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A Quick Note

… to explain, yet again my absence from blogging. I’ve just returned from a week in Belgium, which was cold, wet and exhausting. Summer indeed. And while I did have some good meals in the mix, there was an overabundance of bland white fish in creamy white sauces. But it was not a tourist trip, and I also had to work. Maybe that has skewed my perspective? I did get to quickly visit Grand Place in Brussels again, and Bruges in West Flanders, that lovely old city.

Of course, my trip was not without much drama. Apart from getting there hours and hours later than expected. Let’s see. For my visit to Bruges you will see I have used a Nikon CoolPix 3200 – a much older model than my usual point and shoot, because I forgot to charge the batteries. I did have my D80, but not that day because I didn’t think we were going touristing. A lot of long bus rides, and no batteries in Bruges and Zeebrugge did mean I started learning to use that D80 though.

I sprained my ankle (stil recovering).

And I lost my very own little CoolPix 7900, that has served me faithfully since October 2005. It disappeared somewhere in Gatwick on the return trip.

Sigh.

Well, it’s D80 or nothing now!

While I recover from the hobbling, deal with jetlag and the mountain of laundry that is always the inevitable result of my never staying home for longer than a blink…you can see some of my photos from Belgium.

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This entry was written by Chennette and posted on July 4, 2007 at 2:42 am and filed under Chennette, travel. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

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18 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

  1. *hugz* welcome back :)

    1. The TriniGourmet on July 4th, 2007 at 2:46 am

  2. Merci!
    Jetlag has me still awake…and hungry…
    what’s your excuse 😉

    2. chennette on July 4th, 2007 at 2:50 am

  3. Oh you poor thing, hope your ankle gets better soon, till then rest up!

    3. Cranky Putz on July 4th, 2007 at 2:24 pm

  4. Thanks CP – the ankle is gradually getting better, but still I hobble!

    4. chennette on July 4th, 2007 at 2:29 pm

  5. It’s good to have you back! I hope that your ankle heals quickly. So where are you now? Guyana, B’dos, J’ca or TT? :)

    5. Cynthia on July 4th, 2007 at 5:44 pm

  6. Chennette gyul, nice to have you back. By the way, how do I get your job?

    6. Mani on July 4th, 2007 at 8:30 pm

  7. Wow…Belgium, huh? Today I baked my first batch of Speculoos cookies or Belgian Spice cookies. You didn’t by any chance have some of these on your trip, did you? I actually followed the recipe from epicurious.com in hopes of replicating the biscoff biscuits I had on the plane on a flight earlier in the week. The speculoos aren’t quite like the biscoff, but still pretty good. I took some over to my brother and sister-in-law’s and they said the ginger flavor reminded them of the rough tops/rockies muffins sold in bakeries in Trinidad.
    Sorry to hear about the lost/stolen camera and the sprained ankle, but glad you are back!

    7. Anonymous on July 4th, 2007 at 11:06 pm

  8. Oh, if memory serves me, you studied in Belgium? If you have a good recipe for the biscoff cookies I would love for you to post it! Those cookies are divine! Thanks!

    8. Anonymous on July 4th, 2007 at 11:08 pm

  9. @ Cynthia – I am in Guyana until I take vacation next week. Yay. Time off. Travel without briefcase and meetings. Yay.
    @ Mani – You want it? It comes with jetlag and people who expect you to do work when you want to sleep. I could seriously go back to being a student. A nice PhD…Dr Chennette…eventually teaching and being the eccentric academic who is free to sleep in the middle of the day and schedule all lectures in late afternoon. Ah…glorious dreams…
    @ Anonymous – I studied in Edinburgh actually, so now checking out those biscoff cookies. I can’t recall having any of those. I did have a couple meals with big bowls of Belgian fries all over the table. And good coffee.
    Edit: I did indeed have those Biscoff cookies. They were on the coffee tray in the hotel!! Loved the almost molasses-y gingery taste. And I didn’t save any for family at home. Maybe a nice gingersnap/gingerbread cookie recipe may work?
    For those who are interested, these are the cookies http://www.biscoff.com/gourmet/shop?method=itembuy&itemid=51603

    9. chennette on July 4th, 2007 at 11:11 pm

  10. Ooh. Did the Grand Place have it’s ‘flower center’ done up for the season? They do a different design every year…

    Oh. And I just ‘tagged’ you if you’re in the mood to tell everyone 8 random things about yourself. Just ignore the fact that I never managed to do the meme you asked me to do…. just like my dissertation… I need an extension! 😉

    10. ewe_are_here on July 5th, 2007 at 11:16 am

  11. Oh, and about Bruges. I loooovvveee Bruges, a stunning little walled city.

    And they have a chocolate shop to die for.

    11. ewe_are_here on July 5th, 2007 at 3:17 pm

  12. shops in Bruges were a no-no, we had plenty to see and there would be more and better shops later
    so our guides walked our already dead feet off for 2 hours and we politely followed, even though they KNEW we’d been up and out since 6 am touring processing plants and ports (Zeebrugge)…we never got into any bigger and better stores…and I was so tired when the coach dropped us off at the hotel, that’s when the fall and sprain happened…
    but Bruges is beautiful
    and no flower display in Grand Place yet, although there were lovely bunches of flowers all along the lamp posts.

    12. chennette on July 5th, 2007 at 5:38 pm

  13. Dr Chennette does have a nice ring to it ……..So when are you making that move, anytime soon…….

    13. trinimom on July 5th, 2007 at 8:14 pm

  14. Oh, and if you are making that move sometime soon, Cambridge is nice, chock full of universities. (Of course, so is Edinburgh, and its only a train jaunt away.)

    14. ewe_are_here on July 6th, 2007 at 3:14 am

  15. Yes, gingersnap-molasses exactly…that’s what the speculoos taste like. After I first tasted them, I kept thinking, “I’ve tasted this before, but what was it?” It;s gingersnap and molasses precisely. Still, the recipe calls for ground cinnamon, ginger and cloves…but somehow it’s not quite like the biscoff. I just can’t figure it out, being merely a novice baker. But I’m glad I can order them online if the craving just gets to be totally insurmountable : ). There’s also quite an offering at Amazon.

    15. Anonymous on July 6th, 2007 at 7:12 am

  16. hey sorry to hear about the 7900 i’ve come to expect to see it on all your trips here. i’ve lost a friend…not that i’m unwilling to welcome the d80 to the fold, there’s always room in the circle, well almost always. th ecookies shoudn very interesting…i like gingery cookies well in my old age. my youthful tastebuds did not like anything ginger at all.

    16. Rone on July 7th, 2007 at 10:16 pm

  17. Yes. Well, the D80 will definitely be in Jamaica the next time, so you’ll meet it then 😉

    17. chennette on July 7th, 2007 at 11:27 pm

  18. for anyone looking for the Biscoff cookies, or Speculoos, try searching for Speculaas!
    Like:
    http://www.joyofbaking.com/Speculaas.html
    http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Speculaas/Detail.aspx
    http://thewellseasonedcook.blogspot.com/2007/09/curiouser-and-curiouser-speculaas.html

    18. chennette on October 22nd, 2007 at 11:41 pm

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