So really, when were waffles invented?

Today was my birthday and it was kind of a crummy day. I'll spare you the details.

Luckily, my friend Jimmy is really good at cheering people up... I have to say that this email I received today literally made me LOL at my desk. I asked his permission to repost it here as my first guest blogger. All copyrights belong to Jimmy. Don't sue me!

Happy Birthday Kristi!

I hope you have a stupendous birthday even if it is on a Tuesday. Even though you treated yourself with the Muse concert, are you doing anything else for fun or getting any good presents? Its cool that you think you are getting a remote and controller for your PS3. Now if you would ever get it hooked up!

I looked back in history to see if anything else great happened on December 15th and saw that nothing was as great as you being born. Now there were a couple of other significant moments such as Edison patenting the phonograph in 1877 and a tax revolt on Terschelling due to tax on cereal in 1680. But still nothing quite measured up. I thought the only thing that might measure up if it occurred on December 15th would be the invention of waffles. Which led me to wonder when were waffles invented? Hmm...

So I decided to investigate. Where would I begin my investigation? Why the great country of Belgia of course, home of the popular Belgian waffles. The travel agent looked at me kind of weird when I told her my desired destination. She asked if I meant Belgium. Ah, of course, the name of Belgium must be the modern 21st Century pronunciation. Kind of how New York was New Amsterdam or how its Istanbul, not Constantinople. But I didn't tell her that because its really no one's business but the Turks. So with tickets in hand and a burning curiosity, I traveled to Belgium.

The first thing I noticed once I arrived is that Belgium is not made of waffles. I expected the land and buildings to be made of batter with syrup flowing from fountains. I guess expecting it to be like one of Homer Simpson's dreams would be a tad unrealistic. So I decided to sightsee for a bit and see if I could find out anything about waffles.

Have you ever been to Belgium? I was quite impressed with the architecture of the buildings. They have such a sense of history to them. Look! Here is a picture of me in Belgium!

Yes, another surprising aspect of Belgium is how short they were! Even the buildings! I was walking over houses with ease. This also made it hard to understand what the people were saying. Besides having an accent, all of their voices were squeaky and tiny. Kind of like mice. Except mice can't really talk. At least I've never heard a mouse that can talk. I thought I heard a moose talk one time. But it was a German moose so I didn't know if it was really talking or just eating loudly.

Unfortunately, despite the pretty countryside and interesting buildings, I never did find out exactly when waffles were invented. They seem to have their origins from sometime in the Middle Ages but were brought to North America in 1620 by Pilgrims. At least that is what wikipedia says. Isn't the Internet amazing? I travel all the way to Belgium when the answers were mostly at the tips of my fingers on my laptop.

Anyway, I just want to repeat that I hope you have a wonderful birthday. A lot of people have been looking back on the last decade with best of lists, etc. and getting to know you has certainly been a highlight for me. Thanks for being a cool friend and I hope my Belgian adventures made you smile. :-)

Happy birthday!

Jimmy