Possibly Forever After All

I found my diamond! Reto called the jewellery shop people and they said there was nothing they would do for me (apart from replace the stone at my expense), so I decided the time had come to actually look for the original. A quick minute or so of sweeping found it. It was on the floor under our toilet. I should have tried that days ago, but the potential for not finding it was a bit discouraging.

Hurray for my reputation as the finder of things remaining unsullied (incidentally, I also found the lost beanie in that post). And hurray for my marriage not falling apart (symbolically or otherwise)!

The Calm Before The Snow

What delightful weather we've been having lately, especially on the weekends! Last Saturday we went on an excursion to look at the Eiger, and had a lovely time forcing our extremely urban pram to cope with dirt roads (!), puddles (!!) and patches of snow (oh, the horror!). We were also accosted by tourists (I'm kinda loath to say they were Japanese, because it seems like such a cliche, but they were so there you go) who were so swept away by No's cuteness that they insisted on taking her photo a lot, which was hilarious and weird and lovely.

(The pram endures the outdoors)

Oh, and we ate fantastic Swiss mountainy food (lots of potato and meat and things. We resisted the call of dessert, but really, you should have seen the meringue on offer. It was topped with what was described in the menu as "viel schlagrahm" (=lots of whipped cream. The menu was mostly translated into english as well, but the english translation for this bit left off the "lots". Maybe tourists in Switzerland will think that that is the standard amount of whipped cream on any dessert. Hmm), and they weren't kidding. The finished product was easily the size of my head, and every time one was brought out by a waiter, everyone turned and stared and giggled a bit. Which was nice.

And then this Saturday we wasted the nice morning by doing a bit of Christmas reconnaissance in Bern (we've decided to put up christmas decorations for the first time ever, which means we have to buy some christmas decorations. R had very firm and surprisingly conservative ideas about what is and isn't acceptable in a christmas decoration, but I won him over in the end and now it seems I am going to have to talk him out of buying all the revolting jokey cat head/psycho squirrel/doughnut/ostrich-on-a-tropical-holiday type baubles that we saw. For crying out loud. He still refuses to consider tinsel, though. And I think he secretly wants real live candles with flame to put on the tree, but refuses to take responsibility if our house burns down) and then went to Thun and had a delightful time in the afternoon sun with the mountains and the lake and the apple strudel. How much longer can this last?

(Dwindling afternoon sun near Thun)

Getting Things Done

Jet lag makes us efficient.

Which isn't actually true at all, but it does mean that we had woken up, lounged around in bed, had a leisurely breakfast, called my parents, been indecisive about what to do today, done some googling and made a decision, organised ourselves, left the house and caught a bus by 8am (that was after waking up at 4am, so really it took us ages). We went to a thermal pool in Charmey, a nearby-ish town, and it was great. We arrived in time to have a coffee and a croissant (normally I loathe croissants and only eat them if I'm starving but this one was actually ... edible. If not slightly enjoyable) before the pool even opened and still be practically the first ones there. Unusually, the entry price (which was relatively cheap) included all the novelty pools (by which I mean saunas in various styles and temperatures, and a coldcoldcold pool and a foot bath too, I think, none of which I used because apparently these things are verboten during pregnancy. Well, not the foot bath but the rest of it). The main pools (one indoor, one outdoor) had a few of the bubbly/jetty things that are always fun at a thermal pool place, but not so many that the whole thing would be a magnet for little kids who like to frolic mindlessly and kick you as they don't watch where they're going. There were pretty mountains around to look at. The walls and floors were all covered in really nice green mosaic-y tiles. On the down side, we caught a very inconvenient bus to get home again and spent an hour and a half following some tortuous route through the smaller towns of canton Fribourg, but I guess you can't win them all.

And then we had a fondue as a very early dinner, and now I'm wondering how early I can possibly go to bed. I suppose I should try to stay awake and get rid of the jet lag, but bed seems very enticing.

Announcement

I've lost so much enthusiasm for this blog that I can't even rustle up the ability to announce this in an interesting way, so, to put it simply...

I'm pregnant! Quite a lot, actually (almost 5 months) but even if you saw me every day you probably still wouldn't know unless I'd told you (or if you came over to our house and saw the assorted books about pregnancy and ultrasound pictures lying around). I don't look pregnant, I didn't spend my days vomiting sadly into the toilet, and apart from the multivitamins and VAST numbers of iron tablets I'm taking every day (actually only 2, but there's a lot of iron in them), everything's pretty much business as usual. Except that I have a tiny baby girl living in my insides. Due in April. So that's nice.

Festy Round-Up

I've spent the last week hard at work going to the Zurich Film Festival every day and watching a lot of movies. Nineteen of them, to be precise, and I'm surprisingly glad it's all over now. High points, low points and points of note include:

My undoubted favourite movie of the fest was Sergio, a documentary about the all-round impressive (unless you were his wife) UN dude who was killed in Iraq in 2003. Apparently the rest of the festy-goers didn't agree with me, because it didn't win the audience prize for a documentary, but had I been the only voter it definitely would have. Someone in my screening even gave it a standing ovation, so maybe he would have been allowed to vote too.

Feature-film wise, my favourite was a really grim Romanian/English movie called Katalin Varga which also didn't win the audience prize, but had far more charm than the really grim Russian flick that did.

I patriotically went and saw the only Australian movie on offer, Samson and Delilah, and it was also pretty grim. And dialogue-lite. And sort of slow moving, at least for the first half, but definitely worth it in the end. Plus I think we all took away a clear message from it - sniffing petrol is bad. In case you didn't already know.

The festy people really need to work on their ticketing skillz. Buying my festypass involved being sent to the wrong place twice, having gone to the right place in the first place and been told authoritatively that I was in the wrong place. I eventually got hold of my festival pass (which let me see all the films at the festival without having to pay more for anything), but then I still had to get individual tickets for the films I wanted to see, and I was never allowed to get a ticket for anything more than a day in advance. Which meant that every day I had to queue up and get tickets, and really, of the 7 times I did that, only once or twice did I manage to be given the right tickets without any drama. People gave me tickets to screenings on the wrong day, they told me it was impossible to reserve tickets for that movie (which was never true!), they told me that my pass only let me see one movie a day, they gave me ticket reservations instead of actual tickets (which meant I had to queue up again and get the actual tickets later). None of it was a real problem, but it was all very annoying.

All the movies (bar one) had english subtitles. Oh, and maybe another one which was partially in english and partially in russian and had french and german subtitles the whole way through. That is great, in my english-speaking opinion. It was also a very pleasant surprise when we stumbled upon the Lisbon film fest in May this year and found that everything had english subtitles there too.

I hate reserved seating and the Swiss mania for sitting in your reserved seat. And also the enthusiasm of the ticket sellers for allocating you a seat in the middle of everyone else (behind/in front of/next to people, even when 90% of the theatre is empty). Which meant I rarely sat in my allocated seat and lived in fear of someone coming and telling me to go away. Which they never did.

Some people are nuts. Reto came with me to one of the films I saw, a reasonably full screening of somethingorother, and our seats weren't next to each other because I hadn't bought the two tickets at the same time. There was a woman sitting between us. Reto asked her if she wouldn't mind swapping seats with him, and she said "okay, since they're only showing a DVD [as opposed to reels, I suppose] I guess it doesn't matter if I'm not exactly in the middle", and then she looked sort of grim-faced, as though it really did matter. Quite a bit.

Those chocolates that Globus gives you with your coffee are great. And I have a new-found respect for Brezelkönig as a meal-substitute, although if you buy their pretzels at 11pm as you're rushing for the last train home, they tend to be kind of old and dry and blergh (but still better than nothing).

Oh, and all that Roman Polanski bizzo - whatever. I find it sort of odd that so many people went so bonkers about saying how he deserves his freedom and he has paid his debt to society because .. well, look how good his movies have been. Whatever high profile guests the fest invites next year might be well-advised to look into any outstanding international warrants against them before booking their flights, though.

Impressing The Relatives

My inexplicable french relative (which is to say, I don't know how to describe my relation to her. She's actually Reto's relative, probably my second cousin once removed or something, although I'm not Victorian enough to know what that actually means) and her two grandchildren turned up at our place fairly unexpectedly yesterday, and so our plans for going to see Los Abrazos Rotos at the completely excellent local outdoor cinema were thwarted for the sake of being tourist guides and having a nice dinner up the road (the fact that there are at least 4 more movies we want to see at the openair cinema in the next few weeks is a bit of a balm.).

Last time I met my inexplicable relative and her grandchildren (which was also the first time I met them, as well as being before I was related to them. R and I weren't even engaged then! Aah, the olden days) was a few years ago in France, at which time my ability to speak french was minimal to the point of entirely absent. We spent our time smiling well-meaningly and forcing Reto to be the interpreter. This time, however, I wowed everyone with my ability to be an adult and carry on a sensible conversation. It's remarkable how heartwarming it can be to have a 9-year-old compliment you on your impressive language skillz (although then his slightly older sister had to tell me what the word for a dam wall is, which detracted a bit from my sense of pride. As did the fact that the 9 year old was almost impossible to understand because he speaks soveryveryfast).

Lisbon!

Well, in spite of my earnestly good intentions to write a nice post about Lisbon and how super it was (and it was!), I'm going to possibly thwart myself a bit, or possibly save myself from being a complete slacker, by giving y'all a bit of an edited highlights list now. In no particular order:

The sun! Not that the weather hasn't been quite nice here lately, but getting back yesterday and finding it all cold and rainy and grim (and even snowing in places! Not our places fortunately, but it has been &^%^$#$ing cold) was depressing, to say the least.

Gum trees! And bottle brushes (in flower)! Normally the only place you ever see Australian flora is in Australia (although apparently there are tons of gum trees in Israel, and I saw some in Monaco and the south of France last year) so this was pleasantly nostalgia-inducing. I like gum trees.

The architecture, and particularly all the pretty tiles on the walls of buildings. Also, the lovely cobbled streets, decoratively and attractively cobbled, not boring run-of-the mill cobbling. Although those streets were slippery at the best of times; I hate to imagine how they'd be in the rain. The tiles were very lovely though, and I have any number of photos of them that I could (and possibly will) share with you.

The portugese tarts. Although funnily enough, I only ate about 2 of them the whole time, but it was nice to know they were there. And as it turns out they're delicious sprinkled with a bit of cinnamon.

The ease of public transport use. The metro is fab. I've never liked buses much, but who needs them when you have a well-running train system?

The IndieLisboa film fest, which just happened to start the day after we arrived! We ended up seeing (choosing based on language, because the blurb we found had nothing about what the films were about, just when they were on and where they came from) an American doco called Tyson, which we assumed would either be about Mike Tyson or the evil chicken-growing corporation Tyson (disappointingly the former, but it was still really interesting), a programme of short films (two from english-speaking nations, one Finnish and two Dutch. We were thinking that we might have some chance with Dutch (or at least Reto would) because it sounds kinda german-ish, but happily they were all either in english, without dialogue or subtitled into english (and portugese, obviously)! The hardest one to understand was the New Zealandish one!) and a French flick called Avant que j'oublie, which we were all prepared to watch in french but it was subbied into english too! And each ticket only cost 3 euros 50! Cheap!

The beach! We paddled in it and it was freezing.

The shopping! We hardly did any of it, but I managed to rustle up a few tshirts and they were so cheap. Possibly because they're from sweatshops or something, but I won't think about that. Although I should.

The food! For some reason we ate Tibetan food more than anything else, and it was lovely. And as it turns out Portugese wine tastes kinda Australian.

The fact that everything was so easy. Everyone spoke english or french, the public transport was great, it was easy to find our way around and nothing was a drama.

And that's the list. At least as far as I can remember it now. If I'd been more organised I would have gone for a better ending.

tiles!

A Nice Day

I had such a nice day today. Reto and I went to Zurich for a spot of loafing and a change of scenery. It was sunny and delightful. We went to a design museum and saw a bunch of wacky designy things, then had a rather lovely lunch and coffee in the park outside. We did some very low-maintenance shopping (which I got fed up with after about 5 minutes, which is just what I always anticipated and it saved me from having to go to the trouble of actually trying on any boring clothes that I wasn't going to like anyway). We loafed for ages in a bookshop (which culminated in me buying a book on french grammar, not so charming but nice to have). We had a Mövenpick icecream (pear for me, which was delightful; raspberry/strawberry for Reto, which confirmed the superiority of my choice). We loafed for ages at the Chinese gardens down by the lake (oh the serenity, if you don't count all the kiddies running around playing hide and seek, nor the dead carp I saw in the pond) and read about life in a Thai prison (not so good). We went out for dinner at Hiltl (veggo restaurant that everyone's a big fan of) with our Zurich-dwelling Australian pal Sarah. Which was delightful not only for those reasons, but also because our waiter got the impression that Reto and I were both proper german-speakers (in spite of me not saying a word in german) and that Sarah wasn't, and he kept bringing her english menus and speaking english to her and speaking german to the rest of us. Which was funny, because my german is so abysmal as to be practically non-existent these days (although I'm okay at understanding it, I'd be hard pressed to make a sentence that didn't turn french within a word or two) and Sarah's totally down with the lingo. It's nice to think that other people assume I'm socially competent, though.

And then we went home.

Happy Anniversary, Me and Reto!

We've been off swanning about in swanky hotels in celebration of our first wedding anniversary over the past few days, and lordy isn't it sad to be home again? Highlights included:

The terrifyingly narrow/snow-covered/winding road we had to take to get there. Which was flanked on one side by the edge of a mountain, and on the other by an enormous yawning chasm that ended in the iciest-looking river you've ever seen. Fortunately we were protected at most times by the uselessest of safety barriers, which was about shin-height (ie. not much help when a bus wants to topple over the edge) and made of wood. Wood, for crying out loud. Old, pathetic wood that has been out in the weather for too long. Oh, and the horn thing that the buses honk when they approach blind corners and want to warn any oncoming traffic that THE RISK OF A PLUNGY, ICY DEATH IS IMMINENT is not charming and reminiscent of childhood, as Reto seems to think. It's alarming and noisy. If I was an oncoming driver I'd probably panic, veer to the wrong side of the road and either die a horrible death in the chasm or t-bone the side of the mountain and block the road meaning that the bus would have to reverse its way to safety. Great.

The food. Oh, the food. We had 6-course dinners both nights we were there, and we had giganto breakfast buffets that sadly I don't think I really did justice to, and we had lots of delicious home-made chocolates in our room that they kept replacing while we were at dinner (not that you get back from a 6-course dinner and think "hmm, what else can I eat?") and there were apples everywhere, really crispy crunchy ones, which was lovely. And .. oh, at dinner one night I did a bit of a salt degustation. There were about 8 different types of salt on offer. I always enjoy buying fancy salt, but it always takes me forever to get through a packet of it so I can never really compare them and tell which ones I like best. At dinner the other night, though, I tried the murray river one from Australia, one from the red sea (guess what colour it was!), one from the black sea (guess what colour it was! I don't think I could seriously use black salt on a regular basis, though. It looks odd), a hawaiian one, and a few from France. The conclusion, however, was disppointing - they all tasted kinda the same. The Australian one wins for reasons of patriotism, though, and also because it was such an attractive shade of pink. Now I just have to finish this stupid enormous packet of Maldon salt I have at home before I can buy some. Other memorable food moments included the baked saffron icecream with sweet pesto (which was weirdweirdweird) and the cheese trolley.

The thermal pools. It was a thermal pool hotel place that we went to, so you'd hope the thermal pools would be a highlight. And they were. We went midnight-thermal-pooling and we went crack-of-dawn-thermal-pooling and we went civilised-middle-of-the-day-thermal-pooling and it was all fantastic. The low-point being after you get out of the thermal pool and you realise the water has sucked all the moisture out of your skin and hair and that you've wildly underestimated your conditioner and moisturiser needs for the weekend. Seeing all the hotel guests wandering between their rooms and the pool in their hotel-supplied bathrobes was funny, though (when do you ever see people in bathrobes?), as was seeing the same strangers you'd seen in their togs all day in the pool wearing real pants at the next table at dinner.

Oh, and I discovered that I can't float. I'm sure I used to be able to when I was a youngster. Reto spent lot of time floating about all over the place (although he seems to think he can only float when he uses his special floating technique of stretching his arms out above his head. Not above as in upwards, obviously) and being smug while my legs sank and I got water in my eyes a lot. No one likes a gloater!

All the romance was nice. Which you would hope, for a first-anniversary holiday.

And then there was the bus back down again. After all that new snow had fallen (and continued to fall and made the road EVEN MORE TREACHEROUS. But we survived, and even better, we forgot to take the bottle of fancy champagne that my sister and her boyfriend got for us for our anniversary (not that we would have had time to drink it in between all the swimming and eating anyway), so we've decided to drink that next Fridy in celebration on Reto being unemployed! Because he quit his job and his PhD a few months ago, in case I didn't mention it. We'll be a no-income family, and what better way to celebrate that than with a bottle of Moet? Hurrah!

Long Weekend

I'm going to London any second now! For the hen's night of a friend (which is filling me with a certain amount of terror, but more about that later)! It's going to be super, I think - speaking english to EVERYONE, buying newspapers in english and for a reasonable price (as opposed to the 7 francs I very occasionally pay for the Guardian International weekend edition or whatever it is. Which is an outrageous price and the paper is usually chockers full of middle-aged paranoia about private education and ethical gardening and stuff like that. I used to be such a paper-reader in Australia, but here I've turned into the sort of moron that relies on 20 Minutes (and the internet, obviously) for her news)! Seeing people I know! Errm ... I'm not really sure what else one does in England that one doesn't do here, but either way, I'm sure it will be super.

Yay! Boo!

Hurray, it's over! And also, boo, it's over! The film fest, that is, and although it's not actually true, because the fest doesn't finish until Sunday and I still have one flick to see tomorrow, it feels like it is.

I've seen 16 or so movies. I've spent about 25 hours on the train travelling between Fribourg and Zurich (including last Friday night when something stupid went wrong with the train signalling or something and I spent 3 hours on the train instead of 1.5 getting home again, grr). I've spent a lot of time embracing the awfulness of being a refugee or hoping to be recognised as one, of being stalked by psychopaths in the dwindling hours of life on earth, of being in flailing relationships, of having mentally unstable family members, of being in comas, of being a Dutch teenager stuck between cultures (that one was really crappy), of being a Norwegian train driver (there was no awfulness in that one. It was charmingly bizarro and pleasantly familiar, what with having spent so much time on Norwegian trains lately), of being kinda nutso and prone to bursting inappropriately into song, of getting too involved with other people's lives of crime, and now I'm looking forward to getting back to the non-horror of my life.

Which sadly means getting back into all-day french lessons and becoming paranoid about this stoopid exam thing I've signed myself up for. Sigh.

I miss the film fest.

Sunlight? Overrated!

Good news!

I was having some sort of crisis of personality, where I was doubting whether I really wanted to watch that many movies, and whether I would be able to cope with going to Lausanne every morning and Zurich every afternoon, missing half my french lessons and not getting enough sleep, but ... happily I have now read the Zurich Film Festival programme in english (instead of struggling through the stupid german version that I found at the airport), and am REALLY EXCITED about lots of films, and I don't care at all that it will involve sitting on a train for something like 4 hours a day! Yay for me!

And in other funny festy news, there's a movie on at this fest (Beaufort) that I saw at the Sydney Film Fest last year. That's slow.

Orf

I'm orf on my honeymoon. Back in a few weeks.

My Version

It was four years ago today that Reto and I met. In general I don't remember these things, but since we were both on holidays, since I was keeping a diary at the time, and since he was taking squillions of photos all the time, it's easy to look back and remind myself what the date was.

Stamsund

We were in a town called Stamsund in far, far northern Norway. I had already been there for a week or so, and had planned to leave but then, fortuitously, I twisted my ankle while out bushwalking and decided to stay for a while longer.

Not Stamsund. I think this might be Reine, which was apparently voted the most picturesque town in Norway

The first I remember seeing of Reto was at night, when a bunch of us were sitting outside waiting for the aurora borealis to show up. I'm sure the story would be far more charming if the northern lights had have arrived and we had fallen hopelessly in love under their glowy magnificence or something like that, but instead we sat out in the freezing under the black night sky until we couldn't stand the cold any more, and then I explained to him how to use the washing machine.

What we didn't see. Actually, I saw them for the first time the night after Reto left

We spent the next few days together, sitting in the sun and wandering around and eating blueberries (which were growing all over the place. There's nothing more delicious than fruit you've picked yourself), swimming in the idiotically cold arctic water and eating the icecream that would become our namesake. I spent a good part of this time being kind of confused about what Reto's name was, being constantly sure I had misheard (because what sort of weird name is "Reto" anyway?) and thinking it was rude to ask for clarification.

Our ancestor. Sort of.

Reto left, and our habit of chasing each other from one country to another began, a habit that was to continue for a couple of years before we decided to try spending time in not only the same hemisphere but the same tiny apartment. Actually, there's also a whole bit of the story that I've left out because it involves me hitting Reto over the head repeatedly to make him realise he was hopelessly in love with me, but I don't really like that bit of the story and so it stays out.

And then we lived happily ever after.

It's my story and I say only the best bits stay in.

thankyou Google Images

Alone At Last

Olivia left yesterday. It was really nice having her here. She kept doing the washing up (which was excellent because it saved me from having to nag Reto about it). She got hilariously drunk after a single gin and tonic. She was atrociously bad at bowling and at Ligretto, this card game that R & I were given a few weeks ago, thus saving me from having to lose at everything all the time (which was a nice change and yet still didn't manage to make me enjoy myself). She helped with the cooking and had ideas about what we should eat (which was great. I hate the fact that Reto is so blank when it comes to food). Oh, and she gave us the gift of toast! Olivia asked us what we wanted as a belated wedding present and we said "a toaster!" and, surprise surprise, she gave us one! And it's all fancy with its buttons and knobs and croissant warming rack, and I have a tube of Vegemite at the back of the cupboard that I haven't eaten any of in aaaages (what with the lack of toast-making facilities) and now I've had toast two days in a row! And it's great!

Olivia: sucks at bowling. Although embarrassingly enough, she did beat me once.

Her camera is kinda crappy too.

Ouch!

I have a sporting injury! Yesterday we went tenpin bowling (I am atrociously bad at it, but as it turns out not quite as bad as Olivia. Did I mention that Olivia is my friend who has been staying with us for a while? Oh the luxury of having a spare room! Anyway, at least you can drink beer while you bowl, which gives it a definite advantage over most other sports. Plus I rather like the shoes). I mysteriously managed to cut my thumb and mangle my knuckles a bit, and today I've noticed that my left buttock is in agonies. Obviously its muscles haven't done anything quite so active in a while. I feel so sporty!*



* Obviously if I was actually sporty the minor exertion of three whatever they're calleds (games?) at the bowling alley wouldn't be enough to make my muscles wince. Since I am obviously not sporty, though, the reminder that I did anything vaguely more active than go for a walk makes me feel like some sort of super athlete.

Brr!

Today we had a really excellent afternoon swimming in the river in Berne (along with about 8 million other people). There is a local pool complex thingie down by the river (which, unexpectedly, is all free to use), so off we went and we ditched our towels under a tree and we walked off up a path along the side of the river. At the place where we decided to get into the river (about 500m from where we started), we took the option befitting our advancing years and unreliable swimwear and leapt in from the stairs on the river bank (as opposed to all the teenagers who were jumping off the bridge, which was only a drop of a few metres but I really doubt that my togs would have done their best to retain my modesty if I had subjected them to that sort of exertion). The water was freezing*. Actually 18 degrees, but cold enough to take my breath away when I jumped in.

Anyway, the current, which is pretty zippy, carries you back those 500m that you walked, then you have to swim over to the side of the river and grab onto one of the strategically located poles to get out. I'm not sure what happens if you don't make it to a pole. I gather there is another option for pole-assisted getting out another 250m away, but after that? I think there might be a weir. Which doesn't sound like too much fun.

Anyway, it was super. And surprisingly exhausting, what with the shock of the cold and then the constant minor struggle to keep nicely afloat, and swimming over to the side and so on. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who finds themself at a loose end, with cossies and a towel, in the general vicinity of Berne. Although possibly that description really only applies to people who live in the general vicinity of Berne and who therefore probably already know about it or have done it.





* I have no tolerance for cold water and am a complete wuss about getting into it. It really wasn't that bad, but I carried on a lot.

Honeymoon Rage

There's nothing that ruins a holiday like having to organise it, particularly a holiday that involves lots of long (ie. reservation necessary) trips on trains, boats and planes.

We're going on a honeymoon. Finally. To the place where we met, actually (and practically on the anniversary of when we met, which is twice the bang for your romantic buck), and where the icecream we named ourselves after* hails from (Norway). Getting there is going to be arduous (plane, train, boat) but at least we've already booked it, getting back is still the world's biggest headache (bus, train, plane), not least because we're trying to use my pathetic collection of frequent flyer points to book the flight.

I hate frequent flyer points. Without actually going into it, because everyone hates frequent flyer points and it's not really an interesting conversation,
1. The fact that my frequent flyer thing is with United Airlines is moronic.
2. All frequent flyer websites seem to be unbelievably moronic. Why are they so badly organised? Why don't they tell you the things you need to know (ie. how to book the flights, what flights are actually available, how many points they cost, what are the taxes)? Why don't they let you book a one way flight? Why don't they make it easy to contact them? Where are the phone numbers and emails? Why did I have to crawl pathetically around for ages on their stupid site for about half an hour looking for what I needed? Only to phone them up later and be told that everything I had read was wrong?

Morons.



* Did I ever mention that on here? The new surname we eventually decided to take as our married name comes from a Norwegian ice cream.

Taking The Good With The Bad

I don't like sweet and sour. Reto doesn't like tofu. The other day I made sweet and sour tofu for dinner and it was deeeelicious (we both thought so). I wasn't sure for a while if it actually was nice or if it just wasn't as icky as I was expecting, but I had leftovers for lunch for the next two days and now I'm sure it was delicious.

So here's the recipe. By the book, and with my modifications [in brackets. Including potentially patronising detail for those who are inept]:

500g tofu, diced [or why not use meat if you're a whiner like Reto? Although he did say that he didn't think the tofu was at all offensive in this recipe. Or maybe what he said was that if he's going to be forced to eat tofu it may as well be in this form where it's practically delicious, rather than marinated in soy and ginger which he hates]

Veggies, cut into thin strips [the official version says 1 small carrot, 1 red capsicum, 2 spring onions. I used 1 large carrot, half a zucchini, half a capsicum, a brown onion and some green beans, and I also rejected their authoritarian advice on how to cut them. Despots]

200g shiitake mushrooms, sliced [I used dried ones, which I soaked for 10 minutes or so in warm water then sliced]

1 T (tablespoon) groundnut oil [whatever that is]

1T sesame oil [I used canola oil instead of both of these oils. I also reject all oil measurements because I like to think I know better than some moron recipe]

300mL water

3T cider vinegar

2T brown sugar [Switzerland has apparently voted against brown sugar. I used raw sugar]

2T tomato paste

soy sauce to taste [a splash]

1T cornflour

300g fresh diced pineapple [I used tinned. Also note that I hate pineapple, which is a large part of my anti sweet-and-sour stance. The fact that Reto loves it may be a part of his S&S stance. He also likes ham and pineapple pizzas, which means that we very rarely share]

Marinade:

4T groundnut oil

50mL sesame oil [again with the canola for both oils]

75mL soy sauce

4T brown sugar [again with the raw sugar]

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

2cm fresh ginger, grated

1T tomato paste

Mix all the marinade ingredients together, then bung in the tofu and leave it to marinate overnight [note this step before you decide to make it for dinner tonight].

The next day, take the tofu out of the marinade, keeping the rest of the marinade for later. Fry the tofu in some of the oil until it's all golden and delicious, then take it out and set it aside for the time being.

Saute the veggies in a bit more of the oil. Add the marinade, water, vinegar, brown sugar, tomato paste and soy sauce. Bring it all to the boil then stir in the cornflour to thicken it a bit [it might be best to stir the cornflour into some water before adding it, to minimise the chance of it turning all lumpy and annoying]. Bung in the pineapple and tofu and heat until it's heated.

Then eat it. With rice. Then tell me how super I am. I mean, how super it was.

And here's some balloons. Awww

Nice For A Change

Tomorrow's going to be a nice day. I get Reto back from the army (only slightly damaged!), and then we're going to go and see my favourite Swiss band (it's a very short short-list, but that is more a reflection of my apathy than of the standard of Swiss bands. I suspect they are the only Swiss band I've seen live since I came here, actually) playing at a venue (temporary stage built out of scaffolding) a mere 50m or so from our apartment. Then the next day we're off to Zurich for the party of a friend, and then the next day I'm carrying on loafing in Zurich (and eating fancy brunch!) with another friend! I'm practically like a social butterfly!

And then on Monday it's back to french lessons and being annoyed. Sigh. At least now I can whine about it to Reto in the evenings (in person, not on the phone).