Since I arrived back in Belgium from my travels, I have lived in 3 different spots. All of them have been very different, but AWESOME! I have had the best luck with host families and I continue to be welcomed into amazing peoples’ homes, where people bend over backwards to make me feel welcom.
Our first two weeks back in Belgium, Rachel and I lived smack in the middle of Brussels with Winne, a friend on the softball team. She was a great host and her apartment had an amazing location. It was a short walk to all of the cities main attractions and we were surrounded by good food, good bars, and great company. Troy came into Brussels several times a week and we got to know our way around Brussels quite well. For such an international city, the city city is actually quite easy to walk from end to end.
Highlights from our time in Brussels:
Becoming good friends with Winne
Edward Duvel/Kebab hands in the park across from the Kings Palace. Drinking in the park with the Brussels Hash runners.
Meeting Winne’s friends
Brussels’ Asia town, with awesome Asian cuisine and grocery stores
Trips to Delirium
Living 5 minutes from the Grote Markt and the rest of Brussels sights
Algarfijf dance party in Merchtem, where an old barn is turned into a dance party with lights, smoke machine and the whole nine
After two weeks at Winne’s, we moved to Londerzeel to live with my teammate Stef and his family. Living in the small town of Londerzeel was quite different from Brussels for obvious reasons, but was an absolute blast. The Wambacq’s welcomed us into their family with open arms and treated us like family, but better. They spoiled us from the start, having graciously built an apartment above their garage to give Rachel and I some privacy. The apartment had a shower/bathroom, cable TV, internet access, radio, and they stocked it with chocolate and toiletries.
We were spoiled with pretty much everything, as they always treated us and filled us with great food and many pintjes. They have a beautiful family and Rachel and I enjoyed spending a lot of time with the kids, Jens (6) , who is a baseball fanatic and Britt (11) who is good at everything she does. The grandma, Oma, also spent almost all of her time at the house helping out with the kids, cooking, cleaning, and pretty much anything else you could think of. Oma helped me out a lot, giving me rides to practice and making sure I always had a pintje.
The first week I was there was also the Merchtem Kermis (town fair), which is a really big deal. The whole town comes out for the week long event that features a lot of live music, rides and games for the kids, dance parties and plenty of good fatty food and booze. The weeklong party also coincided with Elka’s (Stef’s wife, who is awesome I might add) birthday on the 21st and mine on the 22nd. That week we went to two concerts and one dance party, on Tuesday it was Duk, a local cover band that rocked it and put on a really good show and on Friday/Saturday for Elka’s birthday and Ringing in my birthday was another cover band, The Flying Thunderbirds, who are big in Belgium and also rocked it. Each of the concerts were great, as the guys from the team got together for the shindigs, drinking way too many pintjes and staying out until the night dancing and partying. For Elka’s birthday, we also had a party/bbq during the day with bomb food and drinks before heading to the concert. I must admit that I am falling in love with the Euro music, and when the concerts were over, the DJ continued to keep the good beats coming until the wee hours of the morning.
For my birthday, the Wambacqs took us to their beach house in De Haan on the North Sea to spend the day. Another example of how they spoiled us and made us feel right at home.
Highlights from my time in Londerzeel:
The concerts, birthdays, drinks, dancing, and Kermis
De Haan and the beachouse
Playing with the kids
All the good food and drinks (especially Oma’s mussels and frietjes!)
Rachel and I made a trip to Ypers for a day and went to the In Flanders Fields WWI museum
Anytime Tonight’s Gonna be a Good Night came on
I could go on and on.
Rachel left for the states at the end of August and about a week later I moved from Londerzeel to Denderbelle with the Huttener family.
One would think that after living with such nice people, that moving out would come with disappointment, but this family is just as welcoming and awesome as the others have been.
Denderbelle is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, and the family mom+dad, Kristien and Wim, and two baseball/softball playing kids Quinten and Indy live on a farm with no shortage of cool things to do. They have also spoiled us, (Troy is living here too) giving us our own room again with cable, bathroom again with toiletries (I could seriously start a toiletry store with all the stuff I have, especially since Rachel left all of hers), brommers (moto scooters) for us to drive, horses, big trampoline, and the list goes on. Troy and I bromm all over the place and have coined the terms “brommen out of control” and “ET bromm home”. It is 17 Km to the field and we make the trip by brommen most of the time.
They have also been stuffing us with great food and bending over backwards to help us out. Yesterday, they took us Horseback riding (they have 5 horses) and today my legs and ass are absolutely killing me. Apparently when it was my turn, Wim told Aaron that he was gonna have the horse ride hard so I would feel it the next day haha. It was a lot of fun but I don’t think I am cut out to be a cowboy. The horse, Montana galloped about 20 km/hr and I though I was going to die. I can’t imagine riding a horse at full speed or for any longer than half an hour.
Yesterday was another wild night, as it was Kleine’s bachelor party. He is getting married in 3 weeks, and to celebrate we went out and kept the drinks coming. We started in Mollem, went to dinner in Merchtem, then a bar in Merchtem before heading to the final party spot. There was a dance party by the baseball field, again with a DJ and bar. It was pretty funny, especially since the average age at the party was somewhere around 15 or 16 excluding our group of “old men”. Needless to say at 5 am this morning, I was lying on the floor of the cantina with Bart and Troy trying to convince me to go sleep at Bart's, which I eventually did… otherwise I would probably still be on the cantina floor.
Today is recovery day, but the gist of this is that I have still been having an awesome time.
Highlights from time in Denderbelle
Kleine's bachelor party
Riding Horses
Brommen out of control
Watching discovery channel
Being given way too much good food ;;; becoming a trend, I know
again, could go on and on but will stop here. The cats are a bunch of really great people
I haven’t talked about baseball in forever, but will make a post soon bringing everyone up to speed on this season and my future plans of moving to Australia to play for the winter. Pictures will come sooner or later but probably later than sooner. Hope everyone is doing well… peace and love
Ethan
PS after I wrote this they took us out for drinks at the Bierpaterstoel in Dendermonde. It was an awesome time. The good times keep rolling.
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