dinner

corn and red pepper quinoa, baked egg plant with feta, green salad, lemony salmon, blueberry lemon bars

i love to cook.

maybe four posts about one place is too much?

juices at la boqueria
palm trees!!
paellaaaaa
ice creams plus [already ripped] polka tights
la sagrada familia
la sagrada familia
aww
it's like 'where's waldo?', only this time it's 'where's hannah?' i am sooo original.
blurry hannah
yayyy, futbol

barcelona, part numero uno (wow, i speak spanish)

there are no words. i thought i had spent all my love on berlin, but it seems that i can also love another city. and that city, my friends, is barcelona.
let me start by saying that i am currently in the school library so on top of my already lazy capitalization problem, i'm probably going to have some punctuation FAILS in this post. please forgive me.
also, i am extremely busy AGAIN but i am writing this now because if i dont, it will probably never get written and then i will forget everything and then i will CRY. at least i found the caps lock key or whatever.
anyways, i traveled to barcelona with my friend hannah who is from australia and is on exchange at the fu (freie universitaet) this semester as well. we got to barcelona via an incredibly circuitous route aka the frankfurt-hahn airport. the f-h airport claims to be in frankfurt, germany, but actually it is 200 km away and is there only for the purpose of forcing people to suffer. we were there for 10 hours the first way through and it was not pretty. my advice to you is this: avoid frankfurt hahn at all costs. also, ryan air is really hilarious and scary and the pilots are shitty, but i am a student and cheap so that is how it goes. 'nough said.

on friday, we awoke in our barcelona hostel and immediately set forth to explore the city. per taylor's suggestion (sadly, she is already back in the states and could not give us a tour first hand) we walked through las ramblas and headed to the boqueria which is an amazing covered market. wow guys. i'll post pictures later, but the fruit juices we bought were mind blowing. we spent a lot of time photographing the seafood which, in some cases, WAS STILL ALIVE AND WIGGLING. ewwww, but also hilarious. there were also dead, baby pigs we nicknamed (crassly) babe and wilbur and the picture of which will probably not make it onto the blog because it's pretty gross and disturbing.

we then walked to the harbor and really all around these little streets, ate tapas, SHOPPED (ack, wow, the shopping in barcelona is amazing and super dangerous), and then ate amazing paella and drank a bottle of wine. i'm proud to say that we didnt eat dinner until around 11 pm which is almost late for a spaniard and also that we closed the restaurant down.

my only complaint for this weekend was that i had a cold and so i couldnt completely taste everything i ate. i could taste enough, however; barcelona is a food paradise for sure.

ok, i'm going to separate these posts because otherwise you might die of boredom (if i haven't lulled you to sleep already). also pictures will have to wait til i'm back at my home computer.

i told you they love easter here

this is a lawn in berlin.

this is a lawn in berlin with bunnies on it.

this is a lawn in berlin with bunnies on it. the bunnies are here because it is easter.

my question is this: what do they do with the bunnies after easter?

i hope they don't eat them...

this weekend. a glimpse:

• at our place, mini premiere of a short film in honor of the berlinale.
• running 1.5 miles whilst carrying a bottle of prosecco so i could catch the ubahn at 1 am saturday morning.
• up til 7 am to watch the berlin sunrise; pshh, as if: more like slow changing dark to blue.
• croissant brunch with mar on kolwitzplatz
• mauerpark flohmarkt (flea market); a sunday tradition here.
• rissani (hummusfalafelfriedcheeseamazingness, no pictures sorry) dinner with susi and björn; afterwards, discovery of a new favorite coffee shop.

in other news, i am officially an inhabitant of this flat because my name is now on the door. also, i am peacing for the next four days; first, to visit friedrich in leipizig, and then to stay in a hostel by myself in dresden for two days. my train leaves at 9:17 tomorrow and i already know getting up is going to kill me.

also, i will try to be better about posting things regularly.

bis bald!

snow day

it has been a crazy weekend; let's start at the beginning maybe?

tay arrived here on thursday night and we did little but eat oreos and cuddle. it was so nice to see her because she is amazing, and she also knows me really well. there's something about being abroad that is strangely lonely. on the one hand, i absolutely love meeting lots of new people and being able to experience a city without feeling tied down, etc. but on the other hand, it's also very hard to be away from people who you feel absolutely comfortable with. oof, sorry, a little off topic maybe. all i'm saying is, there are several people very far away from me right now who i wish were here.

on friday, taytay and i went to the east side gallery which stretches along part of where the wall used to be. it's basically an outdoor exhibit of artists from all over the world who are celebrating openness and the fall of the wall, etc. i hadn't been yet because i wanted to save it for tay's visit but i really loved it; i'm sure i'll be back again. we then trekked very far and took the ubahn to the holocaust memorial, which many of you probably recognize from photographs. it's a great exhibit. as you walk inside it slopes gently downward until the huge blocks of grey stone tower over you. some people experience the memorial as interactive (they climb on the blocks or run through it); others stand quietly and lean on the stones. it snowed all day on friday so this time the stone blocks were covered with about four inches of snow.

we also went into the underground exhibit that accompanies the memorial, which i have also done once before. it's not very big but it is incredibly sad; this time was especially hard for me. i highly recommend the exhibit and the memorial but i don't think i'll go into the underground part again, for a while at least.

friday also involved a lot of food; we started off with delicious croissant and pretzel+coffee and then, after the memorial, we headed over to the turkish market again so taylor could try the flaky spinach cheese thing. i cannot for the life of me remember the name of it, but it is seriously delicious. we also drank marzipan liqueur with susi and bjorn, shared a pizza and drank the most disgusting margaritas ever. but, of course, we were together and so it was magical.

food (part1)

the stories of food are my favorite ones. without further ado, here is a little culinary tour of the past week:

the first thing i bought myself in berlin: mohnapfelkuchen und latte machiatto.
the most delicious thing ever invented: the dönner kebab. you can get them on almost every street corner here. this one is from bistro baghdad, right off the schlesischestor Ubahnhof stop (U1 richtung Warschauerstr.). it has been rated as the top dönner stand in berlin for the last few years. i seriously (and embarrassingly) moaned out loud when i bit into it, and the nice turkish men who run the booth all winked at me. if any of you visit me, we are going here no questions asked.

deeply warming latte machiato (prenzlauerberg)

turkish market at kottbussertor, in kreuzberg

amelia and i indulged in the most delicious cheese+spinach wrap (fried to a crisp).

post-spinachcheesedelicious, we parked ourselves on a dilapidated bench next to the market and proceeded to eat our way through an unbelievably delicious melon. (the knife is mine; i know, it's a little intense--thanks dad--but proved itself very useful in this case).

things about texas

• sky like an overturned soup bowl
• cotton and other such primeval vegetation
• chicken eggs as big as the palm of your hand
• hulk, silent house: the portrait of Muddy at the top of the stairs
• attic with every life magazine from 1935-1950
• the best cat fish/shrimp in the world

can't wait (mouthwatering)

I am a great lover of food. I am also a devoted fan of bakeries. And I cannot wait to wake up on a weekend morning in Berlin, trot down to my neighborhood bakery and stock up on freshly baked pretzels and brötchen (and maybe a slice of cake or two). Then, I'll go home, brew some strong espresso, curl up on the couch with a book or a friend and demolish it all.