Paris Trip 2009 - Part 1

I have been delaying this post for almost a year now. I promised since my old blog that I would post about my trip to Paris. Since I have abit of energy to talk / write, and my husband is playing his PS3, I will blog about my trip. I can't really remember all the small² details. Good thing I brought 2 cameras and took loadssssssss of pictures. So that will be my reference.

It took us 2 hours plus to travel from Mannheim Hbf to Paris' Main train station, Gare de l'Est via ICE (fast train). I love travelling on ICE. Feels like your on a plane and you don't have to go through all the hassle of checking in early and going to the Airport. I would recommend this mode of travelling if you plan to go to a few places around Europe. While in the train, we finalised our trip plan, watched abit of shows from our laptop, listened to mp3 and did a bit of sleeping.

Paris is very different from Germany. The people, the dressing, the language, the communication, the crowd, the roads. It was my first time on a Metro and it was dark (underground train) and we were having a hard time finding a place to buy a ticket. But what's cool about travelling in Paris is that they sell different kinds of tickets for different length of stay. So you can request for the amount of days you plan to stay in Paris and they will provide you with an unlimited time of travelling within those days. If I remember correctly, for a weekend in Paris for 2 adults costed us around 30€. They call it the visitor's coupon or something. And with this coupon, you can get discounts if you go to certain local attractions.
 

Our first stop was Hard Rock Cafe Paris. Of course to buy the souvenirs. Since Paris is a very popular destination for tourists, many of the workers are well versed in English. So you wont get lost in translation :) The first Metro we stopped was at Grands Boulevards. Just a few steps away and you can see HRC Paris.

That's me in the corner. A HRC T shirt would cost almost 50€ and a keychain around 15€. Being a Malaysian, I would always look up do a bit of calculation and my husband would tell me not to do that. Cause I might end up not buying anything. But I just can't help it. Sigh.. But now is a good time to travel to Europe since the currency is dropping. 1€ = MYR 4.

After the souvenir shopping and the picture taking, we walked a few steps and headed to Musee' Grevin. It's a wax museum and its supercool! We just showed the visitor's coupon and got discounts at 20% if I'm not mistaken. The time that I went there was just after the death of MJ so at his wax, many people wanted to take pictures with it. Including me. :p

Hung out my homie Obama...       Was rocking it with Jimmy Hendrix

My husbnad shared ideas with Einstein..    I did a bit of Kung Fu with Jackie

Ok. I will stop here for now and continue again later (hopefully there is a Part 2, 3, and so forth. Notice how I haven't been blogging as frequent as I did before ? Why why ? Warum ??

Bis Dann.. Tschüss!

Condensed Milk Weekend

The past few days have been quite chilly. We spent the weekend hanging out at home and drinking hot drinks. Since we've ran out of Milos, I started drinking my tea again and prepared for my husband coffee. But since the coffee machine is now kaputt, I invited him to join my tea club. He was quite hesitant at first. Teh sini tak sedap mcm teh kat Mesia. But I assured him that I will try my best to make it taste like teh Mesia. I finally opened the condensed milk that I bought a few weeks ago at Asea Mart. The end product of the tea almost tasted like teh Mesia. So it was not bad. Previously I used just normal fresh milk in my tea. But now, having the condensed milk in my tea makes a whole lot of difference!

The condensed milk was also used as a spread on bread. The last time I did that was somewhere in th 80s! And the ultimate usage for condensed milk was when I cicahed strawberries with it... and OOO MY GOD! It was super! MUST TRY!

Funny condensed milk Story

Me : I beli ni haritu kat Asea Mart. You rasa dia condensed milk ke? Cuba bacakan, I tak paham.
Husband : Meh I baca kan (Pause : Looking at the tin) Betul la ni. Nape tak baca yang English punya
Me : La ada ker? Tak tau pun! ahahahah

I got used to having my husband translate instructions since everything here is in German language, I didn't bother to check if they have it in English :p

Was gibt's in der Küche

I have been posting my dishes on facebook lately. I don't feel like posting my own pictures. Or a picture of me and my husband just like most newly weds would do. Pejam celik pejam celik we celebrated our 11 months wedding anniversary 2 days ago. I made beef stew and we ate it with rice. We had a candle light lunch which was still bright. Usually we would have our dinner around 630 which would still be bright nowadays since it's Spring. I am still getting used to the weather. Funny thing is, the weather is very unpredictable. You go out wearing a sweater and a jacket and turns out, in 1 hour, it's sunny and you have a heavy attire on your body. Of course I dare not risk not wearing a jacket. I get cold too easily. Even at 12°C right now, I am wearing a long sleeve shirt and a sweater and I still feel chilly.

Today I went to the city again to buy meat at Abone. I spoke full German today while buying meat without feeling scared if I make any mistakes. And I didnt make any! Yay for confidence! I did an extra shopping than the usual daging, minced meat and chicken. Today I also bought peaches, salad, tomatoes and bread for kebab. I reached home at 1240 and told my husband all about my 'adventures' for the day and after that I asked him what time doesn he want to eat?1pm. So, alamak lah! I cooked a very simple dish, since I just bought the minced meat, I fried it and potong² the salad and tomatoes. And it took me just about 20 minutes to produce a very delicious (can I say that?) kebab :)

 The end result are as follows.. checkit out...

Recipe for Kebab
Ingredients :
1/2 senduk minyak
1/2 Bawang besar
2 ulas bawang putih
200gm minced meat
1 senduk serbuk kari
Roti kebab
Mayonaise
Tomatoes
Salad
Chilli sauce
Salt and pepper

Cara - cara : 

1. Panaskan minyak and tumis bawang besar about 1 minute

2. Masukkan minced meat and sprinkle serbuk kari goreng2 till dah siap

3. Masukkan bawang putih till fragrant and add salt and pepper

4. Panaskan roti kebab atas pan till lembut (no need minyak).

5. Sapukan mayonaise on top of roti and susun daging, salad, tomatoes, bubuh chilli sauce, lipat, and your done :)

This was my nasi goreng cina sempena China won against Malaysia.. hehehe no laa.. totally coincident. These pictures are also in my facebook.

NASI GORENG CHINA RECIPE
Ingredients :

satu senduk minyak, 2 ulas bawang putih, minced meat sket, udang cocktail beli kat kedai KIM HA, fishballs, mixed vege, nasi semalam yang dah digaul dgn garam, 2 tablespoon cili kering yg dah diblend, eggs (optional)

1. Panaskan minyak
2. Tumis bawang putih, minced meat, udang and fish balls, cili
3. Bubuh air sikit dalam stgh cawan
4. Masukkan mixed vege
5. Masukkan nasi, gaul² smpai rata
6. Goreng telur by the side and gaulkan
7. Bismillah, makan :)

I am enjoying cooking and somehow I have a weird feeling that people have this weird feeling whenever I post my dishes on FB. Well, its okay. It's food so it's pretty generic.

Biss dan!

facebook.com Part 2 : An epiphany

I drafted a post 2 days ago and almost hit publish post but had to do something and totally forgot about it and left the page idle. And now, it's gone. Sigh. Well, maybe it wasn't meant to be. Although it was how I felt at that moment, now that the feeling is gone, it doesn't matter anymore.

Have you ever felt like your life is like a stage being watched by everyone through facebook ? I had that feeling a few weeks or perhaps months ago (and had blogged about it too). But it's truly by choice I guess. And I had chosen to tone it down a bit. But of course, I still have the urge of waking up every morning and checking out any red blocks by the left pane showing the number of notifications. Crazy ? Perhaps. I bet it's not just me though. Once you hit HOME to the News Feed, you keep on scrolling down and read other people's status updates and sometimes rolling your eyes to how ridiculous it may sound to you. Up to one point, you can summarize the types of people in facebook. The farmers, the LOLers, the likers, the taggers, the marketers, the photofreaks, the peace-HARDCORE (people who will pose with a peace sign on all 200 photos in one album), the babytalker (who does the talking for their babies), the traffic updater, the weather forecaster, the ManU fans, the attention seeker (status update : XXXXXX is smiling from ear to ear. Finally it's really happening!!! Comments : what's up ? Replies : hehehe ooo nothing.. its just such a nice day today.. finally its gonna rain) Me : GAGING (LAME! Obviously you want SOMEONE to notice something BIG is about to happen in your life and want other people to wonder about it), the sharing their marriage problem / life with everyone else when their in the same house at the same time (syg nak makan apa harini? telur dah habis la.. nanti ayang gi beli okay.. hihihi) OMG! someone kill me already!, the liking their own status update, and I can go on and on about this.. But really, why is facebook so addictive? Wanna know their secret?

It's the name. FACEBOOK. you have your book on your face all the time. It's a book that is stuck to your face. And you'd wanna read it all the time. and want it to look good all the time just as you would want to make your face look good all the time.. so people can read. People can see how cool you are, where you hang out and what kind of lifestyle you have, people can easily conclude what kind of person you are. Well you cant blame them for doing so, since you had that image portrayed to the WORLD WIDE WEB.. and people do judge a Book by its cover.. that's why there is a saying not to because people simply do.. It's all through the WORLD WIDE WEB. It's a web but world wide. See how big the web is? We are all caught up in this big web we think of as world wide. And facebook has hit on almost every TV series; SouthPark, numb3rs, House, CSI, etc. It's now the in thing, the lifestyle of normal people to feel glamourous or popular. Engineers have invented softwares to accomodate this feature into mobile phones so that you can update your status or upload your pictures from anywhere possible. Even if you're in Iceland, you can be the first person to SHARE to the WORLD WIDE WEB after a volcano errupts. Of course there are pros and cons about this. I have seen and heard, friendship torn apart, girlfriends - boyfriends break up, marriages became shakey, people become flamboyant, people become envious, have evil eyes lurking around, people filled hatred, denial and everything else.. only through facebook. It is not only a social network that connects people, it's a phenomena. 

facebook.com. I have done a simple research on this. It's all in the name. Let's look at STARBUCKS. See how well their business is. Because they have money as much as the stars in the skies. And we all don't know how much is that but I am certain that it's a lot.. And who doesn't like stars? That's why they are making bigbucks. GIANT. See how big their business have grown? They built a BIG GIANT from KJ and another one in Gombak, that's like one end of a highway from my house to the other end highways to my husband's house. PAPPARICH, I bet the owner is getting richer everyday since they have a lot of branches around KL and PJ area I've seen lately. And many more.

So after blogging about facebook.com (AGAIN), then it hit me. I need a name to start my business. And I need a business to start. I need an epiphany, a revelation.

Housewarming and Birthday Party

Check out some pics

This was what me and Ikhwan prepared for our housewarming and my birthday party.. 

Sean helped with the curry ayam :)

We had a western Menu, speghetti bolognaise

Of course the roti jala to be cicah-ed with the curry and telur rebus for the nasi lemak

The cucumber was creatively arranged by me.hehehehe

Sean's Curry Ayam.. sedap

This is my 29th Birthday present from my beloved husband :)

Today I am like abit flat out since I have been cleaning the house since wednesday preparing for the housewarming and party.. and doing groceries and running around.. but all is good :) alhamdulillah.. my family in KL had a makan² also.. I wish I could do a makan² for them here.. miss home.. 

29

The weather must be really cold cause while I was walking to the grocery store, my mulut berasap. Yep. It was 5°C here in Mannheim. Rainy and windy. It rained the whole day today.

So I am now officially 29 years old. Woohoo! Yes I am happy :) Thanks to everyone who wished me.

I woke up with my husband next to me. First time on my birthday (duh°°°) hehehe.. We had back camembert for breakfast and his physiotherapist came. After I called mama, I headed to the city to buy meat at Abone Supermarkt. I always have this some sort of weird feeling everytime I go to Abone. Its a Turkish shop that sells halal meat and everything else, mostly from the middle east countries. Maybe its the Arab looking people, or the Arabic song or what.. But everytime I go there, I feel like its the Ramadhan month and I am buying food for buka puasa.. hehehe And it rained the whole day today.. also my birthday.. Abit of homesick laa... :( 

After that, I went to KFC to buy us lunch :) Then my husband did some work from home and I did the usual housewife chores. In the evening, went to Rewe to do grocery shopping and later had dinner.

All in all, it was a different birthday.

Happy Birthday to me :)

what I can conclude for the past month

A lot has happened since I was away, let me start slowly.. See the thing is, I used to have a personal journal, where I jot everything and once in a while I will read it so I will remember things. Now that I have a blog, I can just type it here. Plus, I don't have a notebook here. Like a physical notebook... where I can write on. And to buy one, is just so expensive (4€ = RM 20) for a small notebook. Thanks but no thanks.

My husband was admitted to the hospital after earth hour day (also the day for the daylight saving) because he broke his leg. His tulang febula broke into two and ankle lari alignment sikit. Also ligamen terkoyak. It was nobody's fault, he just fell and perhaps it was the pressure and position of kaki that broke his leg.

During the first week of April, I had to be the independent woman. Sleeping alone at home was something I have never done in my entire life.. even back in KL, I will always have someone sleep in the house with me.. even in a different room. It was a good thing that I already knew how to do grocery shopping all by myself before it all happened. And buy the bus ticket too. Since everything is in Deutsch, it was abit challenging but alhamdulillah I pulled it through. everyday I went back and forth to the hospital Universitätsklinikum and home while he was recuperating. While in the hospital, I brushed up on my Deutsch. The grammar is excruciating!

Of course since I am known as 'the explorer', I like to explore things and venture on my own. Cause I believe that getting lost, making mistakes and trying an error is a wonderful process of learning. Everytime I come back from somewhere, I will learn something and share it with my husband. The whole process was an experience for me.

My husband was discharged after a week being in the hospital. I became the nurse at home. Everynight for 20 nights, I had to cucuk my husband with Fraxiparin 0,3 ml to prevent him from getting trombosis. This I had to go to the Apotheke near Kalmitstraße to get it after being prescribed from the doctor. The physiotherapist would come twice a week to train him on how to walk using the crutches. The whole experience is something I will never forget. It had taught me to be calm at a time of panic, strong when either one of us is weak, confidence and togetherness. It had brought us closer. Without realizing, I had gone beyond my limits. I had done and experience so many things within 2 months of being a housewife than my normal routine life when I was working. funny thing is, a person commented about being a housewife, 'dont be a housewife, not good for your brain' and someone replied 'not unless you use it'. Well, I couldn't agree more on the latter.

I will be starting my intergration course in Abendakademie in the city starting 14-6-2010. I can't wait. In the mean time, I am learning at home how to speak Deutsch. Wish me luck!

facebook.com

Tomorrow is my last day of being 28. I dont feel any different though. But my birthday this year is gonna be so different. Reasons are:-

• This is my first birthday as being a wife. Hence, Mr. Lucky will say, 'It's my wife's birthday' 
• This is the first time I celebrate my birthday with my husband after 4+ years of being in a relationship (couple + marriage)
• This is the first time I celebrate my birthday in a foreign country
• This is the first time I will do a party where prepare almost everything from scratch (slalu mama will help)

So I am gonna be 29. Usually I will do a self-reflection kinda thingy on my birthday. Maybe I will do it the night before.. I havent been blogging lately. Although there are soooo many things to blog about, seriously sooo many things happen. I wouldnt know how and where to start if I would start telling. Maybe I should just leave it as that or as time passes by, I will write about it.

Many reasons why I stopped blogging for awhile.

• I was very occupied and getting used to the new routine I have. Now that I am finally getting the hang of it, I got used to the change. I used to blog about how I hate changes and also the transition so much now that there is this SUPER HUGE change, I got used to it already.
• Perhaps that I was too hooked up on facebook, I kinda forgot about my blog.. 
• I was on a hiatus mode and I don't know why I just malas sangat nak blog.
• I had all my energies out on talking to my husband and I need not to blog anymore since he is at home all the time and I could just talk to him non stop (kesian dia.. hehehe)
• There are just things that I feel I don't need to share with the world wide web

The last point, I feel so much I wanna blog about that and how ironically that I dont wanna share but I wanna share about not sharing.. get it? At one point, I got so sick of facebook, I felt like wanting to deactivate my account. I even thought about opening a new one consisting only CLOSE PEOPLE THAT MATTERS. Why you might ask?

• I got sick of people tagging me with pictures which are not relevant to me at all (eg. kain, tudung, cupcakes, handbags, wedding invites, DECRIBE ME, Top ten lists and all those craps)
• I got irritated receiving endless notifications which I have to read that has nothing to do with me
• Its really disturbing to get email notifications on people's comments which are so trivial, such as 'hehehe' or 'LOL' on something that is not related to me whatsoever.
• Some of the status updates are just so lame
• I got tired of ignoring all the group invites which I never check or participate at all. 
• Its funny how people wanna upload all 200 pictures of the same place with different poses. Cant they just choose the best few?
• It's weird that married people communicate to each other through facebook where anyone at all can see and read when they are just 2 feet away from each other.
• I find it confusing that people update their status as 'busy' or 'no time to do this and that' but have time to update their status.

See, I was at that point. I was at the point where facebook was soo irritating, I decided to cool it down forawhile. I know, you might ask, why not just quit anyway? biar la people nak buat apa² with their facebook rite ? I know I know.. I dont know why.. It has become part of my routine.. But I am slowly detaching myself so that I won't be in the statistics of people who spend 4 hours on facebook daily.

So there I said it. I had let my enery out after a month of not blogging. I am back people!