.a piece of Romania

.yet another day which meant yet another party :). But this is also the meaning of Erasmus life, right?
Today our friend from Romania (Mihaela) was celebrating here Namesday (the day your name is in calendar, for those whose cultures disallowed the pleasure of another day of celebration). As usual our great kitchen was chosen as a place for this event. And so we ate some romanian specialty (something like our potato salad but with chicken), drank some wine and talked a lot. The huge exchange of cultural information took place, now we know much more about some important romanian current affairs (Vlad Drakul and Ceaucescu's palace as an example ;) ). Believe me the chat was really great, like always when you meet nice people :).
Afterwards we went to Heimbar where the traditional wednesday party was going on, only today the music choice was not very lucky and nobody was dancing... After some more chat and laughter my tiredness finally took over and signalized that the day is over for me. Good night and see you next time!

.comments wanted!

.it may seem as an unimportant thing but for every author reader's comments, critics, ideas, etc. are an useful feedback from which he can improve (or totally give up, if they are too negative ;)) his style of writing, write more about interesting stuff and so on. This blog is a window into my life but it's here also for you to share my experiences. So let us make it better together. All there is needed are some comments, folks ;)...

.slovak 'pirohy' & us jazz

.i've got a great feeling because knowledge about slovak cuisine was successfully spread among people from all over the world today :). You don't believe me? Well, that's your very own problem, you should have been here with us... To be more specific, as far as my memory is not bad yet, 'spisske pirohy' tasted friends from Slovakia (they also helped me a lot with cooking, so BIG THANKS in that direction), Czech Republic (of course), Pakistan, Spain, Great Britain, Sweden, Romania and China. Nice bunch of people, right? And they even liked it, what makes me really happy (because every cook, be it apprentice or master, is proud and happy seeing that guests like his food :P)...
So let me tell you what lies behind this huge culinary success. I've just had enough of this monotone german food (mensa throughout week with their schnitzel and pasta during weekends...). So I decided to prepare something special and typical for Slovakia. As 'halusky' were made two weeks ago, this time I chose 'pirohy'. Recipe is not a complicated one, yet the lack of major ingredients is not very good ('bryndza' can't be bought around here, so I faked it combining feta cheese, processed cheese and milk...). After some effort dough was prepared and with a huge help of friends some hundred pieces of 'piroh' were stuffed and formed. Few minutes in boiling water and it can be served (whole preparation took us some 3 hours). Although time doesn't matter if you see that everybody liked it :)...
But this was not the only big thing today. This week has here in Saarbrucken started a jazz festival. Some of the gigs take place in university's aula and with a little bit of luck I won a free ticket for today's concert (jazz bands Parallaxe and Oregon). As always on this school, not everything was working (heating malfunctioned today, so we were sitting there like in the refrigerator) but nothing could spoil my good mood and hunger for some nice music full of emotions. And really, I got what I wanted, both bands were perfect, different styles of jazz, but at the same time beautiful performances and lots of positive energy ;). Yeah, this was a fantastic day! I wish all of them were like this...

.kitchen fun

.what a strange day it was... Balancing between hunger, knowledge and fun ;). Exotic ingredients created an interesting mix. Sounds ridiculous? Then you're welcome to read more.
First there was a morning and believe me, this was a synonym of VERY COLD. With some heroic effort we got to lecture room and "enjoyed" 4 hours of absolutely devastatingly boring lectures. Worth to mention is a fact that I was very hungry (and as you probably know, hunger and concentration do not cooperate very well...).
After this dreadful experience we finally tasted some superb as always food from our beloved mensa (it's incredible but Germans can eat schnitzel with chips every day + as a dessert you can choose between pudding and, surprisingly enough, more pudding). Today was probably some national holiday because we got some indian curry meat with rice (and pudding, of course ;) ). But it served its purpose and pain of hunger was extinct.
What lied ahead was also very promising, russian conversation class. I've dreamed for a long time about attending a thing like this but never got a chance. And it's quite useful, mainly if your language skills are deteriorated after 12 years of not using it... It proved to be great, I did some progress with speaking russian :), hopefully after a semester I'll be able to speak fluently enough again, because it's embarrassing not to be able to have a normal conversation with friends (I can understand pretty everything but active vocabulary is so bad :( ).
Unfortunately hunger announced it's presence once again. So I went straight into the kitchen to cook something quick and nutritious :). However, crowds of people there took me by surprise. Some great cleaning was going on. And so I walked without intention into such an interesting process. It took some time and plenty of fun but afterwards the duty was successfully done. And nevertheless, some new relations were established as this was a good opportunity to say more than hello to some people I already knew a little. And contacts are important, bro ;).

.melancholy

.it looks like we have waved our "Good bye!" to the warm and sunny times. Starting from today temperature dropped by some 10 degrees, which means it's freezing during the nights... These news are accompanied by strong winds and rains :'(. I don't know what does it mean to you, but for me it always brings melancholy. Only for a few days (body and mind need to settle to these new conditions probably) but always...
Maybe it's symbolic that it appeared exactly on the 1st of November. The day which means nostalgia for many (at least christian) cultures. The day when we're burning candles and remembering people who are not anymore among living, among us (hopefully not only on this day but today it's more visible...). So let us pay a little respect and dedicate a few thoughts to those who cared about us...

...Thank you