Author Archives: Yannani

I have finally moved from Norway to Belgium to live with my current boyfriend. I am excited about how this will all turn out, but what I know for sure is that it will be one hell of an adventure.

The week leading up to the move I talked to a bunch of people to be sure I didn’t forget to do something important before I left. I talked to my mentor in the government and to my boss plus a couple of other important people. Thankfully the requirements I had to do wasn’t that long. I basically just had to report the move into the state department and the postal service and that was basically it. I packed all of my clothes plus some other items down and sent it away through the mail. My pc-case was going into a suitcase with me on the plane so I had to make sure that it was safe and secure with both bubble wrap and clothing. Then i also packed a small suitcase as a hand luggage so that I had some cloths if need be.

On my last day in Norway I met with my boss for lunch and we just had a nice chat about my work in their company, life in general and the road forward. She wished me good luck in Belgium and said that if anything should happen and I would have to come back to Norway I could always hit them up if I need some work. That made me feel a bit safer just in case this move doesn’t work out. The rest of the day spent mostly traveling towards the airport, going through the steps to get on and off the plane and more public transport to Nathan’s apartment.

The move was a being kept as a surprise from Nathan. He thought I would be arriving today, but I was able to change the flight without extra cost so I did and decided to keep it as a surprise for him. It wasn’t easy because I just wanted to tell him that I was moving in earlier. I had also told a couple of friend which made me worried that they might accidently reveal it, but all of them managed to keep it a secret.

When I showed up at his front door he got so happy and gave me a BIG hug. Since he is still ill our days are mostly spent sitting in the sofa. I have so far tried to make some appointments that will help me get a job here since I have 6 months so get a job to be eligible to stay in the country. I can’t wait until I have settled in properly with a job and everything only then will I be able to finally relax.

I hope you guys have had an amazing start of September and I wish you all to stay safe

Last Friday I finally got myself on a plane home to Norway after a month of postponing my vacation because of different reasons. It was both a good thing, but also might have given me the worst feeling I have had for a long time.

So during the weeks leading up to the return my boyfriend got sick right after his second vaccination. He became super weak and not able to take care of himself. The symptoms he had was fever, swollen glands and throat so for the last week it was mostly me who went around doing different chores around the apartment.

On the day that I was leaving I first started going to a clinic to get my tested. The facility was not that far and there were not many people there. My appointment was at noon and it was a speedtest so I got the result within an hour although they did say 15min, but I guess they were some delays. After that I just went home and started cleaning the apartment so that it looked nice and tidy before I left since I knew he couldn’t do it up until I had to leave. The plan was that he was suppose to follow me to the airport, but because he had become so weak he was in no condition to travel. Plus we also thought that it might have been mumps at the time which is highly contagious. So we had to say goodbye at the front door which was sad. During the goodbye he started tearing up which made me tear up too.

The trip home was went pretty smooth. I had already checked in plus I was only carrying a hand luggage. I was done with everything after around 30 min in the airport. So I went to get something eat since I hadn’t eaten anything that entire day and the clock was almost 6pm. Decided to go to a place called “Quick” which is suppose to be similar to McDonalds. The food there was pretty decent. When I eventually got on the plane the captain said that the ride home would be shorter since we had the wind on our side. Throughout the entire flight I decided to catch up on my netflix series and watch “Lucifer”

As soon as we landed that’s when all the controls started. I had to go through passport control where they check if I had a negative PCR and that I had registered my return. I got the all clear and told that I had to spend the next 7 days quarantined at home. My parents wanted something from “Duty Free” so I stopped by that and bought some champagne. After that I had to get tested again and wait for the result at the airport before I could leave. To no surprise it came back negative and I was good to go. I took the bus home since my mum had agreed to meet me at the buss stop and drive me home. I got home around 11pm and sat down and told my parents about my trip before I went down to my room which i hadn’t seen in 2 months. Since it was pretty late I didn’t do much before just heading to bed.

2 days after I came home my boyfriend told me that he had gone to the hospital because he didn’t get any better. They had him over for a couple of days to run some test. Because of all the swelling around his neck area he couldn’t eat so they gave him liquid through a tube in his arm. They discovered it was mono which is strange since that usually spreads through saliva which means that I would be the most likely to give it to him, but I haven’t been feeling ill. Regardless after a couple of night he got sent home and his throat is better, but now he is having stomach problems. Thankfully my stay in Norway is only for a week so that I get to pack etc and then I’ll move in with him and be able to take care of him.

So that was the end of my summer vacation. I hope you guys have had a lovely summer too and for those who are starting or going back to school I wish you guys good luck.

I attended the wedding of my boyfriend’s mother when she got re-married. Knowing only four people in total and barely being able to speak with other guest.

When i first heard about the wedding might be happening on the 9th of July two months ago there was a big part of me that hoped that they would change it to a later date, but soon after his mother confirmed the date. So then here I was being super nervous since this would be the first time I would meet Nathans mother and her side of the family and we have only been dating for 6 months and I barely knew any Dutch either. Being a people pleaser I was super worried that they wouldn’t like me or that I would overall give a bad first impression.

The day before my nerves started to pile up. I had so many different thoughts about how it would go, because all I wanted was for them to like me. Nathan said that I shouldn’t be worried and that everything would go fine, but there was still a big part of me who constantly kept thinking about the worst outcome. We got told that his brother was going to pick us up at 9.30 in the morning so we had to wake up earlier to get ready.

Apparently the wedding didn’t start until around noon but we were going to meet up with their mother just to hang out and Sara aka the brother’s wife was going to do the makeup. I didn’t know this before hand and got even more nervous when I got told. I tried to take a deep breath and just go with it. We sat in the car and drove over to the place. Upon arrival we got greeted at the door and we sat down in the sofa. I also got to meet Nathan’s grand mother. After a short time mother started asking question about my stay in Belgium, where I was from, if I was living with family which was fine as they were pretty slandered questions, but then she asked some intersting ones like “do you ask him to shave? and does he listen?” followed up by “because he never listens to me!” these kind of question made me a bit uncomfortable since I wasn’t sure how to respond.

When it was finally time to head to the place where the wedding was being held I couldn’t help but having a bit mixed feelings about everything, but I tried to just brush it off and keep going. The weeding took place in a nice town hall looking building since it was a stately there were no church and because of covid there were barely any people there. Just a the grooms parents and us. The wedding was held in Dutch which meant that I had no idea about what was said, but I assumed it was your standard wedding. The grand parents shared their speeches but there were no vows or anything. It all took around 30 min. After that it was photoshoot time. Sara was also the assigned photographer and she took ALOT of photos. I was also included in the wedding photos which I found intersting. After all the photos were taken the mother came up to me first speaking in Dutch and Nathan had to remind her that I didn’t understand it and said “I’ll give this to you since Nathan is the only one that isn’t married so maybe after a few years you’ll become my new daughter in law.” while handing me her bouquet, and all I could think about was “thanks, no pressure”

When everything was settled everyone headed over to a nice restaurant where we had lunch. There were more intersting question, a lot of cake. I had their special burger which I must say wasn’t that good. The patty was too thick didn’t taste that special. The cake was delicious however and it had macaroons which are always amazing.

After a long day it was finally time to head home. Both me and Nathan were pretty exhausted and we both took a small nap as soon as we got home. Later that evening we headed over to the his brothers place for some casual hangout, more food which tasted way better and card games. I had also asked Sara to take some pictures of me and Nathan since we didn’t have any proper couples photos. They turned out nice.

All in all it wasn’t too bad of an experience, but I’m so glad that my boyfriend was sitting right besides me making sure that I was feeling alright even when things got a bit awkward and I still have mixed feeling about his mother. So there you guys go. Just a small insight about how it went at my first abroad wedding.

Today mark the day that me and my boyfriend have been together for 6 months and we decided to celebrate it the way we know best. Great food and amazing entertainment.

On August the 18th 2019 was the first time I sent Nathan a message and our friendship journey had begun. Fast forward to January 18th of this year we figured out that we had developed close feelings towards each other and decided to give the long distance relationship a try.

As with all LDR’s (long distance relationship) we had our ups and downs, but we still haven’t had a single argument that haven’t resolved. The more we spent time with each other the more we discovered that we were really similar in many different ways. He surprised so many times with his opinions and just the way he thought and the way he based his decisions, because I was used to being with guys who didn’t have a lot on their minds when it came to a lot of things. I could go on and on about what has made Nathan so special to me. but then you would be stuck here for a while.

Short after we got together we had already made a strong emotional connection and there was no doubt that I really wanted to meet him in real life, but because of Covid-19 that wasn’t possible until June when summer started and a lot of restrictions had lightened up. Belgium had also gone from having the country on complete lock down to be forced to open up! So after I got my vacation weeks granted I booked a ticket and was set to travel the 13th of June.

We started our day pretty quietly with us just hanging out in the apartment doing our own things. Then when the time was around 4.30 Pm we prepared our self to head out. Nathan had resaved a table at a restaurant in the city who specialises on spare ribs. So we took our usual bus and walked to Groenplaats. The place we were eating was called Amadeus. We headed over to make sure we made it for our reservation.

When we arrived we decided to sit inside and the interior was so amazing filled with ALOT of books and incredible different items. There was a fruit machine, a clock etc. So after I was done being amazed by the surroundings we ordered. To no surprise we both ordered the spare ribs. The thing about this place that Nathan told me about was that this place not only specialise in spare ribs but you also get “all you can eat” spare ribs for only 20 € they also give you more baked potato if you want that too. So not only was the food delicious but if you are really hungry, in the mood for spare ribs and have a big stomach this is definitely worth it. The waiters was walking around with plates filled with spare ribs and potato’s for when you wanted another one. I had total of 2 whole ribs and Nathan had 2 1/2 spare ribs before we decided we were satisfied. Plus we couldn’t stay too long since we had a movie to catch a the cinemas

After we had eaten it was straight to the Cinema called “Kinopolis”. To get there we went with the tramline. The movie we had booked was called “The courier” featuring Benedict Cumberbatch which is one of my favorite actors. It was a war movie categorised as Thriller. Me being a huge fan of history found it super intersting although I did have some trouble when the actors were speaking Russian because there were only French or Dutch subtitles, so most of the time I just had to guess what was happening based on the context. It all worked out in the end and it was an amazing experience. I cried once during one scene. So I would defiantly recommend this to anyone who are interested in history or if you just want to se another movie featuring Benedict.

When the movie was over we had a nice walk home and thankfully the weather had gone down which made the walk even more pleasant. When we got home we just relaxed and I gave him his present.

Hope you guys had an amazing weekend and that no one is dying of the heat and as always stay healthy and stay safe.

Today me and my boyfriend decided to go for yet another bike ride since the weather was nice and we already had the day planned on where to go.

I have always wanted to see where my boyfriend works, but it is quite far away so we decided to do today and combine it with a visit to the shopping senter since it was in the same direction. The weather was beautiful and pretty warm with it beeing 25 degrees.

The route we took to his work wasn’t a very exciting one since it was mostly just straight forwards. We did get to cross over a big bridge where we got a great view over the river that runs through Antwerpen. It took us around 40 min to first get to his work where he showed me around on the outside.

After that we continued on towards the shopping senter. Here we ended up spending the rest of our day. Nathan bought a couple of spices and some snacks while I had plans to do some clothes shopping. I bought myself 3 pairs of trousers, 1 t-shirt with stripes and a purple hooded jumper pluss some lingerie.

When it started to get late we decided to eat dinner at KFC. I had 6 hot wings menu while he had a chicken burger. Everything tasted delicious, but not as good as the burger place we had take away from the first week I was here. We ended up being there for way longer than we thought and by the time we were done the clock was already 19.30.

On our way home we decided to take a small detour along side the river which was way nicer and more quite than following the main road. We got home at around 20.22 and was feeling pretty exhausted. The rest of the evening have been decided to watch Demon slayer the movie and eat some of the many snacks we bought.

Hope you guys have had a lovely weekend and are staying healthy and safe ♡

This Sunday was the last day of my boyfriend’s vacation so we decided to do something fun outside the apartment. We found this lovely park which featured some lovely walking areas and a mini golf which was on the list of stuff we wanted to do together.

So we woke up at around noon since we didn’t want to go out until the weather had cooled down a bit. We ate some breakfast and got ready to head out. The weather was nice, not too cold and not too hot although it was suppose to rain so Nathan brought a jacket just in case. We got on the bus which took around 20 min. When we arrived we headed straight to the golf course.

Since it was a nice day and a Sunday there were quite a lot of people outside. The golf course was thankfully not too crowded but we had to wait a couple times for the people ahead of us to finish up. It wasn’t crazy golf so most of the holes were quite simple but as we progressed they got a bit more fancy . They had the standard 18 wholes. I was hoping that this could be my revenge from the bowling, but unfortunate Nathan beat me again by 10 points less, but we had a lot of fun. When we were done I felt a bit hungry and by the clock was already getting close to dinner time. We walked a bit around the the park before we head over to the restaurant that his father and brother recommended. The park had a lot of playground for children and a lovely pond with a nice place where you could sit.

To get into town we took the tram which act was the same way as a subway since it goes both above and bellow ground. We took it to the stop right before the shopping street and walked the rest. So the restaurant that we were going to was on Groenplaats so it wasn’t too far of a walk. We found the place really quickly and sat down. The place was called “Takumi Ramen kitchen” so we both decided to go with Ramen.

I went with the Spicy Teriyaki Miso Ramen and my boyfriend had the Spicy EBI Furay Miso Ramen since it was his first time having ramen. While we were sitting there the weather changed went to partly clouded to a mini rain storm as I would say it started raining cats and dogs. The other people moved inside but we decided to stay outside since we were sitting under cover so we didn’t get wet at all. The food was amazing and Nathan really loved the dish. After we both finished up we decided to share a Donburi dish called Korokke-Gyoza-don. EVERYTHING was super tasty and we were so full at the end.

So after we had eaten and waited until the rain had stopped at bit we headed home.

This week we had a lot of plans. Some of them were really fun while others were a bit of disappointment. One thing is for sure we got our self a lot of exercise xD

So on Tuesday afternoon we decided to go bowling to do something fun. The place was 30 min with walking away from where we live so it wasn’t that far. I haven’t gone bowling for at least a couple of years if not even more so I was expecting to be a bit rusty. He hadn’t played in a while either so this was definitely going to be intersting. The place we went to was called “Bowling Stones” and they had so many different modes. You could pick classic, hyper bowling etc. We just decided to go with the Classic.

We played 3 rounds and my boyfriend won all of them. It seems like he is pretty good despite the fact that he hasn’t played in a while. The competitive side of me got a bit upset and annoyed that I didn’t manage to win once, but that wasn’t the point of the evening. All in good sport and besides I’ll have my revenge at mini golf :D. After the bowling we decided to get take away from a Chinese restaurant that Nathan liked. It did require some more walking, but the food was worth it.

For our next adventure we decided to go to Antwerp Zoo since we both love animals. So we woke up early so we could get on with our day because boyfriend had music school in the evening. We got there at noon and started to walk around. Unfortunately a lot of the animals that I wanted to see weren’t out that day, but we got to see a lot of other ones. There war a lot of monkeys, birds, fishes and reptiles. They also had Penguins, Kangaroos, Hippos and Zebra. The animals I wanted to see that wasn’t out was the lions, tigers and meerkats, but maybe some other time. There was also a very horny Okapi who kept trying himself on the female without succeeding xD. We spent our entire day there just strolling around so after we were done we just went home after stopping by a Starbucks and a multimedia store :P. The rest of the evening was just spent to chill.

Now to yesterdays exploration. We took the bus into the city and started walking down the shopping street. There were a lot of stores open and a lot of people. Most of the shops were cloths or shoes, but there were some unique shops. After walking for a bit we headed towards a place to sold bubble tea since it was one of many places my boyfriend wanted to show me. I decided to go with lychee tea with raspberry bubbles. It tasted nice and sweet and very refreshing.

After we had drink our tea and were at the end of the shopping street my boyfriend spotted the waffle stand that he usually goes to and since I hadn’t tasted Belgium waffle yet we decided to do that too. I had mine with Nutella on top and I will say that the Belgium waffle really good. Really thick and tasty and I think I like them more than the regular ones. When we were done eating those we headed towards Groenplaats which was a nice little square surrounded with both small shops and restaurants. We found a ramen place which we are going to check out later since we had quite a bit of food in us already. We could see the lovely cathedral which was under restauration. but still looked amazing.

For our late lunch we decided to go to this Sandwich place that our friend recommended called “Panos” which was located on the corner of Groenplaats. I got a panini with crispy meatball, cheese and pesto and my boyfriend got som sort of pastry. Both of us agreed that they did have really good sandwiches so I would recommend them to anyone who just want a small snack og and a nice view over the square.

Our next destination was the river that runs through the city separate the east and the west. When we were heading towards the river I spotted a giant Ferris wheel and we looked at my boyfriend and we headed towards it. The wheel was 15m tall so we got to see the entire city from there.

After the Ferris wheel it was getting late so we decided to head home. We decided to walk along the promenade before we walked towards the bus. As we walked the wall there were something written on them. I couldn’t understand it since it was in Dutch and we were going kind of backwords but it seemed like it had something to do with the history of Antwerpen. Regardless we made our way back to Merksem and then proceeded to collapse on the sofa for the rest of the evening after ordering some sushi.

This has been a pretty joyful week and the weather hasn’t been too hot either. It has actually been pretty cold and I was freezing for those two days we were out in the city, but I have learned my lesson and I’m now prepared for tomorrow.

Here are some more pic: