frutti.gummi

Schmap Guides is an interactive travel guide where map and guide content are dynamically connected. It gives a nice virtual tour of a place as you go along the streets on the map and see slideshow of photos. It's quite a handy tool for planning trips. Anyway, one of my London New Year's Parade photo was selected to be included in the Schmap London Third Edition guide. They've made "schmapplets" of some sections of the London Guide and I thought I'd post one of them here.

The Feste Vigiliane revive the historical celebrations held in honour of Saint Vigilio, the Patron Saint of Trento. For one week, the streets of the city centre are transformed into an ancient village where you can see trades and crafts of bygone times and enjoy traditional Trentino food. There are also musical events like jazz concert, opera, rock concert and dance exhibition.

I had a bit of aborio rice left and didn't feel like making plain white rice coz it's doesnt taste nice. Was thinking what I could make from the tomyum paste besides fried rice, pasta and soup. So I thought I'll just try a plain risotto by replacing chicken stock with tomyum soup. And boy it turned out to be delicous! All the soup absorbed into the creamy rice making it very flavorful. Next time, I can add shrimp and stuff to it. Hehe. This would make a very nice warm meal for the cold winter days.

Everytime I cook rice, there would at least be an extra portion and it'll go to the fridge. Since I don't have the equipment to reheat anything easily, I'll end up making fried rice or rice stew with it. Then I struck me today that I can make curry. First cook the curry then pour the rice over the hot curry and you get one hot satisfying meal. Hehe. Oh, it goes well with bits of corn and carrots too. Was kinda lazy to separate them out from the opened pack of mix veg.

Besides pizza, kebab is the other fast food available here. It has shredded meat combined with your choice of vegetables like tomatoes, lettuce, onions, etc and 3 different sauces. I usually take everything except the onions. Although kebab is the more expensive one here, I find it tastier and more filling compared to pizza. And definately a lot more meat too. As we were walking to the kebab store, I suddenly thought of hamburger. Haven't have a burger for a long time. Maybe it's just been 2 months but it does feels like a long time for someone who used to eat McD/BK once a week on average. There isn't any of these fast food restaurants here. Well, we know there is a McD coz we've seen signboards but we aren't sure where exactly it is. I have a rough idea but haven't had the time to actually be looking for it. Maybe I'll go look for it when I get bored from all the studying for the finals.

I survived the 8:30am classes! Towards the end of the semester, it was starting to get difficult to get up at 7am every day. And I did ended up late for class a couple of times. Now that classes are over, I can go back to my normal sleeping hours. Hehe. Still have some projects to complete and also to study for the final exams. After that, it's holiday! :D

I'm missing out on all the big summer movies! Spiderman 3, Shrek the 3rd, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and all the ones coming up in June and July. :( I miss watching movies at the cinema. The experience is just not the same at home. It's a lot worse when I've only got my small laptop and puny speakers. Sigh! It usually takes some time for the movies to come out in the cinema here coz they need to dub them first. Chances of finding a cinema here that shows movies in original language is zero. Doubt that Verona (30 minutes by train) has any either. Well thanks to the internet, low quality version is usually available within a week. Either watch that or wait. No other choice, just have to live with it. So far, I've managed to watched a decent quality Spiderman 3 and a not too bad quality (cannot watch in full screen) of Shrek the 3rd. A friend has just downloaded Pirates and hopefully I'll get to watch it this weekend.

It's very true! Even the Italians agree. Hehe.

Took a break from working on projects during the long weekend and went for a day trip to Lake Garda. It's one of the largest lake in Italy and the Trentino side of the lake is surrounded by mountains. It's just beautiful. The weather was nice albeit too windy sometimes. I guess the wind is good for activities like sailing and wind surfing. We went paddling in the lake for an hour, had lunch, and just walked along the lake to the next town. Such a relaxing day! It's nice that it's only 90 minutes away by bus and it's free when you have the yearly transportation pass. It's probably the best 'freebie' we get here. Hehe.

The night train from Bonn to Milan was quite a nice experience. They even served breakfast! Arrived in Milan central station at almost 8am and headed to the tickets counter to buy a ticket to Trento. I was told that there would be a strike that day and trains would not be runnning. Even if I leave with the next train, I might still be stuck in Verona. The girl at the counter asked me to return later in the afternoon to get the latest update. So I decided to walk around the city and checked my luggages into the luggage deposit. Bought a day transport ticket for 3€ and went around the city. It's such a shopping heaven! Anyway, I went back to the train station at 2pm and was told that the next train leaving for Verona would be at 4:30pm. I insisted to buy the ticket anyway coz I didn't want to queue when the train starts to run again as it would be a very very long queue. Plus I know tickets for regional trains are valid for about a month so even if I ended up staying over in Milan, I could still use it the next day.

I went back to the city to continue sightseeing, mostly window shopping as no luggage space and returned to the train staton at 4pm. I checked my luggages out and found a spot to sit and stare at the information board. The board finally updated the platform number for my train and I quickly rushed to get my ticket validated and get on the train. There were already dozens of people on the train. I managed to get my luggages into the luggage compartment and an old gentleman was already sitting there. I stood next to my luggages and more and more people boarded the train. Since it was the first train out to Verona, the whole train was packed. We barely have space to stand and people were standing inside the toilet in the next compartment. When the train finally moved, everyone felt relief. After an hour, the train became less packed and after 2 hours, I finally got to sit but I started to worry that I might be on the wrong train since it shouldn't take so long to get to Verona. Another half an hour went by and I started to see familiar landscapes and I confirmed with a fellow passenger that we were finally in Verona. Got off the train to board the next train to Trento. This time the train was already there and there were plenty of seats. While waiting for the bus home in Trento, I met my friends who also got stuck in Milan. They reminded about strikes on Fridays. Oh, now I'll definately remember to keep that in mind. Well, I finally got home at around 10pm.

My flight from Paris was supposed to depart at 8:40am. There was a long line going through security and I was quite nervous that I might miss the plane. It was 8:45am after I cleared security but still the screen did not display the gate number for the flight yet. About 10 minutes later, there was an announcement in French and German calling passengers of my flight to a certain gate. Then another announcement was made and we were told that the flight was cancelled and we had the option to take the next flight to either Stuttgart or Düsseldorf. Not much information were given out and also lack of coordination between airline crew. When I asked when's the next available flight out to Cologne/Bonn, I was told 4:30pm. So they expect people to wait from 10:30am to 4:30pm in the airport! What if that flight is also not coming? I didn't want to take the chances and I knew there's a train leaving at noon so I went to train station in the next terminal to ask if there are still seats available. By the time I went back to retrieve my checked-in luggage and headed to the counter to purchase the ticket, the express counter was closed. I had to wait in line in the normal queue and I missed the noon train. Luckily, there's another train in an hour and I took that and finally got back to Bonn at about 5pm. The bank was still open and I managed to get my banking matters done. Headed back to my old dorm to my friend's room and started packing my stuff into the luggages. By the time I finished, it was time to leave for the train station again. I didn't have the time to do Asian grocery shopping as planned. Still, managed to grab nuggets from the McD nearby the train station for dinner. :)

The day started with taking the 9:34 am bus to the train station. We forgot to press the bell for the stop but luckily we could still make it on time to take the train from town at 11:05. It's a direct train to Venice. When we arrived in Venice at 14:30, we decided to have some lunch first before heading to the airport. We arrived at the check-in counter at 16:00 and we saw the board showed the expected time at 19:30. Our flight was supposed to depart at 18:10. At first my friend thought it's the time of arrival, which is correct. I was the first to check-in and I asked what the expected time means? The lady said that that's the time the flight is expected to depart. So I said "There is a delay then" and I got a typical Italian reply. "Maybe. We're not sure yet. Could still depart on time" Just great! So we had to hang around the airport instead of walking around Venice town. When it was close to 18:00, there was no call for boarding and no change on the board so we knew for sure the flight was delayed. We continued to wait and 19:30 passed and still no plane in sight. 5 minutes later, there was an announcement and the expected time on the board was updated to 20:30.

The expected time had been updated several times between 20:30 and 23:00 when they announced that the passengers could get refreshments from a cafe. Earlier we heard that the airport in Paris will be closed when we arrive so the flight crew may decide not to fly. Well, they started boarding at 23:30 and told us that the arrival airport will be changed to CDG (north) instead of Orly (south) and a shuttle bus will be provided to take us to Orly. With the airport and subway closed, we were concerned with how/what we are going to do. After all the passengers have boarded the plane, the captain made an announcement explaining the delay and the expected departure time will be 00:30 and arrival in Paris at 02:00. Since the airports are way outside of the city center and taxi fare will be very very expensive, we also asked the stewardess if the shuttle bus can make a stop in the city center. They told us that the company had chatered the bus to Orly only and we have to ask the bus driver ourselves. Sigh! Finally at 00:45, our flight took off.

We arrived in Paris past 2am and found out that there were two busses. One to Orly and one to the city center. We took the bus to the city center. There were night busses running and a couple of us took the bus to head to their hotel. The others didn't have anywhere to go since their hostel check-in was already closed. I only had subway directions to my hotel so I hung around with the rest walking along the almost empty Champs Elysees in the direction of the Eifel Tower. The tower is no longer lit but still barely visible. Past the tower, we decided to walk to the hostel but we kinda got lost with no proper map with us. It was nearly 5am so we decided to go to the nearest underground station. We spent some time in the station deciding what type of tickets to get which will be the cheapest. The guy at the counter was very helpful indeed. I finally got the hotel at 6am and the check-in counter was open and they speak English. :) Got to my room, showered, rest a bit then head out to explore Paris.

Austrian food is delicious! With Germany and Italy as neighbours, culinary influences from both countries are clearly evident. The food that we ordered have more resemblance to German food and luckily it doesn't taste like it. I think maybe they're cooked in the Italian way which makes it taste good.

Good sights, excellent food, nice people :D

Gelato is just so irresistible! Almost everytime I go to town, I'd end up buying a cone with one big scoop. It costs between €1-2. The other day I found a Gelateria that sells 2 scoops for €1.50. Well it's not as good as the more expensive shops but you get 2 flavors! And I just realised this morning that I shouldn't be having ice cream when I have a cough :(

After a month here, I've finally cooked something asian at home. Although there is no chinese grocery store here, there is a thai store which has similar stuff.

For the past month, my shoes have been making squeaking sounds whenever I walked on wet surfaces. At first, I just ignored it since it's seldom wet here. Then on one wet day, I was walking about 10ft behind a couple of guys and my shoes were squeaking so loudly that those guys turned around to see what's making the sound. I pretended I didn't hear anything and started walking much slower. I suspected it's caused by drying them in the dryer earlier. When I moved, I wanted the shoes to be cleaned before I put them into the luggage. So I washed them by hand and had difficulty drying them. At first, I put them on my window ledge but the wind was blowing so strongly that day that I was afraid they'll get blown away. I took them back in and put them on top of the heater. It didn't get any drier so I decided to put them into the dryer for about 25 minutes. It turned out still a bit damp and I left it on the heater overnight. I was quite relieved that they turned out ok. Well, when I checked just now, I found out that some parts of the sole are loose! I guess the some of the glu did have melted under the heat. This is most probably the cause of the squeaking sound. Now I need to find a glu for it and hopefully they sell it in the supermarket.