My test is for this block is finally over! I am now sitting in my usual seat at the dining table, my computer in charging mode, and I am ready to recount the past week.
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| Beautiful night was it. |
The Start of a Difficult Task
Several weeks ago, I was walking in the Altstadt in the city center.
Right then, I had just received my bank account card (which was the 84th nuisance I had to go through to settle down in Heidelberg) and I wanted to test it to see if it really functions properly.
The biggest bookstore I have found here is the Thalia.de bookstore located among an array of brands I can yet bring myself to think about buying. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a bookstore over here in Germany that would deliver the same amount of awe like the Waterstones bookstore in England.
I understand that I am now only restraining my activity range within Heidelberg, but secretly I have been hoping for more.
Nevertheless, I got myself two novels, one in English and the other in German. After realizing that I have forgotten to check my pin code that came with the card, I retracted my card and sheepishly told her I wanted to pay with cash instead since I left my pin code at home. The German book is a crime novel called Geheimnis in Weiß, The Mystery in White. I also learned that this was a book written by a British author decades ago and was simply translated into German.
After the Beautiful Boy, I picked this book up from my shelf and started reading, only to find myself overwhelmed by the number of new words I found inside.
Still, I want to maintain the habit of finishing one book before I open the next one (in my mind, it is paying proper respect to the book), which means this is going to be a long-spanning read.
It helps, and it gets better, Johannes said.
Can't Wait to do the Translation
J'ai trouvé que je m'intéresse à traduire des chansons que j'aime.
Cette semaine, je veux vous présenter une chanson d'amour. Elle s'appelle "Longtemps", été chanté par Amir. J'aime la voix de cet chanteur qui vient de la France. Il a chanté des chansons avec tant d'emotion et elles plaisent mes oreilles.
On commence!
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| Photo d'écran de la video musique |
Je veux des problèmes
Je veux que tes galère deviennent les miennes
Je veux que tu me balances au visage tes orages tes peine
Pour des nuits diluviennes
Je veux qu'on apprenne
Je veux partager tes joies, tes migraines
Ton corps me donne le vertige et tes mains me mènent
Ou rein ne nous gênent
Je pourrai me tatouer notre histoire sur les bras
me mettre dans de beaux draps si t'es avec moi
C'est toi dans ce monde de fous
Je le sais c'est tout
Et je voudrais que ça dure longtemps
User ma peau sur la tienne
Un jour j'oublierai tout jusqu'a mon je saurais simplement
Que t'es là, que t'es belle, que t'es mienne
Et je voudrais que ça dure cent temps
Que jamais la raisonne n'atteigne
Cet aveu cet envie de rêver tous les deux quand même
jusqu'à ce qu'un jour nos deux yeux s'éteignent
Ça c'est juste les demi de la chanson, mais il faut que me dépêche pour écrire tout dans ma blog.
La traduction est là:
I want the problems
I want all your conundrums to become mine
I want you to share with me in the face of your storms, your pains
in the torrential night
I want us to know each other better
I want to share your joy and your migraines
Your body makes me dizzy and your hands lead me
To where nothing bothers us
I would tattoo our story on my arm
go through all the muddles as long as you're with me
It is you in the world of insanity
that I know at all
I want it to continue on for a long time
to wear away my skin above yours
One day when I forget even my name, I would still easily remember
that you're here, you're beautiful, and you're mine
And I want it to continue on for another hundred years
that there will never be a reason to affect
this confession, this wish to dream at the same time, no matter
Until the day when both of our eyes close
Ça c'est une chansons qui m'a touché dans le coeur...
À la semaine prochaine!
Studying and Ever More Studying, to the End of Time
Dieser Woche war das Ende des Blocks!
Durch diese fünf Wochen haben wir so viel über Wissenschaft und Mathematik gelernt und manchmal denke ich, dass es zu viel für mich ist, um alles zu lernen. Aber ich bin immer so glücklich, fleißige Freunde zu haben. Wir haben zusammen nach leeren Zimmern gesucht und bis neunzehn Uhr studiert (Ich finde es immer lustig, dass es fast keine leeren Zimmer gibt und wir müssen jede Tür öffnen, um uns sicherzustellen, ob die Zimmer wirklich besetzt wurden). Am Wochenende gingen wir in die Bibliothek und schieben wir noch Notizen und wir haben uns die Notizen mit einander verglichen.
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| Studieren mit Emily |
Diese Donnerstag habe ich von acht Uhr bis halb acht Fragen über Mathematik und Wissenschaften geübt. Nach der Study Session mit den Freunden, fühlte ich mich etwas, das ich nie gefühlt habe. Ein Tag vor der Prüfung, hatte ich erstaunlich keinen Angst. Ich fühlte mich leicht und sorglos über die Prüfung und ich konnte in der Küche mehr als vier Stunde bleiben. Harish hat mir gefragt warum, ich ihm nicht nervös scheint. Johannes hat denn etwas gesagt: "Proper preparation prevents piss poor performance". Ich habe im Internet gesucht und ist froh, dass auf Deutsche heißt das auch Alliteration. Der Internet sagte, dieser Satz wird im Militär benutzt.
Die Prüfung kam, und ich weiß, dass ich etwas großen Fehler gemacht habe, aber ich glaube, dass das Resultat nicht so schlecht sein wird.
Hoffentlich.
(Man kann nie so sicher sein!)
So on This Week's Three Dishes...
During the workdays of this week, I have to shamefully admit that I didn't have the chance to invest my attention on cooking sue to the test I really didn't want to fail. Subconsciously I had decided to compensate my time lost with the kitchen stove during the weekend. Conveniently, the guys from my floor have planned with me some food "plots" for the weekend.
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| This was the sandwich I had on the day of the test. |
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| This was the day when I decided that I am tired of the same kind of sandwich every day. |
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| More curry and chapati. I need way more practice to make it batter before I can do whatever I want with it. |
On Saturday, I made with Johannes a whole solid kilo of pizza dough from scratch, and even though I am more and more accustomed to working with the oven and the dough, never had I gotten the chance to work with yeast, meaning this is something new for me (and being the enthusiast for new things, this is not losing my attention in any way) plus that it was an interesting process to witness as the fresh yeast begin their activity after being fed sugar. The foam that was about to overflow from the brim of the cup was the evidence of their diligence.
Johannes, with his previous experience at making pizza dough, taught me how exactly it was done while lecturing me on the difference of it to those Italian pizza and how our oven is unable to achieve the same results than those with higher temperature, which made me really want to pay Italy a visit just to try out the pizza.
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| Me trying very hard to look serious. |
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| photo credits too Svitlana. |
For the first time as well, I bought some basil and some grana padano cheese to make some pesto verde, which I later splayed on my pizza dough.
The whole afternoon was spent surrounded by flour and cheese, and it was so mentally satisfying to hear and observe up-close the cheese sizzling when it subtly started turning brown.
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| In my opinion it was a very well-made pizza, but according to Abhidha, this is a new and weird. It was a pesto verde, pepper and mushroom pizza. |
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| The cheese was having a party. |
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| One of the dough was saved in the cooler for another night and got turned into lunch for the next day. |
Sunday was way more hectic.
In the morning it was a non-stop working in the kitchen. Lets go back half a day on the clock. I was in the kitchen chatting with Yu, another Taiwanese guy from the fifth floor who visits (and is welcome) us very often. I told him that I wanted to recreate my own version of rice burger that I am missing immensely since I left Taiwan. The fast food brand Mos Burger is something you will never be able to find here in Germany. Apparently, Yu was also missing the food in Taiwan. We then agreed that we had to do something to control this culinary nostalgia.
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| I started my morning with a cup of caramel milk tea. |
In the morning I only had a small piece of bread because I needed to use the time something else. I tried making some Japanese soy sauce by incorporating some dried mushroom and sugar.
My rice finished cooking, and I shaped them into eight "buns" that were roughly equal in size. I covered them with the plastic film and set them back into my fridge for later use. I didn't know what else to do in my room, so I stayed in the kitchen to work on my blog. Until my hands started getting twitchy again. I went back to my room to transport some apples and the pre-made puff pastry Svitlana helped me grab from the nearby supermarket. There is something wrong obsessing over apple pies and some different variations, but I ignored this altogether when I set my hands on the ingredients.
I have been struggling to find some crunchy apples that is hard to find at times, and it was great luck for me to be able to find some in my previous grocery shopping. I cut the puff pastry (I want to make them myself next time, to be honest) into long stripes and rolled the apple sliced inside. At least one out of four looked nice enough. I sprinkled some cinnamon powder on top and preheated the oven. I then looked at the remaining dough that was rolled into a ball. Something clicked.
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| It is an apple rose, and I have never been so proud to call it my dessert. |
I rushed back into my room and quickly grabbed a banana and my tablet of white chocolate and tried to roll the both into the remnants of the dough. The baking started, and one of the four tarts fell apart and drew some bitter laugh from me. The tarts were about to be baked, and I came back to the stove again with a small pot and sugar. I had just learned how caramel is made from the Internet, and it was fun to pull the cooling caramel into golden silk-like strings, and that was exactly what I did to this batch of caramel; in my opinion, the result was spectacular.
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| Check. That. Out. |
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| Took me more than half of day to make up my mind to bite into it. |
The other three tarts were not looking perfect, but the taste, I presumed, was homogeneous.
I was more keen on baking more tarts than eat them, so I shared most of my tarts with my friends who were present in the kitchen (Good food is to share, and that is my philosophy of life.)
I ended up saving my last and the most beautiful piece of apple tart for the breakfast of the next day. It was a gorgeous piece that I made. The white chocolate and banana bun I shared with Svitlana, who gave me such positive feedback I felt the need to make more in the future.
As for the rice burger, it was perfect with the iceberg salad, soy sauce that got me scratching my head, and the calamari patties I made for the burger along with the green onion soy sauce chicken breast Yu made. There were some techniques we could employ in the future, but we were absolutely satisfied with the result of the day.
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| Rice burger with fried chicken breast. |
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| I present to you: Rice burger with calamari patties! |
I felt so complete throughout the day in the kitchen, and even though it should draw some concern, my staying in the kitchen from seven to midnight, but I would say it is a day well spent.
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| The pumpkin soup without dairy products so that our American friend Aaron could have some. |
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| I got tired with making pasta with tomatoes or cream all the time, so I tried to improvise with some chili pepper and lemon. At first, I was really upset that the seasoning wasn't enough and all I could taste was sourness. One the second day, however, I used the leftovers to give it a second try, and it was so much better. |
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| Actually, Yu and I also made some brown sugar bubble milk that enhanced the satisfaction. It felt like I was back in Taiwan all of a sudden (hyperbole). |
Bowling
六樓的朋友們為了慶祝這一期的課程結束，早早計劃在禮拜五晚上到附近的保齡球館放鬆一下。
對於只有小時候玩過Wii上面的保齡球電動的我完全不知道到底要注意什麼，不過來這邊有了無數的第一次嘗試，對於這個活動我也只有期待，畢竟最慘也就是被朋友揶揄而已嘛。
出發前，Abhidha提出去印度餐聽吃飯的提議，大家東西都帶齊了就出發了。
在德國吃外食真的很困難。價錢高，又沒辦法保證一定好吃。那天的印度料理就是如此。大家都說我們的味蕾被我們宿舍裡的印度人「寵壞」了，因為他們煮的才是道地的印度菜呀。
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| 並不是說難吃，只是真的感覺沒有那麼香、少了一些風味 |
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| 看起來像下巴脫臼的我 |
一行人吃飽了，我們預約的時間也剛好到了。我們七個人佔了一個保齡球道，平均下來真的不會太貴。換上保齡球鞋，七個人的競爭也就開始了。
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| 幸運11號球。 |
打了大概兩輪才發現我不是唯一一個沒打過保齡球的人，在看Yu、 Harish、Johannes打過幾輪之後，大概也知道要如合直直地將球送出去了（而我的大拇指指甲也在這時候斷了）。
某一次輪到我的時候丟出了一顆太歪的球，直接洗溝，結果第二次竟然打出一顆全倒，連我都嚇到了。正好Harish那次幫我錄了影片，我才有辦法拿來炫耀。後來也打出了還蠻不錯的分數（以一個初學者來說），我也很有成就感。
Yazdan還有Abhidha對於保齡球還是沒有很上手，不過大家感覺都玩得還蠻盡興的。
大約十二點半我們回到了宿舍，路上還碰到了一群感覺正要出去狂歡的人群。
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| 有出來真是一個正確的決定。 |
End and a Glimpse of the Coming Week
It was such an eventful week!
There are still things to talk about, but I think this pretty much covered most highlights of the week.
The second block, I just checked, comes with a packed schedule, meaning I will need to manage my time better for the coming five weeks. Still, there is plan for the next weekend that is quietly forming, waiting to float upon the surface: I am planning to go to France.
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| Paying my last respect for the first bottle of Maggie sauce I used up. |
Sincerely,
Hugo
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