26.11.05

I love panini! it was a delicous mini-baguette with mozzarella and tomatoes, topped with pesto, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, heated in the oven to perfection.... I really talk too much about food.

Also made some brussel sprouts. it's one of my family's traditional Thanksgiving foods, and I missed it this year, sadly. but now i have my own batch!

24.11.05

dang it! I just wrote a nice long post about the post office, my really great salad I'm having at the moment for lunch, and walnuts. Now Blogger deleted it. I'm angry.
Sometimes it hits me how delightfully old-fashioned German can sound. If you were to directly translate some of the phrases, they come out quite British-sounding, and very charming. For example, the following which I recently wrote in a letter:

"Ich freue mich auf den Besuch von meiner Tante und hoffe sehr, dass mein Vater und meine Schwester ihre Reisepaesse bald besorgen und mich auch besuchen."

When I read this, my translation is something like "I'm excited that my aunt is coming to visit and I really hope that my dad and my sister get their passports soon and visit me too." But run through the automated-translation-gamut, it comes out sounding like this:*

"I look forward to the attendance of my aunt and hope very much that my father and my sister procure their passports soon and also visit me."

Isn't that nifty? So when I speak German, I'm speaking British, the only differences being 1. that I know how to do it and 2. it's in German.

Well, today it looks like I'll take my turn hasseling with the German post office to get them to allow me to send Christmas presents home for the low, low price of 32 Euro (does that make any sense?). Then I'll probably go to my cell phone company, 02, and yell at them for giving me a defective phone that shuts itself off every 5 minutes, and demand a replacement. (That sounds so much more successful and assertive on this blog than it will really be in real life.) Last plan is to go to the gym, and then find somewhere where I can dance tonight - for some reason I've been hit with a big wave of Tanzlust. Then tomorrow I'll be going on a shopping trip to Reutlingen with some other Amis to look for winter Strumpfhose (long underwear). I didn't think they'd be necessary but they really are - it's ridiculously cold here, and it's only November!

Til then, lieblings - tchau!

*The translation had a little help from me in the grammatics department. Didn't change the words, though.

21.11.05

There seem to be no good avocados in Germany. While this should theoretically save me money over the course of the year, I am still bitter about spending up to 10 euros on avocados, both at the fresh markets and the supermarkets, that have not once proven to be any good. At least I won't waste another cent on them here in Europe.

On the flip side, however, they have very tasty pomegranates here! Each one takes, of course, about 15 minutes to shell, and cost about 2 Euros each. But - they are so worth it.

I solemnly pledge to stop blogging about inconsequential and irrelevant things that no one wants to read about.

20.11.05

did I mention I saw the 4th Harry Potter in Stuttgart on Thursday? It was awesome. Harry got pretty hot in these last couple of years... I joined the facebook group that declares the sentiment.

I'm bored.. I have stuff to do but I don't want to do it. At least i made it to the gym yesterday. I'll probably go back tomorrow before class at 2.

Kay, I guess I'd better read for class.