Wanderlust

Good morning!

Yes, I am still alive. As you know last week was full of due dates and therefore I only had little sleep. I caught up everything during the last two days to finally let my dark circles around my eyes vanish.
Obviously weather was amazing during the week (dresses and white pants were on the program but I always forgot to take some outfit pictures), but then temperatures fell again which is why I spent the weekend in my room so far. Today I will have some birthday party though.

On Friday night I was invited to a friend where we had some Thai curry which was a premiere for me. I've never tasted something like this before as I was no fan on coconut milk. I must avow that it was pretty good - except for the coriander. I don't know how you feel about it but for me it smells like soap. Truly. I had a look on Wikipedia and found out that it has actually a genetic reason.

You all are aware of me being a fanatic traveller. This summer of three months vacation calls for new destinations that I would like to check out. The different options are:

• Canada: Travelling form West to East by train through the Rockies with stops in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. 
• South America: Not speaking Spanish I'd like to take the challenge to pass some time on the Southern continent. From Brazil to Argentina to Chile passing the Igazu Falls and the Aconcagua.
• Asia: Exploring an entire new world - Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and preferably China.
• Scandinavia: Starting in Iceland I would like to take a ferry to Norway and there do a road trip to Oslo, Lillehammer, Bergen and the famous North Cape. Furthermore I'd like to check out my beloved Sweden and maybe Denmark.  

What would you choose? 

Have a nice Sunday and enjoy the rest of the week!

Potatoes with Spring Vegetables

Good morning,

I see a light at the end of the tunnel. Even if it is a very small one, it enables me to be optimistic.
The last week I spent mainly at my desk: Finance essay, French essay, French presentation and Marketing project. In addition I had to deal with my consulting project and some classes to attend. All in all a very busy week that showed me how stressful studying can be: In average I had 6 hours sleep the night and I begin to feel this nuisance. Actually, I have just realized that I miss one page in my Finance essay and now I must fudge a story to at least fulfil the minimum pages required.

22nd, I cannot wait.

Cake Pops for the party!

In such weeks I am happy to have friends who you talk to about stupid stuff and you laugh with. As everyone has to suffer the same situation we keep making jokes about everything in order to stay optimistic. Therefore I invited friends over on Tuesday and we cooked together (yes, another recipe!). I also went to a party yesterday night which was best after two days filled with writing on essays, even if I worked on some presentations afterwards.
Temperatures rose eventually and so the following recipe is perfect for spring:

Source: Food & Foto Hamburg

Potatoes with spring vegetables (for 4 persons)

1 kg potatoes

2 onions

500 g string beans

2 red peppers

250 g feta cheese

Begin by peeling the potatoes and cutting them into small squares. Heat some olive oil afterwards, put the potatoes in it and toss them approx. 10 minutes (or longer for becoming soft). In the meanwhile slice the onions and cook the string beans in hot salt water for about 8 minutes. Then cut the peppers. When the potatoes are ready, put the other vegetables into the pan and mix it for another 5 minutes. Spice it with pepper and salt. After positioning the portions on the plates, crumble the feta cheese on each.

This week the presentations are due. Cross fingers that they work well! And as all the stress is soon over, I will put more emphasis on taking pictures, blogging and thinking about nice topics. So long!

10 Random facts

Good morning,

Currently lots of bloggers reveal 50 facts about themselves. As it is still early this morning, I only could think of 10. Maybe I will do 5 x 10, I don't know yet. So, let's start with my 10 facts now:

1. I am afraid of dogs and the deep sea.
2. In my closet you will find my shirts arranged according to their colour. Like a lot of small rainbows.
3. I love sweets. And I eat far too much of them. Then I have a bad conscience and skip dinner for a couple of days. 
4. I have no clue about latest music as I primarily listen to classical music. Only when I am in a club I get in touch with house music. 
5. Meat is really important to me and if I don't get any, I can be in a very bad mood (sorry, dear veggies!)
6. I hate glitter on clothes. No way I buy these pieces. 
7. I used to be addicted to ice cubes that I ate up to 30 of them in a day. My addiction lasted for 2 years until I broke our freezer. 
8. I don't watch any psycho thrillers as they frighten me to death. Instead I prefer watching romantic comedies...
9. I have a wild fantasy and think of what could happen the next day very often. Most of the time it doesn't.
10. Although I am really busy and don't get a lot of sleep, I don't drink coffee. I hate its taste. To get some energy I grab my Coke light.

Last skiing day this season

My last days at home were great as usual, like skiing on Wednesday. Nevertheless it was imperative that I went back to my flat in order to continue (or start) writing my essays for university. This I never achieve to do while being at my parents because it feels like true holidays.
Therefore I am primarily focused on Finance, Accounting, English, French and Marketing projects. But not entirely: My brother came with me and stays until this afternoon. Together we went shopping. We met our cousin on Friday midday for lunch. And went to a bar yesterday night.

Water walk

To sum up, a really good week. Same I wish you for the upcoming one. Mine will be full of work but you know me - I will find some ways to make it a nice one. Enjoy your day!

3500m

Dear readers,

I know - it is Monday. Easter Monday to be precisely which is kind of a Sunday to me. But of course, I owe you an apology.

I spent the last three days in Saas Fee, a skiing resort in the Swiss Alps and there I had absolutely no Internet connection. Instead of checking mails and facebook, I was on the slopes with my parents although weather was moderate. Actually, it was so foggy that I couldn't see further than 10 metres. Only today, upon departure, the sun shone brightly.
For all the ski lovers amongst you, the ski resort in Saas Fee is rather disappointing in my opinion. The advantage is that it's glacier (3500m) is open throughout the year which means snow safety the entire year.
The village compensates the ski resort: it is car-free what I appreciated a lot. In the village you find a lot of sport boutiques in which one of them I found my new black Mammut jacket.
And within the three days I haven't eaten badly once, of course only Swiss classics as Fondu, Rösti and Geschnetzeltes.

Easter greeting from the slope!

Before my Easter holidays the "Soirée Cabaret" in my university took place where I sang with the choir and played the clarinet. While our clarinet performance I trembled with fear to play wrongly. Luckily I didn't and the performance was a lot appreciated by the audience. Furthermore - and as last year - I was astonished how many talents you find in small university: juggler, dancers, singer, musicians, etc. Thank you all for your support and the artistic show!

This week I stay at my parents' with enough to do for university and will go back on Thursday, accompanied by my brother. Next Sunday I will then state why he is joining me!

The party with champagne is in Europe.

Ohlala. This apartment is a mess. My room is a mess. I am a mess. Why?
Because we had a house party last night. And even with the biggest effort it is impossible to keep it clean when 40 guests drink, eat and dance. So today's agenda is obvious: clean the place ... clean the desktop. Last point is the reason for me being a mess. I survived another stressful week and now a huge pile of work (especially financial risk management) awaits me.

But I don't want to complain. Our party last night was a huge success as we all had a great time. And my special raspberry-pineapple-punch turned out to be as delicious as the following photo promises.

Raspberry-Pineapple-Punch
(750ml prosecco, 100ml Martini, 400ml sparkling water, 300g pineapple, 400g raspberries, 100g brown sugar)

As already announced last week I began this week in France where I had a champagne tasting and visited my future university. During our stay I also visited two apartments in which one my friend and I will maybe move in by August.
Although my friends called me the "Japanese tourist" due to my great Canon camera I couldn't keep my hands of taking pictures. In the end I am the only one who has some souvenir pictures that I show you now.

Tasting Champagne Rosé

Champagne Cave

City Hall

Cathedral

To finish off today's post - believe me, it was hard enough to write down all so far as I am incredibly tired - I want to point out to a political and economical topic.
On Thursday I took part in a discussion of how Europe's future will develop. The two speakers were a politician and a scientist who obviously had two different opinions, one from a theoretical, the other from a more realistic point of view. The discussion was more a huge blabla with no concrete solutions given. Nevertheless it showed that there are a lot of questions that especially the younger generation has to think of in order to guarantee the balance of Europe, and also the world. How do we implement the thought of Europe in the different nations' minds? How will the expansion policy of the European Union be continued? How shall rules be respected neglecting political motivations? What can I - as simple inhabitant - do to improve the situation?
Those are enough questions to bother you, but I thought of giving you some impulse and sharing my thoughts. Next week will be as adventurous as the previous one, therefore stay curious!

France, my second home

Good morning my dears, 

This weekend I am back in France again. Though, this time it is not at my parents near the Swiss boarder, but the heart of champagne: Reims.
Here I will continue my study program in September for another two years, so it is worth to visit the city at least once before. We only arrived yesterday night which is why I will postpone further story-telling to next week.

Lake Geneva

It is not as if last week was any kind of boring. The opposite!
Main event was clearly the Business Cup Final that took place on Thursday and Friday. Besides workshops and lot of food, our main goal was to solve the business cases as best as we could. Actually we achieved: We won the competition although we couldn't believe it at first. Probably we underestimated our capabilities. What I liked most was that I met foreigners from Bulgaria, Czech and England giving the days an international touch and some important significance. Well, the trophy money was also a highlight.
What must not be neglected is my weekly cooking session with a friend. This time on the menu: Rice with spicy chicken and almond broccoli topping. Yummy! So much better than any canteen food here in university.

Rice with spicy chicken and almond broccoli topping

Last but not least, I owe you photos from last Sunday as sun was shining brightly at the lake. Oh, I forgot to mention that I started snowing again yesterday. Therefore I try to force spring to come back by looking at sunny photos. C'mon spring, where are you?

Jeans - American Eagle Outfitters / Shirt - Only / Scarf - somewhere from Africa / Shoes - Tamaris / Sun-glasses - Ray Ban

Spring!!!

Tourist guide

Bonjour,

You are wondering why I greet in French? Easy. I am home at my parents who live in France. Despite only a short weekend I enjoy every single minute of it, even another fallback to illness.
But I am not alone here: two friends from university accompanied me in order to visit the famous Geneva Automobile Fair and so we combined my family stay with their big wish. They went there on Friday - returning fascinated - while I was in my former school to hold a presentation about my university. Yesterday we all three went to the city where I was the perfect organised tourist guide, so we took some great shots from all over.

Old Town

Old Town II

Besides my home stay, my week was rather a disaster. I was unable to do anything because my head was full of thoughts about upcoming dead lines. All these stressful thoughts made me incapable to motivate myself and ended up in doing rather nothing. This means of course, that I now have a huge pile of things on my desk when coming back (let me tell you so far, that next week more deadlines and to-dos will make things worse. That I already know).
So what did I do instead of working intensively for university? Well, I had my first ice cream, I played soccer, I cooked another Potato Spinach Gratin and went partying Wednesday night. Some of my activities already reveal that weather turned a lot better - spring feelings - but actually it will be getting colder again next week. Although a fan of cold temperatures, I long to leave my winter coat in the closet and change it to my simple jacket. Don't you?

We are now preparing to leave soon, so I need to leave you now. Enjoy the rest of the weekend and have great week! Bisous!

Potato Spinach Gratin

Winter Soccer

Winter Walk

Culinaric highlights!

Happy Sunday!

Honestly: It's been weeks now that temperatures were below zero and that snow kept on falling. You all know that I love the winter but this time I have the feeling that I cannot use it properly. No skiing, no walking in the woods, no snowman-building. Hopefully I can ski at least at Easter some days when I am back home.

As already foreseen one week ago, my week was pretty filled with activities: Of course most of it I spent in university meeting my colleagues in order to finish one of our thousand projects. Coevally I felt that at least the half of my classes are a waste of time - profs talk about their lives, elementary-class-content is presented or no concentration is possible because all are talking about the night before. Thereby we come to our next topic, the Running Dinner on Thursday night. Another time my friend and me were arranged to cook the starter's plate and decided for an Italian salad with dried tomatoes, rocket, lettuce, mushrooms, pine nuts and feta, accompanied by puff paste filled with cheese. Afterwards we "ran" to our second stop where we had a vegetarian risotto. Finally we ended at an apartment where we a large bowl of sangria and another one with raspberry yogurt expected us. Obviously this night was very delicious and a lot of fun. It confirmed that it is my favourite event throughout the term!

Starter's plate

Another cocktail night

Since there were a couple of things to celebrate I was a lot in restaurants or bars to meet lovely people. Salad, tapas, cocktails... For me it seems like a good resume.
What I always wanted to know is whether you have a favourite dish? Or cocktail?
I find it rather difficult to specify but a good steak with fresh salad can make a dinner really wonderful.

Speaking of, I leave now to buy some fresh bread at the bakery because I invited some friends to have breakfast here. Bon appétit!

(Have you recognised: Since I am back at university, everything's about food. When weather gets better, I will certainly have some photos outside! Promised!)