine museums were open from 6pm to 1am for free and the tram was free between museums. We had planned a Dutch class outing to go to a nice Italian restaurant followed by a visit to the SMAK, the MoMA equivalent of Gent. The pizzas at the Italian restaurant were amazing and we tried five different ones because five of us decided to share:) Then we were off to the SMAK under the rain and walking (we didn't feel like waiting 17min for the tram under the rain).
The museum was crowded and after some drinks in the lobby we went to see the exhibit. I think that what impressed me the most was a crime scene with two people that looked dead and the opinions were divided amongst us between being models, fully clothed preserved cadavers or live people! I looked intently at the veins and at the chest to try and find any movement and saw nothing! But Sebastian swears the foot moved... I also really liked the nature inspired pieces, like the two intertwined circulation models which I look forward to use in a class lecture.

Crazy things happen!

We found one of our seahorses being eaten alive from the tail by a crab in the tank today:( Pretty sad... even though we stop it and moved the crab to another tank, he didn't make it. One dark blotch on right side didn't make it:( may he rest in peace, or rather formol...
There's more newborns, these time we are trying to keep them in a fully submerged cage to see if they survive longer.
And someone drew a heart with permanent marker on my working table! I have tried to remove it with alcohol, scrubbing with a sponge but it doesn't come out. What a childish thing to do!
Yesterday was a crazy eating day! Fritjes for lunch, waffles in the afternoon in the department and thanksgiving dinner at home:)

Today I am thankful for great friends all around the globe:)

Happy Thanksgiving to my friends in the US that are celebrating it today! Of all the holidays in the US this is definitely the one I miss the most. A great excuse to eat great food and spend good times with friends. I am going to try to cook some staples of Thanksgiving dinner here. It is pretty impressive how you can find most of the ingredients on this side of the ocean! I even found Ocean Spray fresh cranberries! I will try to post pictures of my dinner, looking forward to turkey with cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and a sweet potato dish.

This is also a day to be thankful. This year, I am thankful for my health and that of my family, my job and especially for great friends around the globe that make me feel like home can be anywhere in the planet because we will always keep in touch:)

Guide and tourist at the same time in Gent

This weekend I had my first visitors:) Susanne, Vanessa and Rita came to visit on their way to Portugal from the Flatfish Symposium in Ijmuiden, near Amsterdam. It was truly a different weekend, to taste and see Gent with different eyes! I feel that I was both being their guide and being a tourist... hopefully now I will be able to be more of a guide and less of a tourist to my next visitors! Still we had lost of fun, I'll leave you with some pictures, mainly of the yummie food and drinks we tried.

Trapiste beer, my favorite actually Tripel Karmeliet.

And we had to have mussels with frites.

Chicken waterzooi, I must confess I was a little hesitant at first but this stew/soup in a light creamy sauce is amazing! I don't know what herbs they use, but I am going to find out!

There's this little bar ran by a old guy that has these amazing flavor gin liquor. We tried coffee, kiwi, chocolate and passion fruit (in the picture) as well as lemon, and they were all amazing (well the kiwi not really, too bitter)

More trapiste beer and Vanessa's kriek (Chimay Blauwe, Orval Brune, Achel Blonde)

One of the evenings we went to a Turkish restaurant and this is my dish... which was amazing! Ground lamb with herbs in pastry with tomato sauce and yogurt.

And our table with Rita and Susanne's stews and Vanessa's other lamb dish that cooked for 4 hours.

We also had waffles, of course and frites with brown sauce (typical from Gent).