What to do in Brugge, Belgium (Part 1)

Brugge is a northern city in the Flemish Region of Belgium, famous for its canals, medieval architecture and picturesque houses. Brugge is a popular destination for tourists visiting Belgium. Brugge is a quaint get-away from the metropolitan atmosphere of Brussels. If you plan on visiting Brugge, be sure to pack comfortable shoes. About 90% of the streets are made of cobblestone which will wreak havoc on your feet

Here are a few activities I recommend to do while on your visit to Brugge:

Tour the city in a horse-drawn carriage

Learn fun facts about Brugge from your conductor while on a horse drawn carriage. This tour is a great way to be introduced to Brugge. After the tour you can go back to places that interested you and spend as much time as you want touring each individual spot. Horses line up in the Market Square from the morning til evening. Queues of people wait patiently for their turn. The tour is about 25 Euro and each carriage holds 4 persons comfortable, but can squeeze about 6 people. My classmates and I made the mistake of waiting until the last day of Study Abroad to take the tour, which made us realize how many places we didn’t actually get to see *tear*.

Our horse and carriage

Some of the beautiful scenery we saw while on the tour

Visit the Chocolate Museum “Choco Story”

This huge 4 story building encompasses all things chocolate. You will learn about everything from the history of the cacao to how chocolate is made. It wouldn’t be a chocolate museum without a demonstration and tasting. I suggest to spend at least two hours at this museum. There is so much to read and learn about chocolate.

Choco-Story Sign

Chocolate demonstration

The sample we got - Yum!

I concur!

Shop for chocolate at the Chocolate Line

If visiting Choco-Story wetted your appetite for chocolate, The Chocolate Line is a great place to satisfy the craving. The display window outside of the store features incredible chocolate sculptures. The display changes every few weeks, outdoing the previous displays. Inside, you can purchase all types of chocolate treats: pralines, truffles, chocolate covered fruit, chocolate in the shape of rat droppings and turd (I’m not kidding), and lots more. Watch the chocolatiers make chocolate on-site behind a glass window. You can also buy cookbooks by the famous chocolatier, Dominique Persoone, who is the mastermind behind the Chocolate Line store. He also created the chocolate shooter, a device that shoots chocolate/cocoa up your nose and lets you experience chocolate in a whole new way – Now that’s the a whole new level of chocolate addiction (aka chocoholism).

Inside one of the display windows at The Chocolate Line

Me! Outside of The Chocolate Line

Part 2 of ‘What to do in Brugge’ will be posted soon. Stay tuned!

Have you ever been to a chocolate museum? Or, been on a horse-drawn carriage ride through a city before? If so, where?

Jaxson’s Ice Cream Parlor & Restaurant

Driving down US-1 in Dania Beach (Florida), it’s hard to miss the sign for “Jaxson’s Ice Cream Parlor”. Located in a shopping plaza between Griffin Road and Stirling Road on US-1, Jaxson’s illuminated sign brightens up the dark corner of the plaza in which it is.

Outside of Jaxson's

Jaxson’s Ice Cream Parlor & Restaurant has been featured on Food Network’s Unwrapped, and Outrageous Foods shows as well as on Good Morning America. Now, it’s time to be featured on ‘Steph’s Travel Insights”!! Great accomplishment for them, I know.

Last week, I third wheeled on my housemates’ date to Jaxson’s Ice Cream Parlor & Restaurant – I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get a ride to go get ice cream. For a Monday night, the parking lot was quite packed outside the restaurant. We had the option of ordering ice cream through the take out window or eating inside. We chose to dine inside. We were seated immediately and received a complimentary bowl of popcorn.  The walls are decorated with an interesting collection of license plates and unique items like, a cuckoo clock, street signs, antique telephones and a bunch of other wacky stuff. The entire time we were there, we kept pointing at the different license plates like “look, there’s Ontario Canada” or “that one’s shaped like a bear”, or pointing at bazaar looking items like “what the heck is that thing over there, above the yellow plate”.

Jaxson's Wall Decor

More interesting decor

Wayne & Alia ordered food, but since I ate dinner earlier in the night, I wanted to save all the space in my belly for ice cream! Wayne ordered the “Mile Long” Hot Dog, while Alia ordered the Chicken Salad Sandwich. Both looked very delish, which made me regret not ordering food myself.

"New York Style Mile Long Hot Dog"

Ice Cream Time!! I used my time wisely while Wayne and Alia ate. Carefully examining the list of 30 + flavors of ice cream and fat-free yogurt, I selected strawberry cheesecake sundae special : a HUGE scoop of strawberry cheesecake ice cream, choice of topping (I chose toasted chopped almonds), whipped cream and sprinkles. The quality of the ice cream was superb. It had a similar denseness to gelato. It barely melted in my bowl as I ate it. Though the ice cream was very good,  I had a slightly different expectation. I LOVE Baskin Robbins’ strawberry cheesecake ice cream – cheesecake ice cream, with swirls of strawberry and chunks of cheesecake. I was hoping for some cheesecake chunks in my sundae, no such luck … booooo! Oh well.

Strawberry Cheesecake Sundae

Alia ordered the ‘Banana Chip’ sundae special. She compared it to Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, except, it had a more genuine banana flavor and didn’t have nuts in it. Hers was topped with fudge (she asked for hot fudge but it wasn’t even warm)  . Wayne got ‘Rum ‘n Raisin‘, topped with caramel and whipped cream. It was loaded with raisins and he said it’s comparable to Haagen Daz ice cream, but better.

Banana Chip Sundae

Rum 'n Raisin Sundae

Although I was slightly disappointed with my flavor choice, I plan on going back to try several other flavors like ‘Chewy Fudge’, ‘Chocolate Almond’ and ‘Cappuccino’. I’ll probably order food next time too.

So, the next time you’re in Dania Beach or in the east Fort Lauderdale area with a hankering for ice cream, Jaxson’s is worth a try. A great restaurant for a family outing. If you have a group of 12 or more, you can dare to order the ‘Punch Bowl’ –  It’s definitely not like any other ice parlor you’ve ever been to.

Have you ever been to Jaxson’s? If so, which flavor(s) have you tried?

How to get over depression brought on by missing Carnival

This upcoming weekend will be the finale of Jamaica’s carnival season, and just like last year, and the year before, I have missed all the fetes and parties during carnival season and will miss this year’s road march *sobs*. So, instead of falling into a deep depression and nights of crying due to the disappointment of not making it for the festivities, I have made a list of things to do to prevent such sadness.

For my readers that do not know exactly what Jamaican Carnival entails, I will give you a crash course. If you’ve heard of Trinidad Carnival, it is similar, just on a smaller scale and we do not celebrate for an entire week.  If you’ve never heard of Trini Carnival, well, that makes the crash course a lil harder. Jamaica’s Carnival Season consists of parties that play primarily Soca music (instead of the popular dancehall, reggae and hiphop), which lead up to the 2 final weeks of main events like J’ouverts (paint parties) and the finale event of Road March (a parade of hundreds of people dressed in skimpy Carnival costumes and trucks blasting music with Caribbean performers).

Ok, so back to relieving Carnival depression:

Step 1: Deactivate all Social Network Accounts, i.e. Facebook, Twitter

This is to avoid pictures, status updates, posts, tweets of how awesome carnival is. Without you. I suggest keeping your accounts deactivated for one week prior to Carnival and one week after. The week after is the most important because that’s when everyone regains sobriety and uploads their pictures to facebook, which then floods your news feed and it becomes extremely hard to ignore.

Step 2: Refrain from communicating with any friends that are flying down for any Carnival fetes

Listening to them yapping about ‘I can’t wait for J’ouvert’ or ‘Road March is gonna be so fun’ will rip your heart to shreds. Also, when they try to be all pitiful for you, it’s just annoying: ‘I wish you were coming with me’…. >___> Mhmm, me too.

Step 3: Activate BadMind

This is when you pray to God, Jesus, Allah, Krishna, Mother Nature and other heavenly powers that it will rain and pour on Carnival Sunday. Although, rain never actually stops Carnival… The year I jumped, it rained so hard. Streets were flooded. But the party still went on. I got so sick. *light bulb* yes, yes, rain will be perfect!

Step 4: Take note of how sore your legs WON’T be after Carnival

My legs were so sore after Road March that just sitting down hurt like hell. The next day I felt like death – a mix of flu symptoms and useless painful limbs that were previously my legs. I don’t think I went to school for a few days. I definitely can’t spare sick days like that at work now, so I’m happy I won’t be sick, sore and sitting at a work desk the day after carnival.

Step 5: Request time off for next year’s Carnival Season from NOW & look for plane tickets to book

You’ll feel a “little” better knowing that at least you’ll be there for it NEXT year….

When the above 5 steps do not help, Step 6 should!

Step 6: Recreate your own Road March!

Dress up in an old Carnival Costume or J’ouvert clothes, gyrate your body to a Soca playlist on your ipod while you march down a street in your neighborhood. If you’re not that daring, you can always blast your Soca music in your room and imagine you’re at Road March.

Beach J’ouvert ’08

Beach J’ouvert ’06

Before Jokaz J’ouvert 2007

After Jokaz J’ouvert

Road March ’08

Some time after the torrential rainfall

If all these steps fail… You can attempt to sleep the weekend away, or get so wasted that you forget the weekend even happened.

Have you been to Jamaican or Trini Carnival before? What do you do to relieve the sadness of missing it?

Eventful week in Airline News

It’s been quite an eventful few days in the airline industry this past week. Daily headlines of erratics in the sky like Jetblue’s hysterical pilot; raging passenger on U.S. Airways spitting and attacking the flight crew; and Delta pulling a flight attendant from a flight due to ‘strange’ behavior. It’s a little unnerving when you think about. Up 50,000 feet in the air, stuck in a small space with a bunch of crazies….

Other headlines grabbed my attention like Malaysia Airlines introduces kid-free zone in the their upperdeck economy cabin – I hope other airlines take a page out of their book, I like sleeping peacefully on long haul flights; RyanAir asks flight attendants to watch their weight, to help cut fuel costs – RyanAir isn’t the first airline to introduce this. Thai Airways and Turkish Airlines told their flight attendants to either lose weight or lose their job; American Airlines cancels close to 2000 flights by grounding planes due to damage from severe storms on Tuesday in Texas – I sure would hate to be a customer service rep for them right now.

But there was one headline that stood out to me: “Allegiant Air introduces $35 carry-on fee”. This is the second airline to charge passengers a fee to carry on a bag.  Spirit Airlines announced their carry-on fee last year. It is only a matter of time before other airlines adopt this carry-on fee. Before we know it, this will be the norm! Good thing I’ve mastered fitting everything into a bag small enough to fit under the seat in front of me when traveling for short trips.

Which travel news stood out to you this week?

Why I will never eat prosciutto (or anything similar to it) ever again

Last summer, While on Study Abroad in Belgium, one of our excursions was a visit to Ganda Ham – a pork/ham curing company.

We were led on a tour of the facilities and were told details of how they cure the pork. They produce a variety of pork products; however, our visit mostly explored their dry-cured ham process. Their dry-cured ham is basically what is widely known as prosciutto (the culinary police are probably on their way to my house ready to arrest me). As my culinary housemates kindly explained to me, prosciutto is only produced in Italy, using ‘specially’ bred pigs. Prosciutto or not, I’m never eating anything close to it, AGAIN.

Little did I know, that prosciutto was cured and not….. ‘cooked’. I could’ve sworn it was baked or something. And no, curing is not a method of cooking in my books.

I’ve tried to suppress the memories of this torturous excursion so I will attempt to recollect what the tour entailed.

My class and I arrived to the venue one cold rainy morning (how the weather was MOST mornings). We were seated in a small meeting room, decorated with artistic pictures of ham. Our tour director passed out plastic bags with holes in it for our arms coats and hair nets for us to wear – the fashion police would’ve definitely arrested us on the spot if they saw us.

Serving Suggestion? (I think I'll pass)

We entered the factory. They had just received their shipment of pig legs and the men at the front were inspecting each leg to see if they met their product standards. Any legs that do not meet the criteria are sent back to the vendor.

Inspecting the pig legs...

From there, the legs are set on a conveyer belt to be salted. After being salted, they ‘rest’ on shelves for 3 weeks. In the next room, we saw hams hanging on racks. After 3 weeks of rest, the hams are brushed clean and then hung to mature for 2 months in a cellar. We walked alongside rows and rows and rows and some more rows of racks of legs in the cellar.

After the maturing stage, they are sprayed with water – after they’ve dried for a few weeks, the cut end of the leg is rubbed with a mixture of lard, flour, pepper and salt. The hams are then left to dry in drying rooms.

The maturing stage...

We walked through the drying rooms passing more and more rows of hams. I was so horrified at that point that I stopped committing the rest of the tour to memory. When the tour ended, we went back to the meeting room to shed our plastic bags and hair nets. On the tables were samples of the ham on little chopping boards. Most of us sat and starred at it with disgust and scorn. Only the few daring culinary students of the group sampled the ham.

Honestly, the hams looked like they were rotting on the racks during the ‘maturing’ and drying stages. That sight alone made me nauseous and has scarred me for life. The smell of the factory was GROSS. You know that raw meat stench you smell when you walk pass the butcher/meat section of the supermarket? Imagine that like 10 times intensified, and there’s no way to escape it. I tried to hold my breath but I ran the risk of passing out and falling on the wet and salty floor *cringe*.

So, no more prosciutto for me; all the more for everybody else.

The video just slightly capture how painful the tour was for me: