One of my favorite things about traveling is the act of doing ordinary things in extraordinary places. This is especially the case when one travels to a country with a different language. Simple activities like driving, going to the cinema, and going to the market suddenly take on the feel of an adventure.
Our flight landed in Brussels yesterday and with only a little trouble we picked up our rental car, a Mercedes Benz, which sounds very posh to an American, but is actually a very common auto maker throughout Europe. Ursa had pre-loaded our TomTom with the maps of western Europe, which made navigating the motorways much easier. Not that it was entirely necessary as that Belgium has pretty good signage, and we had a relatively stress free drive to Eersel, Netherlands, to Ursa's mother's house, where we will be staying. That night we had a lovely dinner and then got some much needed rest. As it turned out, the twenty hour trip to get here took a little out of us.
Today we slept in extra late, then went down to the grocery store to pick up some snacks and breakfast stuffs. The most interesting part of shopping abroad is finding items that you have no idea what it is but looks delicious. You never know how it will turn out. But for me what I was looking forward to the most was the licorice isle. Dutch licorice comes in three primary flavors: salty, sweet, and bitter; then there are a variety of textures, and also gummies that have a licorice coating, and licorice hard candies. I purchased some marshmallow soft sweet licorice with a salted coating. Unspeakably good!
The other snack that I never pass up while in the Netherlands is Stroopwaffel. Miniature, cookie-sized waffles filled with either honey or maple syrup. They are perfect for eating with coffee or tea.
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