December 2017 – Doctor Contour

lifestyle/ 26 December 201731 January 2018

‘Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way’ – MY CHRISTMAS (+ in Denmark)

Oh, how I love this time of the year… Except for the fact that Christmas falls right into my exam period or the preparation on the exam period. Anyway, I love what kind of atmosphere Christmas brings: eating good food, being together with your family and loved ones, Christmas trees and decoration and Christmas markets. It is really the most cozy time of the year!
First I celebrated Christmas Eve with my own family in Belgium. It was a very cosy evening. I really love how movies like Home alone always come back on that day. Also the typical and traditional filled turkey is really my thing.

Celebrating Christmas Eve in Belgium first. I was wearing a dress that I absolutely love! I bought it online at elle-voudrait.nl! (sorry for bad quality of the pictures)
After that cosy evening, Christmas day 1 started but that mainly contained about eating a small Christmas cake and travelling to Denmark. Yes, I took the plane to Denmark to celebrate second Chrismas day there with the family of my boyfriend.

But how does celebrating Christmas in Denmark differ from celebrating Christmas in Belgium? I don’t know if I can really generalize since every family in Belgium will celebrate differently and probably the same way in Denmark, but what we are not used to eat for Christmas is the typical Danish smørrebrød. For people that don’t know what smørrebrød is, it is generally a type of Danish bread called Rugbrød with all kinds of toppings. You can’t compare our typical breadmeals in Belgium with that. A few kinds of examples of the toppings is different kinds of harings (red harings, harings in curry, white harings,…), frikadeller (some sort of meatballs) with pickles red cabbage, scrambled eggs in combination with smoked salmon, fiskefillet (deep fried fishfilet with ramoulade, typical Danish sauce, tasted a little the same as the Dutch Bicky sauce), medister (a sort of sausauge that is eaten with stewed kale with a mix of cinnamon and sugar on top and caramalized patatoes) … All the food is served with a lot of alcoholic drinks and they toast to a Merry Christmas. It is very cozy!

The typical Danish dish that is also been eaten at Christmas day.

Let me tell you one thing, there are a lot of different toppings served after each other and you tend to get quite full. As a sort of eating break, it is also a tradition in Denmark to play the game called Pakkeleg. What is that? Well, every person that is invited into the Christmas party buys a lot of small gifts but they don’t know who will receive it. So we start out with a lot of small presents that are put on the table. Then every person gets the chance to roll the dice and when the dice says number 6, that person is allowed to take a present for themselves. The game goes on like that until all presents are taken. After that round, there is also a round where every person when the dice says 6, can steal a present from someone else but in a limited time frame. At the end, every person is left with a certain amount of gifts and then it is time to unwrap. Such a nice and traditional game!

Pakkeleg game: rollling the dice in hope to get a ‘6’. If you get the 6, you are allowed to take a present that is laying on the table.

Another tradition that is different than how we celebrate Christmas in Belgium is the dancing around the Christmas tree. The family members walk/dance around the Christmas tree while they sing special Christmas songs. Some songs are songs that are played in the Church in Denmark.

So I think I had a good Christmas this year, what about you guys?

Miss Supranational 2017/ 21 December 201720 September 2022

Miss Supranational: Swimsuit preliminary and interview (DAY 13)

Another very important day! We had the 2 other preliminaries today which is quite important when you want to get included in the top 25.

We had to get up very early morning to make ourselves ready for THE swimsuit preliminary which would be again aired LIVE. The swimsuit preliminary took place at Aquacity (a swimming pool resort) in Poprad, a Slovakian city. Even though it got aired live and it would have thousands of viewers again, I wasn’t nervous at all since I really got used to getting photographed and recorded.

I feel quite comfortable in wearing a bikini since I don’t really have big complexes about my body or anything but daaayummn some girls really are perfect and some girls really have had some work done. I saw a lot of boob jobs there and even a girl that had surgically thightened her abdomen muscles to make her belly appear more muscled. It is sometimes a special world…

After the swimsuit preliminary we had another rehearsal and after that we had another important preliminary: interview with the judges! This is the part I like since they give you points on what you have to say rather than what you look like. I also brought my charity gift for the auction which was a painting of Veerle Defer. Anyway, I have to admit I was disappointed with the content of the interview. I just got to introduce myself for one minute together with 4 other girls and then we only got one question which was: Which girl should become Miss Supranational in your opinion without explanation just a name. Like whaaaaat?? Is this the only thing you get graded on, seems quite weird no? I don’t know for sure but I think the real grading was on the live chat since we had to talk a lot there but that is just my idea. 😉

But yes, now all the preliminaries were done and the top 25 would be made…. Exciting…

In this link below you can REWATCH the swimsuit preliminary:

Video preliminary swimsuit

Pictures of the preliminary swimsuit. I was wearing a bikini I bought at Victoria’s Secret at one of my visits to the United States. I love the coral colour!

Wearing a formal outfit for the preliminary interview. I am wearing a classy white peplum dress from the UK based clothing store Lipsy. In my hands I am wearing my charity gift which is a painting from Veerle Defer.

Miss Supranational 2017/ 20 December 201720 September 2022

Miss Supranational: pyjama’s party, trip to the mountains and another live chat! (DAY 11 + 12)

DAY 11:

We got another rehearsal day… Another rehearsal day from 9.30 until 22 o’clock, but the evening part got a little different this time. Normally we either rehearsed in gym clothes or even in fine cocktail clothes since it is an international pageant for something, but this time we all wore our most cute pyjama’s to rehearse in the evening. After that we had a sort of pyjama party, we had lots of fun (And made me sort of realize I should invest in a prettier pyjama :p)!

DAY 12:

It is always fun to do something else than rehearsing and that is why it was fun to have a trip to the mountains with all contestants together! I have to admit it was not so special for me to go to a mountain since I am used to going on skiing holiday since I was very very young but it was still fun. We took a cable lift and then got up to the top of the mountain where it was freeeeeezing cold (like minus 12 degrees Celcius). There we made a few pictures with our national flags included. 😉 It might not seem very spectacular to go to a mountain but for some people of certain countries it was quite special to see since some people never had seen snow before. 😉

In the evening I had a live chat again, you know the one that we got extra because our first recording wasn’t good enough. 😉 This time no make up and hairdressers which I don’t like since I tend to fail in it, haha. :p But this time I was already used to being live in front of a camera so I think I really succeeded big time! We also had some time to prepare our questions in advance which made a big difference in the quality of my answer and I think I really brought a good message to people.

You can rewatch the live chat here:

Live chat DAY 12

You can also watch a compilation of our cozy pyjama party:

Pyjama party video

A few pictures of our trip to the mountains with all the flags. It was so much fun!

So cosy with all our pyjama’s on! 😉

Miss Supranational 2017/ 18 December 201720 September 2022

Miss Supranational: Going shopping and watching ice hockey! (DAY 10)

Finally we got to do something else than rehearsing all the time. :p Or atleast after a morning of rehearsing we could do something else. We were already at day 10 and I was out of a lot of cosmetic products I needed to buy so it was really good we finally could get out of the hotel for once. These big international pageants are really really strict: we were not allowed to go out of the hotel the entire time without any chaperone and we were bound to a strict schedule. I was happy I finally could go shopping with the other contestants and buy the stuff I needed. Anyway, here again we had a tight schedule since we only had a good hour to walk in the shopping mall but I got to buy everything I need! But it was very cosy and nice to be out and no one less than the one and only Miss Supranational 2016 Srinidhi Shetty accompanied us!

I also got to see a little bit of Slovakia and the people there. It is really different than Western Europe where I live, everything is a little more old and basic but it really has its charmes.

After the small shopping trip we got to go to an ice hockey match. That was really really cool to see, I had never seen this before since it is not so common in Belgium! It was fun to see and we also got to see the misters of Mister Supranational, the male part of the Miss Supranational contest, which is also quite big. But like I said, they are very strict and we were not allowed to talk with them or make pictures with them. (I also don’t need that, I have a boyfriend 😉 )

And then yes, after a full day where we were quite tired when we arrived at dinner time we got to hear that we had another rehearsal planned until 22 o’clock! Busy days… But atleast you can’t say we don’t experience anything. 😉

Here you can see another compilation video of Miss Supranational of us watching the ice hockey game (unfortunately you don’t see me again a lot in the video…):

Watching an ice hockey game

Going shopping with the girls, respectively (from left to right) Miss Thailand, Miss Myanmar, Miss Singapore and Miss El Salvador.

Miss Spain, Miss El Salvador and me at the ice hockey game!

Me and Miss China.

Small video to show how it looked like. 😉

Just a picture in group outside.

It is not the most flattering pictures I posted in this blogpost, but better to show some images than not! 😉

Miss Supranational 2017/ 17 December 201720 September 2022

Miss Supranational: Long days of rehearsals (DAY 7,8,9)

The video recording part was done, the official photoshooting was done and the first preliminary was also done so now it was time to prepare for the final show by learning the choreography! Since I participated in Miss Belgium I discovered I love to dance. I am not a supertalent but I think I can find my way quite okay.

We first got to learn all the dances and I tried to do my best as much as I could. I know it is important to do your best at rehearsals since there they chose your place at the show and ofcourse I would love to dance in the front instead of all the way in the back! Luckily the dance teachers recognized my dancing capacities and put me in the best group of dancing. Then eventually I got a place in first row, not in the center but at the sides but I was still quite pleased with the result.

The rehearsal days were extremely long. We had rehearsals from 9.30 until 22 o’clock. I didn’t experience rehearsals that were this long (it was a little too much). I mean I don’t know about the others but I just got the dances quite quickly into my head so I preferred to skip a rehearsal day or an evening of rehearsals to do something else but schedule is schedule. :p I enjoyed it anyway.

Here is a video of our rehearsal days:

Dance rehearsals video

Group picture of all the girls together in our gym outfits (was also the only day everyone was wearing gym clothes :p)

At the rehearsals…

Miss Supranational 2017/ 15 December 201720 September 2022

Miss Supranational: Evening gown preliminary (DAY 6)

I waited long for this: the evening gown preliminary. For people who don’t know a lot about pageants: preliminaries is actually one of the most important parts of judging. The top 25 isn’t based on what the contestants do at the actual show but it is all premade the days before the actual show so that they know the top in advance (I actually also think top 10 and top 5 gets roughly made here but I can be wrong).

So as you might already guess, this part is suuuper important since it decides almost everything. The final top 25 gets selected by the jury by 3 preliminaries where we get graded: preliminary evening gown, preliminary swimsuit and preliminary interview. The evening gown part was the first one. I had a very special dress of Atelier Exc that was also worn by Stephanie Geldhof at Miss Universe this year in february. It doesn’t surprise you that I was very excited to be able to wear a gown like that. It was eye catching and certainly very different and special than the other contestants. I HAD to make an outstanding impression with this gown! But okay, first things first.

In the day we first had a sort of rehearsal where we learned where we had to walk, where we had to stop,… etc. Walking in evening gown is the part I enjoy the most about pageants! People sometimes wonder why I am so in love with pageantry since they often associate it with people that are not the brightest and that are purely superficial. Unfortunately these people just think these things because they don’t actually know what pageantry is also about… The reason why I love it is not because you get graded on your looks or because they chose ‘the most beautiful’ girl (since I have to agree that part is actually waaaay too superficial for me) but just because I love the dressing up part and being able to wear an evening gown that you can never ever wear in normal life and that you can walk on a catwalk and dance,.. It is just my thing!

Rehearsal for preliminary competition: They told us where to walk and stop exactly for our walk in evening gown for the live show of preliminary evening gown. This is Miss Australia (my second roommate!).We had to wait a lot during the rehearsal but we made it fun anyway except for Miss China it seems. 😉

After a long preparation time to make myself ready and having problems with applying the right make up (I really need to get make up classes, can’t do it as flawless as the others!) , the moment was there. It was also quite stressful since it was aired again LIVE and thousands of people would be watching it, perhaps putting positive or negative comments on your part. So you know, you just want to do it right and I am a perfectionist: it has to be good!
Unfortunately not everything can go as perfect as you want: Stephanie Geldhof, the girl that participated in Miss Universe last year, was a little skinnier than me so the dress was insanely tight! It was very uncomfortable and I felt like my boobs couldn’t get covered completely. Also at the area of my thighs it was way too tight so it was uncomfortable to walk. I should have known this before, but regret always comes too late. 😉 So when I was actually walking I might not have done it entirely perfect because you know you have to be confident in what you wear.

In the end, I think I could have chosen the gown better and could also have walked better. But regret comes always too late, whatever…. :p

PS: people that are interested to rewatch the preliminary evening gown competition, you are just a little googling away.

Me in my evening gown for the preliminary evening gown.

Month: December 2017