27 October 2005

i love vienna!

i made some really ambitious plans to visit vienna and budapest in the same weekend -- one action-packed day in each. little did i know that vienna would become my answer to that previously unanswerable question: what's been your favorite city so far?

it was a bunch of little things. it's very clean like zurich, but has more to do. i loved the first cafe i ended up in, even if i decided after two tries that i'm not a sachertorte fan. huge grand buildings, in good condition and with solid tourist infrastructure. i lucked out by being there on the one night a year the museums stay open until 1 am. there was a traveling exhibit from the orsay including a lot of the works that were missing when we were in paris. i kept thinking, "I FOUND THEM!!!" i was so excited to be able to see them! $2.50 standing room opera tickets appealed to my frugal side, even if i decided after two shows that i'm only a shallow opera fan (frivolously amusing plots only, please). i heard (but did not see) the choir boys sing mass. and i got a dose of history at a fantastic exhibit on austria since world war i. it made me want to bust out the european history books again. i just loved it!

if you haven't figured it out yet, i didn't make it to budapest. ah well, next time! (and i'll have to take a train that doesn't go through vienna.)

18 October 2005

settled in, or not

when s&j visited me, as soon as they got to my apartment they marched into my kitchen and turned my refrigerator on. apparently, they thought it was ridiculous that i was living sans fridge, but i thought it was ridiculous that they were turning it on when there was nothing to put in it except chocolate. over the next couple weeks, though, with the parents visiting and a couple weekends spent in zurich, i actually acquired things like leftovers and milk. it was almost like i really lived there!

then the visitors all left and i was back to my old ways of eating at work every weekday and leaving town every weekend. (yes yes i'm still behind on this blog.) the result? yesterday i dumped out congealed milk and an unspeakable something from tupperware. back to just chocolate in there keeping cool.

what happened?

suddenly, the leaves are changing and i've busted out my scarves. autumn is here, and my assignment in zurich is more than half over! unbelievable!

[photo credit: sis]

13 October 2005

roman find

i reunited with the fam and we spent a quick two days in rome. the sights were of course magnificent, but the real high point was discovering an amazing new dessert: tartufo! it's a huge blob of chocolate gelato mixed with chocolate chips/shavings and other chocolatey goodness. i guess i don't know exactly what it was, except that it was delicious! it was also, shall we say, mood enhancing. i kept poor tired s up all night engaging in various ridiculous activities. such as wiggling.

06 October 2005

trompe l'oeil

this picture is funny because strange perspective effects make me look even smaller than i really am compared to my (mostly) tall, white, male co-workers. hee hee. we went hiking for an offsite, conveniently on my one day back at work between vacations. (though i paid for it by staying up all night working... in case those of you who think it's all just hiking and traveling for me were wondering...)

magic mountain

mom and dad joined me and s in europe, and we headed off to zermatt, city of the matterhorn. we spent one whole day on trains following the "glacier express," taking the long scenic route to zermatt. (but we all dozed off during one of the prettiest stretches.) for dinner, i finally tried my first cheese fondue. it was terrible! then we spent a day worshipping the mountain. disneyland made a good copy - it looks just like the matterhorn i grew up with.

04 October 2005

yellow dog

s has asked: where the mongolians? we happened to be in san sebastian during their film festival, so we popped in to watch a movie about a nomadic mongolian family, die hoehle des gelben hundes (the cave of the yellow dog). not bad at all. the most striking thing was that mongolians look like koreans! and similar language elements too. i never knew.

02 October 2005

eating in españa

it's obvious to anyone who knows me that anything called "chocolate con churros" is a dish i'm sure to go out of my way to try. but oh no! the churros were decidedly not delicious (to my disneyland-trained taste buds), and they gave me so much chocolate that i figured i should just drink up the remainder after the greasy sticks were finished... (and s hinted that she'd seen somebody else doing this) we were in a hurry so i just poured it down my throat. plus, i don't think it was really a single serving size but s didn't help me out much. i went into such sugar/grease shock that i was totally knocked out for the entire scenic train ride to bilbao, and couldn't eat anything sweet the rest of the day!

during the whole trip, dinner was usually pintxo (basque version of tapas) hopping, which was always great fun even if i couldn't actually eat much. little dishes are put out on the counter and you just eat what you want and figure out the bill later. the cheese sandwich (one of my staples in switzerland) of spain has turned out to be tortilla con patatas -- a fat omelette filled with fried potates. i love breakfast eggs and potatoes, and here they are rolled up in one dish, often in a baguette as a sandwich. i think i ate this every day. it's a good thing i brought vitamins.