punch friday

and then some.

one of the best things about traditions is how quick they form. over here, at least.

the night began with the third instalment of punch friday at J's and after the last drop dried, we headed over to G's to join the rest of the students-subjected-to-ILS. but this time, it was a cause for celebration! there was a semi-surreal moment as we chanced upon another horde on the lappis lawn and we coalesced to form one big happy blob that descended on G's corridor in glee.

never seen everyone so relaxed, nary a care in the world, as we talked about everything except the taboo (percentage of female swedish parliamentarians, anyone?) and a magnum of bubbly made its rounds as we all toasted to the successful completion of part A and remained in denial that part B begins on monday. unfortunately, i'll be in paris on monday. boohoo :)

need to pack and add to my to-do list. am going to learn french between cityterminalen and skavsta.

bonjour madame, dix pain au chocolat s'il vous plait!

food porn

i give up resisting :)

the la nonna

possibly the best pizza back home.

crabby

(photo repeated)

on a roll and can't stop myself from hallucinating about the food trail i'm embarking on the moment i touch down.

tau yu ter ka

and i really miss this too. with xian cai.

and they only taste good if they're from C-grade stalls :)

home

to this

(and for christmas.)

c'est si bon

For Paris, try the following

1) Fat Tire Bike Tours - Their bike tours of Monet's House (or anywhere else actually) and their Segway Tours of Paris are really fun.

2) The Eiffel Tower at night is really pretty - it sparkles every hour on the hour from 10pm. Catch it from a roadside cafe at the Seine end of Avenue George V and have a meal at the same time.

3) The view from the Eiffel Tower is great too. The expensive (but queue-less way) to do it is to book a meal at the Jules Verne Restaurant - they have a private lift. Great food (Alain Ducasse) but not cheap.

4) The Isle St Louis - It's like a small village but in the middle of the river. Get to it by metro or by walking from the Notre Dame. Berthillion Ice Cream shops seem to be particularly numerous here. Yum!

5) If you must do a river ride to see the city from a different perspective, go at night. The boat brings its own floodlights to illuminate the buildings. Cheesy but quite contemplative.

6) Au Pied Du Cochon - 24/7 restaurant in the Les Halles district. Great Onion Soup and the restaurant NEVER closes. The fried pig's feet are overated but a house speciality.

7) Le Entrecote - No choice restaurant. Standard Salad, standard cut of sirloin and dessert, no reservations and be prepared to queue. Beware of imitations.

8) If you're dining on Daddy's (I have chosen to be quite specific about the payee ;-) credit card - Taillevent. OUTSTANDING!!!! Don't worry that it now only has 2 Michelin Stars - it's still better than any restaurant we have here in Singapore.

That should keep you busy for a while.

Have fun,

Your Envious Uncle

i really shouldn't be thinking about it now but the prospect of paris is a lot more intriguing than a four hour exam. so i'm working out the list and re-read an old email which brought a smile to my face. seeing how i'd planned on paris since before even knowing i'd be in stockholm, it's a timely reminder of how well things have worked out. having bypassed the city of lights twice in as many years, i'm glad i'm finally going back for the first time in over a decade. i've foggy memories of counting the number of bridges across the seine, lemon sole at side walk cafes, my first ever gap top at galeries lafayette, baguettes and pork trotters complete with nails.

i wonder what it'll be like this time :)

the misses

it sort of burns on my conscience that, to date, i've missed a grand total of eight weddings this year.

part of me still feels awful for missing my dear, eldest cousin's wedding in may when i was conquering the machu picchu. and there were seven other weddings of relatively close friends. not BFFs but still lovely ladies i'd have liked to have watched float down the aisle. and i just found out that i'm missing two x childhood friends' wedding in december. as in, i've two childhood friends marrying their respective partners (not each other) and hence two more weddings that i won't be around for.

plus there's a prospective wedding next year that i'm hoping won't be during my graduation trip. eeP!

maybe i should stop burning my bridges..

just in case

i turned swedish. good to know she's found a use for extra prints.

land of legends

it's pretty silly but i really really really miss greece, well, the cyclades to be exact. athens and crete are probably at the top of my will-never-ever-return-to-by-choice list. pity i didn't get to go to greece during this half-year hiatus. the timing didn't work out, the cyclades aren't as hot in autumn and i'll be back home by the time next summer rolls round.

it's times like this when the weather's turned cold and the sun's gone on vacation that i wish i was back in picturesque santorini with postcard perfect views that even i can take a semi-decent photo.

and, take me to paradise beach anytime!

talk about crazy fun under the summer sun.

nostalgia nostalgia release me now!

hit list

so here's the plan between now and singers, starting this weekend:

saturday -tuesday paris

friday - saturday milan

saturday - friday sicily sardinia

(a fortnight later)

friday - tuesday berlin

(a fortnight+ later)

friday - sunday st, moritz

sunday - tuesday zurich

and pending flight availability, if i do go only make it home in time for new year's then there'll be a last minute addition post-zurich pre-singers.

life's good :)

not just talk

so, instead of whinging about how i've run out of erdbeer joghurt ritter sport, i've decided to put my money where my mouth is and go to berlin.

am pleased to announce that i just booked my flight and accommodation.

no more excuse not to have a steady stream of chocolate :)

horror

him: i like the photo!

me: what about the poem?

him: oh. that thing? uh i didn't read it.

(insert gasp)

him: OH NO NO NO i didn't know you wrote it! it's great!

(insert bigger gasp)

him: i'm reading it now! i don't understand it though! but it's great! so talented you are!

me: i didn't write it...

him: tcuh. i thought you did.

me: NO! how can you not know???

him: it's poetry.

me: YOU WON THE LITERATURE PRIZE IN RI. TWICE.

him: yeah but it was about books.

incidentally, for the others who aren't in the know, it's by keats.

there you go, daily dose of culture.

ode to autumn

1.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

well, the first stanza at least.

in unrelated news, i'm officially out of ritter sport. C very kindly carted 1kg of candy back from cologne for me which my lovely parents dutifully brought up with them when they came to visit. i'd been prudently rationing my little stash o' ritter sport until an inexplicable feeding frenzy and i polished off my last bar of erdbeer joghurt this morning. this is cause for mourning, until A's mother sends him more for me. along with the sausage and red cabbage he's going to prepare some farmer's autumn speciality with. thank god for german friends.

peer pressure

J* - お前はなかま! says:

chill la

wun fail one

i will just laugh at u if u get below 90

*was in stocks on exchange last year and attributes the 99 he got to sheer brilliance.

and all too soon

it's that time of the year again and i need to choose my modules for next semester. what a timely reminder of my imminent departure/return. thank you J for the heads up, i would have verily missed the deadline if you hadn't mentioned subject registration. quick consult with S and i selected my electives. it gets faster every time, probably because i've a very limited interest range and by elimination i've done most of the modules i'd have wanted to anyway. if it was entirely up to me, i'd have done another semester of free-wheeling hippy modules. fun, fluffy stuff that makes me look forward to attending class. but because i know where i'm going and have some idea of what work they do, it'd be irresponsible to spend the last of my formal education wallowing in self-indulgence. so, i seem to have morphed into one of those, the student who only chose practical modules, and i'm trying to strike a balance between studying what i want and what i should. no point learning about basket-weaving now and then feeling like a liability from the first day of work onwards.

really shouldn't be getting nostalgic about it but i can't believe i'm in my final semester. where did the time go??? and it's also taken me 7 semesters to figure out that 1. laptops are evil and should be used sparingly 2. i am extremely Consistent when it comes to take-home exams. so when choosing my modules this time round, i decided to be kind to myself and finally arrange for a 3day week - the mythical being that i'd heard much about but never had a personal encounter with. the downside is that i'll most probably have four exams, but that too was intentional, in reaction to my realisation of how i absolutely Cannot do a take-home, because i lack Confidence in my Capabilities. in a strange way, it's the first semester where i'm not in a tearing hurry to finish the exams and disappear on an adventure. am a little ashamed to admit that early exam dates played a big part in my prior elective selection. this time, however, i'm wanting to savour and stretch out the last of my days as an undergraduate and somehow revising for four exams while everyone else is out partying will definitely slow time down. that's the plan!

so here goes! and i'm hoping that the electronic gods will be benevolent and grant me my electives of choice.

oh and take that back re: 3day week. it didn't strike me earlier but welcome to my life in stockholm :) don't think i can put my system through the trauma of attending class more than thrice weekly. it'd be too much of a reverse-culture shock.

dear beautiful

body of mine,

i love you to bits but there's something i feel compelled to draw to your attention.

as much as i appreciate the sartorial advantage that not having to bundle up in my heavy-duty winter coat affords me, it's vaguely worrying and undoubtedly ridiculous that i'm flouncing around in a flimsy cardigan, unperturbed by the frigid chill (3deg celcius at last consultation).

while i applaud your hyper-efficiency, would you be so kind as to cease overcompensating for my being accustomed to living one degree fifteen north of the equator for the past 22 years? i understand it's tempting to immediately store whatever i send your way as insulation for the impending winter but, believe you me, i much rather bundle up and look like frosty's freckled cousin than to look like the michelin man's twin without a coat.

alternatively, you might wish to consider increasing your metabolic rate to generate heat. i'm open to similar compromise, but most certainly and without further ado, this sudden fat formation has to stop.

best wishes,

the inhabitant

the bottle theory

(click on collages to enlarge)

the menu:

1. brie and baguette

2. pimm's cup

3. cherry tomato and baguette

4. munchies

5. penne with panna and zuccini

6. chocolate cake (ice cream not in picture)

the chef hard at work - M, you're my hero :)

L the sous chef, entrusted with the appetiser

A, dispenser of sense and sensibility

and J needs no introduction

stick me in a room with these four and i'm pretty happy :) there's no better way to spend a wet and windy autumn night than indoors with good company, food and drink.

the girls who i've grown to know and adore. truly grateful for girlfriends in stockholm and for the excellent time we have together. it's reached a point where nothing's out of bounds and we each bring our individual yet shared experiences to the table (haha). i like to think that i know almost everything about them, unintentionally creepy as it may sound, and there's nothing like having a bunch of good girlfriends who're always there for a chinwag or h2h. it reads almost like a personal ad but i love connecting over a delicious homecooked meal with deep, meaningful conversation for the main course.

so thank you for the memories and more to come!

now to figure out how to smuggle them home with me.

quote of the night

"she's best friends with my best friend's ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend. that means i'm actually supposed to hate her."

cocktail party

1. necessity is the mother of invention -

using the back end of a spatula as a pestle

2. mint leaves so fresh they're still on the stem

3. limes

post-sangria, pre-raspberry margaritas

the margarita monster

V of cocktail party ingenuity

little surprise we all managed to fit into V's room, it's huge! apparently it's meant for a couple but she gave her other bed to 'a real couple' and we made do with the remaining furniture. there's nothing like a cocktail party with professional bartenders, albeit attending in a social capacity. didn't stop them from whipping up the yummiest, freshest cocktails which the rest of us non-contributing guests were only too happy to slurp. the drinks went down so easy, sweet and innocuous until the alcohol lands a sucker punch. it's a novel idea and a great way to use one's multi-talented friends. and, suddenly out of nowhere, it turns out that i just might be going to lapland after all :)

procrastination

it is only when i want to waste time that my room is fastidiously tidied and meals meticulously prepared.

and in a valiant attempt to use up the 2kg of butter that i somehow convinced myself i needed, i've been baking up a storm too.

thank goodness for a party a day and plentiful occasions to bring cake to. because my momma taught me never to go anywhere empty-handed.

now if only my knight-in-shining armour would rescue me from the dungeon of domestication that is fast closing in...

hey team

(photo credits to koops)

i could really do with a perry at colbar right now. pyjamas optional but with the double Ds, tat sengs, and wayfarers respectively please. or a mariokart showdown as long as superpeach's on unc's team.

i'll keep you my dirty little secret...

pillow fight

minus the pre-requisite pyjama party.

gotta love being in college.

photo credits to M, these were ripped off facebook. incidentally, the building in the background in the first picture is where we've most of our classes.

is it any wonder

that i'm madly in love with autumn?

(taken with iphone en route to my continued, irrational support of the lidl children)

joy

it's been over 10 weeks since i left home and i'm still waiting for that dreaded bout of homesickness to hit. 10 weeks being the longest i'd previously been away from home prior to coming to stocks. then again, i wasn't homesick the last time and i thought maybe 10 weeks was too short to get homesick over but having crossed the 10 week mark and set a new personal record for pseudo-independent living, i'm wondering if i'll feel it. irreverent as it sounds, the only thing i miss about home is my rottie pup, who's fast morphing into a massive yearling without my being around to watch him grow up :( it sounds almost heartless to say that i don't miss my family, but truly, i don't. i call home often enough and am in constant text contact with them to the point where i don't even feel like we're apart. i really miss the food though, does that make me a terrible person, head ruled not by emotion but by my rumbling tummy? maybe it's not in me to get emotional. without a doubt i love my family to bits but i'm just not at a stage where i'm yearning for their presence or wanting to be back home.

it's been a liberating time away thus far and i know i'll be ready to go home when i need to but for now there's no point in getting irrationally bogged down by silly sentiment. it's not like i can miss home on demand, anyway. complain as i do about stocks and how it's so cold and i can't cook etc etc, i'm secretly relishing every moment here. i recognise that it's short but intense period where i've absolutely zero responsibility. how amazing is that! my inner escapist is turning cartwheels in glee at not having to do anything, go anywhere or meet anyone unless i want to. its self-indulgence at its hedonistic worst and i'd be the first to admit that it's a refreshing change from all the niggling obligations that come with being at home. not that home's a bad thing, i need to keep qualifying my statements, but it's a refreshing change nevertheless :)

at the back of my mind the voice of reason whispers that i graduate in six months, that i'll be done with college in the blink of an eye, that there are additional adult responsibilities about to pounce on me, that real work starts in january 2011 (thank you God that i know where i'm going and am only too happy to be there) which are all together a bundle of blessings that i'm actually looking forward to, it makes these few months in stockholm all the more special for i can truly appreciate the vacancy of my time when i know that it'll belong to me less after this brief surrealist existence. perhaps i don't register my gratitude at the opportunities i've been given often enough but beneath my perpetual protestations of having to do this, that and the other, is a latent satisfaction at having even survived 10 weeks on my own. dependency is a luxury that i'm all too pleased to have been afforded. while dependency has many veins, i refer predominantly to the physical well-being kind.

echoing the sentiment of the earlier post, it's a great place to be. it struck me awhile ago that there's nothing on my wishlist. if the proverbial genie in a bottle appeared and granted me three wishes, i wouldn't know what to wish for because i'm not in want. ok, another qualifier, maybe i'd ask aforementioned genie for a limitless supply of palate pleasers, because i'm always appreciative of good food but i prefer to attribute that to a cultivated appreciation rather than base gluttony, semantic as that may sound. am enjoying the balance of solo living and the gradual introduction to adult responsibilities on the home front. there have been some unexpected but most welcome developments that remind me of just how much there is in store when i go home and that's a great feeling too. incredibly happy to be on the cusp of major life change, to straddle my two worlds in gleeful limbo, inching towards a transition yet still distant enough to savour the present for what it is while peering excitedly into the future. and far from being reluctant to release my life as i know it, there's a time and place for everything and the winds are changing. the autumn leaves swirl as i glide through the blustery evening, weather befitting the mood although the shift most definitely isn't into a winter of discontent. i love anticipation, despite being absolutely terrible with surprises :)

so here's to life, love and happy hormones!

(i swear it was the pizza.)

in conversation

with g'ma:

"how's the rice cooking?"

"not too good. it always turns out a little hard."

(g'ma laughs)

"what're you doing?"

"the usual, according to my indian and chinese corridormates, it's 1 part rice to 2 parts water."

"but you don't like white rice."

"yeah i don't."

"so what rice are you using?"

"brown."

"well, then you need to put more water."

"oh."

guess it doesn't take a rocket scientist but it's taken me over 10 weeks of sporadic hard-rice consumption and i still didn't get it. OH WELL.

and this was going to be my dinner

accompanied by some sauteed onions (don't ask) but right at that moment K popped his head into the kitchen and said he was going to take out pizza. which seemed like an infinitely better dinner option. without hesitation, i turned off the stove and shamelessly asked him to pick one up for me too. thank god for obliging corridormates who risk the cold to fill their (and consequently my) tummies! this photo doesn't do it justice but i was most impressed by this humble pizza from the shack just outside our building. it's thin crust which i'm a big fan of and it tasted sublime. i can't figure out why it was so good, maybe i was desperate for real food. maybe it's been too long since my last pizza, maybe i've become desensitised to bad food after forcibly ingesting my own cooking, but it's the best darn pizza i've had outside naples. it's a dangerous discovery - good pizza 100m from front door. especially with my tendency to go overboard and scant regard for self-restraint. wouldn't be surprised if these babies become my new staple and i grow too big to get through my door and then proceed to subsist on pizza delivery from K.

and i feel a little bad because as we tucked into our respective pizzas, K was translating the headlines for me but all i heard was, "...riot...denmark...hour...indecisive girl in queue...take-home exam...2am..." because all i was thinking was, "...pizzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...mmmmmm :)..." i'm guessing he gave up after two minutes but i really have no recollection of dinner apart from the pizza induced ecstasy. and apparently i was making noises as i ate that embarrassed him. maybe i'd been thinking out loud without realising it...

N turns 22

(continued)

took these on C's camera and just found them on fb.

1. the duck

2. the nervous laughter

3. N thanking his adoring public

at our

unglamorous best.

t-13days. psyched :)

magic

despite the inexplicable emotional connection i feel to the puppies i've never met, i'm pleased as punch that this one will be waiting for me when i come home. the fairest of the lot with the biggest personality. now he just needs to learn how to hold still for the camera during our skype dates.

it's always nice

when you hear back from satisfied buyers. so i usually make it a point to email the breeder a happy little update now and then, just so they know their precious pup is doing ok. and call it karma if you will, but M seems to suscribe to the same school of thought.

Hi G,

Oscar is truly a wonderful puppy.

And he's growing into an amazing dog.

I can see progress every single day with him.

He's very smart, he mastered the leash immediatelly, he can sit already and comes when called and usually stops when he's doing something wrong...

And the first night he didn't even cry!

I'm giving him all my attention, the whole week we spent together, he was alone for 1 hour on Wednesday and he didn't do anything!

He was sleeping and when I got home he was looking from the window.

From some reason he loves looking from the window.

We're taking walks twice a day around the East Coast Park and EVERYONE says how adorable he is (and he LOVES being admired:)

He's very sociable, I took him for dinner twice and he loved it.

He's sleeping half of the day and when he's up, he's very active, so it's almost impossible to take a picture of him because he doesn't stop:)

Below there are links to his videos and pictures.

Thank you once again for letting me have him.

Wish you a nice weekend,

M