Restoring My Faith in My People

If you live in MA or ME, today you celebrate Patriot Day. Unfortunately for me, I am not now nor was I ever a MA resident which means I don't celebrate Patriot Day and I don't get a German driving licence (but that's another story). In the spirit of this little known holiday,and because I'm a fan of the New England Partiots, let me know you a story.
Last Friday, I left my office like any other day, happy to be heading home after what felt like the longest short week ever, I called Patrick to gauge his arrival at the apartment. Upon closing my phone, a girl from behind asked "Where are you from?". If you are not German, you should know this NEVER happens, Germans may listen to your conversations but they never ask personal questions on the street (or at the strassenbahn stop) which reference said conversations. For a minute, I almost ignored her, not believing she was talking to me but then I caught on and I like new friends so I answered vaguely by saying, the US. She shot back, "I know that. Where in the US?" Already I didn't like this chick with her attitude and the rest of the conversation went a little something like this:
Me: RI, where are you from? Rude Chick: I'm American too, California. Me: Oh, I had to ask since I've met several Canadians in Mannheim (true story). RC: What are you here for, studying? Me: Yup, you? RC: Me too, what are you studying? Me: Marketing RC: That's pretty boring! Me: What are you studying? RC: Graphic Design Me: (realizing the University of Mannheim does not offer Graphic design) where? RC: at the Fachoschule (kind of like community college/trade school), it's just like a college degree.
::Around this time, I am beyond done with our conversation and thankfully see my train approaching, as I try to politely excuse myself to get the train, I learn she is taking the same train, ugg::: RC:(after we go about one stop and she tells me how hard German high school is, she asks) Isn't the University in the other direction? Me: It is actually back by the stop we got on at but I'm not going to the University. RC: What stop are we at? Me: ::reads stop off of the train sign:: RC: oh my stop is next. Me: Thank God! There was a lot more conversation on the train but mostly her telling me how hard her studies are and how she is doing so well in Germany for the past 5 years and speaking German, etc. I never got her name and hope to never see her again. I went home questioning the American attitude, are we really that obnoxious? Have I been in Germany for too long? Fast forward to Monday morning. I walk to my stop on my way to work a bit earlier than normal and sitting on the bench in the stop is a girl who screams AMERICAN. First of all she is wearing a UCONN Hoodie, jeans and sneakers, topped off with a ponytail and rhinestone sunglasses on her head and a mini sport Huskies back pack. She stands out like a sore thumb in my mind but after last week's experience I don't know if I should approach her or even stay anywhere near her in case she catched onto me. For the record, I was blending in rather well with my white pants, black polo, jean jacket and black and white scarf, my hair was in a loose bun with a head band and I was carrying my Longschamp tote. I sat down next to her and took out my keys in the hope that she may notice my Vera Bradley ID holder (only an Amei would recognize a Vera pattern). It didn't work and in an effort to restore my faith in my people, I said excused myself in German and asked her if she was from CT. Apparently she was from MA but went to UCONN and is now in Germany to go to the Music school but it didn't live up to her expectations so she is soon to transfer to Holland, at UCONN she studied accounting and worked as an actuary before deciding to study opera in Europe. Her parents are both opera singers so it is in her blood. Her name is Brittney and we had a short conversation, she was very nice and talked more than I so I kind of know her life story. I guess I just needed a New Englander to restore my faith in Americans abroad. Now I can rest easy once again.

I've got Mail

This morning I was pleasantly greeted with photos in my inbox. The first email was from an MBA classmate who I had all but lost touch with for the past 2 years. She had a baby in March and sent the cutest newborn photos, what exciting news! Following these pictures of the future I had another message with a photo from my past.
One of my best friends is moving across country and in the process of packing things up from his parents house, he came across a pre-digital photo from a high school era party in his back yard. I won't share the photo but will tell you it is of my favorite girls from Pawtucket and we are somehow making a human chair with our arms. Thankfully we had good taste and our outfits are not regrettable circa 1998 summer tank tops and shorts. This picture came with a note, "Wish we could all be back here again for one summer's afternoon". It really gave me something to think about on my morning commute. What are the odds that we could ever recreate that moment from the not so distant past...slim. Of the three of us in the photo, one is in NYC, the other Boston and I'm across the Atlantic, the sender is about to be in San Diego. I started thinking of great high school times I had with these three and it is hard to realize we have all grown up and moved on. It has been 10 years since we were sophomores in high school but so much has changed. We could barely drive then and now we graduated college and past our sophomore years in the real world. Maybe we will all be home for the holidays, maybe we won't. We keep in touch via phone, email and facebook but we miss birthday parties and random meetings. Thinking back to high school and even college, it was so easy to have all of your friends at arms length, walking distance even. Now I am a world away and the distance is increasing. I long for the days of bathing suits and volleyball when Mapquest could tell us how to get anywhere and we could just drive. We worked part time to pay for gas, movies and clothes and did sports every day after school. At the same time, I am happy to move forward, to accomplish things on my own and not need to depend on my parents (although I miss their swimming pool on warm summer nights) but I miss those summer days that often ran long into the night.

What a Wreck

The kitchen was super clean and I just saw a recipie for cherry vanilla cupcakes and frosting today so I thought I would try my hand at making a cake from scratch. Up until now I'd only ever made cakes from packages and used frosting from the can (or whatever you want to call the plastic thing that frosting comes in) so this seemed like as good a time as any to try to bake a cake from scratch. I alreadz planned to bring my nice fluffy cake to work tomorrow and share with my colleagues. Well, as you may have guessed it didn't turn out as I was expecting...or really anything like I could ever imagine. I decided to make a chocolate cherry cake insead of vanilla because, really who does not like chocolate!? I also added a drop of red food coloring since the cherry juice made the frosting look a dirtyish pale pink but none of this mattered becasue the cake looks like this. That leaf looking thing is what I saw when I flipped the cake out of my spring form pan. I know the point of a spring form is so you don't have to flip but I wanted to see what the underside looked like. When I put in the toothpick to test if it was done I suspected the middle to be hallow. I never tried to make it hallow, all I wanted was light and fluffy. This is the most dense cake I have ever made. Oh and the frosting, don't bother. However, I will share my new found frosting knowledge that is is all butter and sugar, eww! So, I had a couple of problems and I think the main reason is that I don't own a mixer so this "cake" was completely mixed by hand with a whisk and aparently I suck at whisking. I should also admit that the frosting was looking more like a cake sauce than frosting at one point after I gave up and added lots of cherry juice so I threw in some flouer to get it back to that icing consisenct. Clearly my colleagues are not getting cake tomorrow but maybe I'll show them what they could have had haha. Betty Crocker is my new best friend. *Edit: I forgot to mention that I broke a bowl (one of my favorites) and spilled half a bag of sugar in the process of making this wreck.

Prague Pub Crawl

On our last night in Prague, we decided it was time to create our own pub crawl/beer tour. There are several of these geared at tourists which range from 3 hours (including dinner) to a full night of clubs. However, it was Sunday night, we already had a favorite restaurant where we intended to eat our last dinner (except it was closed so we didn't) and we knew which local beers we wanted to try so we went rogue on this one with incredible success. There were some ground rules, we could not drink the same beer twice, we each had a must have, we would drink no more than 6 half liters each and a photo must be taken of each beer. The night was about to start off with dinner at our favorite restaurant, Geronimo. This was our favorite restaurant because it was right next door to our hotel, already served us 2 delicious dinners and was super cheap. Besides, they had Patrick's choice beer on tap so we could knock that one out early. I should mention that the Czech Republic, like Germany, is a beer country. That being said, we were surprised to find that each bar/restaurant only had one or two beers on tap. Sometimes one restaurant would have the same beer offered at 2 or 3 different levels of potency (10, 11 or 12 with the price reflecting the increase in alcohol %). Moving forward, we found the Music Cafe where we decided to have dinner and our first beer of the night. The appetizers and atmosphere were up to par (funky but not touristy) but neither of us were satisfied with out main dish. Gambrinus was on tap and we had out half liter but it was not our favorite, it was by no means a bad beer but it didn't leave a lasting impression but I would go back to this restaurant and have the schafkase appetizer with a non-local main dish, I can't handle those dumplings! We were off and looking for Budweiser since it managed to elude us all trip. I observed a sign earlier so we headed to what we thought was a pub. Upon entering, we were told they would close at 9p,. Unaware of the time due to a dead battery in my cell phone, I mentioned that we just wanted a beer and asked if we would have time for a Budvar (the local word for the brand). This is where everything unraveled. The woman who greeted us told me they only had one type of beer, Pilsner Urquell in bottles. Disappointed, we walked out and reread the menu posted outside. It appeared that what used to be a restaurant was now more of a cafe serving cake, ice cream and coffee but instead of removing the light up Budweiser sign, old menu and name of the former restaurant they simply added another (smaller and unlit) sign proclaiming Lamborghini Cafe - only Italians would find this acceptable! After taking the strassenbahn back and forth between the same two stops for 10 minutes, we found another bar very close to our hotel advertising AND serving Budweiser. From the outside this place looked impressive, large light up signs with multiple logos, a fresh coat of paint and a side street location reassuring us it is not a tourist destination. Don't judge a book by its cover. When we walked inside, this is what we saw. It looked like it may have been decorated by the owner of a Greek restaurant complete with pastel walls, random decoration, and blue carpet on the floors. There was also a sectional sofa in one corner and a DJ set up in the middle of it all complete with a keyboard and light setup. But the entire place was empty except for a handful of locals hanging out in a small side room who said something to us in Czech when we entered. I quickly ordered our 2 Budvars and took in the atmosphere...
I'll leave you in a bit of suspense as you will never guess what was about to happen. We were so surprised, we broke one of our own rules and had 2 of the same beers in the same location.

The Grinch Stole Christmas

...and Patrick ate Easter. While we are on the topic of food, I need to put this out there. At a recent business dinner, Patrick consumed the following; goose liver (the forced fed kind), what he describes as "some rabbit dish that tasted good" (I have no idea what was done to this poor bunny) and milk lamb (the lamb was killed before it weaned from its mother). He came home delighted with his dinner and excited to describe the ingredients, not at all disturbed until I freaked out a little. I think each course is on PETA's list of tourtured animals. I'm usually not one for animal rights but I'm also not one to eat odd animals, I stick to pig, turkey, cow and chicken. Next time Patrick talks aout how important it is to get free range eggs, I'll have to remind him of his milk lamb. ;)

Mmmmm...sushi

Twice in February Patrick and I made sushi and it was delicious. For Christmas, I bought him a book called "Easy Sushi" and it was easy and really delicious and fun. The first time we made sushi was on Valentine's day. For fillers we used, tuna, cuccumber and crab stick. We had enough sea weed "wrapping papers" left so we decided to do it again the following Saturday with avacodo and since the tuna was not avaliable that day, we substituted avacado and omlet. From an asthetics perspective, the first attempt looked nicer due to the colors and the tuna was amazing. These pictures are from attempt #2 because my camera was in the office the first time so you can notice the lack of color but the taste was not lacking. Look how nice our living room looks as a sushi shop, like the pillows belong on the rug...

Catching up

It's been quite some time since my last entry but I guess you shuld expect the irregular blogging by now. It's not that I haven't wanted towrite or that I didn't have anything to write, it's more that I didn't have the time but enough with excuses, I'm making time to mostly post some photos. At the begining of the month, the weekend after I returned from the US, I went skiing in Austria but more excidely, I saw the Alps from the ground for the first time. Here are a few views:

The snowman family Barbra and I built. (note: the neon colors are what highlighters look like when you use them on snow.)

This is the village in which we stayed.

The mountain we skiied on day 1 (that's the gondola you can see, the actual skiing portion is above the fog.

A view from the gondola.

Waiting for the ski bus -my helmet is on my head but looks like it's too high because of the hat, trust me Niki shook it to make sure I was safe!
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