Ice Fishing

Augering friends


I´ve always wanted to ice fish. Today that dream became reality.



Where: Clark store in Clark, Colorado, Steamboat Lake, SLO restaurant

Who: Evan, Kathy, Becka, John I, Krista, me (day off buds from the ranch)

What: Making snowballs with a snowball maker at the Clark store, augering holes through 18 inches of ice, 3 fishing lines - one with a flag, 6 ¨catch phrases¨ ready to yell while running in case of a bite, 4 buckets turned upside down to use as stools, 4 layers of clothes, 2 sets of backcountry skiis to ski on top of the lake, 4 packages of apple cider powder, 1 bottle of cinnamon Schnopps, 1 trout caught, 3 tackles on the way to pull up the trout, 1 glorious sunset over the mountains while skiing

Some days I wonder if Colorado might actually be heaven.

Horchata: A December evening sitting on my floor

Horchata
Vampire Weekend

In December, drinking horchata
I'd look psychotic in a balaclava
Winter's cold is too much to handle
Pincher crabs that pinch at your sandals

In December, drinking horchata
Look down your glasses at that aranciata
With lips and teeth to ask how my day went
Boots and fists to pound on the pavement

Here comes a feeling you thought you'd forgotten
Chairs to sit and sidewalks to walk on

You'd remember drinking horchata
You'd still enjoy it with your foot on masada

Winter's cold is too much to handle
Pincher crabs that pinch at your sandals

Here comes a feeling you thought you'd forgotten
Chairs to sit and sidewalks to walk on
Oh you had it but oh no you lost it
Looking back you shouldn't have fought it

In December, drinking horchata
I'd look psychotic in a balaclava

But winter's cold is too much to handle
Pincher crabs that pinch at your sandals
Years go by and hearts start to harden
Those palms and firs that grew in your garden
Are falling down and nearing the rosebeds
The roots are shooting up through the tool shed
Those lips and teeth that asked how my day went
Are shouting up through cracks in the pavement

Here comes a feeling you thought you'd forgotten
Chairs to sit and sidewalks to walk on
Oh you had it but oh no you lost it
You understood so you shouldn't have fought it.

Off season? Maybe I could..... Make a braided necklace

Time: approx an hour and a half
Materials: seed beads, wire cord, crimp beads, chain
Cost: $2 for crimp beads
Satisfaction: * * * *
What I learned: Crimp beads make necklaces look much more professional and crimp pliers are worth the investment. Threading seed beads takes longer than you would expect. I like braids.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro is a snow covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and it is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai "Ngaje Ngai," the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.

-intro to Hemingway's story

Off season? Maybe I could.....Make an apron out of an old skirt

Time: several hours
Materials: old skirt from a secondhand store, colored sheet, sewing machine, ruler
Cost: $0
Satisfaction: * * * *
What I learned: Save old lace. Eyeballing measurements can yield decent results. An ugly skirt can make a less ugly apron. Having a new apron signiicantly increases the likelihood of baking muffins. When you're all sewed out, it's 1 am, and you can't figure out how to continue, go to sleep and pick it up again in the morning.

Off season? Maybe I could.....Make a record clock

Time: approx 30 minutes
Materials: old record softened in an oven and shaped, cheap clock for parts, hot glue gun, AA battery
Cost: $4 for Walmart clock
Satisfaction: * * * * *
What I learned: Old records are cheap if you know where to look for them. It's $5 cheaper to buy an entire clock at Walmart and pull it apart than to buy a clock kit from a craft store. You don't need numbers to read time on a clock.

Reducing Textile Waste

"Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do. Do without."
-Saying popularized during WWII rationing efforts




The following is another clip from Sewing Green by Betz White:

Here are a few ways you can help to keep textile waste out of our landfills:

Reduce consumption. You may think you need new linens or that new dress, but sometimes less really is more.

Reuse and repurpose. Use your craftiness to refashion your used textiles.

Buy secondhand. Thrift and consignment shops are often full of nearly-new items at affordable prices.

Swap, donate, or hand it down. Start a clothing swap in your neighborhood. Donate clothing to a charity, such as Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Check out freecycle.org, a nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff free in their towns. Got kids? Join freepeats.org to find or pass on gently-used baby, kid, and maternity clothing, and more.

Quality clothing. When you do choose new, purchase clothing and textile products that are high quality and designed to last.

Off season? Maybe I could.....Make pins out of scrap fabric

I came across a glue gun in the basement a few days ago and have been trying it out a few mostly unsuccessful accessories. Since I had my coffee by myself this morning,I picked up my mom´s copy of Better Homes and Gardens (which I never read) and came across a page of DIY Christmas gifts inspired by Etsy. An 8 petal version of this gem caught my eye. Turned out to be the perfect fit for my budding glue gun interest and leftover fabric from last week´s scrubs project.

Time: approx 10 minutes
Materials: scrap fabric, compass to draw circles, spare button, pin back, hot glue gun
Cost: $0
Satisfaction: * * * *
What I learned: Hot glue works for SO MANY THINGS. Compulsively hoarding tiny pieces of scrap fabric can have a purpose after all. Don´t get rid of buttons. Sometimes a magazine with an uncompelling cover can have a good idea or two inside.

Quilters--The Original Repurposers

Clip from Betz White´s Sewing Green, p 36

"Today green-minded sewers often reuse fabrics for clothing and quilts because it helps keep textiles out of our landfills. But throughout history--especially from the post-Civil War era to the Great Depression--materials were scarce and many quilts had to be made from leftover fabric scraps and from what we might call "trash" today. When clothing was no longer wearable, it was deconstructed,and the usable fabric was stitched together to make quilt tops. If batting was not available, blankets, worn out quilts, and in especialy dire times, even newpapers were inserted between the quilt front and back to add warmth. Since new fabrics were often hard to come by, on-hand materials, such as feedsacks, made their way into pieced quilt tops. On occasion even the silk cigar ribbons and colorful textile inserts from tobacco packaging were stitched into unique and complex quilt designs, further demonstrating the quiltmaker's imagination and resourcefulness."

Off season? Maybe I could.....Make cards and send them to France

Time: approx 10 minutes per card
Materials: Phi Beta Kappa magazine or any magazine with interesting words and/or ideas, glue stick, cardstock, scissors, stickers, hole punch, or other decorating supplies.
Cost: $0
Satisfaction: * * * *
What I learned: It´s so much cheaper to make cards than buy them. Shaped hole punches can work for adult crafts, not just kid crafts. Postage to France is .98. Don´t throw away your sticker collection, use it up.

Off season? Maybe I could..... Refinish a Steelcase chair

My junior year of college I lived in an apartment at Maxwell Terrace. It was my first year off campus, and I only planned to be there for 4 months before leaving to study abroad. Dumpster diving for office furniture was a natural choice. (Please suspend ¨dirty hippy¨ judgements. Think Reduce-Reuse-Recycle, and it might seem more responsible and less....dirty.)

I found a disaster of a desk that worked well enough through college before I returned to the dumpster where I had found it and a mustard yellow desk chair. The chair was in good enough shape, or maybe I just liked the color enough, so I brought it home after college.

Liked the color and shape. Felt sturdy. Looked like it may have been around since the 70s but could easily serve me for a few decades more.

Not a fan of the dirt, spots, and scratched metal it had picked up in the past four decades of use.

Nothing some Soft Scrub, soaking, scrubbing, scratching up metal, and spray paint couldn´t fix.

Time: approx 2 hours, including drying time between coats
Materials: old chair, screwdriver, Soft Scrub, scouring pad, stainless steel spray paint
Cost: $5.50 for 2 cans of spray paint, $2 for stainless steel scouring pads to scratch up previous finish on the metal frame
Satisfaction: * * * * *
What I learned: What a Steelcase chair is. Stainless steel spray paint is dry to the touch in under 15 minutes but can take 2 weeks to fully set. Bringing your project(or chair) with you to the hardware store is a way to make sure the person working knows exactly what you´re talking about. Novice spray painters (like me) might need up to twice as much spray paint as a pro. Short sprays and multiple coats make for an even final product. Windy days are not the best days for spray painting unless you do it inside a garage. Quality items (like Steelcase chairs,) even ones found in the trash, are worth the effort.

Off season? Maybe I could.....Fix the straps on a dress

2 months ago I went shopping at Plato´s Closet´s bag sale with my sister. At $15 for a stuffed bag, we decided to shove as many things in the bag as possible without waiting behind thousands of tweens in line for the fitting rooms. Since we averaged out at 50 cents per item, we decided the cost/benefit didn´t make trying things on worth it.

Which meant about a third of our finds went directly to Goodwill after being tried on at home. I kept one dress around even though the straps were approx a foot too long formy shoulders.

Since it´s off season, I decided to try my hand at hand sewing.

Time: approx 1 hr
Materials: 1 dress, seam ripper, scissors, needle, thread
Cost: 50 cents for dress
Satisfaction: * * * * *
What I learned: I have small shoulders. Hand sewing gives you more control than machine sewing and is worth it for small areas (aka dress straps). SOME alterations give can make a big difference in the fit of a piece of clothing without much effort. I´ve worn the dress twice already since finishing it. Great success. Great dress.

Off season? Maybe I could.....Make yoga pants out of a T-shirt

Inspired by http://www.blackfawnart.com/2010/01/recon-tutorial-t-shirt-to-yogalounge-pants.html

This was basically an attempt to try using my great grandmother´s sewing machine after 4 or more stitchless years in a way that would have a quick,though far from perfect final project that I could wear and feel encouraged by.

Since I had 2 free medium Future Farmers of America T-shirts just sitting around from a convention I worked last week, it seemed like a good project.

Time: approx 1 hr
Materials: 1 T-shirt, scissors, sewing machine, thread
Cost: $0
Satisfaction: * * *
What I learned: You don´t need a pattern to sew, but it might fit better if you do. The crotch of pants is tricky to sew. Spend longer on the waistband, it would have made them look much more professional. You can make wearable things in under an hour with an old school Sears Kenmore sewing machine.

Off season? Maybe I could.....

Colorado has 2 main tourist draws: Summer and Winter. Hiking/Biking/Horseback Riding and Skiing/Snowboarding.

November is a terrible time for all of those things. So as a person currently working in the service industry at a Colorado guest ranch who´s not quite strong enough to build fences quickly or experienced enough to take care of the horses, that leaves me with about a month to move back home before my employment begins again in early December.

As someone who doesn´t (refuses to? can´t mentally?) get bored,a month is the perfect amount of time to reconnect with some people in Indiana, explore the city,and spend hours reading books, talking on Skype, cooking for my mom,and finding projects for myself. So my room and style lately have both turned into disasters of colors, chopped up fabric, weird buttons, screwdrivers, glue sticks,and spray paint.


This is the inspiration for the ¨Off Season? Maybe I could...¨ series. A collecting place for the good, the bad, and the ugly of my DIY endeavors this off season.

Reflecting on early feelings of incompetence while learning to be a server on a guest ranch....

Back in the land of.... SO MANY SANDWICH CHOICES

A bit of a retroblog here...

While I was job shadowing a friend the other day at a legal counseling clinic in downtown Indy, we decided to go to Subway for lunch.

I was floored by how many choices I could make: bread types, meats, cheeses, sauces, and millions of veggies. Toasted or untoasted. $5 footlong or $6 footlong menu. Or a 6 inch. Or.... or ... or....

I like jamon iberico, but I think I´d take a thick, veggie and sauce stuffed sandwich on whatever kind of bread I want over Honanares*´ selection of jamon, cheese, ham and cheese, or tortilla on baguette. I like the flavors of all 3 a lot (and miss them if I take the time to think about them), but I like the variety here in the US of A.

*Bakery/cafe across the street from my flat in Madrid

Discoveries while cleaning my closet: List of Baccalaureate Majors at Indiana University

Probably from either Freshman Orientation or sometime during my freshman year at IU.

I ended up with a double major in Psychology and Math with minors in Spanish and Outdoor Recreation and Resource Mangagement.

Here are the majors I marked as possible interests on the list:
Anthropology
Communication and Culture
Criminal Justice
Environmental Science
Geography
Geological Sciences
Individualized Major Program
International Studies
Mathematics
Political Science
Psychology
Sociology
Spanish
Speech and Hearing Sciences
Telecommunications
International Business
Secondary Educ/Content Areas
Environmental Management
Health Administration
Environmental Science
Dietetics
Nutrition Science
Occupational Safety
Public Health Education
Exercise Science
Fitness Specialist
Outdoor Recreation and Resource Management
Park and Recreation Management
Therapeutic Recreation

I think if I were to go back through and mark them again, I would end up with more, not less, possible interests for majors on the list. (Journalism, Informatics, Linguistics, Tourism Management, Policy Studies, Non Profit Management, Marketing, Finance, Public Policy Analysis, and Economics)

Glad I already have that decision made!

Why I probably should have recycled my notes from college years ago....

I just grabbed a little stack of notes from college from my closet to get rid of. Clips from the first four papers that caught my eye

-Movie Review on Viva Zapata!, a film from 1952 that I wrote up for my boss in the Spanish Department

-Formulas, drawings, and arrows all over a blank page with the problem at the top ¨Let (X,Y) be a random pt on region R = (x,y): abs(x)+abs(y)<1 and calculations for the marginal densities of X and Y

-A paper from my P304 class from October 2, 2008 titled ¨Development of Self-Concept¨

-A copy of an article by Shane R. Cudney called ¨Heroes, Hoboes, and the Question of Ethics: A Response to Brian Pronger´s ´Outta My Endzone: Sport and the Territorial Anus´¨

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two years out of undergrad, I miss being a student but at the same time am glad to be done with it for the time being.

I´m also not convinced that I would be capable of doing the work I did as an undergrad at the same level now as I did then..... Yikes!

In any case, it´s time for some serious dejunking of my room, closet, and life. That´s been a sort of ongoing project since I got home.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Came across this article called ¨How to Get Rid of Things: Understanding The Sentimental Mind.¨ I feel so understood!

http://tumbledesign.com/how-to-get-rid-of-things-understanding-the-sentimental-mind/

Back in the land of.... SECOND HAND STORES

Although they´re responsible for at least 20% of the crap filling up my closet right now, I´m back in the land of Goodwill, Salvation Army, Plato´s closet, and Half-Price Books on every other corner.

Love it.

$15/bag at Plato´s closet with my sister. $7.50 each for 26 different items of new or ¨gently used¨ name brand clothes. Threw a few in the re-donate bag right away because they didn´t fit, but still a bargain!

Donated 5 bags of stuff this week. The overalls, which fit unfortunately well, I had around ¨just in case¨ had to go. The Kenny G and showtunes CDs that I got on clearance at Half-Price Books 5 years ago for $2 or $3 a piece are next. Might be better to bring them straight to Goodwill instead of trying to get 50 cents a piece from them selling them back to Half-Price.... Both for my own sense of pride (wayyyy too much Amy Grant and Kenny) and to avoid the temptation of buying SO MUCH MORE CHEAP STUFF.







_________________________________________________________________________________
What I´ve learned about Half-Price Books today
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¨I worked at Half-Price Books for a year. HPB only hires full-time employees, and one reason I think is that by spending 40 hours a week in the store, employees get a good idea of what sells and what doesn't, and for how much. After a few weeks of training, I got pretty of good at just eyeballing a batch of books and breaking it down: "This will sell for $5, this will go for $7, these paperbacks will go for $1 each" and so on. Of course we could only offer sellers a fraction of what we sold them for, so we would only offer $1 for the $5 book, maybe $1.50 for the $7 book and $1 for 8 paperbacks. Also, there was a lot (a lot) that we didn't sell and either donated, recycled, or threw away. I saw enough Stephen King paperbacks to last a lifetime, so a dog-eared Cujo from the 1980's would not go on the shelf, it would get tossed.

Or in other words, what Jessamyn said.
posted by Kronoss at 7:17 AM on April 26, 2007¨


They then take the bulk of your books to the dumpster

Which is the reason that HPB is a great place to dumpster dive.
posted by richrad at 8:14 AM on April 26, 2007

http://ask.metafilter.com/61370/How-does-Half-Price-Books-determine-the-trade-in-value-of-bookscdsdvds

Watching Carmen

On DVD. From the Fishers Public Library. I can´t believe this is the first time I´ve seen it. Though I might not have appreciated it as much before? It´s making me want to be in Sevilla. Watching operas on DVD by myself in my basement in Fishers, IN is a close second though. <-true

Anyone want to join for Acts 3 and 4?

Back home again in Indiana....

I´ve been back for 2 weeks today. Not sure if it feels much longer or much shorter than that.

I´ve stayed busy so far. Visits from college roommates, weekend trip to Merrillville to see a few friends, dentist appointments, Lake Michigan day trip with the fam, money transfers, unpacking, applying at temp agencies, drinking lots of coffee....

It´s been interesting. A little overwhelming. But good, I think.

Endings...

Things are beginning to end.



Two of my private classes finished earlier this month. My gym membership runs out tomorrow. My French roommate, Mathilde, moved out yesterday morning, and we all went out to a Galician restaurant with good seafood and plenty of wine for our last meal together on Tuesday. Nacho and Emma, my other two roommates, both have a few days or weeks left, but they won´t ever be in the apartment at the same time, so they´ve said their good-byes to each other.

Today I signed up for the end of the year comida (large lunch) with the teachers at my school on the 27th. I´m starting to recycle papers, donate clothes, and think about downsizing my things so they can fit in a suitcase.

I´ve had the ¨yes I´m going home, and no I´m not working at this school next year, and no I´m not sure when I´ll be back, and no, I don´t know what concretely I´ll be doing next year¨ conversation with every teacher at school at least twice I think.

I´m heading to Morocco this weekend, something I´ve wanted to do since I first arrived to Spain. Last weekend I finally made it out to Toledo and Alcalá de Henares in two day trips after living a short bus ride away from them the whole year.

Thinking about using up the canned vegetables and frozen things I have in the house. Took my sleeping bag off the clothes hanger and stuffed it into its stuff sack this afternoon.

Tomorrow is the ¨bilingual program graduation ceremony and breakfast¨ at school. I spent a while earlier this week designing the certificates.

Lots of good-bye parties and long nights and tapas and trips and out-of-town visitors and meeting really great people right before leaving and dancing and chatting and eating out. I´m tired and busy but enjoying myself a lot and a little sad but mostly in a bit of a daze of endings and ending-related events.

Since I´m thinking specifically about my roommates right now and how glad I am to have felt so comfortable living with them all year, here we are:





Not sure I´ll ever get around to all the retroblogging I could do, and I still have just over 2 weeks left, but things and people are already beginning to change and move. It´s been a good but exhausting week/weekend/week.

Thanks, Jose

My landlord is an odd one. He sends us text messages and e-mails all the time. Sometimes they´re related to the apartment, but a lot of times they seem to come out of nowhere.




Yesterday, before I even heard about it in the newspaper, he sent us information about the contaminated food alert for Spanish cucumbers in an e-mail.

¨La UE ha declarado este jueves la alerta alimentaria por contaminación
bacteriana procedente de pepinos biológicos españoles. La Comisión Europea
sospecha que pepinos procedentes de Holanda pudieran estar también en el
origen de la contaminación. Esto puede suponer la retirada del producto de
los establecimientos comerciales del territorio de la Unión.

Bruselas ha informado a las autoridades de los 27 estados miembros, a
través del sistema de alerta rápido (la RASFF por sus siglas en inglés),
de la propagación de la infección intestinal que ha provocado hasta el
momento al menos tres muertos, según las autoridades alemanas. También se
han detectado casos de la enfermedad en Suecia (10), Dinamarca (4), Reino
Unido (3) y Holanda (1).¨




Back in January he sent us the following text message:
"Han bajado la cota d nieve en Madrid a 600m, eso quiere decir que si continua bajando la temperatura nevara en la capital."

Why? No idea. Maybe he was excited about the snow?





Earlier this week he sent this link for a music festival http://www.radicalmadrid.com/entrada02.html "in case you like this type of music."




And, maybe my favorite of all of them, was a 4 part e-mail series in December called "Madrid es mucho Madrid", with historical information and tips for visiting the Palacio Real, Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, the Teatro Real, and various Chocolaterías and Bombonerías around town.

""Madrid es mucho Madrid" va dirigido para que comprendais los valores y
significados de cosas importantes de la ciudad en que vivís, viene a ser
un resultado muy intelectual al cual muchos de los que nos visitan incluso
estudiantes nunca llegarían a saber."

""Las cosas claras y el chocolate espeso". El dicho, que por lo demás hace
referencia a la necesidad de hablar claro, explica cómo se toma en España
el alimento que en el siglo XVI trajeron de América los conquistadores
españoles, y que ha sido siempre uno de los mayores placeres, a veces
adicción, de la sociedad europea. Caliente y a la taza, se podría añadir,
y acompañado de churros o porras en ocasiones, pero también en su versión
bombón y otras variantes que ofrecen numerosas chocolaterías y bombonerías
de esta ciudad."



Thanks, Jose. Looking forward to your next random bit of knowledge being sent to my e-mail address or phone.... Maybe...

¨Spanish defy protest ban ahead of elections¨

For the past several days, Puerta del Sol, in the main plaza in the center of Madrid, has been packed. Since elections are tomorrow, today is set aside aside as a day for reflection. No demonstrations or campaigning can legally take place. In spite of this, there are still thousands of people camping out, handing out flyers, and protesting the way the government is handling the economic crisis and unemployment (among plenty of other complaints...).

On Thursday I wandered through the tents, signs, hippies, posters, and demonstrators to get a feel for what was going on with my roommate and 2 neighbors.

For streaming coverage and a view of Puerta del Sol, visit http://www.ustream.tv/channel/motionlook#utm_campaign=synclickback&source=http://www.elpais.com/&medium=8306676

For more information, visit
www.google.com

So I guess I´m not the only one...

I´ve been thinking about next year, where I´d like to live, what I´d like to do, etc. Came across this gem, and I think it sums it up quite nicely.

Rotterdam: Semana Santa 2011 Part 2

ROTTERDAM

Impressions: A short (less than a day) visit, but more than enough time to see most of the city. Rotterdam is a major port city and is known for its modern architecture, but really isn't a tourist city, no matter what a guide book or tourism office might tell you. My hostel was in the cube houses, one of the main tourist points in the city, and a couple of bridges, the library, and the train station (other architectural tourist stops) were all a quick walk away, so there was plenty of time to spend hours at meals, sleep, wander around parks and ports, etc. A day was more than enough time, but it was a nice stop. Also, I always think it's nice to see a non-capital city as well as the capital to have a bit of a better impression of a place.


Cube houses in Rotterdam where I slept for the night
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_house

Food: Since I only spent about 20 hours (including sleeping) in the city, I didn't try too many different types of food. Actually, I just had 2 meals. Dinner at a cheap but delicious Italian restaurant with a Singaporean girl from my hostel: Salmon and spinach pizza with white wine. Breakfast: Free from the hostel, but delicious and filling. Probably the best hostel breakfast I've ever had. Fresh bread, cheese, cold cuts, yogurt, cereals, a cappuccino machine, toast with butter and chocolate sprinkles (apparently a Dutch thing....also something I ate when I was little.)

People:Met a girl from Singapore who's living in London as soon as I got to my hostel, and since we were both traveling alone and were hungry, we went out for pizza and wine. Spent the evening in the restaurant talking about traveling and new places and food and people and life. The rest of the people there seemed to be students and were celebrating the end of their volleyball season. Very jolly, very dutch, very friendly. In the morning, I ended up wandering around to see some parks in the city with a Russian sailor that I met who was also staying at my hostel. He was there for a nautical career fair and likes to quote Russian sayings in very broken English and has an unnaturally large neck. Good company though for a morning. We took pictures of tulips together in the park before I left to catch my train. Didn't see the Maritime Museum. I probably wouldn't have gone anyway, but he wasn't interested in seeing it at all since, according to him, "His life is a maritime museum."


Tulips in a park


Another photo from a walk in the park

Amsterdam: Semana Santa 2011 Part 1

AMSTERDAM

Impressions: Perfect weather, beautiful canals, well designed museums, rich history, charming tall houses, friendly people, houseboats, bikes EVERYWHERE

Food: Indonesian chicken sandwich, Heineken,coffee on a beautiful street by the canals (see picture above), pancakes for dinner, Tasty Asia Asian Fusion restaurant with Andy (friend from camp last summer in France who came down to visit), ham and gouda grilled cheese (toastie), hot dog with lots of toppings ... cheese, relish, curry sauce, ketchup, mustard, crunchy fried onions, etc., stroopwafels (VERY tasty cookies with thin, buttery, waffle.like cookies with syrup in the middle), salty black licorice (apparently an acquired taste)

People: Met up with Andy (US) and Taz (France), two friends from the camp I worked at last summer in France the second day. On the third day, after seeing her response to my Facebook status about being in Holland, I met up with my friend Lotte for a coffee and to wander around town before catching a train down to Rotterdam that evening. She worked as a visiting Dutch professor at Indiana University 3 years ago for a semester. We met while I was studying there, and I hadn´t seen her since. A nice surprise to meet up with her again!


Renting bikes with Andy and his harmonica


By a canal with Lotte while wandering around town

Other: Rented bikes and rode along the canals for hours, Van Gogh museum, Anne Frank house, flower market, Koning written all over the place (bridges, plazas, restaurants,) anti-nuclear energy rally with a performance by a Dutch Morrocan hip hop artist


Picture of my rental bike by Koning bridge ... right before I ate an ¨American hot dog¨ while sitting by the canal


Flower Market

How to have an adventure during Semana Santa

1. Buy plane tickets: From Madrid to Amsterdam, then from Brussels (Charleroi) to Sevilla

2. Look up luggage size and weight restrictions for RyanAir and EasyJet to avoid the hefty oversize luggage fees that budget airlines are known for

3. Buy a new RuRuKaDi brand carry-on suitcase at the Chinese store. Never heard of the brand before? Me neither. :) (The airport misplaced my old one for about 4 days when I first arrived to Madrid and brought it back to me with a missing wheel. Plus since US dimensions are slightly different than Europe measurements, and the budget airlines here are EXTREMELY picky about the size and weight, it was probably time for me to get one anyhow.) 55 cm x 45 cm x 20 cm, maximum weight of 10 kg (Thank you, RyanAir.)

3. Book hostels in Amsterdam and Brussels (Thank you, hostelworld.com)

4. Realize that booking hostels 2 weeks in advance is actually too late for such a popular vacation time and decide to add an extra city into the plan after realizing there´s no place in the entire city of Amsterdam to stay for the planned third night...


5. Look up other cities well connected to both Amsterdam and Brussels by train

6. Book hostel in Rotterdam

7. Read something online and in the Let´s Go Western Europe (on a budget) book from 2008 about Rotterdam to see if there´s anything to do or see there

8. Spend an hour or so getting excited reading about the architecture, history of immigration, importance of the port, and student life in Rotterdam (Thank you, google.com and wikipedia.com)

9. Decide maybe missing the 3rd day in Amsterdam isn´t so bad after all

10. 2 days before... Look up weather forecast for Amsterdam, Brussels, and Sevilla for this coming week. Realize that packing for 12 days in a carry on suitcase for places that may be as cold as 2ºC and as warm as 30ºC might be tricky

11. Buy train ticket from Rotterdam to Brussels. Hope for the best and wait to buy the Amsterdam to Rotterdam ticket until I get there since the website only accepts credit cards from Dutch banks

12. 1 day before... Look up ways to get from Avenida de America to the Barajas airport in Madrid to arrive at 5:00 am for a flight at 6:50 am

13. Realize there is no night bus to the airport and come to terms with spending 3 hours tonight in the airport before check-in opens. This is all part of the adventure, right??

14. Spend an hour and a half in the metro frantically writing down sites to see, typical foods, etc. in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, and Liege and reading up on the basic history, art, architecture, politics, and literature of each place

15. Copy down reservation numbers, dates, addresses, phone numbers, price, and directions both walking and by metro from the airport to the train station to the hostel to the train station to the second hostel to a different train station to the third hostel on a green sheet of paper (harder to misplace when it´s green)

16. Fill up travel size shampoo, soap, etc. bottles

17. Pack and hope to fit everything in for the 12 day trip into the 55 cm x 45 cm x 20 cm suitcase.... So far so good....

18. Walk to the locutorio to print out boarding passes and tickets for 2 flights, 1 train from Rotterdam to Brussels, and 1 bus from Sevilla to Madrid

19. Plan for later today... Try to take a nap for a few hrs before catching the last bus of the night to the airport at 2 am, take along the rest of perishable fruits, bread, etc. from the fridge for snacks for the night and breakfast, find a way to kill time or rest a little bit at the airport until the flight to Amsterdam!


We´ll see! For better or for worse, an adventure awaits :)

Show and Tell: Wheat Sourdough Bagels!

Around this time last year, I found myself sitting on my friend Stuart´s terrace in the sun with a beer and 3 or 4 other British and American friends chatting about bagels. We missed them. I like Spanish food but have not come across a single bagel shop, a lone bagel in a bakery somewhere, or even a tasteless frozen bagel since arriving.

Last summer, one of my top "American things to do while home before leaving for 9 more months" was having a toasted asiago cheese bagel with smoked gouda artichoke schmear from Bloomington Bagel Company. It was like heaven.

The beauty of a bagel lies in its versatility. For breakfast with butter or cream cheese or jam or peanut butter or.... For lunch or a mid-day snack, combining any flavor of bagel you can imagine with whatever cream cheese you fancy that day. Or for a heartier meal, slather on hummus and veggies, or anything else in the world for a bagel sandwich. Pretzel bagels, bagel pizzas, bagel chips, unsliced, sliced, toasted or not, sweet, salty, savory, sitting down with friends and a glass of iced tea or on the go on the way to class or work, any hour of the day or night with anything on it you can imagine.

Brilliant.

And even though I probably think about, dream about, and crave bagels at least 3 or 4 times a week, this weekend was the first time it dawned on me to try to make them myself. Expecting a disaster, I was pleasantly surprised with how they turned out. Here's the photo evidence and a few details on how to make them.



Step One: Make dough and roll into balls
I made up the recipe for the dough after looking at a couple bagel-making tips online. Here's the basic idea: Combine active yeast, a little warm water, a bit of salt and sugar for the taste, about a cup of sourdough starter, and a LOT of wheat flour and a little white flour. Knead it all together for a very long time. Keep adding more flour until the dough is very thick (aka thicker than normal bread dough.) Keep kneading until it passes the "windowpane test", or until your hands are so tired that you don't feel like continuing. Separate into equal sized balls, the size that seems appropriate for the bagel size you want. Cover lightly with olive oil so they won't stick to the plate, and let rise for 1 hour.




Step Two: Make bagel shape out of dough
Roll out into fat snakes (Play-Doh style) until about as long as 2 hands are wide. Form into circles around your thumb. Pinch the two ends together and roll together a bit until they look normal and are well stuck. Put them back on the plate and let rise another hour. Picture with my hand so you get an idea of the size of my bagels.



Step Three: What makes the difference between a holey roll and a bagel
Bring a pot of water to boil. Put the bagels in a few at a time so that they're not crowded. Leave them in 10 to 15 seconds on one side, then flip over and leave the other side in the water for 10 to 15 seconds. Take out, let the water drip off for a couple of seconds, and put them on a greased baking sheet.

Then bake until they are cooked through. Will depend on the oven. For mine, a crappy oven probably from the 50s that has no way of setting the temperature and only heats from the top, this means putting them on the lowest rack in the oven at what I estimate to be somewhere between 300 and 400 degrees F for 15 minutes, then flipping with a spatula and baking the other side for 15 minutes more.

Step Four: Eat it.
Let cool for a few minutes so you don't burn yourself. Then slice or don't, toast or don't, and put whatever you want on it. SO tasty! (Especially after 6 months without eating one.) They taste much better the day you bake them than the next day, but are still relatively soft the second day. I wouldn't wait until the third day, though I ate all of my bagels before the end of day two, so I'm not sure.





Maybe I'll write a cookbook. "Kitchen inventions for people who don't mind estimating (a lot)."

Or not.

Dear roommates, coworkers, ladies at the gym, etc.... Even though you don´t read this:

Here´s a clip from an article on webmd about "5 health habits it's okay to skip"

"4. Staying indoors when it's cold outside.

Going out in the cold won't actually give you a cold -- unless you're camping out in a blizzard for days at a time. (Ditto for going outside with wet hair.) "This is an old wives' tale that probably originated because we do tend to get more colds during the winter months," says Katz. "But the problem is the air inside, which becomes more germ-laden when we aren't opening windows and letting fresh air in." One caveat: If you're cold enough to be shivering, go in and warm up. Shivering is a sign that your body is stressed because your core temperature has dropped, which can make you more vulnerable to viruses."

http://women.webmd.com/features/5-healthy-habits-its-okay-to-skip?page=2

Granted quoting webmd isn't the same as a referencing a medical journal, but still....

People's weird ideas about health start becoming annoying when they use them to nag you about what to do. I've had my window open today because it's 78 degrees and sunny. A beautiful day. And since I've been sick, it can't hurt to air out my room. My roommates were worried about me because apparently I should only keep my window open for 15 minutes to air out my room because if I leave it open longer, the air will make me sicker. What? (Not to even get into the fact that the air outside is the same temperature or warmer than the air in our apartment...so this isn't even consistent with cold air theory that people usually bring up...)

Also, evidently walking barefoot or in socks on a tile floor makes you sick.

Not wearing a scarf when it's 78 degrees out and you have a cough will give you pneumonia.

And let's not even start with what happens if you don't blow dry your hair..... (I don't have a blow dryer in Spain. Waste of time and space.)


Bacteria and viruses make you sick. Being with small children with bacteria and viruses every day can make you sick. Being cold can lower your immunity but in itself won't make you sick. 78 degrees is not cold. If you have bronchitis, antibiotics, liquids, and rest can help you feel better. Leaving your window open and not wearing a scarf when it's 78 degrees will not make you worse.

This is what I think.

*Steps off soapbox**

Thank you.



Random forum about some Germans' ideas about sickness and moving air: http://www.toytowngermany.com/lofi/index.php/t115648.html

Picture of a small child:

Song of the Day §

Artist: Willy Mason
Song: Oxygen

Lyrics:

I wanna be better than oxygen
So you can breathe when you're drowning and weak in the knees
I wanna speak louder than Ritalin
For all the children who think that they've got a disease
I wanna be cooler than t.v.
For all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be

We can be stronger than bombs
If you're singing along and you know that you really believe
We can be richer than industry
As long as we know that there's things that we don't really need
We can speak louder than ignorance
Cause we speak in silence every time our eyes meet.


On and on, and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew.


I wanna see through all the lies of society
To the reality, happiness is at stake
I wanna hold up my head with dignity
Proud of a life where to give means more than to take
I wan't to live beyond the modern mentality
Where paper is all that you're really taught to create
Do you remember the forgotten America?
Justice, equality, freedom to every race?

Just need to get past all the lies and hypocrisy
Make up and hair to the truth behind every face
That look around to all the people you see,
How many of them are happy and free?

I know it sounds like a dream
But it's the only thing that can get me to sleep at night
I know it's hard to believe
But it's easy to see that something here isn't right
I know the future looks dark
But it's there that the kids of today must carry the light.


On and on, and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew.


If i'm afraid to catch a dream
I weave your baskets and I'll float them down the river stream
Each one i weave with words i speak to carry love to your relief.

I wanna be better than oxygen
So you can breathe when you're drowning and weak in the knees
I wanna speak louder than Ritalin
For all the children who think that they've got a disease
I wanna be cooler than t.v.
For all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be
We can be stronger than bombs
If you're singing along and you know that you really believe
We can be richer than industry
As long as we know that there's things that we don't really need
We can speak louder than ignorance
Cause we speak in silence every time our eyes meet.


On and on, and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew

Update...

Estimado auxiliar
Lamento comunicarte que no nos permiten renovarte por 3º año consecutivo.
Si deseas seguir trabajando como auxiliar en Madrid, puedes solicitar trabajar en Centros Concertados bilingües que no ponen esta limitación del tiempo.
Enviad un correo a esta dirección bicucetam@ucetam.es con vuestro cv en el que expliquéis que habéis trabajado como auxiliares en los centros públicos de la Comunidad de Madrid.
Lo siento mucho.
Un abrazo

María José Martínez de Lis
Asesor Técnico Docente
Consejería de Educación
mariajose.martinezdelis@madrid.org
91 720 11 88

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For anyone who doesn't know Spanish who might be reading this, here's the gist:

I sent in my application to renew my position as an ''Auxiliar de Conversacion'' for next year to have it as an option. Two days ago I received this e-mail from the Ministerio de Educacion informing me that I cannot renew for a third year, even though it would only be my second year in the Comunidad de Madrid.

What I will be doing next year and where is still up in the air, but this decision has been made for me, it seems. I will NOT be working as a conversational assitant in Spain next year. (I pretty much had already decided the same thing for my own reasons, but now it's official. Any other suggestions for what to do with my life? ;)


Also, Happy St Patrick's Day!

Clip of info from the Internet: How many Americans have passports by state

http://blog.cgpgrey.com/how-many-americans-have-a-passport-the-percentages-state-by-state/



"One of the things I’ve often heard while living in the European Union is the meme that only 10% of Americans own a passport. This assertion is usually followed by the quazi-urban legend that George W. Bush never had a passport before becoming president. This I’ve never been able to prove or disprove any satisfaction Which, it turns out, is not true.

Such a low number wouldn’t have surprised me. After all, the United States is nearly thrice the size of the EU and borders only two foreign countries, while the EU is made of 27 countries and – depending on how you want to count them – borders another 19.

I wondered aloud about this in my previous post, ‘Work in Progress: The United States Explained‘ and a commentor, Alison, was nice enough to bring this data set about passports from the ever-awesome data.gov to my attention."

Computerless

An update: On Tuesday afternoon my hard drive crashed. I´ve been procrastinating on typing up some retro blog posts, and now I´m wishing I´d done it earlier!

The tech guy at my school is going to try to install Linux because the computer´s shot to the point that reinstalling Windows doesn´t even seem to be working.

So until I figure out how to fix it or get a new netbook, my Internet access will be pretty limited.

Just thought I´d share.


In the meantime, in my new, computer-less life I´ve been pretty productive. My room is cleaner and more well organized than it´s been since I arrived, I made a scarf holder out of some yarn and an old paper towel holder, finished War of the Worlds, ironed and folded all of the clothes in my closet, polished my boots, went to the law library at one of the major universities in Madrid to study my Spanish grammar book for 4 hours, and went out for coffee with friends twice. I´ve also gone to the gym every weekday for the past 2 weeks, washed my dishes and my roommate´s dishes, painted and repainted my nails, watched some crappy programs like Room Raider, Parental Control, and Made on MTV, started a new book about the history of bullfighting, made lists of things to do without a computer and letters I should write, and slept for an average of 9-9.5 hrs every night.

We´ll see how the weekend goes...

Until next time.

Monday

Sarah in Spain

In Plaza Mayor in Madrid

My sister came to visit me in Madrid!

Here's the proof.





New Years Eve Party at Maria's House










Sarah in the Alcazaba in Sevilla










Me on top of the hill in Estepa (Andalucia)
























Thanks for a lovely visit, Sarah!