groundbreaking...

ladies and gentlemen, etch this day into the history books:

I made a salad today. My first ever. And it was good.

Arugula leaves, with walnuts and feta cheese. Dowsed in my homemade dressing, made of equal parts balsamic vinegar and olive oil, one clove garlic, salt, mustard and honey.

Yummmm. And amazing enough for its own post.

[Addition: while washing up after eating, I promptly crack my french press. And cut my finger on the pieces. Karma? Well see. But that salad is going to set me back about 15euro, as the french press is my only way of getting my drug of choice into my veins.]

updates

hello all!

it's a wild few weeks coming up in romantic heidelberg. to keep y'all updated:

-Tomorrow is referat (report) number 1/2 for the semester. It's about a play by Ludwig Thoma called "Moral". Written ca 1900, it follows a Sittlichkeitsverein (Ethics Club) as it attempts to squash a scandal involving each member of the club and their visits to a prostitute. I love the enduring quality of the double-moral and hypocrisy. So I need to work through the play and highlight what's funny. Should be fun.

-This week Thursday is the last day of April. Thursday night is Walpurgis Night, the annual pagan celebration of spring. In Heidelberg, hordes of students head to the Thingstätte, an old Nazi ampitheater, to dance and drink the night away until the sun comes up. I've heard it's incredible, and as I've only got one chance I am planning on enjoying it.

-I joined a tennis club recently and the courts are (finally!) open, so I'll start playing. Tennis in Germany works differently than in the US- as far as I know there's no such thing as public courts. You must buy a membership to use courts, but that means there'll generally be no waiting for courts and that the courts are clay, which is nice.

-I get to see a German soccer match! May 9, I'm headed up to see Dortmund play. It's Hanna's favorite team. Which means that Saturday, I'm chearing for Dortmund. Go yellow!

-And the day after, Ben Kweller is popping into romantic Heidelberg to give a little concert. I may have to pop in for a listen.

And so that's my next couple weeks. After that I'm heading to the Bodensee sometime, but I'll let y'all know when I know for sure.

Best,
Alex

that new fad, jogging?

I believe it's jogging, or yogging, it might be a soft j. I'm not sure but apparently you just run for an extended period of time. It's supposed to be wild.


After countless stops and starts, I think it's for real this time. I am jogging regularly! 6 days in a row now, between 20 and 30 minutes each day. I go really slow and not very far, but the best part is that I wake up now and feel like I want to go running. Which is the key- the struggle of getting out and doing it is more than half the battle. And now that my day feels (or would feel) empty without it, I've got to do it and I enjoy it.
It also allows me to see Heidelberg at it's most beautiful. Mornings around 7:30 or 8, it's very quiet and the sun isn't too direct. The river sparkles and I'm alone except for fellow yoggers and my GirlTalk/DaftPunk jams.
Below is a map of the Altstadt or center of Heidelberg: notice the three bridges. I live just south of the middle bridge. Before this new running binge, I would decide (once every two weeks) to go for a run and choose one of two routes- the short route, which would be the circuit of the middle and eastern bridges. The "long" route would be the middle and the western bridges. But today, guess what, I ran from my house, near the middle bridge, over to the east bridge, crossed the river, allll the way to the west bridge, crossed again, and back! Boo yah. It feels great.
Not sure what my goals are, if any. As they say, it's the journey that's the goal.
But really, I want to be able to jog up to the castle, run around the gardens a bit, and walk down. That's a good goal to work towards.

Go Bulls.

food, glorious food!

I live alone. Basically. Though I live with three other people, it operates more like that kind of antisocial floor in a dorm building- that is, bathrooms and kitchen are shared, but the bedrooms have heavy thick doors and we for the most part don't do much together. In 8 months living here we've had dinner together twice. I don't mind this- it's a lifestyle I actually enjoy, as I can live my life the way I like and don't need to work my schedule around eating with 3 other busy adults.
And so when I cook, I cook alone. Which makes things tough- without other mouths to feed, I can generally ignore my rumbling stomach or just toast a slice of bread with cheese on it.
But this year I've made the effort to cook a good meal at least once a week. Here are a few of my go-to's:

Aglio e Olio: Pasta, with oil, garlic, chile sauce. Made it tonight.
Garlic/Lemon/Shrimp Pasta: Pretty self explanatory. Delicious and lemony.
Kartoffelgratin: Kind of a potato casserole, that I learned from the great chef Thorsten.
Knoblauchbutter: Also from the Kitchen of Thorsten, it's just garlic butter. But it's homemade and really, really tasty, leaving you sweating out garlic for days.
Schniztel: I can't make it too often, because it's kind of expensive, but it's delicious. And pretty easy.
Baguette: Can't think of a better name, but it's probably the greatest afternoon snack ever. My kids will love it. It's a baguette, cut in two, with butter, garlic, grilled onions, tomatoes, and cheese, baked in the oven for 10 minutes. Yum.

Note a recurring ingredient in (almost) all the above recipes: yes, it's garlic, and it will be the secret to my longevity.

First Referat is already on Monday, so tonight (and the whole weekend) will most likely be devoted to that. April showers are bringing May flowers and it's really pretty and relaxing.

oh, art.

Bob Dylan in a recent interview:

Q:Say you wake up in a hotel room in Wichita and look out the window.
A little girl is walking along the train tracks dragging a big statue of
Buddha in a wooden wagon with a three-legged dog following
behind. Do you reach for your guitar or your drawing pad?

A:Oh wow. It would depend on a lot of things. The environment mostly; like what
kind of day is it. Is it a cloudless blue-gray sky or does it look like rain? A little
girl dragging a wagon with a statue in it? I’d probably put that in last. The
three-legged dog - what type? A spaniel, a bulldog, a retriever? That would
make a difference. I’d have to think about that. Depends what angle I’m seeing
it all from. Second floor, third floor, eighth floor. I don’t know. Maybe I’d want to
go down there. The train tracks too. I’d have to find a way to connect it all up. I
guess I would be thinking about if this was an omen or a harbinger of something.

Here's the whole interview.