this and that and topsy-turvy
I mostly try to eat healthy and organic food, but of course there are these times when you just need a 500ml bucket of Ben&Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk… okay, I have to admit I almost couldn’t breath after that haha
But I’m in Munich at my sister’s at the moment and she’s not a big cook – well actually, she doesn’t cook at all to be honest. :D so it’s the eat anything-you-can-make-of-the-stuff-left-in-the-fridge time. Or in other words: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! Yumm! :)
So quite a lot of stuff has happened over the last couple of weeks and I can’t really decide on what to write about first, so let’s get started…
Most exciting for me personally was definitely going to London again. I can’t really get enough of that city. I just can’t :) I had the luck to meet people from AMS Neve whilst getting some work experience at the Galaxy studios, so I’ve visited their guy in London and he was so nice to show me around all the big studios. OMG! Maybe that doesn’t sound very thrilling to most people, but to me it’s probably the most amazing thing to do in London haha. Yes, it is, definitely! Here the nice welcome you get at Air Studios :) gotta love it!
Most of the studios that I am interested in are almost lined up one to another in Soho which is also one of my favourite parts of the city and makes this like the best combo ever haha But seriously, there is something about the colours and the weird contrasts that makes it just immensely appealing to me…
Yes!! The day has finally come, I’m going to London tomorrow (still gotta pack ahem…) I’ve been trying to eat all my left-overs in the last couple of days and it went quite well this time, I think the only thing left in my fridge is marmelade…
so today’s lunch: Batavia/Rucola salad with mixed veggies, sunflower and pumkin seeds.
Breakfast: Crunchy muesli with yoghurt, a fig and maple syrup.
Yesterday I went and donated blood plasma for the first time. I was a little scared cause everybody had told me that they use huge needles and that I might get a haematoma. Also I already get a bit light headed when they draw just a little bit of my blood for testing. And no, it’s not cause I can’t see blood. :)
I had already been at the ward a month ago, but there is like a huge list of things that make you get excluded from donating blood. For example having been to Africa in the last 6 month. Oops. So I had to wait until enough time had passed and come back then. It’s not as simple as I had imagined… But now after I’d been tested for I think probably EVERYthing I was finally allowed to donate. And it wasn’t bad at all. The people were very experienced, (not the poke-your-arm-five-times-until-they-find-the-vein type), really friendly and obliging and I got some chocolate and the little heart you can see on the picture. It was also very interesting to see the machines filtering the plasma from the blood. And I don’t know why exactly, but just a nice, kinda different experience.
Oh and yes, the needles are a bit big ;)
Okay, so a guy whom I got to know recently is a huge fan of the black forest cake – ‘Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte’ in german. As this is way too hard to remember for someone who doesn’t speak german, he just calls it SWKT (sounds good somehow, doesn’t it? – very official, like serious business, exactly as it should be with cakes ;) Anyway, he was kinda doubting that I could really make one and therefore being the mean person I am, I sent him a picture to show that I do. Didn’t really want to have a huge gateau in my fridge though, so I just made a tiny version but I think it turned out quite nicely. :)
Vienna is a bit like a huge village, within the outer circle (Gürtel) you can get everywhere within 20 to 30 minutes. By bike that is. I still cannot really understand why anyone would want to use the subway here. It’s dirty, smelly and people always look like someone just died. A friend of mine once said: “If you want to continue liking Vienna don’t use the subway” Also in my case it would take me half an hour to get to university with public transportation, whereas by bike (even if I drive pretty slow) I’m there in 10-15 minutes.
Taking the tram on the other hand is really nice. You can see everything that’s going on on the streets and some of the wagons are quite old and have a nice retro feeling about them. So it’s a huge difference to the subway. Tram – good. Subway – bad. ;)
What I understand even less than taking the subway though is using a car in Vienna. There are absolutely no parking slots available and even if you find one -the tickets are like really expensive and also there is always sooo much traffic. Really love passing the standing cars on my bike :) And don’t get me wrong, I do like car rides, especially long ones during the night when it’s raining… that’s just so cozy! But here in Vienna I think it’s pretty much just laziness. And a waste of time actually. I don’t get it. Help me out? What do you think? Or how is it in your city?
Omg the sun is out! It so makes my day when I wake up and see the the sunbeams on the other side of the street :) and after this unbelievably rainy month in Belgium I have a huge need of sunlight… So anyway, I took my time to have breakfast and read and so on… today’s recipe: blueberries with yoghurt and roasted cereal – yummy!!!
So I really like to cook :) and I just got a new cookbook which I’m already in love with. It’s Donna Hay’s “No time to cook” and the recipes are pretty simple but none the less delicious. At least that’s what I think after flipping through it and wanting to try all of them instantly. I’m thinking of trying out the recipes and at the same time practicing on stills photography – food photography that is :)
My first try this morning for breakfast: Omelette with cottage cheese, tomatoes and basil leaves
Climbing up stairs to get into an airplane… couldn’t really remember the last time I had to do that :D felt a little retro… so let’s do polaroids :) no, actually I just had gotten the hipstamatic app and wanted to try it out
So in Brussels I kinda had to go and see the Atomium, right? I mean I’m not really into doing touristy stuff, but some things you just have to see I guess… And it is pretty cool I gotta say
Next I went to Bruges with Emilia, a girl from Paraguay, whom I had met at the hostel. I hadn’t seen the movie or heard anything about the place before, but everyone told me it’s really beautiful.
We met Lies there who showed us around and took us to Vama Veche. A cute little festival with two music stages, a bar and a few food stands. On one night they also showed a series of horror short films which weren’t really frightening at all but all the more fun
Oh and they do have good beer in Belgium. Don’t mean the Stella shown in the pic, but the trappistes beers. Especially the brown ones. Just love them. My favourites would probably be Chimay and Leffe. The Roqueforte (no not the cheese) was also very good. Duval and Oval on the other hand taste quite disgusting in my opinion…
Then I started my internship at the Galaxy Studios…
which besides patching, soldering, falling in love with the Steinway D etc also meant having my own little private cinema… sweet
can you guess the movie? :)
Oh and well yeah it rained every day for the rest of August. Geez-us!!
So catching these sun beams was pretty much pure luck
And just when I had gotten used to hearing nothing but mosquitos and chicken during the night, I had to leave. And of course it was the first sunny day since I arrived :)
Jules - Lazy Days 