The sour taste of victory?

Sour belts, sour candy, whatever you want to call them. I used to be in love with them, ate them whenever I could. However, today I discovered the dark side of this delicious candy. As said on my Bucket List I was to eat two bags of sour belts at once. It turned out that I had underestimated the pain that one can feel when one eats too much of his favourite food, in this case the sour belts. To add some spice to this horrific challenge, my boyfriend and I changed the challenge into a game.

In total we had two bags containing twenty sour belts each. The purpose of the game was to eat twenty sour belts per person in the shortest amount of time possible. To make it even more fun, we decided we weren’t allowed to use our arms. The first three were still okay, nevertheless the pain started to integrate into every single spot in my mouth. My tongue felt rough and my eyes started to produce tears. Together with the sweat that my body was releasing I focussed on the next four sour belts. Whether I had to go through hell and back, I would win this game. Especially from a boy so complacent, he started bragging about winning before we even went to the store to buy the sour belts. I had never in my life experienced this much pain in my mouth and with the next four sour belts I cried for salvation, which horribly didn’t came. My hands started to tremble. I wasn’t far from victory. The end was near!

At least I thought so… I tried to grab another sour belt; however it was stuck together with another one! This only made me think I could eat it twice as fast. Oh, how wrong I was. At first I was still paralysed by the pain from the past eleven, but a few seconds later the smirk of victory left my face and exchanged itself with the expression of terrific horribleness. My lips were maimed by all the sour and the inside of my mouth was one big burning hole. With difficulty the words “I surrender” came out of my damaged mouth and I ran to the sink to drink some water while looking at a face filled with pride. We shook hands as we are suppose to do, however I don’t think this stupid test made our relation any stronger.

BTW, I totally would’ve won if it wasn’t for the tears in Stijn’s eyes if he had lost… ;) 

 

Christmas Churros

As I'm one of those persons that are practically in love with Christmas, I decided to bake something fitting for this time of the year. With a Christmas lunch coming up, this was the perfect opportunity to show my cooking skills (which aren’t that great). With the help of my boyfriend I started brainstorming what to make. Due to the fact we both are more in love with churros than with each other, this wasn’t a hard decision to make. Soon we had gathered all the tools needed. The (best) recipes can be found on sites mentioned below.

With Christmas songs playing in the background we started this delicious project. At first the mix of eggs, butter and sugar didn’t look as tasty as it should, however with time it became a fantastic mixture of all the ingredients. As can be seen on the photo, I was assigned the job of “stirrer”, and in my opinion I am a natural. After the ingredients were fully mixed together the fun part began; frying the dough! My talented (ahum) boyfriend was forming the shape of the churros while I rolled the finished churros in the so called “cinnamon sugar”, a mixture of sugar and cinnamon.

However we had to make as much churros as possible so we decided to make them smaller than they are supposed to be. This turned out to be a good decision because we would have never had enough dough to make as much churros as needed. The negative side of this idea was that the churros looked a bit odd. Nevertheless, they tasted AWESOME, and I wanted to eat all of them. However Stijn was as generous as always and forbid me to eat more, so that there would be enough for all the hungry mouths at the Christmas lunch.

 

Making these churros definitely made my life a lot better, I think. Especially eating them was an experience on its own. With the power of making (the best) churros I can easily make my life, and the lives of many other people, a lot better. You can be expecting a churro party soon!

http://www.ah.nl/allerhande/recepten/176856/churros-gefrituurde-deegstengels 

http://www.ah.nl/allerhande/recepten/633482/spaanse-churros-met-kaneel 

https://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CFkQFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Fallrecipes.com%2Frecipe%2Fchurros%2F&ei=NNu5UrjOMYGI0AWQsoCADg&usg=AFQjCNHXvWNDHxxkOp0bruWLNyGJdDNlWA&bvm=bv.58187178,d.d2k&cad=rja 

Endorphin, where are you?

“CONGRATULATIONS”, “you made it!”; these are some of the things I heard when I finished my 5K last weekend. These beautiful words are only sometimes associated with me, however it was good to hear them in real life for once, instead of in a dream. I am one of those persons that constantly think about accomplishing several tasks each day. For example, finishing my homework, cleaning my room and overall just the regular stuff. However, I’m also the kind of person that is a professional in procrastinating. I can easily say it is my one talent that I dare to share with everyone. Nevertheless, last weekend I finally exchanged my procrastination talent with one that is very rare: perseverance.

Anyways, last weekend I decided to run a 5K. I am not really the runner-type; however I did try to run a few times last year. The only positive prospect was my brand new running shoes, which were pink of course ;) I started the race with optimism; however, It didn’t take long before my optimism had left me, and my beautiful running shoes, all alone. The only thing pushing me forward was the fact that my sister and other family members were far ahead and I was determined not to finish last. Besides, I was listening to a pretty exciting song. 

When I was half way, and far behind my friends, I tried running faster, but my mind began to understand that my body wasn’t trained for such a physical challenge. But also a very funny thing happened. I started to enjoy running. This may sound a bit contradictory towards my feelings in the beginning, and I know that, but something in my mind just changed. I started singing along with my songs and everything seemed much brighter and more beautiful. I think the hormone “endorphin” started playing a role, because I felt really good actually! Now that I was running in a rather slow and not so challenging pace I could focus on the finish, which wasn’t as far as I thought. Just kidding, the finish seemed further away than ever and my perseverance wasn’t to be found anywhere.

However, the moment finally came and with a huge smile I finished in front of a crowd that was screaming “congratulations!” and “you made it!”. I must tell you that all of my family members finished earlier than me but at that moment I didn’t mind anymore because the only thing I wanted to do was drink a lot of water. As a conclusion I can tell you that is was a fun experience, however I still love the feeling of accomplishment when eating cookies and watching movies all day long much more, than the exhaustion I felt after I had finished!

On top of the world

My first "once-in-a-life-time" experience I will be sharing with you is my visit to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Before you start thinking “oh, she went to Paris for the weekend”, stop! Because I didn’t. I went there last summer; however I consider it to be an experience which I can cross of my list already.

I had never been to Paris before so that was a breathtaking experience on its own. Nevertheless was the Eiffel tower the top of my trip. And I mean literally “the top”. It was a pity there was a huge line before we could get up there but I assure you it was worth the wait! Besides the burning of the calories which could fit in a whole chocolate cake, I reached the first platform. The view was astonishing! It was a shame that it was a bit cloudy that day, otherwise I think I would have been able to see the end of Paris. Though I could see a lot of famous highlights in Paris I was going to visit later that day.

However I wasn’t finished, so I started my climb to the second platform. I don’t need to tell you, the view got even better! The world looked like a place called “Madurodam” (search it), located in the Netherlands. But the higher I came, the greedier I got. I wanted to see more! I took an elevator to the last platform. Oh, how scared I was the higher I got! I even came to a point where I started regretting my decision, however the elevator couldn’t stop. When I finally reached the top I was more scared than blown away by the view. Then it hit me. The view was breathtaking (I literally had problems with my breath because I started to understand that I had a small fear of heights). After I sat down for a couple of minutes I started to calm down and I had a chance to look around. Never had I seen such a beautiful and serene place. Away from everyone and everything. I literally felt on top of the world and it was a feeling I can’t describe. The only thing I can say is that it felt amazing to be there and I have a feeling this could be the most awesome experience on my bucket list!

NOT another "YOLO"-blog

Lately I've discovered that life is about experiencing; truly living your life. However, before you get the impression that this blog is just another "YOLO" blog, I'll tell you what my goal is. I'm not a fan of the "you only live once" slogan; however I do like the idea behind the whole story. Life is worth living. Therefore I decided to combine my love for writing and my eagerness for exploring. As a result I made this blog about my "Bucket List". However, my list isn't as long as it should. Therefore I am encouraging you to tell me all about your ideas and there's a chance they'll be the next experience I'll be writing about! And now, without further ado, I present you my "Bucket List":

1. Visit the top of the Eifel tower
2. Hand out flowers to random people
3. Eat no sugar at all for one whole week
4. Make someone feel really happy
5. Write a song
6. Run a 5K
7. Live a day or two by deep quotes
8. Make pizza cones
9. Become a painter for one day
10. Harry Potter Marathon
11. Travel through the Netherlands by train for one day
12. Eat two bags of Sour Belts at once
13. Complete the cinnamon challenge
14. Travel around the world (Singapore for example)
15. (Try) to make churros
16. Kissing mah bf in da rain (suggested by someone)

I hope you all like what you see. For the next few days I'll be sharing my "once-in-a-lifetime" experiences with you guys!