Food
France
I´m having a really difficult time adjusting to this uncertain weather, is it spring, is it still winter, which coat do I wear, do I still need gloves and how come it´s so windy!? At least it´s been sunny, it made it so much easier to spend time outside with my Sammy, without needing to force my own hand.
I´ve only just returned from my trip to Romania and I´m going to Lisbon for a few days in May and still the only thing I can think of is travel. And since France is one of my favorite places, thought I´d share some of my travel pictures with you.
Although I adore France, I haven´t seen nearly as much of it as I should have. Paris is the place I always long for and find a reason to return to, both for its magic and its food. In fact those two are quite interconnected since food is one of the main ingredients of magic! And you´ve got to love French food! Oh, my God! The snails, the cheese, the macarons, the rabbit, the onion marmalade, the Tarte Tatin. Yum! I´ve been to Normandy, Corsica and Cote D’Azur and besides beauty, divine food was the second thing they had in common. I need to explore more, I need to see Provence, the Loire Valley and Bretagne. In the mean time, enjoy a trip on my memory lane!
Restaurant in Corsica, France
Return from Mother Country
As you might have realized, I´ve been away for a week. Back to my mother country, or, to be more precise, Bucharest. More than anything, it was a time travel- as I implied last time I mentioned my trip- to a stage in my life when the future still held everything in store and my hopes were sky-high. I´ve been living in Norway for 14 years now and I look back on my year in Bucharest with a mixture of nostalgia and of “things that could have been”.
This being said, my “future” turned out just right, my country´s, however, never raised to my expectations. Buildings are crumbling down, corruption is still everywhere, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, even the middle class seems to be flattening out into a mass of people learning how to survive with what they have.
Leaving politics and the deplorable speed at which things happen aside, Bucharest is a nice city to visit. Plenty of coffee shops, restaurants, stores and bookstores. Throw in some museums, lovely architecture in the old town and some of the city´s main streets, fairly low prices and welcoming people, there´s no reason why you shouldn´t give it a chance for a weekend or so.
I was there for a week to see my family, especially my niece, who is the crown jewel of our “dynasty”, to meet up with friends, have some laughs, some drinks, get hold on some books in Romanian and shop. I love Max Mara and they don´t have it in Norway any more! Can you even imagine?;-)
So I dined and wined, visited people and places, mostly the same places (and people!;-)), as my need for stability is ever so present, ate the eclairs and the pies my body had craved for an entire year, stayed in the same lovely hotel Cismigiu and explored. The city was sad and grey in the dirty February light, the temperature was nothing to fuss over, either, but the 1st of March brought a token of spring and people gave each other flowers and symbolic jewelry as they do every year. And it was lovely to see everybody, now I´ve recharged my batteries for a while. I´m sure I´ll go back to feeling home sick in no time!
Check out Amsterdamming´s entries on Bucharest!
Nutty cake
Friday crept into place and suddenly it was time for good food and treats. We had a couple of friends over and I made Indian, not the tandoori stuff you eat everywhere, but the more special dishes from North India with cauliflower, carrots, minced meat, peas and mint raita. Yum!
And since I have a sweet tooth, I feel a good meal is not complete unless it´s topped with a luscious desert. At the same time, I never have the time required by complicated cakes, nor do I believe them to be worth the effort.. So I searched on the good old internet and found the perfect recipe! You should make it an hour in advance so it can cool down in the freezer, but the making itself only takes 15 min!;-)
Ingredients
- 250g assorted biscuits, roughly chopped
- 250g assorted nuts, or a mix of nuts and dried fruit
- 300g milk or plain chocolate, or a mixture of both, chopped
- 100g butter, chopped
- 140g golden syrup
- Butter and line a 20cm square tin with non-stick baking parchment. In a large bowl, combine the biscuits and nuts, halving any larger nuts. Melt the chocolate, butter and golden syrup in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth and glossy, then pour this over the biscuit and nut mixture.
- Tip the mixture into the tin, then flatten lightly – it doesn’t need to be completely smooth. Chill for at least 2 hrs or overnight before cutting into squares.
Source: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com
Stavanger
It´s nice to leave home along with one´s comfort zone once in a while. It´s so refreshing to get some new impulses from the change of architecture, dialect, food and weather! And I don´t know about you, but I love sleeping in hotels! And Nordic Choice was really nice, it really felt like something else! Concrete, modern art, brand new. Had it not been for the haunting mirrors that added 10 kg to my normal weight, I wouldn´t have anything to complain about. 😉
I enjoyed 7 degrees outside and with the sun peeping out today it felt like spring! Stavanger is a small and intimate town, so you get to really feel the holiday mood.
I went to Stavanger to interpret in court and instead of rushing to and from the airport, I decided I should book a hotel room and travel a day in advance. So I had time for dinner with a friend yesterday and lots of time to do whatever I pleased today. Except for the hour at the court house. It was the best idea I´ve had in months!;-) Not only did I get to relax a bit, but I also found time to do some work at a brochure translation. I ate lots and took many scenic pictures, unfortunately I didn´t think of bringing our camera with me, since this was like a “business” trip- haha!
I also did some shopping, shops still had sales miraculously enough! The bargains were peach leather trousers from Alexander Wang at 7% of their original price, as well as Tommy Hilfiger deux-pieces (jacket and skirt) at 50%. Yey, me!;-)
I should do this more often. You don´t need a whole weekend to visit another place, sometimes a day away is enough.
xxx, Alina
Sunday mood
I´ve had another exhausting weekend, but I´m starting to come to my senses today. With only two weeks left till my oral certifying exam, I attended an interpreting seminar both Friday and Saturday. Both dialogues and monologues had to be interpreted and I was in the same group with persons that had nothing to do there in the first place. Needless to say I wasn´t on my best behavior. It felt like high school all over again and that cost me a lot of energy, ´cause I´m dead beat now. So beat that I had to go back to sleep an hour after having woken up. I only managed to do something sensible now- put together a veggie soup. We´re having a couple of friends over and I´ll pick up where I left off yesterday with more dialogues and monologues and note-taking technique.
Saturday evening lifted my weekend spirits, we celebrated a friend of ours´40th anniversary. We had dinner at Smia, an intimate eatery with great food. We had salmon for starters, reindeer for mains and a fancy brownie with ice-cream. And too much wine. The best thing about the dinner was nevertheless the welcome drink- calvados, apple juice and prosecco. Yum! I´ll be sure to try it at home next weekend!
A long, lazy day is coming to an end and I don´t feel like it. Tomorrow I´m flying to Stavanger to interpret in court on Tuesday. But first have dinner with a friend. And shop a little. Meanwhile I´m having some delicious noodles that my husband prepares to me now. 😉
Have a good week!
January
I feel very chatty today, I hope you don´t mind. In fact, I´m a very chatty person any day of the week! And since I take myself very seriously, God forbid the world should miss on anything that has to do with ME!;-)
As an interpreter, I mostly communicate other people´s thoughts and ideas and I´m always on the run. I don´t have an office, nor any steady colleagues. I just rush from one place to another, waving and smiling and trying to keep up with my tight schedule. Or the lack of it. And that in a world where most people work from 8-4. So I don´t get to talk as much as I´d like to, you see.
How are things with you? Did January live up to your expectations? My January has been nice and easy. I had a couple of things in mind, New Year´s resolutions and such, and I feel I´m slowly getting there. It´s nice to be given a new chance each year and even nicer to be able to cut yourself some slack every once in a while.
This year I was going to eat better, work out more, spend less, travel farther, be nicer and work fewer hours. In the health department, I get a case of organic fruit and vegetables delivered to my door once a week and it makes cooking much more simple and fun! I have to admit it´s a big improvement, although we´re constantly battling with all the apples and the kiwis, or whatever fruit that doesn´t really cut it for us.
I also started swimming, for now I´ve only been there once, but the plan is to do it once a week. I´m having a hard time getting out of the house with all this snow and winter, but I do my best. And my best will have to do this year.
Travelwise, I´m going home to Romania for a week in February and taking a 10 days´ holiday in Serbia in June. I´m not sure if I get to see NY this year, but it´ll be there next year, too. I´m trying not to rush things, but I´m not any good at that. I search for houses even though we´re not moving, for apartments in France, although we don´t have a house, and so on.. I have a father who measures success in real estate, so it´s hard to keep up.
But since today is Chinese New Year, I wish you a happy one! I´m so glad I can start anew again in February!;-)
xxx
Apple muffins
One of my New Year´s resolutions was to eat healthier. More fresh fruit and vegetables, more organic products, what better way to do it than order them right to your door through Kolonihagen? Last week was their first delivery and we got lots of goodies, including 7 yellow apples. Since neither of us is so fond of apples, let alone yellow, I had to find a way to use them. And voilà, apple muffins it is!
New Year´s Eve
I´m a sucker for a nice dress and high heels! Any excuse for that! And I love a good dinner party. This year it was our turn to be hosting the New Year´s Eve party and it was lots of fun. Everybody had a good time, or so I like to think, including Sam, our fearless samoyed who lay down to sleep on the ´dance floor´ while one could still hear the fireworks. We had three courses- cheese platter with lemon curd and chutney, tomato bruschetta and Romanian ´salade de boeuf´, turkey and rosemary potatoes with carrot salad for mains and Swiss cake and truffles for dessert. Everybody contributed with a dish since I was a bit fed up with cooking after Christmas. A bit too much to drink, laughs and dancing, in the end we were three girls left gossiping until 4 am. In between all this fun, we sat down and summed up 2013, as well as disclosed our New Year´s resolutions. For my part, I want to give myself some love. I´ll start swimming and doing yoga, since that´s the only work-out I remotely like. We´re planning a trip to Vietnam and New York, so I need to spend less money on clothes and shoes. 2014 won´t only be about career and nothing else like 2013 was, I´ll make sure to be more approachable for my friends and a better wife, sister and daughter. What about you? What are your resolutions? Let 2014 be awesome!
Our Christmas
A quick glimpse of our Christmas. We opened presents on the 25th, the French way. Forgot to take pictures on the 24th. Oops! Here are some Christmas moments. I hope you had a wonderful celebration! Happy boxing day!;-)
life in a bubble 