oh, hello

GRE = dominated. thesis draft = submitted. now it's just 2 research papers, 2 take home finals, and editing my draft between me and graduation!!

i rewarded myself after my long week of studying after the GRE with a little shopping/ exploration trip. lately i've been doing a pretty good job of buying mostly used things (minus the occasional trip to target-- but after awhile of bargain shopping, $20 for a tshirt just isn't appealing anymore). and buying second hand doesn't just limit you to goodwills-- at least not in winston-salem or charleston (though the goodwills are above average too, in my opinion). i found a new shop today and the owner (who stayed open an extra half hour late just for me-- another wonderful thing about local businesses) mentioned that she was putting out her christmas display soon.

-- Which got me thinking about gift giving this year. I've always felt pretty grinchy about christmas-- i have trouble seeing past all the piles of discarded gift wrap trash, the pressure to buy your kids the latest video game, and representing sentiments with "stuff". don't get me wrong, i love stuff, but it does take away from more pleasant parts of the holiday.

the very very very worst thing about christmas, however:

is the invention of inflatable yard decor.

and if you're reading this and are the proud owner of one of these monstrosities, tough cookies. i will not apologize for judging you. just be happy knowing i dont keep a pair of scissors handy in the glove box. not yet, anyway.

putting aside (for a moment) my unyielding loathing of tacky brightly colored nylon heinousness, i will say that christmas isn't totally terrible. presents are fun (as long as they don't replace quality time and/or get blown out of proportion).

thus, my goal for this christmas: buy local, handmade, and/or charity-benefitting gifts. pretty much a list of things i've been eyeing lately and solemnly promise not to buy for myself (at least until after christmas). people tell me i'm hard to shop for, so i'll help y'all out here. plus, there may be some ideas on the list below that may hit a few other people on your list as well.

(side note: this list is just meant to reflect things that make me feel warm and fuzzy. if i sound a bit crazed, please forgive me.)

top of my list: water bottle awesomeness.

www.gift.water.org

i also love shops like ten thousand villages, which sells fair trade items from all over the world.. i can just see the little home grown herb garden now! (my roommate has a set similar to this, it works great and keeps things nice and tidy)

http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/earth--sky-herb-pots

i love overlooked.com! proceeds from their goods benefit different charities all over the world. and they're having a 20% off sale this week ("gift" at register). doesn't really get much better!

http://overlooked.storenvy.com/products/41842-ivy-vine-cuff-india

always liked passport covers; here's a great one:

http://overlooked.storenvy.com/products/41867-world-passport-cover-india

(there's also a similarly patterned journal on there than looks wonderful. they've just added a ton of new items and they're all pretty much fantastic)

if you're so inclined, i'd encourage you to think about how important using disposable or over-the-top gift wrap really is. and perhaps recognize the fact that 99% of it will go straight to the landfill. this blog gives a nice summation of how to make gift wrapping easy, meaningful, and earth friendly:

http://simplemom.net/eco-friendly-and-green-gift-wrapping-ideas-for-this-holiday-season/

over the years i've started getting & giving gifts wrapped in vintage/retro fabric (i collect anything with a good pattern for various projects), repurposed paper/art (skirt magazine is perfect for this), and, my personal fav, reusable bags. so much easier to tie a big bow on a bag with the present inside, and that way your gift wrap becomes part of the present. you can do this with canvas bags, totes, bags made from recycled materials, etc.. they're everywhere these days, and available at any price (roomie and i recently scored half a dozen canvas totes to wash and paint at a flea market for less than $1 altogether). the best and most practical that i've come across for everyday use: the flip n' tumble.

http://www.flipandtumble.com/shop.html

it wads up into a nice neat little bag (no folding or careful rolling or any of that junk) within seconds, and flip (and tumbles) open with even more ease. it's pretty much the best thing since sliced bread.

the following may not adhere too strictly to my criteria, but are just too cool not to put on my wish list..

set of 50 vintage stamps from anthropologie. i was shocked to see they're $6. SIX. usually anthropologie gives me the opposite kind of sticker shock...

http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=073590&parentid=BAYNOTE

this at least promotes handmade things.. i've never tried crewel, but i've been mulling over it for awhile now and just discovered these fantastic kits! call me a grandma, but i think i could do some really cool things with these..

http://www.purlsoho.com/purl/products/item/7249-Custom-House-Pressed-Ferns-Woodland-Scrapbook-Crewel-Kit-

http://www.purlsoho.com/purl/products/item/7608-Custom-House-Sunshine-Bouquet-Crewel-Kit

and i may need this to help learn some techniques:

http://product.half.ebay.com/_W0QQprZ71116461QQcpidZ1390573046

really random... but a bias tape maker would be really super (so many projects in mind, and i'm so awful at making bias tape!):

http://www.purlsoho.com/purl/products/item/2434-Clover-Bias-Tape-Maker-25-mm

this is just lovely..

http://www.modcloth.com/store/ModCloth/Womens/Oh+Pear+Bracelet

this is too cute..

http://www.modcloth.com/store/ModCloth/Womens/Accessories/Bags/Meta+pic+tional+Phone+Pouch

awesome idea..

http://www.coolstuffcheap.com/m-cups-measuring-cups.html

grow crystals in a jar.. so cool. (i'm an air sign, btw)

http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=17220526&navAction=jump&isProduct=true&parentid=MORE%20IDEAS&isProduct=true&cross-sell=true&guide-bn=true

and this was just too bizarre to leave out:

http://www.modcloth.com/store/ModCloth/Womens/Accessories/Wallets/Peanut+Butter+and+Jam+Wallet

that's all for now! time to finally post this thing and hope all the pictures work..

weekend-turned-weeklong project

finally finished my dresser makeover! after sanding, cleaning, painting, and coating with polyurethane, i had to wait another 48 hours for the stench to fade to move it from the porch to the bedroom. i got a little impatient at some parts, so i'm not 100% satisfied with it, but i think i'll like it more once i add a few more elements to the room. and i like that i got it at the SC thrift and resale, which benefits womens charities here in charleston.

before:




















the dresser, right before i started painting-- almost forgot to take a before picture!





















the previous drawer handles. buh bye!






















i picked a teal by olympus called "french riviera"... and yowza, it turned out quite bright. the next pic is the finished project, but taken in a darkened room..





















*le fin!*

now to rehang the mirror, find a headboard, get another curtain installed, an accent chair, and perhaps an antique trunk... plenty to look forward to there.

more pictures to come, once i resolve these arrangements with my ocd...

off the coast of carolina..

been in Charleston since late May, moving into a new apartment, etc... pics and lots more updates soon. I've been nannying and babysitting for several families while taking a UD biology class and preparing for the GRE. One more (part-time) semester at Wake and I'm all done! For my spring semester off I'll be working full-time (probably nannying) to pay off this bundle of joy:



















As you can tell, I'm pretty much in love with my 2010 Malibu. Never thought I'd get another chevy after the death trap that was Gladys (see exhibit A:)





















... but the malibu definitely won me over.


I've had a lovely summer here in SC-- more pics to come soon of the apartment, and probably a post about my porch garden as well. For now, I'll leave you with one of my favorite things about the south-- these adorable lizards! Forget their name but I get so happy when I see them.. always reminds me of trips to visit my grandparents and seeing these little brown and green lizards running around pathways and windows :)





















(PS- there's no zoom on my phone's camera. I actually got this close to one!)

failblog.

really haven't updated this much, but in my defense i've kept a really great scrapbook! maybe i'll take some pictures and post them here..

and i just realized, i never posted about my barcelona adventure! at the time it was a fiasco, but in the end it was still an amazing trip. spain was definitely not to be when the airports were down and the train workers in the south of france decide to go on strike. really not cool. but, after a verrry long bus ride to frankfurt and a rather speedy train from frankfurt to vienna, i made it back and was able to make up my german final (alles gut!). very glad to know a decent amount of spanish, french, and german-- it was a very long, very eventful trip! even learned some finnish as well from some new friends i met during my extended stay in an awesome city.

i also made it to salzburg to see my friend lauren who's studying there for a year, and besides that i've been biking around vienna (really must start biking when i get back to the states.. i'm absolutely hooked!) and really getting to know the city. it's so hard to leave (i even sold back the bike today.. very hard to let go of my faithful steed) but i'm also really excited a summer in charleston! i plan on keeping the blog updated once in awhile with pictures and news, so check back from time to time!

finals are over and i've even packed (VERY thankful that we have a scale in the house-- my bags are stuffed!).. spent my last day in vienna (last final was yesterday) doing last minute errands and relaxing in a kaffeehaus by st stephen's... agh i'm really going to miss vienna!!

some pictures to make up for my bad blogging....

barcelona beach at sunset

la pedrera, barcelona

salzburg sound of music cow!

Happy Easter

... belatedly! Got back from Budapest on Saturday night and I walked so much in that city that I ended up slightly crippled.. must have bruised or sprained my right foot because by Saturday morning I could barely walk at all.

view of Buda Castle from the Chain Bridge

Turned out to be a hidden blessing that we had so much work to do this week-- I actually didn't even leave the house again until today when we went to the Sigmund Freud museum! Glad to be feeling almost 100% better now, as tomorrow we're climbing to the top of the Karlskirche , and this weekend we have a group trip to Krakow and Auschwitz.

On Sunday we made a wonderful Easter dinner: steamed asparagus, garlic and rosemary mashed potatoes, leek and potato casserole, marinated chicken, and baked apple pie :)

I myself only made the asparagus and garlic and rosemary potatoes, but for the chicken we used a marinade that was about half apricot jam and half regular mustard. absolutely delicious! I don't eat chicken often but this was a worthy exception.

i've never actually steamed asparagus before but it was so easy to do that now i'm pretty much hooked. cooking in our kitchen has me making a mental list of kitchen items i want to shop for when i go back home.. a garlic press, a steamer, a juicer... the garlic and rosemary mashed potatoes are pretty self explanatory, i just eyeballed the different ingredients and mixed them all together after boiling the potatoes and sauteeing the garlic. i also discovered that if it gets a bit dry, you can revive leftovers with a couple teaspoons of canola oil before you reheat it in the microwave.

i'll try to post again soon!

bicycle!

bought a bicycle on wednesday and i'm absolutely hooked. vienna's pretty bike friendly; where there aren't bike paths, you just bike on the road with the cars (yes i know, this would never work in america). i always wanted to try driving in europe, and this is probably the closest i'll get! the city is now so much more accessible and i don't need a bus pass, so i'm staying here this weekend and exploring :)

recipes!

with so much going on i haven't had the courage to tackle coverage of our awesome trip to italy, so in the meantime let me just say that i'm loving the kitchen we have here! with fresh produce from the naschmarkt, there's always something yummy to make. i'm terrible at following recipes, so here's two that i've come up with and love to make. they're really simple but

1. vEGGies

you'll need:

2-3 tsp olive oil

some salt

1/3 onion, chopped

1/3 red bell pepper

(optional: spinach)

2 large free-range eggs, whisked in a bowl with a tsp of butter and a dash of milk

handful shredded gouda cheese

3 or 4 cherry tomatoes, diced (really should be cherry tomatoes)

what to do: heat olive oil and a dash of salt in a medium pan on medium-low. once it heats up, add onion and bell pepper and wait for onion to start to brown. then add spinach if desired (highly recommended). once spinach is cooked add in egg mixture and stir. just before the eggs are done cooking, sprinkle in the gouda cheese and a little more salt if desired. when cheese is melted in, serve with tomatoes on top and enjoy :)

2. veggie fried rice

you'll need:

2-3 tsp olive oil

chopped onion, red bell pepper, zucchini, snap peas (and other veggies if desired)

1 free-range egg

1/2 cup rice

chicken broth (here we have tablets (i use 1/2 of one per 1/2 cup rice) , not sure if they have the tablet form in the states??)

some salt

what to do: heat olive oil and a dash of salt in large sauce pan as you boil 1/2 cup of rice in 1 cup water in a pot (with chicken broth to add flavor). add veggies to the pan, one at a time (onion first, then bell pepper and zucchini, peas last). when veggies are cooked, crack the egg and stir in with the veggies. add a little salt if desired. when rice is cooked, stir it into the pan and cook for 5-10 minutes (you may need to add a little more olive oil and salt as it cooks). the rice won't be very brown but it's quite good :) makes about 2 side servings.

now if i could just make gelato...

Sono arrivato a Firenze!

arrived in florence! we'll move on to rome on the 8th, and spend a night in bratislava on the 11th on our way back to vienna. more pictures to come!

Prague

Our trip to Prague was highly anticipated, and didn't disappoint. Our art teacher, "Dr. O", gave us a city tour shortly after we arrived, and we had a full weekend of sightseeing and exploring.

It is thought that Prague gets its name from the word for "steps", as the river has several places (as shown above) where the water cascades over a sort of "step".









What to see in Prague:

1. hotel evropa - we stayed in this lovely hotel in wenceslas square (named after the same king as in the christmas carol!), it's affordable and absolutely beautiful. original art nouveau style, although if they renovate it i'm sure rates will go up. it's a little dark and mysterious inside, but i loved it. the dining room served as the model for the dining room of the titanic! there's also a stained glass piece inside just above the entrance to the dining room, and i have a theory it's an original Mucha. speaking of which...

2. Mucha Museum - i'm absolutely obsessed with alphonse mucha and his art nouveau lithographs. his museum is 80 k's (about 3 euros) for students and is definitely worth a visit.

3. st vitus cathedral (of course)! half gothic, half neo-gothic cathedral of prague; tongue and tomb of st john of nepomuk, stained glass windows (one is by mucha), and of course st vitus. so much to see in this church!

4. there's a communist museum in prague that's supposed to be really interesting, but i was embittered by the 140 kronig student price so we walked the city instead.

5. the local beer is quite good, so definitely try the pilsner urquell

6. jewish museum and cemetery - the history of jews in prague is really fascinating. there's a beautiful memorial to the czech and moravian jews who were murdered in the holocaust that you really have to see. the cemetery has over 12,000 tombstones on a small plot of land, and there are an estimated 70-100,000 actual graves (several layers, as there were few places in europe that jews were allowed to bury their dead).

7. climbing the clock tower in the old rathaus (which has a fascinating and complex astrological clock) will give you a great view of the city!

8. st charles bridge - famous for its statues, go and rub the statue of st john of nepomuk for good luck! legend has it that king wenceslas threw him in the river for not telling him what the queen said in confession. 5 stars appeared around where he fell into the water (thus he is always depicted with 5 stars around his head). when they retrieved his body, everything was decaying except for his tongue. when st vitus got boring, they popularized st john of nepomuk to attract more pilgrims to prague.

9. the city square by the rathaus has a lot of street vendors offering wurstel, soups, and hot wine. if you're traveling in cold weather, some potato soup and hot wine is absolutely wonderful!

your to-do list for munich

although i'd been to bavaria and the outskirts of munich with my wonderful host family in germany several years ago, i hadn't yet seen the city itself; so when the other students suggested a weekend trip, i went along and am very glad that i did! the city can definitely be seen in a weekend, and entirely on foot, but be prepared for an ambitious itinerary.

1. deutsches museum. first thing i did after checking into the hostel was to drag my roommate across the city to see this museum. admittedly, i didn't understand most of the very technical scientific explanations in the exhibits on space travel and engine mechanics, but there was a great deal to see and i definitely felt smarter after we left. my favorite part was the futuristic nanotechnology exhibit, which projected that before long we'll have tiny little robots swimming through our blood stream and filtering out impurities and clearing out our arteries. yeah, that was my reaction too..

2. kaufingerstrasse is a nice broad street that makes for a very pleasant stroll. you'll pass by the rathaus-glockenspiel, a very impressive and beautiful building on marienplatz. there you'll also see mary's column, and you know i love anything with my name on it. kaufingerstrasse also has good shopping, and maximilianstrasse will give you a nice ritzy stroll past the mercedes, prada, gucci, etc. stores.

3. the hofbrauhaus is a good time, and a fun way to try munich's world famous brews. dinners in touristy places can get expensive, so i grabbed a veggie doner kebab and caught the happy hour at the bar.

4. there was a free walking tour of munich offered in a brochure in our hostel. i just grabbed the map they offered and followed the tour myself, which allowed me to wander off a bit and get a closer look at the parts i found most interesting. munich is definitely walkable, and as we were only a couple blocks away from the train station i didn't catch a single subway or bus all weekend.

5. st. peter's belltower is well worth the climb and offers a beautiful view of the city. plus just 1 euro for students!

6. the englischergarten is the largest city park in continental europe (larger than central park in nyc!) and is a wonderful place to go exploring. don't miss the surfers riding the perpetual wave generated by the water rushing in to fill the park's meandering stream-- they're even out there in february!

7. the alte pinothek art museum is just one euro admission on sundays. you can guess what i did with my last afternoon!

my favorite thing about munich was just getting to wander around on my own time and seeing the sights and sounds at my own pace. my own pace is, admittedly, rather fast, but if you've only got the weekend, you have to fit in everything you can!

Reasons to love Vienna

after living in this beautiful city for over a month, i hardly know where to start! i've been making a mental list of just some of the things i love about vienna though...

1. you can drink the tap water, no filter needed. i can't tell you how happy this makes me, though admittedly i'll drink tap water anywhere, even in morocco (though there were times i swore i never would again). the tap water here is piped down from the alps and only has a tad bit of preservative chemicals (added only, in fact, because of and during the American occupation after WWII) that are supposed to keep it cleaner.

2. the public transport is clean and wonderfully easy to use. for 50 euros a month, you can ride anywhere in the city limits by bus, subway, train or streetcar. however, as the weather turns warmer (it was a balmy 50 degrees today. i'm very excited about this.), i'm going start walking everywhere instead (it's about 30 minutes to the city center from our house in the 19th district) and put the money saved into going to budapest and bratislava, both short distances away. which brings me to

3. vienna is so close to so many places! we've already been on group trips to munich and prague, and i'm planning several trips of my own to budapest, bratislava, salzburg, and even barcelona (found cheap tickets on ryanair.com). next week i'll be spending spring break in florence and rome with my parents (making italian my unofficial 5th language of study)!

4. vienna is very clean and there's not as much smoking in public as i thought there might be, which is nice. then again, my last trip was to morocco where i was surrounded by nicotine junkies. nonetheless, they do a good job of keeping things tidy and swept around the city (and unlike moscow, no packs of feral dogs roaming the streets. wunderbar!)

5. it's quite a cosmopolitan city, and people speak all sorts of languages and hail from all different parts of the world. the lingua franca is definitely english, and i've been enjoying seeing illustrations from what we've studied in my linguistics classes in daily conversations. i enjoy speaking german while out, but i'm also comforted by the fact that if i need to, i can communicate in english.

6. there are plenty of things to do for a few euros (or less) here. the stadtpark is a huge woodsy park in the first district, but there are many more smaller (but still span several square blocks) parks scattered about the city. turkenschanz park is just a block from our house, and offers running trails, sledding hills, beautiful views and even a little restaurant that may be nice to visit as the weather warms up. you can also get standing room seats to an opera or a concert for a few euros; monday night we went to see falstaff by verdi and it was wonderful. they even have little screens where you can read the words in german or in english!

7. cafe culture is also wonderful, and you can linger over a cup of coffee in a kaffeehaus in vienna without getting hurried out by your server.

8. every day, i find another thing to love about vienna! especially as the warmer weather approaches... for the first couple weeks, the temperatures never went above freezing!

oh by the way, i'm still alive...

i hereby promise to post on my blog very, very soon. i have several entries scribbled out just waiting to be typed, and have yet to sit at my computer long enough to actually post them here. i've been really busy and can't wait to share my experiences in prague, munich, and of course vienna!

... but as it happens, i'm about to go my first ever opera (falstaff by verdi). i understand there are subtitles on little screens, so hopefully i'll understand what's happening.

again, my apologies and i will have many posts, very soon!!!!

xx

Arrived at Flow House!

Actually I've been here since Friday, but it's been such a whirlwind I've just now sat down to update le blog. This house is utterly amazing; donated by the Flow family in 1999, it's housed about a dozen students every semester, and a smaller group in the summer as well. There's space for 14 or 15 students, but this semester we have a small group of 7 so it's quite roomy.

some of you may have my address in vienna-- letters are fine, but please do not send packages! customs officials here charge really high tariffs, in some cases they are higher than the actual cost of the item. if it's important, my parents might be willing to bring it in march :)

I'll try to post more pictures of the inside and around the city soon. This week we have intensive German classes to prepare us for getting around the city and ordering food, etc, and next week our classes begin. I'm taking Intermediate Political Theory, Politics of Identity in Central Europe, Austrian Art & Architecture, Photography (1 hour), German 113. I might also audit the intermediate German class, depending on how I find the beginner's class. My German host parents have prepared me fairly well in German, and I'm surprised at how much I remember from 4 years ago.

Class starts at 9, so it's off to bed for me. Tschuss!

Vienna Bound!

leaving for Vienna tomorrow night, getting there Friday 1/15 around 2 pm (8am eastern time).

Updates soon!!