in Milano

miei cari, I am in Milano and managed to have access with the super crappy old computer that belongs to my mum. These last couple of days have been nice; I have already bought all the presents so won't need to go crazy in the town. Yesterday I went to check out the design museum with Giorgia, it is OK, een though the 70's exhibition was better. The night before I managed to get one dinner out of Andrea (so he still owes me only 3) and I also got a really nice bottle of wine. Then we went to a club in the middle of nowhere with Giorgia. Alina is nowhere to be found, I am getting worried. I also bought a "how to learn Spanish book" and this morning I figured out that they have 3 different conjuntives, which sort of freaked me out. At the end I don't know whether anyone actually uses all these different forms, hopefully not. So now I will go back to my book, study a bit, eat something and then perhaps go out and go to some other museum. All in all, I am slowly getting adjusted to not doing anything and, man, it feels soooooooooo good.
And yes, we still need to make a lake out of switrzerland.

Merry Xmas!!!

miei cari, I will be travelling today to Italy. Since I am not sure I will have internet connection, I would like to wish all of you Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo (guess what it means??)
A kiss to all of you and see you next year

I need some holidays

miei cari, I am in serious need for some holidays. These last weeks have been kind of rushed. Now it's Saturday early in the morning and I have to go help with a move. Yesterday I had the xmas party with the volleyball team; since noone is not German (apart from me) it becomes kind of tiring after the first 1 hour, always having to pay attention to understand what they are talking about. Next week eventually I will leave, go home, sleep a lot, read a lot, see friends and relax a little bit. I am loooooooking forward to it.

sundayyyy morninggg

well, OK, it's nearly 9 at night, but I wanted to pretend that I have some culture and put a title of a song with sunday in the title and could come up only with the velvet underground - no, sunday bloody sunday was not a choice... -
Anyway, this weekend has been entertaining. On Friday we had the xmas event of the company; obviously, being an American company, you cannot mention Xmas because you might offend whatever sensibilities, so it was called "Holiday event". Perhaps next year I can ask them to have another event before I get holidays, I don't see why my private, very un-religious holidays should be discriminated and go without a company event. The mysteries of political correctness. Anyway, the party was OK, it was in Offenbach in a theatre. The food was pretty good. The music sort of, but we danced anyway. And I can still remember everything so hopefully I didn't manage to make a complete fool of myself. Then yesterday I woke up, had my triple coffee, felt like a piece of crap, went around in the streets close to the railway station (no, they are not nice) because I wanted to find something Indian to put on my Xmas tree. Background: I bought my Xmas tree 3 years ago and then I figured that 1) I live on the 4th floor and I am too lazy to take the tree up and down to and from the cellar every year 2) I have no space in the cellar to store the Xmas tree - so, basically my Xmas tree stays in my flat the whole year, and every now and then changes outfit. So every year I make a Xmas dinner for my friends and, since I am very political correct, I call it the Xmas tree birthday party, in which Herr Der Baum (which is the German for Mr The Tree) shows a new outfit and people have to guess what the year's theme is. End of the background. This year I wanted to make the Herr Der Indische-Baum, but I went to all the Indian shops in Frankfurt and couldn't find anything, not even a little Ganesh to put on top. So I bought all sort of spices and then I was feeling all this wine from the night before going up and down and decided to have some Indian food, which helped a lot. Then I had to rush to go to the supermarket to buy food for Herr Der Baum birthday party. I wanted to make this beef stew with beer and I had asked where I can get some proper meat; so I diligently go up to this mall outside Frankfurt, spend half an hour to park, another half an hour in a queue and get this meat which was supposed to be good. Well, I arrive a home, start cooking it and it becomes a piece of concrete. Shit. The other stuff was good though, made some pizza dough rolls with emmenthal and olives, some bread with caramelized onions and duck's breast and the usual goat cheese. Then unfortunately we had the bad idea of trying to use the chocolate fountain that Eugenio brought and ended up having these big blobs of chocolate on the table. Not nice, but the pictures are entertaining:-) So today I stayed at home, cleaned the mess, relaxed a bit and then was ready to go to Eugenio and Maike's house to have some Mexican food when I realized that I had to finish something for work so ditched them, did my homework, 2 washing machines and now I write here, then have a yoghurt and go to bed that next week is going to be another disaster. Perhaps I should start calling this blog "dear diary". Sorry...
So, what ALL of you were waiting for: who won the "What will Her Der Baum wear this year?" context? The winner is Gaborno, who guessed right about the India stuff - doesn't matter that I couldn't find anything Indian to put on top, he still wins. And what does he win? Nothing, so he learns about not coming to my place for New Year's eve, and now one by one people are saying that they are not sure and blablabla.
And what was Herr Der Baum wearing this year? Since I couldn't find anything Indian, I figured that this year 4 of my friends married so I decided to make it Herr Der Hochzeit-Baum (Mr The Wedding-Tree). It took me 1 hour to find black balls and then people thought that it is the mourning Baum, so I assume I will change it soon. The worst thing is that I have started thinking that it represents my feelings lately, which probably means I badly need a holiday - or a drastic change - or both.

back home

miei cari, I am eventually at home in Frankfurt after 1 week in Belgium. Today we woke up early, like at 1:30, and Preeti and Sameer decided to treat me with some breakfast, which, surprise, was really good. After that we chatted a bit and then I decided to start driving back home. It has been raining all the way from Antwerp to Frankfurt, plus up to Koblenz there was this bloody wind - I had to get fuel for Jean Jacques, I stop at the station and the wind nearly takes away the door, on top of showering me while I was filling up Jean Jacques, I was nearly getting frogs in the car (since it's French anyway:-) ) - Again, Preeti and Sameer were wonderful hosts, and our Preeti is a great cook. Which means that I will gorge myself of great Indian food when I move there. Coooooolllll!!!!

Last week I read another book from Chuck Palahniuk, "Choke". Again, very nice. How can you stop reading a book if it starts with

If you're going to read this, don't bother

I'm getting old... so I'd better write before I forget

miei cari, this last week I was in Brussels and then I went to visit our Preeti in Antwerpen. Brussels was really nice so I think I will give it a serious thought (and I think I wil buy a flat there anyway, since it is really cheap). And now I am in Antwerpen, in Preeti and Sameer's flat. Their flat is extremely nice, in a nice part of town, big, new and with a great kitchen (I asked Preeti if I can move there, it is so big that I assume a sleeping bag will fit easily). Since I am a moronic idiot, I came here without anything, but now I know what to bring next time I come - and it's going to be soon. Preeti has treated me with some really nice Indian food. Yesterday we had salmon curry, and tonight an amazingly good chicken biryani. And since I am getting old, I'd better write down what was inside so that I don't forget it. First, you take away all the fat from the chicken breasts, if they have some. Then you put a lot of yoghurt, salt, turmeric (the super yellow thing that apparently will heal your wounds if you get cut), chilli, garam masala and ginger/garlic paste. Put in the fridge for more than 8 hours. The next day you cut a shitload of onions in slices (until you start crying like a small fontana di Trevi), put some oil in a pan and gently fry them. Once they are sort of collapsed, put some salt (not before!!!! Preeti told me) and then you put chilli, turmeric and then 4-5 tomatoes in dices. Once it becomes a sauce, which basically means that your muscles will hurt for 1 week because of stirring for 1 hour, you throw the chicken inside, then you put some ginger/garlic paste and some spices for chicken biryani (which I am told you can find in every decent Indian shop, so hopefuly I can find them also in Frankfurt). Once the chicken is cooked, you put some half cooked rice on top, without mixing, you turn off the heat, cover and wait some time so that the steam finishes cooking the rice. And just before you serve it a little bit of fresh coriander on top. I have just read the stuff to Preeti and she told that I got it right, which means that I am going to make it soon. In general, what she told me is that with Indian cooking you can put a lot of stuff, but if you put salt, turmeric and chilli you will never go wrong. Roger. Today we also went around in Antwerpen, the town is really nice, we went walking around, bought a lot of chocolate, visited Rubens' house and went inside some sort of gallery which lookeed really great, with golden things on the ceiling, a really cool bar and a bookstore where I bought a guide of Belgium. And there are a lot of cool design shops.
Tonight Jack decided to have his birthday party despite me telling him, waaaaaaaaay before, that I was coming here. I am offended. So I assume he will have to fix my wireless connection before I can forgive him:-)