frutti.gummi

"Hello when u free? We meet up. R u Dating lately? :)"

When I received the message, my first thought was to reply and ask who sent it. Then a second later, I realized that the person could be a total stranger since I don't think I left out anyone's number on the contact list. Then I thought if it could be a new way of picking up girls. Just send a message to a random number and hope for a positive reply. I think it can get quite costly though.

Well, if the person really do know me, they'll contact me again so I didn't do anything about it. This was about a week ago and I have completely forgotten about it until tonight.

Tonight I know who the person is. She sent me another text stating her name first and that she ran out of credit on her phone. Hahahha.

During a conversation, I said "My blog is at fruttigummi.blogspot.com". Later when my friend went online to look at my blog, he found other blogs with similar names. He typed fruitygummy.blogspot.com which I supposed is the proper English spelling. He told me he found another blog. So I checked it out and it seems to me that the blogger could be a Malaysian teenage girl. What do you think?

I've always thought gummi bear is spelt with an 'i' and not 'y'. I just found out that gummi is german spelling. Hehe. I did not purposely make up the different spelling. I just changed fruity to frutti to match gummi.

The inspiration for the name is from gummi bears. I like to eat them a lot and I found out that they were invented in Bonn, Germany, where I started this journey. Also, when I was leaving Malaysia, my colleague gave me a packet of gummi bears to munch on the flight. And when I arrived in Germany, I received a few packets of gummi Ampelmännchen as a welcome gift from my German friend. They both don't even know I'm a big fan of gummi bears. What a coincidence eh!

Had a Spanish night last weekend. I never thought cooking can be quite a social event. It actually takes about 5 hours to cook paella. I guess it wouldn't take so long if it's seafood because instead of the usual seafood, we had chicken and rabbit meat. After preparing all the ingredients, chopped and washed, and waiting for the meat to cook, we started to make Sangria. Earlier during shopping, we came across wines in big 1.5L bottles, so we bought a couple of those for the Sangria. Jose also brought Jamon (Spanish ham) from his hometown. I've never seen ham like that before and it tastes really good! They say huge blocks of meat are hung on top of tapas bars in Spain; very interesting. And so we chat, drink and eat tapas while we wait for the food to cook. As the sun set, more and more friends came and more Sangria and tapas were served. Finally at 9pm, the main course was served and the wait was very worthwhile :D

Went for lunch after german class and it turned out to be the four of us again. This time the Spanish guy's Indian colleague also joined us. We decided to have Italian and since the name of the dishes are in Italian, we have no problem with the menu. Hehe. After lunch, Eileen had to do shopping so the rest of us decided to catch a movie in Cologne coz it'll be easier for me to get back to Bonn. We drove there and for the passengers in the car, it was our first time on the autobahn in a car. And yes, some parts of the highway has no limit. When we got into Cologne, the directions to the cinema was quite complicated so we decided to park the car and take a cab. Was lucky we found street parking and only had about 30 minutes left before parking is free (after 6pm) so parking only costs us 1€. Next, we had to look for taxi stand coz you can only take taxi from there. Found one nearby and it was my first time in a german cab. The back just barely fits the three of us with our coats on. I didn't remember Merz having such small space. Well, perhaps our coats really took up space. We paid almost 8€ for 2+ km distance. Taking a train or bus would end up about the same price. Bought tickets for The Prestige and went walking around the area.

We ended up choosing a local bar and the atmosphere was quite lively. We had a funny time ordering food too. Laurent asked if there's chicken with french fries in German, and the waitress said schnitzel (deep fried breaded pork) with french fries. So, he said he'll only have french fries. Then, Jose ordered "Weiner Art" from the menu on the wall and asked if that's chicken in English and the waitress said yes chicken, very good. After the waitress left, Laurent and I were puzzled coz the waitress said earlier there was no chicken. Then Jose said maybe there's no chicken with french fries. Then we started laughing. That's very German indeed! Hahaha. Earlier in the week, Laurent used the wrong color plate at his cafeteria for pasta and he couldn't pay. He had to go back and use the plate with the correct color for pasta. When Jose's food finally came, it turned out to be schnitzel! He was quite mad but he still finished the food.

We went back to the cinema after food and found it packed with people. It's a small cinema with 3 theatres. I've already heard some friends complaining about cinemas in Germany and our German friend told us that's the typical cinema here. We don't have a choice anyway if we want to watch movies in original language. Well, we could also go to Netherlands. Perhaps they have better cinema there.

Some of my classmates in german class have the idea of sharing alcoholic drinks from their home country. Two Saturdays ago, one of the Japanese gal brought sake and some riceballs to class. We all had some after class. Then, this past Saturday, a few others brought theirs to share. This time we had it during the class break since some had to leave immediately after class. The turkish couple brought Raki, a traditional alcoholic drink with whopping 40% alcohol and feta cheese and chic peas to go with it. You add a bit of water to the clear liquid to make it a bit milky. It smells very nice and I like it though you can feel your throat burning after you swallow it. Then, the French guy from the champagne region who went home a week earlier, arrived with 2 bottles of champagnes and chocolates :D Of course everyone was waiting for the champagne so we opened a bottle. Oooh, it's so good! Later, the Russian arrived with a bottle of spicy vodka. You can actually see pepper inside the bottle. We decided it was too much alcohol in the morning and we still have another half session of class so we kept the vodka for later. We offered some to the teacher too and she seems cool about it.

I'm starting to like my Saturdays eventhough I have to be up at 5 in the morning to catch a train to Aachen for German class. Perhaps the informal teaching style makes it a fun class to attend. It feels like a bunch of friends hanging out together just chatting. And when we need words, the teacher will help. For the first half of today's class, we talked about what we do during weekends. During the second half, we talked about food and drinks.

Some of use went for lunch together after class today; a Spanish, a French, a Nigerian, a Japanese and a Malaysian. It's just fascinating to learn about other cultures. Found out that in Spain, Santa Claus is called Papa Noel but he's not famous. They have their own "Santa"s which they call the Three Kings. They leave food in the window for the camels to eat and when the camels stop for food, the Three Kings will leave a present or three for you. Interesting! I'm amazed that the French guy have not even heard of the words "Santa Claus". I guess they really don't get much chance to learn things not French. Then, there's the Genghis Khan story which explains Mongolian descendants in Spain!

Oh! And I got to know a North Korean in class last week. All these while we thought he's from South Korea. Hehe. Well, we didn't think North Korean get to travel out of the country.