Through My Eyes: American Thanksgiving, Snow day & Christmas Market Fun!

Although it hasn't even been that long since I've posted I feel as though the year is just flying by with all of the fun I've been having recently. A few weeks ago now we celebrated American Thanksgiving here in Belgium. Now if you don't remember from a previous post in October I actually already celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving here in honor of my Canadian friends. Well apparently that wasn't quite enough for one year so we decided to have not one, but two more Thanksgivings! During the week of American Thanksgiving my roommates and I celebrated on Monday with Jess' parents who were in town from work. They very kindly cooked us dinner while we were at school and I made a homemade Apple Pie for dessert. Thankfully it turned out and it was a fun way to get to know Jess' parents! Then, that same week on Saturday my friend Jess V (there are two Jess', just to make things confusing!) had about 10 of us over to her apartment for a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner followed by a fun night full of Minute to Win It games which were hysterically funny. An example of one of the games was that in a minute you had to stack 5 apples on top of each other or you had to get 3 Oreo cookies from your forehead into your mouth without using your hands. It was such a fun week! Here are a few photos:

Mmmm, homemade Apple Pie!

All ready for Thanksgiving!

7 Apples stacked, impressive Dan!!

SNOW DAY, SNOW DAY, SNOW DAY!!! That was the phrase that was repeated on each floor of our house last Thursday morning around 5:45 AM. To all of our amazement we had a snow day for the maybe inch or so of snow that we got. Basically it was amazing. We slept in, cleaned a little, and then went shopping. The funniest thing was all of the Belgians that were out and just looked completely annoyed at the world just because it had snowed. Then there were all of us North Americans prancing around in the freshly fallen snow like 5-year-olds. We just thought that it was a completely beautiful sight. Here are some pictures of the kids playing in the snow once school was back in session on Friday.

Charlie from Belgium

Maylee from America

Khalid from Qatar

Olivia from England


Pretty snow on trees

Katharina is from Germany & Maritu is adopted from Ethiopia by a Swedish family

Coco is half Dutch and half Norwegian

Michael is half American and half Hungarian

Tis the season the be Jolly!! Lets just say that Europe sure knows how to celebrate Christmas and enjoy the joy of the season. Downtown is decorated with these absolutely beautiful light displays, wreaths, bows, and a manger scene with real sheep! Since all of us completely adore Christmas we thought it would be fun to attend some of the Christmas Markets that make Europe so special. We started by going to the Brussels Market which, in my opinion, is really nice. They have lots of fun stands with cute things, hot wine (it's a tradition), an outdoor ice skating rink, a ferris wheel (also common at Christmas Markets), a huge Christmas tree, and fun musical light shows in the Grand Place. Just this past weekend Ashlee, Jess, and I took the train to Lille, France to see their Christmas Market. Since it's a smaller town it wasn't quite as large as the Brussels one but it was really fun to see. The town was really cute and they had some cute little stands and a beautiful ferris wheel. This next Saturday we're going to Cologne, Germany to see the Market there. Apparently it's one of the biggest in Europe. I guess the Christmas Markets actually originated in Germany so they're supposed to be the best. I'm really excited to see what they have there because I've heard it's wonderful! I hope that everyone is doing well. I'm excited to get to see/talk to some of you when I'm home over Christmas break!! It's crazy to think that I'm going home in just a week and a half now but I'm definitely excited and looking forward to some time with family and friends. Here are some of my pictures from the Christmas Markets thus far!