Yo yo Yo!
Today I made super-random super-delish coq au vin from scratch. There ya go:
Coq Au Vin au Julie
Italienische Salami wuerfeln, anbrate, aus der Pfanne nehmen und das Fett behalten
Grosse Zwiebel und Knobi anbraten, das gewuerfelte HUhn dazutun.
Ein halbes Glas Wasser dazu, und ein Pinky-Fingernagelgrosses Stueck Bruehwuerfel dazu, Salbei und Majoran (was ich halt da habe..)
Dazu ein halbes Glass Rot (oder wieviel eben noch in der Flasche ist)
eine Weile koecheln lassen, dann Champignons und die Salamiwuerfel wieder rein.
Die Fluessigkeit reduzieren.
Mit einer gekochten Kartoffel servieren.
That was pretty much all food I had in the house. Who wants to go grocery shopping anyways!
This is random but I have decided that I am cream/pudding/mousse desser connoisseur rather than cake and ice cream. But cake comes second. I'm eating a tiramisu from Lidl and its to die for. Lidl collects personal data from its employees. Such scandal. But I like to not think about this while eating Tiramisu!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
PASQUETTA
Monday:
Today is "Pasquetta," also known as Easter Monday, or the day of Julia's date with Pietro. Well, let's call it a non-date because I think that's what it was. Or maybe I just like to take my roommates to everything because we are all attached at the hip. Who knows. Unlike in America, in Italy you will receive a pre-date text message asking "how many r u?" Hmm, if I count me, myself, and I, and you, we're 4. But I counted me, Stefania and Brie, and Pietro. Pietro also counted his brother, Roberto.
For those who haven't been updated: I have had email/sms correspondence with Pietro, who is Marina's son, Marina who I met at the Convo's w/ Italians thing that Marcello organized. So anyways, the sons are home for the Easter week and will be our drivers for the week. Like for tomorrow's grocery shopping at Lidl. I just finished another box of Grape Juice. I drink hat stuff like there is no tomorrow. Tehehe. They offered.
They picked us up at the Temple of Apollo and we drove two feet (no lie) to a bakery where we got bread. The next stop was the salumeria, the meat place. The boys got Salame, Prosciutto (cotto e crudo), formaggio e mortadella. We took the goodies to the outskirts of Siracusa, where a friend of Pietro has a summer home at the ocean. Those nice ocean-close streets are the place to be. I'd live there year-round. Anyways, the friends were not there yet, so we took our picnic to the rocks at the beach ans ate until the friends made it to the house. They only needed another half an hour and soon we headed to the one-room house to get the party started. Italians our age like medium sized get-togethers (~20 people or so), cakes board-and cardgames, charades (try playing it english and italian= good times). Everyone was friendly to us, with very limited English skills they matched our limited Italian skills. We the played some volleyball in the backyard and established that pretty much everyone knows Salsa. We'll see ya at 'Amo' on thursdays then. We had a pretty good time and left when the party died down, at around 6ish when it started to rain.
I'm home now with my warm water bottle (no more bombola heating for us) and as soon as Ashley and Stefania come back from Maia's with some dishsoap, I'm going to clean up and make some chicken with tomatoes, olives and capers. And some couscous.
One more thing: Pietro is really angry w/ the government (for those who don't know- the govt has semi-collapsed as Prodi was asked to leave because he is pretty much incompetent) because I guess once you elect someone, they can appoint whoever they want for whatever position (big time nepotism!) and there are too many little parties which makes it harder to actually win.... sounds like democracy is going down the drain in Italy.
Chill time!
Today is "Pasquetta," also known as Easter Monday, or the day of Julia's date with Pietro. Well, let's call it a non-date because I think that's what it was. Or maybe I just like to take my roommates to everything because we are all attached at the hip. Who knows. Unlike in America, in Italy you will receive a pre-date text message asking "how many r u?" Hmm, if I count me, myself, and I, and you, we're 4. But I counted me, Stefania and Brie, and Pietro. Pietro also counted his brother, Roberto.
For those who haven't been updated: I have had email/sms correspondence with Pietro, who is Marina's son, Marina who I met at the Convo's w/ Italians thing that Marcello organized. So anyways, the sons are home for the Easter week and will be our drivers for the week. Like for tomorrow's grocery shopping at Lidl. I just finished another box of Grape Juice. I drink hat stuff like there is no tomorrow. Tehehe. They offered.
They picked us up at the Temple of Apollo and we drove two feet (no lie) to a bakery where we got bread. The next stop was the salumeria, the meat place. The boys got Salame, Prosciutto (cotto e crudo), formaggio e mortadella. We took the goodies to the outskirts of Siracusa, where a friend of Pietro has a summer home at the ocean. Those nice ocean-close streets are the place to be. I'd live there year-round. Anyways, the friends were not there yet, so we took our picnic to the rocks at the beach ans ate until the friends made it to the house. They only needed another half an hour and soon we headed to the one-room house to get the party started. Italians our age like medium sized get-togethers (~20 people or so), cakes board-and cardgames, charades (try playing it english and italian= good times). Everyone was friendly to us, with very limited English skills they matched our limited Italian skills. We the played some volleyball in the backyard and established that pretty much everyone knows Salsa. We'll see ya at 'Amo' on thursdays then. We had a pretty good time and left when the party died down, at around 6ish when it started to rain.
I'm home now with my warm water bottle (no more bombola heating for us) and as soon as Ashley and Stefania come back from Maia's with some dishsoap, I'm going to clean up and make some chicken with tomatoes, olives and capers. And some couscous.
One more thing: Pietro is really angry w/ the government (for those who don't know- the govt has semi-collapsed as Prodi was asked to leave because he is pretty much incompetent) because I guess once you elect someone, they can appoint whoever they want for whatever position (big time nepotism!) and there are too many little parties which makes it harder to actually win.... sounds like democracy is going down the drain in Italy.
Chill time!
SPRING BREAK
Good morning,
I am back, we made it. This was definitely the best but most stressful spring break yet. Good news: I found my camera cable (it was in one of my purses) so check out webshots. Muenchen pics will also be up.
Anyways, I will start with Paris:
We started out trip Friday, the 14th, with some Doener at the place next to the Temple of Apollo. The Doener-man took forever and a day, so we had to eat while running to the Interbus stop to catch the bus to the Catania Airport at 1 pm. Our flight was supposed to leave at five. So we pretty much had 3 hours to kill at the airport. We bought cannoli and hung out at our gate, freaked out other people with our weirdness, etc. At around 4 pm we noticed that our boarding time was pushed back... and back... and.... wtf?
When the screen finally showed that our flight was supposed to leave at 7:30 now. That meant we would miss our connection flight in Milan. BUT, "in Texas we don't fly that way" (thank god!) so Ashley and Brie made their way to the Alitalia reps to see what's up. It turns out, their customer service is ridick. Apparently, they had called our names "a million times," even in ENGLISH, to get us on an earlier plane, and they thought we had just "left the airport." Weird only that none of us (4 people) heard anything, but we had been sitting at our gate (which has room for about 30 people) for 3 hours. Not to mention that the entire airport only has one row of 12 gates. After some angry hickhack, they agreed to have us fly out at 7:30, put us in a hotel in Milan, and fly us to Paris on the earliest plane the next day. They would notify Milan of these changes immediateley. BS. When we finally arrived in Milan, the Alitalia people had no clue and it took 45 min and several phonecalls for them to give us our new tickets and send us on the way to the Hotel. That meant waiting for a bus. The bus didn't leave until 11 or so, and we expected the Hotel to be fairly close to Malpensa (which is roughly translated "bad thought" - hmmmm), because delays always happen. Nada. We were driven 45 min away, in some outskirts of the Milan, and our so advertised **** Hotel was in the back of a Carrefour -supermarket, and looked like a 2 star. Not that it mattered to us, and no, we didn't want to be rushed to Dinner at midnight, because the Bus would be leaving to the Airport again at 7 am. Our flight would leave at 8:30. The next morning we made it to Paris relatively smoothly, if you don't count the fact that in Paris they couldn't find one of those rolling stairs for our plane and we couldn't leave it for another 40 min....
At this point nothing could stop us and we soon disembarked the RER B at the station Saint-Michele, and - tadaaa - there was the Notre Dame. We went inside, outside, took tons of pics, etc.. and got hungry. The prices of the cafes around were absolutely not backpacker-friendly, and we moved on to find street food. We found a pretty good deal with a place, where for 7 euro, we got a "salty" crepe (with ham, cheese, and tomatoes), a sweet crepe (with suga) and a drink. He also gave us free tee on top of that. We took our food the the Pantheon and just sat there and ate.
I took pictures of the impressive columns of the Corinthian Order, Pendentes (also known as "arch cleavage"), mullioned windows, pointy arches, and other shizznizz I learned in Art History!
It got later in the day, so we hopped back on the Metro and RER to scope oput our "Hostel". The "Hostel" was really the Hotel Balladine in Epinay sur Seine, one of those suburbs in Paris where you better be inside once it gets dark - if you know what I mean! For the price it was decent, and if we had booked earlier we would have found a better deal closer to the Center. BUt if you don't mind smokey air wherever you go, and mold growing in your bathroom (picture domumented!) then this is the Hostel/Hotel for you. Ashley decided to go to sleep, but the rest of us decided to check out the "mall." I was torn between buying a 10 euro pair of boots in one of those cheap-o stores and being afraid of the store/ the teenaged guys in it who wanted to speak German to me I was impressed with their "Wie heisst du?". In this part, you expect a burning car around every corner.... but either way, there was another "Carrefour" supermarket - they seem to have them everywhere in Italy and France - and we bought our dinner - boxes of Multi-vitamin juice, water, cookies, chocolate, little containers of black forest cake (DELICIOUS!) and chips. Hey, we were going to stay in for the night with nothing to do. Might as well eat junky.
The next morning,all our eyes were puffy. I don't know what exactly was floating around in that air.... we took advantage of a breakfast deal, 2 euro 50 for a croissant, juice, and coffee. Luckily, it was a buffet breakfast situation, so we made that two croissants, baguette, coffee, juice, marmalade and nutella each. Ya know.
So Sunday was our Eiffeltower/Champs Elysees/Arc the Triomphe day, which we enjoyed although it was raining off and on. I bought a beret, partly as a souvenir, but also keeping next Halloween in mind. With my Eiffeltower necklace and a baguette in hand, I might just go as a French person. At night we realized that we had no food and that it was Sunday night, so we ran to the only pastry shop that seemed to be open. Dinner: Baguette and Brie. Not our Brie, French Brie. Our Hostel for that night was a real hostel, a queen sized bed, and showers that needed to be paid for, bloodstains of the blankets, you have it.
Monday we also did some walking around and decided to tackle the Louvre. Stefania decided not to go in, and Brie and I did the fast walk since we're not Museum goers. Nevertheless, we admired statues, paintings, mummies, etc. I saw and was not too impressed with the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, etc... but I saw them!
At 5ish we made our way to Amanda's Dorm and the University. Paris dorm rooms are big but still just dorm rooms. We could use the computerlab to book and print out tickets for the Bus to Amsterdam the next morning! Around 9, we went out to an Irish Bar. It was Saint Patty's Day after all! I had a "Magners," Cidre and way more delicious than Guiness! When we came back, Amanda was a sweetheart and left us her bed and an air mattress! We only slept for a few hour though, and then it was time to take the Metro to the Bus station.
The Busline is called Eurolines and you can pretty much take it to any major city in Europe. In our case, the Bus was way cheaper (72 euros buy you the roundtrip Paris-Amsterdam, and Amsterdam-Berlin is advertised as 9 euro one way!)
The Bus was one of those tall ones where you sit on top, and thanks to Dramamine and my sleeping mask I was sleeping through most of the trip. On the Bus, we met a young Greek god named Perikles (an Athenian studying Management and Finance) who was taking the bus to Rotterdam and tried to tell us to visit Rotterdam also. But Amsterdam was much prettier so we decided to stick to our plans. We had a nice talk with him at one of the Rest stops until one of the Rest stop cafe ladies tried telling us in Dutch that our Bus was leaving. No kidding, it was gone. With Brie's passport and money. We ran out of the Rest stop and saw that the Bus was now parked at a gas station 100 m away. Bastard.
The Hostel was pretty new, part of a chain. It's called "Stayokay" and I recommen going there. In fact, after we checked in we cancelled our other hostels to stay in the same place the entire time while in Amsterdam. The room was spartanic, but clean and chrome, everything was new, and the sheets came wrapped so we knew they were clean. They had an Internet place (although 1 euro fifty for 15 min is pretty expensive) and a bar and food area. Never mind that the other people staying there were probably between 12 and 15. We decided to get food at a close-by Kebab place, and it was delish. We even got free Turkish Tee. What's up with all this free tee on the trips? After, Ashley decided to sleep, and the rest of us decided to walk a little bit towards Downtown. The walk seemed to not end, and after two hours or so we were back in the Hostel for a good night's sleep. The next morning we took the Tram into the downtown area. Amsterdam is beautiful. My kind of city. There are probably millions of bikes in the city, and you constantly have to watch out for bikes coming from all directions (it's not their fault, you'll most likely be walking on the bike lane). The Dutch are tall, many are blond and beautiful, but mostly just tall (very few guys under 6 ft) and I probably saw 3 overweight people. But they might have been tourists. One of them was the fishman at a fishsandwich place where the others had Cod Sandwiches. I didn't have one, I had packed a lunch. Another good thing about the hostel is that an all you can eat breakfast buffee is included. In Hostel-language that means that you can eat as much as you can and also make three lunches to go.
The rest of that day was spent walking around. It was sometimes sunny, sometimes it poured. We raided the H&M and I found a top to go under my vest. And I also found a cute dress at the market. The line to the Anne Frank House was probably 3 hours long so we decided to do that the following day. We met a nice man from South Africa who was lost on the way to his Hotel. His name was Kevin. We also got a sms from Amanda and Angela, who saw Ashley and me walking across a bridge. We met up with them later at a coffeeshop, "Baba," which sported several human-sized Ganeshas. A Tee and a muffin later, we headed over to the Grasshopper, another Coffee shop, and then A+A gave us a tour of the redlight district, where their Hotel was (conveniently) located. Hahaha. Kidding. We took a wrong turn and landed in a seedy establishment. OK, that's not entirely true. We followed a crowd through a street until we realized that the street was a one way street and the crowd consisted of just men. "That's not where I parked my car" is probably an acceptable phrase for this situation. We turned and made our way out asap.
Overall I do have to say that Amsterdam seems like a safe city. The redlight district is a tourist destination, so unless you're an idiot (taking pictures of scarcely clad women in red windows is a no no!) its not dangerous!
We made our way back to the Hostel, but stopped for another Kebab, a chocolate bar, and a bag of chips. Wow, amazing how much you can eat if you think there is need.
The rest of the night was uneventful (when you run around all day a good night's sleep is important!) but the next day we made our way to our Canal Cruise. Amsterdam is, after all, the Venice of the north. We learned some handy tidbits, but were still tired and the weather got worse. In any case, when I was paying attention I learned that Amsterdam is 2.5 m below the sea level (I'm afraid of what Global Warming will do to that!) and in the summer, the water in the canals is swictched 2x a week and clean water is led in. There are also 2500 registered houseboats (Mama und Papa, wie waer's?) and wayy more illegal houseboats.
After the boat tour it started pouring so we stayed at a tiny cafe until the owner kicked us out. Well, not really but I could understand that she said that no one would come in because it seemed like her place was now a hair salon (Ashley was combing Brie's hair). Dutch and German is pretty similar and with a little but of immagination I can understand a lot of what the Dutch are saying. Wet and miserable (not gonna lie) we made our way to Anne Frank's house and did the Museum tour. It was definitely worth it. Still wet, we made our way back to the Hostel and I fell asleep/read Der Spiegel while the others had the cafeteria food in the Hostel. Wow, my nights in Amsterdam were really not too exciting. But backpacking is not a smooth ride and I like to have energy for the day.
The next day, our last day, we locked our bags in the Hostel and made it downtown one last time. Bad idea. It started snowing. WTF? At this point we all admitted to missing T shirt weather Ortigia, especially since there weren't really public places to go and relax in. Our Bus wasn't leaving until 10 at night, and using the bathroom costs you 50 eurocent. We ended up escaping the snow by hanging out in a Burgerking. For 2 hours. I kid you not. I bought a cappuchino but had no desire for any of the other junk. Well, maybe for onion rings. But not really.
When the snow finally stopped we hit the souvenir shops where I got a couple of post cards (because my pictures didn't come out great - in the snow?) and -- a Lukas Podolski jersey for 15 euro in this Chinese souvenir place. hehehe. I feel like I need to represent in Italy, esp. with 2 soccer lovers in the house (Brie and Stefania).
Because the day would not go by any faster, we checked out our bags and had a farewell-Amsterdam dinner - Kebab again. I probably had my fill for a while (not the healthiest of choices) even though I can always get it in Ortigia if I want.
We took a Bus to the Station where our Eurolines Bus was leaving, and the Bus driver didn't even want us to pay. Huh.
In the Bus, we had to put our backpacks in the luggage part, and I didn't have time to pop a dramamin and get my sleeping mask in time. This proved to be a fatal mistake. Another mistake was sitting in the front. Our busdriver was slighltly insane. Disregarding the fact that we were on a nightbus, he started blasting Techno and Europop form the 90s. I even heard "Hijo de la Luna" (remember?) and he was singing and tapping along with Melanie C's "I Turn to You." Mind you, with a Dutch accent. But I don't even know if it was really Dutch. All I heard was "blabberadatsch Bulleridutsch blim blamb bahh" with an amazingly rolled "r" I'm always jealous when people have amazing "rolling r" skills. At some point he explained to us "Blibberboo blabberba rabberabaa 500 Euro werberibbi" I deducted that we can import goods worthless than 500 euro. They made a huge deal out of French customs, which I never got to see. Maybe in 5 of the 10 min total sleep I got, we passed customs.
Crammy and grumpy and needing to pee (which only costs 20 cents in France) we arrived in Paris. We had a couple of hours to kill once again before our plane, so we headed to the Notre Dame, where Ashley walked around some more. The weather was sucky and rainy, and everything was closed. We matched the mood with our grumpyness. There is a reason I don't do all-nighters. For the well-being of society, of course. If you know me, you know that to me sleep is sacred. We tried to find the Crepe guy from before again, but he was closed. Luckily we found a market, and I bought 2 apples, 3 mandarines, a salmon-spinache quiche, and at a supermarket, couscous with chicken in a little dish.
Ready for some Sicilian Sun, we hopped back into the RER B, off to the Airport, where we chilled for another couple hours with the Financial Times Weekend Europe Edition before flying to Milan, and making it to Catania w/o compliacations. Alitalia is just weeks away from bancruptcy and Berlusconi - if elected - wants to block the merger of Alitalia and AirFrance-KLM. Hmmm. We noticed the financial troubles because the soda cans you get in airplanes are the tiny ones now and if you're lucky, you get a teeny weeny pack of cookies. That's it, I'm going back to Airmalta and Lufthansa. They feed you at least.
In Catania we waited a while and then found Guiseppe, our Taxidriver back to Siracusa. We got in at 11 at night, and the next bus would have run in the morning. So 15 euro each is not a bad deal, especially since Giuseppe drove us all the way to Piazza Archimede (pretty much to our door) and only took 45 min because he drove like a maniac.
I took a shower and went to bed. There goes spring break. As I said, pretty good. I'm proud of Brie and me, because we were pretty much the organizers and brains behind the operation, and except for the Catania thing it went smoothly.
The French as well as the Dutch were super nice to us and went out of their way to help us figure out public transportation, hostels, destinations, etc. We also had a multi-lingual group (between us we have English, German, Italian, Spanish, [and ancient Greek and Latin]) so yeah. Good times. After all this typing I'm going to lean back and read Cosmo.
I am back, we made it. This was definitely the best but most stressful spring break yet. Good news: I found my camera cable (it was in one of my purses) so check out webshots. Muenchen pics will also be up.
Anyways, I will start with Paris:
We started out trip Friday, the 14th, with some Doener at the place next to the Temple of Apollo. The Doener-man took forever and a day, so we had to eat while running to the Interbus stop to catch the bus to the Catania Airport at 1 pm. Our flight was supposed to leave at five. So we pretty much had 3 hours to kill at the airport. We bought cannoli and hung out at our gate, freaked out other people with our weirdness, etc. At around 4 pm we noticed that our boarding time was pushed back... and back... and.... wtf?
When the screen finally showed that our flight was supposed to leave at 7:30 now. That meant we would miss our connection flight in Milan. BUT, "in Texas we don't fly that way" (thank god!) so Ashley and Brie made their way to the Alitalia reps to see what's up. It turns out, their customer service is ridick. Apparently, they had called our names "a million times," even in ENGLISH, to get us on an earlier plane, and they thought we had just "left the airport." Weird only that none of us (4 people) heard anything, but we had been sitting at our gate (which has room for about 30 people) for 3 hours. Not to mention that the entire airport only has one row of 12 gates. After some angry hickhack, they agreed to have us fly out at 7:30, put us in a hotel in Milan, and fly us to Paris on the earliest plane the next day. They would notify Milan of these changes immediateley. BS. When we finally arrived in Milan, the Alitalia people had no clue and it took 45 min and several phonecalls for them to give us our new tickets and send us on the way to the Hotel. That meant waiting for a bus. The bus didn't leave until 11 or so, and we expected the Hotel to be fairly close to Malpensa (which is roughly translated "bad thought" - hmmmm), because delays always happen. Nada. We were driven 45 min away, in some outskirts of the Milan, and our so advertised **** Hotel was in the back of a Carrefour -supermarket, and looked like a 2 star. Not that it mattered to us, and no, we didn't want to be rushed to Dinner at midnight, because the Bus would be leaving to the Airport again at 7 am. Our flight would leave at 8:30. The next morning we made it to Paris relatively smoothly, if you don't count the fact that in Paris they couldn't find one of those rolling stairs for our plane and we couldn't leave it for another 40 min....
At this point nothing could stop us and we soon disembarked the RER B at the station Saint-Michele, and - tadaaa - there was the Notre Dame. We went inside, outside, took tons of pics, etc.. and got hungry. The prices of the cafes around were absolutely not backpacker-friendly, and we moved on to find street food. We found a pretty good deal with a place, where for 7 euro, we got a "salty" crepe (with ham, cheese, and tomatoes), a sweet crepe (with suga) and a drink. He also gave us free tee on top of that. We took our food the the Pantheon and just sat there and ate.
I took pictures of the impressive columns of the Corinthian Order, Pendentes (also known as "arch cleavage"), mullioned windows, pointy arches, and other shizznizz I learned in Art History!
It got later in the day, so we hopped back on the Metro and RER to scope oput our "Hostel". The "Hostel" was really the Hotel Balladine in Epinay sur Seine, one of those suburbs in Paris where you better be inside once it gets dark - if you know what I mean! For the price it was decent, and if we had booked earlier we would have found a better deal closer to the Center. BUt if you don't mind smokey air wherever you go, and mold growing in your bathroom (picture domumented!) then this is the Hostel/Hotel for you. Ashley decided to go to sleep, but the rest of us decided to check out the "mall." I was torn between buying a 10 euro pair of boots in one of those cheap-o stores and being afraid of the store/ the teenaged guys in it who wanted to speak German to me I was impressed with their "Wie heisst du?". In this part, you expect a burning car around every corner.... but either way, there was another "Carrefour" supermarket - they seem to have them everywhere in Italy and France - and we bought our dinner - boxes of Multi-vitamin juice, water, cookies, chocolate, little containers of black forest cake (DELICIOUS!) and chips. Hey, we were going to stay in for the night with nothing to do. Might as well eat junky.
The next morning,all our eyes were puffy. I don't know what exactly was floating around in that air.... we took advantage of a breakfast deal, 2 euro 50 for a croissant, juice, and coffee. Luckily, it was a buffet breakfast situation, so we made that two croissants, baguette, coffee, juice, marmalade and nutella each. Ya know.
So Sunday was our Eiffeltower/Champs Elysees/Arc the Triomphe day, which we enjoyed although it was raining off and on. I bought a beret, partly as a souvenir, but also keeping next Halloween in mind. With my Eiffeltower necklace and a baguette in hand, I might just go as a French person. At night we realized that we had no food and that it was Sunday night, so we ran to the only pastry shop that seemed to be open. Dinner: Baguette and Brie. Not our Brie, French Brie. Our Hostel for that night was a real hostel, a queen sized bed, and showers that needed to be paid for, bloodstains of the blankets, you have it.
Monday we also did some walking around and decided to tackle the Louvre. Stefania decided not to go in, and Brie and I did the fast walk since we're not Museum goers. Nevertheless, we admired statues, paintings, mummies, etc. I saw and was not too impressed with the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, etc... but I saw them!
At 5ish we made our way to Amanda's Dorm and the University. Paris dorm rooms are big but still just dorm rooms. We could use the computerlab to book and print out tickets for the Bus to Amsterdam the next morning! Around 9, we went out to an Irish Bar. It was Saint Patty's Day after all! I had a "Magners," Cidre and way more delicious than Guiness! When we came back, Amanda was a sweetheart and left us her bed and an air mattress! We only slept for a few hour though, and then it was time to take the Metro to the Bus station.
The Busline is called Eurolines and you can pretty much take it to any major city in Europe. In our case, the Bus was way cheaper (72 euros buy you the roundtrip Paris-Amsterdam, and Amsterdam-Berlin is advertised as 9 euro one way!)
The Bus was one of those tall ones where you sit on top, and thanks to Dramamine and my sleeping mask I was sleeping through most of the trip. On the Bus, we met a young Greek god named Perikles (an Athenian studying Management and Finance) who was taking the bus to Rotterdam and tried to tell us to visit Rotterdam also. But Amsterdam was much prettier so we decided to stick to our plans. We had a nice talk with him at one of the Rest stops until one of the Rest stop cafe ladies tried telling us in Dutch that our Bus was leaving. No kidding, it was gone. With Brie's passport and money. We ran out of the Rest stop and saw that the Bus was now parked at a gas station 100 m away. Bastard.
The Hostel was pretty new, part of a chain. It's called "Stayokay" and I recommen going there. In fact, after we checked in we cancelled our other hostels to stay in the same place the entire time while in Amsterdam. The room was spartanic, but clean and chrome, everything was new, and the sheets came wrapped so we knew they were clean. They had an Internet place (although 1 euro fifty for 15 min is pretty expensive) and a bar and food area. Never mind that the other people staying there were probably between 12 and 15. We decided to get food at a close-by Kebab place, and it was delish. We even got free Turkish Tee. What's up with all this free tee on the trips? After, Ashley decided to sleep, and the rest of us decided to walk a little bit towards Downtown. The walk seemed to not end, and after two hours or so we were back in the Hostel for a good night's sleep. The next morning we took the Tram into the downtown area. Amsterdam is beautiful. My kind of city. There are probably millions of bikes in the city, and you constantly have to watch out for bikes coming from all directions (it's not their fault, you'll most likely be walking on the bike lane). The Dutch are tall, many are blond and beautiful, but mostly just tall (very few guys under 6 ft) and I probably saw 3 overweight people. But they might have been tourists. One of them was the fishman at a fishsandwich place where the others had Cod Sandwiches. I didn't have one, I had packed a lunch. Another good thing about the hostel is that an all you can eat breakfast buffee is included. In Hostel-language that means that you can eat as much as you can and also make three lunches to go.
The rest of that day was spent walking around. It was sometimes sunny, sometimes it poured. We raided the H&M and I found a top to go under my vest. And I also found a cute dress at the market. The line to the Anne Frank House was probably 3 hours long so we decided to do that the following day. We met a nice man from South Africa who was lost on the way to his Hotel. His name was Kevin. We also got a sms from Amanda and Angela, who saw Ashley and me walking across a bridge. We met up with them later at a coffeeshop, "Baba," which sported several human-sized Ganeshas. A Tee and a muffin later, we headed over to the Grasshopper, another Coffee shop, and then A+A gave us a tour of the redlight district, where their Hotel was (conveniently) located. Hahaha. Kidding. We took a wrong turn and landed in a seedy establishment. OK, that's not entirely true. We followed a crowd through a street until we realized that the street was a one way street and the crowd consisted of just men. "That's not where I parked my car" is probably an acceptable phrase for this situation. We turned and made our way out asap.
Overall I do have to say that Amsterdam seems like a safe city. The redlight district is a tourist destination, so unless you're an idiot (taking pictures of scarcely clad women in red windows is a no no!) its not dangerous!
We made our way back to the Hostel, but stopped for another Kebab, a chocolate bar, and a bag of chips. Wow, amazing how much you can eat if you think there is need.
The rest of the night was uneventful (when you run around all day a good night's sleep is important!) but the next day we made our way to our Canal Cruise. Amsterdam is, after all, the Venice of the north. We learned some handy tidbits, but were still tired and the weather got worse. In any case, when I was paying attention I learned that Amsterdam is 2.5 m below the sea level (I'm afraid of what Global Warming will do to that!) and in the summer, the water in the canals is swictched 2x a week and clean water is led in. There are also 2500 registered houseboats (Mama und Papa, wie waer's?) and wayy more illegal houseboats.
After the boat tour it started pouring so we stayed at a tiny cafe until the owner kicked us out. Well, not really but I could understand that she said that no one would come in because it seemed like her place was now a hair salon (Ashley was combing Brie's hair). Dutch and German is pretty similar and with a little but of immagination I can understand a lot of what the Dutch are saying. Wet and miserable (not gonna lie) we made our way to Anne Frank's house and did the Museum tour. It was definitely worth it. Still wet, we made our way back to the Hostel and I fell asleep/read Der Spiegel while the others had the cafeteria food in the Hostel. Wow, my nights in Amsterdam were really not too exciting. But backpacking is not a smooth ride and I like to have energy for the day.
The next day, our last day, we locked our bags in the Hostel and made it downtown one last time. Bad idea. It started snowing. WTF? At this point we all admitted to missing T shirt weather Ortigia, especially since there weren't really public places to go and relax in. Our Bus wasn't leaving until 10 at night, and using the bathroom costs you 50 eurocent. We ended up escaping the snow by hanging out in a Burgerking. For 2 hours. I kid you not. I bought a cappuchino but had no desire for any of the other junk. Well, maybe for onion rings. But not really.
When the snow finally stopped we hit the souvenir shops where I got a couple of post cards (because my pictures didn't come out great - in the snow?) and -- a Lukas Podolski jersey for 15 euro in this Chinese souvenir place. hehehe. I feel like I need to represent in Italy, esp. with 2 soccer lovers in the house (Brie and Stefania).
Because the day would not go by any faster, we checked out our bags and had a farewell-Amsterdam dinner - Kebab again. I probably had my fill for a while (not the healthiest of choices) even though I can always get it in Ortigia if I want.
We took a Bus to the Station where our Eurolines Bus was leaving, and the Bus driver didn't even want us to pay. Huh.
In the Bus, we had to put our backpacks in the luggage part, and I didn't have time to pop a dramamin and get my sleeping mask in time. This proved to be a fatal mistake. Another mistake was sitting in the front. Our busdriver was slighltly insane. Disregarding the fact that we were on a nightbus, he started blasting Techno and Europop form the 90s. I even heard "Hijo de la Luna" (remember?) and he was singing and tapping along with Melanie C's "I Turn to You." Mind you, with a Dutch accent. But I don't even know if it was really Dutch. All I heard was "blabberadatsch Bulleridutsch blim blamb bahh" with an amazingly rolled "r" I'm always jealous when people have amazing "rolling r" skills. At some point he explained to us "Blibberboo blabberba rabberabaa 500 Euro werberibbi" I deducted that we can import goods worthless than 500 euro. They made a huge deal out of French customs, which I never got to see. Maybe in 5 of the 10 min total sleep I got, we passed customs.
Crammy and grumpy and needing to pee (which only costs 20 cents in France) we arrived in Paris. We had a couple of hours to kill once again before our plane, so we headed to the Notre Dame, where Ashley walked around some more. The weather was sucky and rainy, and everything was closed. We matched the mood with our grumpyness. There is a reason I don't do all-nighters. For the well-being of society, of course. If you know me, you know that to me sleep is sacred. We tried to find the Crepe guy from before again, but he was closed. Luckily we found a market, and I bought 2 apples, 3 mandarines, a salmon-spinache quiche, and at a supermarket, couscous with chicken in a little dish.
Ready for some Sicilian Sun, we hopped back into the RER B, off to the Airport, where we chilled for another couple hours with the Financial Times Weekend Europe Edition before flying to Milan, and making it to Catania w/o compliacations. Alitalia is just weeks away from bancruptcy and Berlusconi - if elected - wants to block the merger of Alitalia and AirFrance-KLM. Hmmm. We noticed the financial troubles because the soda cans you get in airplanes are the tiny ones now and if you're lucky, you get a teeny weeny pack of cookies. That's it, I'm going back to Airmalta and Lufthansa. They feed you at least.
In Catania we waited a while and then found Guiseppe, our Taxidriver back to Siracusa. We got in at 11 at night, and the next bus would have run in the morning. So 15 euro each is not a bad deal, especially since Giuseppe drove us all the way to Piazza Archimede (pretty much to our door) and only took 45 min because he drove like a maniac.
I took a shower and went to bed. There goes spring break. As I said, pretty good. I'm proud of Brie and me, because we were pretty much the organizers and brains behind the operation, and except for the Catania thing it went smoothly.
The French as well as the Dutch were super nice to us and went out of their way to help us figure out public transportation, hostels, destinations, etc. We also had a multi-lingual group (between us we have English, German, Italian, Spanish, [and ancient Greek and Latin]) so yeah. Good times. After all this typing I'm going to lean back and read Cosmo.
Monday, March 10, 2008
MUENCHEN
Halli Hallo!
I have survived my munich trip and made it back to Siracusa safely, with 4 (!) cans of Molke in my backback, two stress pimples, sans many hours of sleep but overall in good condition, only to find out that monday was - in fact - not a free day. MIST! That means that I'll have to read for Lit + Cult in addition to preparing for midterms....yehaw!
Me being me I of course got lost after getting into the wrong Bus in Siracuse going to Catania and ended up in downtown Catania instead of the Airport outside the city.... ( I also just used the words 'me' and 'I' three times in the first four words of my sentence - wow). After walking two blocks, being disoriented in the train station, I finally made my way to the ticket office to purchase a ticket for the shuttle bus, ran around and asked two busdrivers where that shuttle was, and then made it on there. Though traffic in Catania was horrible, I made it to the airport at 11:25 instead of 10... oh well. Getting into the plane everything went smooth and before I knew it I was watching Tom and Jerry and eating antipasti "airplane style". A hop and a skip and the Alps later, I was already in Munich. Lena and Andre, her boyfriend picked me up and found me immediately. They are remarkably similar in both dialect and looks *g*. Anne also picked me up and all was good, we headed into the city.
We wandered around the Marienplatz, got some coffee and cake at the Galleria (Leberkaeswecken in Anne's case) and received flowers in honorof the Fuenf Hoefe's 5th anniversary.
My quest to eat a Weisswurst failed, they are only served until 4 pm... damn. Oh well, I had an Aloisius Teller instead, mit Spiegelei, Leberkaes, und Kartoffelsalat! Leckerrr! After that (we had met up with Lena's friend Aline and Anne's friend Claudia) we ended up at a Bar. The first Bar was too crowded, the second demanded a 1 Euro smoker fee. As in, we'd pay 1 Euro to join the smoker's club, because normally you're not allowed to smoke in bars. If it's a closed company, then yes. We laughed and left. The bar we ended up at was nice and not too busy. We had a good time and left at 2.30 to catch the nightbus back to Anne's apartment. The cutest and cuddliest cat ever lives there! After a short night of 3.5 hours, I made it without complications to the subway and the train station. A coffee and Brezel later I was in the regional train, changed trains in Buchloe, and ended up in Kempten. Opa (grandpa) picked me up and I spent the next day and a half eating non-stop. Overall good times. At the Mariaberg I had Spaetzle mit Hackbraten und Sosse, and a Holunderlimo to drink. Delish. Later in the afternoon I had coffee, giotto, and Kaesesahnetorte (2 pieces) as well as half a piece of Erdbeertorte. Tagesspiegel und LeuteHeute spaeter, it was time for Rehgulasch mit Bandnudeln und Blaukraut. I packed for sunday and then we watched Breakfast a Tiffany's. Overall good times. Got up at 5:30 again (grrrr never enough sleep), hopped on the train to Munich, the subway there, and then to the Airport. The flight was pleaseant but why why why does Lufthansa need to put butter on its sandwiches and why why why did the little boy in front of me get a Lufthansa gameboy and not I? Oh well. In catania I waited another 1 and a half hours until the interbus came. At home I was greeted with a very warm welcome <33 the roomies.
The No Angels will be representing Germany at the Grand Pri d'Eurovision. can the eastern European dominion be broken this year? We shall see.
Heide Simonis has abdicated because of the UNICEF donation scandals, German kids are tired because they now have to learn in 8 years what they had to learn in 9, and people are generally striking because they don't get paid enough. Amazing how I spent half of friday night explaining the American tertiary education system, and tried to convince my fellow Germans that I was not completely stupified yet. sigh. That's pretty much it.
Ew, I have no desire to go to class. yucky yuck.
I have survived my munich trip and made it back to Siracusa safely, with 4 (!) cans of Molke in my backback, two stress pimples, sans many hours of sleep but overall in good condition, only to find out that monday was - in fact - not a free day. MIST! That means that I'll have to read for Lit + Cult in addition to preparing for midterms....yehaw!
Me being me I of course got lost after getting into the wrong Bus in Siracuse going to Catania and ended up in downtown Catania instead of the Airport outside the city.... ( I also just used the words 'me' and 'I' three times in the first four words of my sentence - wow). After walking two blocks, being disoriented in the train station, I finally made my way to the ticket office to purchase a ticket for the shuttle bus, ran around and asked two busdrivers where that shuttle was, and then made it on there. Though traffic in Catania was horrible, I made it to the airport at 11:25 instead of 10... oh well. Getting into the plane everything went smooth and before I knew it I was watching Tom and Jerry and eating antipasti "airplane style". A hop and a skip and the Alps later, I was already in Munich. Lena and Andre, her boyfriend picked me up and found me immediately. They are remarkably similar in both dialect and looks *g*. Anne also picked me up and all was good, we headed into the city.
We wandered around the Marienplatz, got some coffee and cake at the Galleria (Leberkaeswecken in Anne's case) and received flowers in honorof the Fuenf Hoefe's 5th anniversary.
My quest to eat a Weisswurst failed, they are only served until 4 pm... damn. Oh well, I had an Aloisius Teller instead, mit Spiegelei, Leberkaes, und Kartoffelsalat! Leckerrr! After that (we had met up with Lena's friend Aline and Anne's friend Claudia) we ended up at a Bar. The first Bar was too crowded, the second demanded a 1 Euro smoker fee. As in, we'd pay 1 Euro to join the smoker's club, because normally you're not allowed to smoke in bars. If it's a closed company, then yes. We laughed and left. The bar we ended up at was nice and not too busy. We had a good time and left at 2.30 to catch the nightbus back to Anne's apartment. The cutest and cuddliest cat ever lives there! After a short night of 3.5 hours, I made it without complications to the subway and the train station. A coffee and Brezel later I was in the regional train, changed trains in Buchloe, and ended up in Kempten. Opa (grandpa) picked me up and I spent the next day and a half eating non-stop. Overall good times. At the Mariaberg I had Spaetzle mit Hackbraten und Sosse, and a Holunderlimo to drink. Delish. Later in the afternoon I had coffee, giotto, and Kaesesahnetorte (2 pieces) as well as half a piece of Erdbeertorte. Tagesspiegel und LeuteHeute spaeter, it was time for Rehgulasch mit Bandnudeln und Blaukraut. I packed for sunday and then we watched Breakfast a Tiffany's. Overall good times. Got up at 5:30 again (grrrr never enough sleep), hopped on the train to Munich, the subway there, and then to the Airport. The flight was pleaseant but why why why does Lufthansa need to put butter on its sandwiches and why why why did the little boy in front of me get a Lufthansa gameboy and not I? Oh well. In catania I waited another 1 and a half hours until the interbus came. At home I was greeted with a very warm welcome <33 the roomies.
The No Angels will be representing Germany at the Grand Pri d'Eurovision. can the eastern European dominion be broken this year? We shall see.
Heide Simonis has abdicated because of the UNICEF donation scandals, German kids are tired because they now have to learn in 8 years what they had to learn in 9, and people are generally striking because they don't get paid enough. Amazing how I spent half of friday night explaining the American tertiary education system, and tried to convince my fellow Germans that I was not completely stupified yet. sigh. That's pretty much it.
Ew, I have no desire to go to class. yucky yuck.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Sunday
Sunday!
Tourist season has officially arrived and our little island is being INFESTED with various groups of mostly European (English, German, Spanish mostly) and a few American turisti! Tourist-watching has become a competitive sport, and the girls of Via dein Tintori are on the varsity team. Luckily, the weather is cooperating and we've had the warmest day so far here. Finally, we can turn the bombola off (and we won't have to call the bombola guy, the sleazebag, again soon).
Increasing temperatures and willingness to do schoolwork are negatively correlated (obviously) and we spent most of the day lounging on the steps of PIazza Duomo (the main piazza in Ortigia), watching and judging tourists and Italians - mostly their styles and clothes. Red mid-high boots seem to be "in" now. For men, gold-metalic sneakers and shiny jackets are still a must, the real masculine will also wear glittery sneakers. But above all, everyone wears aviators. "I like his shades" is the probably most repeated phrase of the day!
We lounged on the steps in the sun for about three hours, got gelato (pistacchio and tartufo for me) and generally didn't do much. I have a 5 pager due on wednesday. I already wrote 2/3 of a page and downloaded 113 pages worth of information. I somehow doubt that this paper will compete grade wise with my "beautiful speaking voice" (hardehar) but I blame the weather. I'm in vacation mode, after all.
So I heard baja california is full of whales in march, that might be something to check out!
Next Friday I will embark on my lovely weekend trip to Munich, Home of Weisswurst, Hefeweizen, and Brezeln! I will also try to hit up Mueller and maybe maybe get some Schokomolke? With a limited supply of Soymilk, I need to get calcium. Slash maybe drop two poundes before bathing suit season!
We had a fun little "conversations with Italians" session the other day where I met my future mother-in-law. Kidding Kidding, but in any case, I was talking to two ladies who study English. One of them has two sons, 22 and 24, in law and cinema, who speak English but want to practice. They will be "home" from Rome during Easter and want to meet up with me. In any case, I want to score an invite to a real Sicilian dinner with a real Sicilian family. I mean, hellooo cultural connection! We'll see what I can do.
Ewww paper.... (I'm going to watch Sex and the City now...)
...
Monday!
The bar next to the school apparently has undercover cops sitting around. The owner is either supposed to be terminated or the bar is supposed to be burned down.
Tsk tsk, that's what you get when you don't pay your protection money for the Emm-Ahh-EFF-IHH-AHH....... well I hope the school doesn't get burned down.
Tourist season has officially arrived and our little island is being INFESTED with various groups of mostly European (English, German, Spanish mostly) and a few American turisti! Tourist-watching has become a competitive sport, and the girls of Via dein Tintori are on the varsity team. Luckily, the weather is cooperating and we've had the warmest day so far here. Finally, we can turn the bombola off (and we won't have to call the bombola guy, the sleazebag, again soon).
Increasing temperatures and willingness to do schoolwork are negatively correlated (obviously) and we spent most of the day lounging on the steps of PIazza Duomo (the main piazza in Ortigia), watching and judging tourists and Italians - mostly their styles and clothes. Red mid-high boots seem to be "in" now. For men, gold-metalic sneakers and shiny jackets are still a must, the real masculine will also wear glittery sneakers. But above all, everyone wears aviators. "I like his shades" is the probably most repeated phrase of the day!
We lounged on the steps in the sun for about three hours, got gelato (pistacchio and tartufo for me) and generally didn't do much. I have a 5 pager due on wednesday. I already wrote 2/3 of a page and downloaded 113 pages worth of information. I somehow doubt that this paper will compete grade wise with my "beautiful speaking voice" (hardehar) but I blame the weather. I'm in vacation mode, after all.
So I heard baja california is full of whales in march, that might be something to check out!
Next Friday I will embark on my lovely weekend trip to Munich, Home of Weisswurst, Hefeweizen, and Brezeln! I will also try to hit up Mueller and maybe maybe get some Schokomolke? With a limited supply of Soymilk, I need to get calcium. Slash maybe drop two poundes before bathing suit season!
We had a fun little "conversations with Italians" session the other day where I met my future mother-in-law. Kidding Kidding, but in any case, I was talking to two ladies who study English. One of them has two sons, 22 and 24, in law and cinema, who speak English but want to practice. They will be "home" from Rome during Easter and want to meet up with me. In any case, I want to score an invite to a real Sicilian dinner with a real Sicilian family. I mean, hellooo cultural connection! We'll see what I can do.
Ewww paper.... (I'm going to watch Sex and the City now...)
...
Monday!
The bar next to the school apparently has undercover cops sitting around. The owner is either supposed to be terminated or the bar is supposed to be burned down.
Tsk tsk, that's what you get when you don't pay your protection money for the Emm-Ahh-EFF-IHH-AHH....... well I hope the school doesn't get burned down.
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