Amsterdam - Day 2 - Eating

On the eating side, Amandine had previously asked me if I wanted to have yum cha/dim sum. HELL YES!!!! I haven't had it since I left Melbs 7 months ago *sob sob*. In between the shopping, we toddled into Chinatown and went to Oriental City, a place she had been taken during her secondment, having been described as the best place in Amsterdam to have it. 

Entering the restaurant, we were confronted with a spiral staircase where many people (including Asians!) were waiting for tables. So far, so normal. The second thing I noted was that IT SMELLED RIGHT. After collecting a number, we waited approximately 5 minutes before our number was called and we bypassed a few incredulous looks that we had such a small wait to get a table. Hehehehe. 

Mandy looking a seraphic

Me looking as rough as guts (aka, normal)

There were no dim sum trolleys here - you had to read a menu and pick out the things you wanted. Amandine isn't a fussy eater so naturally we ordered the favourite things I had been missing most.

The order sheet - with address for future reference!

The haam soi kok - pretty good texture and flavour but a bit oilier than I'm used to. Also could have done with more filling.

Chicken Feet (fung jiao) - OOOOH YEAH!!!!

Mmmm, tripe (pak yip)

Har cheung. Nice and large prawns inside - bless being a coastal city, bless. 

Not a great photo of the har gao - we started being Asian by digging in before I could be more Asian by photographing it

Not really a yum cha dish, but we wanted some siu lung bao. The wrapper was a bit thick but the filling and flavour were right!

Another not really yum cha dish but my craving for Asian-style roasted duck is apparently reaching legendary status so there was no resistance when Amandine suggested we get one. Hehehehe. 

Following yummers, we did more strolling and shopping only to realise quite late in the day that we hadn't had any pancakes! Given that our reservation for dinner was at 7:30 and we intended to cram in a canal tour, we rushed to Pancakes!Amsterdam and ordered a dish of poffertjes to share.  

Various sprinkles and sauces to go with the pancakes. 

A plate of poffertjes, courtesy of wikipedia. 

We then rushed onto a canal tour - highly recommended and capable of teaching someone to be multilingual. Alas, because I had forgotten my camera, I didn't take any photos, but that's alright because this should just make everyone go and do it themselves. Or make me go back and do it again :P


For dinner, Amandine had selected Seasons Restaurant, which had gotten some pretty goo reviews on that friend of the travel risk-averse, TripAdvisor. We were running a bit late due to the canal ride taking longer than expected and then got lost on the way to the restaraunt (all those canals look the same, dammit!) but despite it being quite busy, they saved the table for us *phew!*. We decided to order two 2-course menus, sharing the entree and dessert. For entree we had the grilled asparagus (mmm spargel) with smoked salmon and poached egg, main for Amandine was the spaghetti with shrimps and tomato while I had the grilled Asian steak with greens (mmm, medium-rare), and the mango basil vacherin dessert. Feel free to use your imaginations but we were very happy and told the owner and chef so as we left! They were sitting outside the front and we four had a happy chat during which they confirmed that we had to visit our next port of call - The Mint Hotel.


The Mint Hotel has a rooftop bar that was originally recommended to us by our B&B host, and it was a great recommendation! You can't really tell from the crappy photo but it had a great view over the (flat) city. 

I need to work out how to take night time photos on that phone. 

And we sunk some cocktails to boot. Good time had by all!

Amsterdam - Day 2 - Shopping

After a sleep in following the previous day's excesses and a lovely breakfast of cheese, ham, toast, eggs, and tea, Amandine and I ventured out into the city for a day of shopping and eating. 

I have previously said that German fashion and ergo German shopping isn't great, resulting in me often going nuts in London. Our first port of call was Cornelis Schuytstraat which has lots of little boutiques and I walked out of French Connection with a light blazer - perfect for this (terrible) summer, 

followed by walking out of Marlies Dekkers with some undies. Later, we went to department store De Bijenkorf where I picked up these shoes from Fornarina.

I actually showed these to the guy at the YSL makeup counter (I also got some Touche Eclat and a lipstick) and he was *OOOOHHHHH!!!!* 

And the best thing about all these things I purchased? THEY WERE 50% OFF!!! WOOHOO!!!

Amsterdam - Day 1

Coming from the magical land of Oz, people often say to me "Wow, you're from really far away!" I sure am! And then I like to amaze them with my story about how it takes 19 hours to fly here direct, excluding the 3-7 hour stopover in Singapore. I also often say, "I love how I can fly for 1-2 hours and be somewhere completely different in Europe!" On that note, me and Miss Amandine decided to meet up halfway between our respective cities in Amsterdam. She had previously completed a 6 month secondment here and had never returned so we used my touristy nature as a reason to do so :D

Unfortunately, when I got to Franz-Josef Strauss, I realised I'd left my camera at home. All photos are therefore from my phone and since I don't use it very often, the quality isn't great because I realised I'd left the setting on high sunlight, which it clearly wasn't because it was an overcast weekend. I flew in around lunchtime and as Miss Amandine was unable to get the day off work, I met up with Esmee, a lovely Dutchie medic who I'd met as she backpacked around Oz. She took the time off her work to show me around Leiden, her university town about 40km away from Amsterdam. 

What can I say? Like the other university towns I've been to, it has survived the times moderately intact and it was so small and cute that I spent the time walking around saying in German (because I can't speak Dutch) - sehr schoen! sehr suss! 

Hey look! It's a real Dutch windmill in the distance!!!

An even MORE Dutch scene with the bridges, boats, and bikes *sigh*

As we strolled around, catching up on life and so forth, she pointed out various picturesque views, showed me the really old town houses that are now student apartments, laughed at the people travelling on the canals in a dinghy, and recommended that I eat the local Dutch delicacy of raw herring - served with raw onions (hmmm). It was fun but short and I decided I would do my best to try and return, preferably around the end of April when it's Queen's Day in the Netherlands so I could join in on the Orange festivities!

After meeting up with Amandine at our B&B, we went out to dinner at the Indonesian restaurant Kantjil en de Tijger because she knew I had been wasting away for lack of Asian food. The place was quite busy and service was a bit slow due to that but it could also have been because we ordered a Rijsttafels consisting of lots of little plates (closer to a banquet than degustation because the servings were larger). Anyway, the food! Oh, it was actually spicy and there was seafood! Seafood! Amandine even said she loved the vegetables! As we both enjoyed the sambal, we reflected that colonisation of the Asian continent produced the wonderful effect of cuisine diaspora and, believe it or not, wished the Germans worked a bit harder at that :P.

Walking out full of food and half a bottle of wine each, we decided to do the touristy thing and go to the Red Light District to look at the prostitutes. 

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

I don't know why I was surprised, but many of the prostitutes are actually quite attractive, although there is a fair share of shockers there, one which had too much surgery in particular. They seemed to be of a moderately young age (I'm guessing mid-20s) and a few rocking the librarian glasses. Amandine commented that they were likely to be Eastern Europeans. Also, I don't understand why groups of men cheered when a guy went into or emerged from a room - we all know you just paid for sex!

Following that, we decided to walk back to our lodgings. In doing so, we passed many *Coffee Houses* and decided to get into the spirit of local life. We decided to go the quick route and ordered a pre-rolled *pure* spliff, and some fresh mint tea to wash it down. Now, as much as I'd like to report that the same thing that happened to Pooey with the wavy vision and twinkling things, I experienced none of that. We both felt a bit tired, but that could also have been attributed to the fact it was about 2am and we'd had an entire bottle of wine between the two of us for dinner. And so we continued on back to our place where we snoozed fitfully. 

This is not a parking spot.

One of the very highly amusing things I love about Germany is observing when stereotypes ring extremely true. For example, they don't tend to do small talk and they are dressed in lederhosen and dirndl in public. One of the things that particularly amuse me is the driving. Yes, they do drive very fast - it's terrifying to realise that someone did roaringly overtake you despite your current speed being 130kmh, but also reasssuring to know that they will pull into the right lane to let the real speed freaks take over. This politeness also extends to the general lack of road rage (so far). Nary a honked horn to be heard despite all die Stauen (traffic jams). Despite all general control on the roads, it is highly amusing when I see them do something that reminds me that, yes....they are Europeans after all. This is particularly apparent in the parking. 


When Gnoudesavanes visited, he was highly amused to point out some cars that were separated bumper to bumper by approximately 5cm. Another time, someone asked me to get out of their car, and they then proceeded to park in such a small space that they had to crawl out of the passenger side. But my absolute favourite happened this morning in the Forschungzentrum carpark. There is (quite a large) visitors carpark that the bus drives through to drop off us non-drivers. It was moderately full and people had proceeded to park in a manner that lead to our bus driver to thread the needle. It was like this:

Where the rectangles are cars, the green ovals are the nature pieces, and the dashed lines are streetlines. Basically, cars were parking next to the trees where there was no parking space. 

Watching the driver navigate what should have been a dual direction carriageway that had been compressed to one lane, I observed to my friend on the bus that back in Melbs, people would get fined for parking thusly. The reply I received was, "But it's not blocking the road, our driver will get through it without hitting the others." And so he did. That was also very German.

This needs to happen...

HARRY POTTER AS AN ANIME!!!!!

My interpretation of who's who, top to bottom, L-R
Tom Riddle/Voldemort, Bellatrix Lestrange, Draco Malfoy, Narcissa Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy, Nagini
Regulus Black, Kreacher
Arthur Weasley, Molly Weasley
Charlie Weasley, Bill Weasley
Percy Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Fleur Delacour
Fred Weasley, George Weasley
Tonks, Prof. McGonagall, Prof. Sprout (? not sure about this one)
Hagrid, Dobby
Aberforth Dumbledore, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood
Professor Snape
Remus Lupin, Sirius Black
Lily Potter, James Potter
Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley
Harry Potter
Prof. Dumbledore.

HOLY SHEET, I'D WATCH IT ALL OVER AGAIN!!!

I originally saw it here.

Just because it's been a while since I posted anything remotely science-y

Mouse hippocampus stained for neurons and glia. Damn compression has made it blurry.

Plant Killer

My new apartment has a a great and terrible balcony. Why so? It's great because it faces west meaning I get a lot of afternoon sun - great for when the sun actually does shine! However, it is also on the Erdgeschoss (ground floor) and it faces the street meaning I have very little privacy. But everyone who visited me has said it's a nifty thing - I could just put some plants in the planter boxes, and voila! I could have a bit of privacy as well as a small herb garden. This would therefore be handy and delicious!


Things have not quite worked out that way. 


So far, I have killed 

• Two pots of Vietnamese mint
• Two pots of lavender
• One pot of coriander (okay, it might be too cold to grow that here)
• One pot of basil

And of my surviving plants (a small rosebush, two gerberas, a pumpkin vine, and a solitary box hedge plant inherited from the previous tenant), the pumpkin isn't looking too great and the gerberas will die come Winter. I've been told to invest in more roses - apparently they should be hardy enough to survive. *sigh*

Not much to report.

After the excitement of last week where I was out every night, this past week was pretty much time for recovery. In addition, work was pretty stressful because we were being reviewed (with on site visits!) to make sure we weren't burning Institute/Government money! In hindsight, I don't know why it was so stressful - it wasn't as if they could shut down our department or cancel my contract. I guess it was the mass hysteria/stress from departmental heads infiltrating down.


In other news, I would like to recommend that everyone watch this documentary on Australian TV - it was conceived by the woman who I hold responsible for my even being overseas! Okay, I'm a Wissenschaftlerin in Muenchen and this is a documentary about the development of the Department Store in the 19th century, but I truly believe that if I never went on the Ville Lumiere course in 2004, I wouldn't have worked up the nerve to move to Continental Europe as opposed to following all the other Aussies to London!

http://www.sbs.com.au/documentary/program/seductioninthecitythebirthofshopping/trailer

Weißwurst Frühstück

Ahhh, German Cuisine. Weißwurst is a boiled white sausage made from pork that's traditionally served for breakfast with sweet mustard (süßer senf), a pretzel, and a...er... weißbier (that's right, beer for breakfast). I consider myself a bit of a food viking - I like to go in and attack unknown meals with gusto, but when a number of proud Bayer und Bayerins are warning you about their own traditional meals, well, it just makes me extra curious! I met up with Chrish for lunch and having found that Weißwurst Frühstück was available, complete with the side of beer, I decided it was time I tried out the meal that divides Germany. 

The boiled weißwurst in their pot, the brezn, und the süßer senf

The weißbier, a Franziskaner, was super! Chris tried to steal it because he doesn't like the alcoholic beverage that came with his breakfast, a glass of prosecco

He also rubbed in how nice his breakfast was compared to mine

Hmmm, how can I describe it? The smell of boiled meat doesn't bother me in general but I could see how it could bother others. Being boiled, it was a real bitch to cut up but the flavour wasn't so bad - again, this might be due to my familiarity with boiled meat although the herbs and spices in the sausage gave it a distinct flavour. Would I try it again? Maybe, although I think I'll eat Chrish's choice next time - it came with smoked salmon!

Movie review - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II

And so we have now truly come to the end of an era. I won't do a plot review because it turns out there are several people in the world who haven't read the books and therefore don't know what happens! I will just say that this is probably the best adaptation of all the books - it occurred to me that we're seeing what amounts to perhaps the last 1/3 of the final book in its own 2 hour movie. That leaves quite a bit of time to show as much of the book as possible, although some things were cut short or omitted altogether.


Pros

• Alan Rickman as Professor Snape. Well done. 
• Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith) IS DA BOMB!!! She really knows how to wave a wand like she means business!
• Not too much Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright). This is a problem with casting children and having to keep them through the years. 
• The effects. Just...wow! Particularly the dragon flying over London and the final battle.
• The Ron-Hermione kiss is not as squirm-inducing as the Harry-Hermione kiss
• Oh god, it almost made me cry!

Cons

• I thought Dumbledore's history was one of the best sub-plots of the final book and was disappointed that it wasn't represented more in the movie. In fact, everything that they cut to make up time :(
• Props to the director for not casting different actors for the epilogue but the make up to age everyone made them look pretty ridiculous and garnered quite the laughter count from the audience. 
•  Oh god, it almost made me cry - but I didn't actually cry! But that might be saying more about me than the movie. 

A satisfying end to the series and to my extended youth! *sigh*
8/10!

Movie review - Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

It's been a few years since the events of the last Transformers movie, and while the future looked as though it would be bright, life has not quite turned out the way Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBoeuf). Despite saving the world (twice), he can't find a job. And even the bright sides have dark bits - he's got and even hotter girlfriend in the form of Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whitely) but it's her paycheck keeing him in their HUGE DC apartment, and her boss happens to be McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey). Also, Bumblebee hasn't been hanging around as much. Diddums. Meanwhile, Optimus Prime (my great robot love) is angry because after visiting Chernobyl, he finds Cybertronian technology there - but after Buzz Aldrin (seriously, THE Buzz Aldrin) explains that the moon landing/space race was totally about investigating the ship of Sentinel Prime (LEONARD NIMOY) which crashed on the dark side of the moon, it....Why am I even bothering to explain the plot? This is a TRANSFORMERS film. And more than that, this is a Michael Bay film. 


People, this movie is one great hot mess. Everything that makes movies so bad it's good is here. Gosh, where do I start?

• The fact that the robots are better actors than the real live actors (love you, Optimus Prime!)
• The extremely hammy acting from people who've clearly taken this for the paycheck - John Malkovich and Frances McDormand, I'm looking at you.
• The obligatory freeway chase sequence, particularly the bit where Bumblebee throws Sam into the air, transforms to avoid a burning wreck, then grabs Sam and transforms back into a car. Awesomeness
• Two words - John Turturro.
• McDreamy's hair and suit. 
• The absolutely shameless product placement. Absolutely shameless.

I'm going to have an entire section for Rosie Huntington-Whitely.

• The fact that they totally play up that this girl is way out of someone like Shia LeBoeuf's league 
• And she really is a pretty girl but she is officially an even worse actress than Megan Fox. She's so bad it's hilarious.
• She may not be able to act, but she sure can run in high heels!
• And pout the entire time, even when speaking!

But as with my appreciation of the last two movies, the fact that everyone seems to be treating this as the joke it is, makes the entire thing HIGHLY enjoyable! Yes, despite all the ridicule I heap on it, it was damn entertaining. Switch your brain off and enjoy the ride.


Nobody really thought I was ever going to hate this, did you?!
7-8/10!

Slowly coming together...

Around the end of May, I escaped from that psycho bitch and moved into my new place. One of the problems with my new place was that it was completely unfurnished (other than a kitchen - but seriously, why do people take the  kitchen with them when they leave apartments here? It makes NO SENSE!!!). This was not a problem for Fabi as he had his own furniture. As we know, I then started to stake out the Ikea website to plan how I was going to express me. 


Now, almost two months later, I have nearly completed the furnishing of my first adult room. I'm highly amused to observe (along with others who have visited me) that I have achieved in making it a clearly feminine room while still being somewhat neutral. I've tried to nerded it up by putting that map of the world on the wall (colourful, German, AND educational - NERD ALERT!) 

I still need to purchase a couch to put into the back corner (coming soon) which I will use instead of a desk (heh), 

Kaltenberg Ritterspiele

I think local friends in Muenchen are enjoying having me here as an excuse to do all the touristy things they normally wouldn't. Hear me out. As a foreigner who has never been to Germany before and a highly enthusiastic nerd, I'm always up for doing stuff! Want me to see your village? I'm there! There's a festival on? Count me in! Want to see a mummified Chalcolithic man? Boy howdy (coming soon, hopefully)! Whats that - a Mediaeval faire featuring JOUSTS?! Hell yes!!! So this weekend, Jul, Asia, and I took the S-bahn all the way to the end of the line and then a shuttle bus to Schloss Kaltenberg, home of Prinz Luitpold of Bavaria and site of the Kaltenberg Ritterspiele/Ritterturnier (Knight's Tournament)!  


Walking up from where the bus dropped us off, we were greeted by this:

That's right, it's a ye olde village gate with a drunk trumpeter inside to greet us all!

Walking through the gate, we got to see what I think is a recreation of a Mediaeval village, complete with various ye olde industries, staffed with people wearing ye olde clothes, and eat their olde style food.  

 Village heralds!

The village

 Living in the forest, Robin Hood-style.

Jugglers!

Olde Skool Bakery

My ye olde mead. Even though it's a beer made from honey, it was really sweet and strong, more so than I expected! 

Jul and Asia enjoy their beakers of mead.

Camels!

The event is held on the grounds of the schloss and we were able to look at it in all it's old glory.

 Heading towards the castle gate. We had to cross a bridge to get into it - kinda like crossing a moat...kinda wish it was a drawbridge though.

Yep, that's a schloss! 

So happy at all the cheese

There was also a parade of all the people taking part in the festival.

Knights in armour

Foot soldiers not in armour

Guys dragging their captured women around

A happy drunk friar.

After the parade, we made our way through the grounds to the arena to watch some pre-jousting demonstrations of stuff from the middle ages. 

 The stands. 

  The arena - as we took our seats, it was actually be smoothed out by a guy driving an ox! 

  Girl demonstrating falconry with her falcon.

 Guy demonstrating falconry with his eagle. The bird was a bit excited by the whole thing.  

 Some flag throwers from Florence, Italy.  

 I can't remember what this marching band were doing.

From here on, there are no photos. Why? Well everything was fun and games until just before the tournament show proper was about to start when a clap of lightning and thunder went off and the heavens opened. I was wearing a Gore-Tex jacket but was soon quickly soaked. I (and many others in the arena audience) quickly ignored the umbrella ban to open our devices in a paltry attempt to keep dry. 


As an aside, I'd like to say that Prinz Luitpold is HARDCORE. Despite being a sprightly 60 years old and wearing a nicely cut suit, he strode out onto the arena in the driving rain WITHOUT an umbrella to deliver a welcoming speech. I would have clapped except my hands were fixed in a death grip around my umbrella handle.


While huddled in the cold and rain, I pondered as to whether the event would be cancelled due to the mud being unsafe for horse riding, the players eventually came out and the show started. This year's event is based on part two of the Arthurian Cycle. As a result, we got to see Mordred tame a horse and then venture out to gather the fiercest warriors from the Orient (cue Turkish trick riding and Kung Fu fighting!), jousting as he challenges various Knights of the Round Table, and then a hand to hand combat battle between Mordred and Arthur! Muhahahah!


I'll admit, this entire event was pretty cheesy. Afterwards, I was asked how it was, I said that there were a lot of people walking around who looked like they may have been highschool misfits, or as Jul observed, "A lot of people seem to have interpreted *Mediaeval* as *Goth*." Having said that, cheese is tasty and watching the trick horse riding was still a great deal of fun! If they can guarantee that it won't rain cats and dogs again, I might consider going again to find out how the story concludes!