The very awesome trip to Burgge...

My trip to Brugge was not pre-planned, after my term 1 A exams got over the whole batch was travelling to every  possible place in Europe...Paris, Berlin, Switzerland, Porto, Sweden, Denmark you name it and my batchmates were there. It was a good four day break and everyone had booked tickets to everywhere,  infact I was told that the Euroline bus to Paris from Den Haag mostly had people from my batch.

I did not planned any trip thinking I've been to many places  before and I am going there next year anyways with my husband,so why spend extra money but.....but the traveler in me  couldn't  stop myself from going to Brugge when a fren from the Sr batch  mentioned about her day trip with two of her frens, so I tagged along happily after some google and wiki travel search  tips. 

The train from Den Haag HS Station was early morning @ 6.32 and we had to change train from Brussels Midi station. The whole journey was  about 3.30 hrs...once we reached at Brugge we kind of just followed the crowd and it turned out that we arrived at this beautiful part of the city which was too clean  and to put it  frankly it seemed that the whole city was just out of a postcard or something....the whole place was covered with yellow leaves which added to the beauty of the place....Brugge was clean beyond belief, don't get me wrong...I like clean cities absolutely but Brugge was unthinkably clean. The city municipality or which ever dept. is in charge of cleaning the city a double thumps up from me.

We visited many places in the town and for the first time since September behaved like a tourist i.e I took pictures, bought souvenirs, visited museum's and read a map....if you ever plan to visit Brugge or happen to be in Brugge I recommend the following for budget travelers....

 BUY A MAP- Cost abt 3 Euro but you will save a lot of money by just following the map and walking.

1) Reach early....by 10 am (atleast) and make sure you've a good breakfast....I had a huge chicken curry sandwich and cappuccino...it was really yumm and for abt 6 euros it was sure value for money.

2) Take the boat ride (6.90 Euro), its a short ride and you'll get to see the town in a short time and will also give you an idea about which place is where.

3) Visit the Basilica of the Holy Blood (Heilige Bloed Basiliek)

4)  MUST VISIT- The Beer Museum. (I don't have to tell u why)

5) Onze Lieve Vrouwkerk, one of the oldest Church located at Mariastraat and also has the sculpture "Madona and the child" by Michelangelo.(Entry is free inside the church but you need to buy a ticket to see the sculpture.

6) Choco-Story Museum located at Wijnzakstraat 2 (Sint-Jansplein).( Ticket is for 7 Euro but show ur student id and you get a students discount of 1 euro)

7) Buy Belgian waffels and Chocolates.

8) Most important....walk...the whole city is very much walkable. 

9) If you get tired of walking have a Choco drink and a belgian waffels....I had the best choco drink ever in my life at this place call "Caramel" located at Wollestraat was 3 Euro and worth every cent.

The cutest pic of the trip

Brugge Station

Choco drink @ Caramel

@ The Beer Museum

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Dinner break....

Dinner with my floormate...food from 5 countries

Diwali Celebration 2011

Diwali Lamp @ my room

Going Dutch....the bike story n the joke of the week

I bought a bike (cycle) few weeks back, a good old pink bike from Ms. G, the Colombian lady from the senior batch, my fren CT wanted to buy it but it was high for her so I ended  up with the bike and she was sweet enough to give me an extra lock.....just so that my bike doesn't become a victim of the "Dutch National Pass time"...which unfortunately happens to be stealing bikes (recently one bike belonging to one of my batchmate from Philippines was the first victim of the "Dutch National Pass Time" in our batch). 

My frens CT and SS also bought bikes and both the bikes are really cute....we were just to lazy to ride the bikes since we bought it but  today we decided to ride  till Centrum & The Grote Market as we had some work, it was fun to ride bike after such a long time but we are still getting used to riding (walking) on the right...sometimes we tend to ride on the left...(yeah...yeah old habits die hard ) back home we walk n ride on the left lekin yahan toh opposite hai eekdam. The best thing abt Netherlands is, the whole country rides bike and has bike path all over....which I don't think any other country has....I've seen it in Paris but not too sure if whole of France has it. My fren CT and I've decided to enjoy the extended sunny weekends by riding our bikes n exploring the neighborhood....which will not be tiring but we will enjoy it, otherwise the amount of walking I've been doing since the time I came here is really not funny.

Oh I forgot the joke of the week :

Me: Yaar CT, yahan toh puri country bike chalati hai aur har jagah bike path hai.

CT: Yeah...lekin hamare wahan sirf countryside mei log bike chalate hai.....hahaha

We must have laughed for 10 mins after this :). 

Saturday brunch...Eggs with Mushroom

Scrambled Egg with Mushroom

I love eggs....boiled, fried, omelets,sunny side up, cheese omelets, half boiled, egg curry ....basically eggs cooked in all forms and one of my all time fav. dish with egg is with mushroom. This is one of those items I've been making it since I was in Delhi and have always loved it. The last time I made it one of my floor mate from Colombia liked it alot...this morning after reading few articles on Sociology n after tryin my best to understand Social Relations of production...I was hungry...really hungry so decided to make one of my fav. egg dish "Eggs with Mushroom" for brunch. The ingredients and recipe is below:

Ingredients:

• 3/4 Eggs.
• 1 Onion
• 100 gm Button Mushroom
• 4-5 Garlic clove.
• 4-5 Green Chilles.
• Salt to taste.
• Olive Oil

Method:

• Finely chop the onion, Green chilies and Garlic. 
• Thinly slice the Mushrooms.
• Heat a non stick fry pan and add 3 tbsp of olive oil, add the chopped garlic and saute for 2-3 mins.
• Add the chopped onion and green chilies fry for 5 mins in low flame, now add the mushroom and cook  for another 5 mins. Mix the ingredients well and add the eggs. 
• Stir it well so that it doesn't stick on the pan and add salt. 
• Garnish with chopped coriander leaves. (optional)
• Serve hot with Garlic Bread.

Cooking Time :15 mins

Serves: 2

Cooking revived :)

After more then a month of living in The Hague I am back to my cooking spree again, I've started to enjoy cooking as m finally settled and that for me means....finding the exact store/place to buy things I want to cook, having good pots & pans for cooking and a neat kitchen. The Albert Heijn XL at my neighborhood has almost everything I need and also the "Open Market"  @ Herman Costerstraat, sells things which even Albert Heijn doesn't sell........Hanggam, Green chillies, fresh fish & prawns, crabs to mentions few of the items from Open Market n also its almost half the price.. The Indian store "India Gate" near the Open market is where we get all the dal, masala's, sweets and roti's.

Coming back to cooking, the other day I decided to make Chole (Chickpea Curry) but ended up making something else....I was in no mood to make an elaborate dinner so made a quick and easy dish. I am still confused about what to call the dish but nonetheless it was yumm. The recipe is below:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup boiled chickpea.
• 1/2 cup boiled corn.
• 1 Onion.
• 4-5 Green Chilies
• 1 Tomato
• Olive Oil
• Salt to taste 
• Chile Powder (Optional)

Method:

• Chop the onion, green chillies and tomato.
• In a non stick frying pan, heat some olive oil and fry the chopped onion, green chilies and the tomato's.
• Add the boiled corn and Chickpea & fry for another 5 mins. Mix the ingredients together, add salt to taste. Add some chili powder on top. 
• Serve hot with garlic bread.