Random Ramblings (aka let's play catch-up..)

...lots of news, good and bad. I've been a busy lady lately, sorry for the delay... But first, like the new blog format? The colors are annoyingly cute and it's sort of the NYC skyline but not really. Love it. Thanks to Michi for that. :)

Here's some pics of Michi and me baking nutella cupcakes:


Crazy about Nutella.




Michi looks like a nutella cupcake stalker here.

I've been making good use of my last month at the gym membership. I think I need to extend that for another 6 months. Jopp is a women-only gym, and while co-ed gyms certainly don't bother me, the facilities are great. Clean, chic, tons of fun classes, sauna/steam room/etc. (Come to think of it, I usually feel more comfortable with all boys, just like it used to be when i used to do ju-jitsu in Fair Lawn...The tomboy in me will never die.) It costs 74 euros a month, and with the exchange rate (~117 USD) it seems kind of steep. But then again, any gym in NYC would probably cost the same amount or more. Plus I don't really have a problem paying that price for the mental-physical benefits.

Living with Michi is so easy-- but the only hard part is the fact that he's a skinny tall guy with a salacious sweet tooth! I working on getting a harness around that dark horse that is my (semi lack of) self-discipline. It's so much fun cooking and baking together though, and we do it often. And one of the items on my "Things My Future Husband Will Do" list (which I created when I was circa 11 years old-- I know, ambitious, right?) was cook and clean with me. I originally thought Christian Slater might fit that bill (it was 1993..) but Michi has fulfilled that one since Day 1, so I'm pretty happy about that. He's very 50-50 with the house duties (I'm sure a small bit of that is because he knows I'll get pissed off if I realize I'm the only one doing the chore, but he insists that he likes doing things together, so I believe him.)

I must say though, I do have a lot more respect for my mom and all the house chores. How is it that there's always something in the sink to wash?! Ugh! My problem is that I always want to read, work on my lesson preparation, relax, play Wii, or update my blog, etc, but I always find some house cleaning to do! I can't seem to concentrate on anything else unless everything around me perfectly clean and organized. (I know, I'm a lil OCD...but damnit, I'm proud of it.) And seeing as we live in a relatively small studio apartment, it's one of that reasons why I don't really want to live in a big house. I would never stop freaking out about cleaning/washing/sweeping/scraping bits off the toaster oven/organizing the cabinets/aligning each dish towel at a 90° angle on the left-hand stool along the side kitchen partition. Ya know, stuff we all do, right? (Speaking of houses, Michi studies architecture-- he's graduating next August, yay!-- so he says that he'll be designing our future house. I'm sure he can already see me meddling with the plans left and right. Ugh, I'm such a control freak...)

Last week was Easter slash Michi's mom's Birthday. Michi baked farmer's bread for her and I baked a cake. I'm no baker, lemme tell you, and I was nervous as hell because his mom is the German version of Betty Crocker and I'm, uh, more like Julia Child let's just say. But I have a pretty good rapport with spice cakes, so I decided to make this one (minus the rum glaze for easier transport purposes.) I'm normally not a fan of Emeril for his main dishes but this recipe looked good. So I started baking up a storm and reached the last step in the recipe when a black cloud so silently creeped up behind me and clouded my mood (which, at the time, was bursting of rainbows.)

Recipe: In another large bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.
Me: Ok, no problem. I can do that. Just please don't ask me to fold them into the batter.
Recipe: Gradually add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, beating on high speed, until stiff.
Me: Ok.. ok... Oh god.. no folding, no folding, PLEASE NO FOLDING!!!
Recipe: Fold the egg whites into the batter.
Me: SON OF A BITCH!!!!! GODDDDD!!!!

A whirl of bad-angel-food-cake-recipes-gone-wrong just flooded back into my mind. Oh god, I never did learn how to fold egg whites correctly. Meanwhile, the stiff peaks of the egg whites are ticking like a time bomb. Must fold now. Eggs will deflate. Cake will die. Disapproval will follow. Dignity will flee. Must Fold Now! So I furiously googled a bunch of recipes and even videos on how to fold egg whites (sons of bitches!), did the deed, chucked the batter in the bundt in the oven, fell up against the kitchen wall knees bent, and wiped the cold sweat from my brow, traumatized. (Center to side is key, by the way.)

The result? A not overly sweet, just spicy-enough, near-perfect consistency cake-- it was a hit. *Pats self on back* :)

So, what else.. Job? Check. Bike? Check. Job 2? Check. Job 3? Check. Michi says that my bike is the Worst 50 Euros Ever Spent. Ever. And it probably is, but my defense is that bikes are expensive! A decent one costs around 200 euros, which I certainly don't have available at the moment. Whatever, I'll post a picture of it when my embarrassment weans. It's probably about 15 years old, weighs a hefty 7lbs, has taped-on front and back reflector lights, 3 gears (the 2nd and 3rd are so hard to bike with, even on flat land, that I always keep it on the 1st), the front wheel hits my feet when I make a turn, it crackles and pops with ever pedal-push, and all its paint is chipped off (but it's not rusting...yet!) My friends at TakeABike (if you ever come to Berlin, rent a bike here!) gave me a free new metal basket, so that's basically my pride and joy. Oh yea, and my bike has coaster breaks which actually takes a lot of getting used to (ie, not hand breaks but the ones where you push backward on the pedals to stop.) So on top of everything else, I feel like an 8-year-old. So far, I fell off my bike once, while stopped at a traffic light, on the way home from buying the damn thing. I hadn't quite figured out the gears yet (don't ask), and a huge gust of wind blew me over-- into a pile of crushed glass. Into a pile. of. crushed. glass. Who the HELL falls into a pile of crushed glass?!?! Ugh! I mean, it must have been from a recent car accident clean up that wasn't 100% cleaned up. Great, thanks. About 1 foot ahead or back I would have been safe but, alas, Murphy's Law bit me right the ass, once again. So I get my dumbass back up again and try to laugh it off and then start to feel a warm liquid running down my right leg. Great, I'm bleeding all over my pants, all the way home. Luckily they were just some deep scratches and nothing more. (Oh, and how is it that, no matter what direction I'm going, the wind is always going against me?)

I also crashed into a door, a traffic light pole, and the back of a BMW. In the same day.

Right, so jobs. I'm working as an English teacher (what else?) for three different language schools. All Business English. It sounds like a lot, but considering each class is about 1.5 hours, it's not even full time just yet, since I have three classes with one company, two with another and one with the third. Most of the classes require you to travel to the companies to teach at their office so it's sort of like being an English-teaching gypsy. On Friday, Michi and I went to the town hall to get me registered as a resident of Berlin and get a tax number (but I don't have to pay taxes unless I work here for more than a year.) And we also opened a bank account without depositing not one penny. (Is it even possible to do that in the States?) Oh, the wonders of frugal living...I feel sort of like Winona Ryder in Reality Bites. Did I mention that I don't get my first paycheck until the end of April? *grumble*

The only really bad news I have at the moments is that I'm on a waiting list to receive a full-ride Teaching Assistantship from University of Wisconsin-Madison. I know, I had to google a map of the USA to find Wisconsin. And I'm still having trouble pinpointing when I first glance on a map. All I know is that the Giants played the Packers there in January and it was a nut-freezing -23F. So yea, the TAship would mean that I would do my masters for free in exchange for teaching 2 classes a semester there. Cheap labor for them, free ride for me. How much better can it get? Right, so, yea, the good news would be that I've been officially accepted to do my Masters by what is probably the best--and toughest-- Italian department in the nation. My other option, if I don't choose to go there anyway, would be to attend Rutgers, where I'm actually on a leave of absence there right now even though I never started. Still a very good program, but the overachiever in me wants the best. (And why not, right?) So cross your fingers, legs, eyes, and toes for me, peeps, cuz in two weeks I'm gonna be either jumping off a balcony or jumping like Balki:

Happy Birthday Micha!

He turned 25 on March 7th (ya, we're about a year and 2 months apart) and, quoting him, he's way over the hill. So over the hill, in fact, that he wants to join the legendary ranks of Walt Disney in a cryogenically frozen state. Hehe.

We went back to his hometown, Mirow, for the weekend and celebrated with tons of cake and walks in the countryside. And whenever Michi wanted to do something, anything, during his birthday weekend he would state his intentions, wait a nanosecond for me to concur with his plan and add, with puppydog eyes, his head slightly tilted to the side, with a bit of childlike guilt/tantrum in his voice: "I wiiish...!!" It was really cute, actually. Oh yea, what did I get him? A waterproof ipod speaker case, a Fossil watch (he loves watches, and his last watch broke...I originally got him a watch similar to but nicer than this one, but we exchanged it for this one, (my boyfriend is an old soul, as his mother said to me the other night), and tickets to see Radiohead in Berlin in July.


At a German restaurant. Fish, meat, potatoes, cream sauce and schmalz. (Fish was good...Schmalz is deer fat that they smear on bread like we do with butter before the main meal. I had to control my gag reflex.)




3 homemade cakes! The typical poppyseed cake, a hazelnut-cherry-with-cream-on-top cake and another crazy good cake with god knows what lovely ingredients inside!


I made nutella cupcakes and this heart-shaped nutella cake, since my boyfriend is a chocoholic.. (I love nutella myself but can't say I'm big fan of chocolate in general. I really love white chocolate, but we all know that's not even considered real chocolate in the first place.)




Michi makes a wiiiish. :)

A return to civilization...

No offense Italy, but now I know why my parents only go there for vacation and only every few years now. Talk about a love-hate relationship! (I have another post that, in and through my eyes, perfectly describes the pendulous nature of a typical day in Italy, from elation to frustration and everything in between.

Well, I've been in Berlin for 2 weeks now, officially. Time to get writing a bit! It took me a while to get settled in, which even included a day trip back to Milan last Wednesday where I had to get up at 4:30am to catch a 7:45am flight from Schönefeld Airport (which I not-so-affectionately call Shittyfeld, due to a) its highly undesirable location, nearly an hour south of central Berlin and 2) it being crappily organized, which is saying a lot, since we are after all in Germany. Only the Swiss might know how to organize things better. Might. (But shh, make like I didn't even mention that!) and then I came back at 12 midnight. Went to bed at 3am and got up at 7:30 to make it to my intensive German course, which runs 4 days a week, 3 hours per day. (I love it!) Anyway, the weather here reminds me of London. No, not always raining but rather unpredictable. www.wetter.de ain't got nothing on real-time weather here. For example, this morning around 7:30 it was partly cloudy, nice mix of sun and clouds. Then at noon I saw 3 or 4 clouds (if that) and now (about 4pm) it's completely cloudy, no sun at all, and it's drizzling on and off. Very confusing and slightly obnoxious, if one may say that about nature. Layering your clothing is key, especially when you're traveling by bike, as I am. The BVG (public transportation company in Berlin, who control the subway, buses, and trams) have been on strike since last Monday (March 3rd) so there are only the S-Bahn (Strasse Bahn or Street Trains) which are basically just like the subway, but above ground, since the S-Bahn is controlled by Deutsche Bahn (DB is the German equivalent of Amtrak.) There were scares of DB also striking, leaving the city completely paralyzed (only about 30% of Berliners own cars), but luckily that hasn't happened. I told my mom about this the other day and we both laughed at the fact that I just came from a country that loooves to strike, and naturally they strike often (it's really sometimes a manifestation of their restlessness, because usually nothing gets accomplished when Italians strike), but their strikes last one day. Here in Berlin, the BVG hasn't striked in 10 years. So it's like they're making up for lost time. The strike apparently is "unbefristet" which means open-ended, until they meet an agreement with the labor union. They have announced that during Easter week (next week), they will be fully functioning again, but will again go on strike the day after Easter Sunday. I actually haven't heard that much complaining from the Germans, strangely enough.

But let's backtrack a bit, to the week before I left Italy....

Of course, to celebrate my farewell, I had to get a new haircut! (And I laugh at anyone who thought I could/would go more than 3 months with one style!)


The "autoscatto" revealed.




Rodney Dangerfield tribute.



I've been wanting to embrace the baby-bangs look for a while now and apparently the bob is back in. *shrugs* But I was carefully avoiding that, mostly because I was afraid that it might somehow trigger a tornado of insecure childhood memories from my first 16 years of life with bangs. It didn't, and I'm liking this whole blond Amelie look a whole lot, but nonetheless I'm really insecure for other reasons, which I'll get into later. I even got to go on a photoshoot for my hairdresser, which sounds like a lot of fun, but unfortunately, his makeup artist (and girlfriend) Laura made me up to look like a clown, with blue and green eyeshadow, only one coat of mascara on my stubbly, uncurled eyelashes, and dark, mauve-violet lipstick. Needless to say, I will not be posting pictures of me looking like a Romanian prostitute.

I also hosted a "Viva La Tua Vita" Farewell Party at my cosy lil place, with American, Italian, and German friends... and even an Australian! As you can see in the background in the hair pics above, I was in the midst of setting up for the festa. Incidentally, that's also when my computer died. Well, sort of. I had been having trouble with my ac adapter for a while, having to twist and turn it in intricate ways for the power to reach my laptop (since the battery has no juice left in it to last more than 5 minutes-- hey, it is from 2001-- I always have to rely on it being plugged in.) So as I was moving some furniture around for the party, I moved my computer to another corner of the apartment and whatever filaments inside the ac adapter were reaching my computer, weren't reaching it anymore, so my computer was as good as dead. Until I got another ac adapter from German Ebay. It's alive now (and still kicking!)

Anyway, here are some pics from the international buffet-style spaghettata. The word "buffet" naturally sort of scared everyone, but really, it was just to have some options to suit everyone's likings. So we had 3 different types of pasta with lots of different topping options: clams & roasted garlic, pesto, tomato sauce with eggplant and mozzarella (my personal favorite and oddly enough, also a dish which my mom usually makes me when I come home from some various adventure abroad) and of course, the obligatory grated cheese with a side of Michael Jackson's best hits:


Setting up...


Paige, Johanna (from Hamburg), Giovanni and myself getting the party started on my balcony.


Daniele baked a chocolate cake and brought delicious sparkly homemade dessert wine!


Jackie and me. She's an exchange student from Gold Coast, down unda.


No talking, mangia! Masa (from LA) and Paige (Montana.)


So that was the end of February. On February 27th I left Italy (for the first time, then going back last Wednesday to get the rest of my stuff, as previously mentioned) and I really haven't looked back. I did leave the internship early but with good reason. It wasn't what I originally signed up for in the first place (contract issues) so I didn't feel like I was curtailing and simply abandoning the job, (if I can even call it a job since the pay was understatingly measly.) The learning curve for me as a teacher and as a student (ie, perfecting my Italian) was really plateauing, and without living in a major city or having a car, it wasn't really possible to live a normal life there. Plus I figured, if I'm this close to my boyfriend, why not just spend a few months in Berlin with him, work as an English or Italian teacher, and get better at Deutsch before I have to leave in August, right? Seems logical to me. I was nervous about how the whole living together thing would go, but we're like bread and butter, perfect together. I'm still nervous since I'm still on the job prowl and my money is drying up quicker than [insert witty analogy here, plzkthx], but things will work out somehow, or so my boyfriend says (and I believe him.)

P.S. I joined a gym in Legnano in January and was obliged to enroll with a 3 month minimum, so I thought that I would basically have to eat the last month of my membership but found that the same company owns a sister gym in the center of Berlin and my membership applies there as well, yippee! (How's that for a run-on sentence?!)