Paris

I am going to Paris this weekend. So excited!! Michele has a conference there and offered to take me along. I am hoping to meet up with a friend from Ricochet and just do some sightseeing. I will update the slide show when I get back so everyone can see where I have been.

New Experiences

Well I have had many new experiences here in Belgium. I have eaten so many strange foods that I am starting to loose track. So I though I would make a list. Many of these will not seem strange to others but they are all different to me.

Nutella: I love it!! It is a chocolate hazelnut spread that goes on bread. If anyone has heard of it in the states let me know.
German Sourcrout: He combined the sourcrout with apples and cinnamon. So it was kind of like sour applesauce.
Leek: a vege that looks like big green onions
Cigory: or maybe higory. Anyway it kind of looks like a small ear of corn on the outside but the inside it has layers like a onion.
Soft boiled eggs: they are put into little cups and you cut the top off with your knife and eat the inside with a spoon
Ham: it is on a thing that looks like a banana rack and it just sits in the pantry with a towel over it
Home made Mayo
Mayo on french fries, not ketchup
Ketchup on pizza
Mussels
They don't eat potato skins
So many different kinds of cheeses I could not list them all.

Happy Easter

Sorry I know a little late. We were very busy this past weekend. One couple came and bought a wonderful 5yr old mare. And then the next day we had another couple come who are interested in buying as well. It was a white easter for me. It has been snowing for the past week off and on. Today when I woke up it was about a foot deep. I am finally starting to get used to the cold. Bob called yesterday and he made it safely to Italy. He will be there for three weeks doing inspector training. He started to complain about the cold and how it was 7 degrees C. I replied that 7 was nothing it is normally between 0 and 5 degrees C here. He replied that it was about 90 degrees F in Turkey and he was used to that. I am so glad I am not in Turkey right now. I am dreading going back and having to face that heat.

A Belgium Tradition

I went to one of the local village traditions on sat. They have a big fire to chase away winter. Then there was fireworks afterwards. There was crapes, sausages (like hot dogs but with sausage), hot wine with fruit in it and lots of beer. It mostly seemed like a excuse for everyone to get together and drink. Everyone except the kids had a beer or wine in their hands at all times. The music is so entertaining. It is old american songs. Things like YMCA and the Titanic song, Michael Jackson ect. I saw lots of family's and many single old men. The people are funny. A song would come on and a few would start dancing a little while they were talking.
I was very entertaining for a few of the men. Michele did not tell them I was married so a few kept trying to buy me drinks. No one spoke much English so I just watched and laughed quietly at everyone.

I'm in Belgium

I am finally here and I love it. I live with and work for a very nice couple Michele and Peter. They have 30 Akhal-Tekes all stallions and mares with another 10 babies on the way. They horses range from yearlings to mid twenties. All different colors including cremellos, buckskins, palaminos, blacks, bays and a few that are pepper colored they call it.
I am currently riding three of their horses everyday and there are three more that they want me to ride in the future. It is mostly trail riding through pastures, woods and on logging trails. They have two horses stabled at the local riding school for training which is where all the arena work is done.
I have already learned so much about Akhal-Teke bloodlines. Michele has contacts all over the world with other breeders. So far in one week there have been two different parties visiting to see her horses. She know both of the other people in the states that I have contacted about seeing their horses. She will be a helpful person to know when I start breeding my own horses someday.
I put a new slide show at the top of the page. All the pictures are from my first morning when I woke up to the snow.