Revised French Phrase

So in french class we learned the polite was to say things yesterday (a new verb tense) and I realize now that my french phrase is a little too demanding so for those of you who might actually use it and don't want to have someone spit in your beer for being rude...

J'aimerais une autre biere.

Much more polite! Heather....miss the firm deadline again and I might have to book another ticket back to the U.S. :)

German and French Phrase of the week

Ich brauche ein anderes Bier.....I need another beer

and in french for those who have been missing the phrase of the week email.

J'ai besoin d'une autre bière

Laying low

This weekend was very low key. I worked very hard last week, basically from 7am until 8 or 9 pm almost every night. I had intended on going someplace this weekend but after a week like that I just needed to recover and recoup from the long week. So I did the normal boring things that I would do in the US, which is groceries and watching TV, going to the movies and sleeping in. I went to see two movies, Saturday night I went out with Laurence, she left for Tunisia on Sunday to meet her twin sister for vacation. So , we got together before she left so that we could hang out a little. We went out for dinner at the same seafood restuarant that I mentioned earlier, at the mall. I am still amazed that a landlocked country could have a good seafood restuarant! Then we saw Fools Gold, it was cute, a nice way to pass two hours. I also started watching the series Rome from HBO. My friend Jim let me borrow this while he is in Poland. I really like it so far and I have watched the first seven episodes. I worked on putting together a CV (resume) for one of the girls I met over here, and I submitted it for an Admin Position over here. She is a nice girl, smart, she speaks 4 languages, but she hasn't had the opportunity to finish college so I figured I would try and help her out a little. She is a bartender at one of the places that I go regularly and she has always been nice to me, so I hope that this works out for her. Tomorrow I might meet up with Kathy and her friend from the US, who is here visiting, to go out for a little while. Then on Thursday, I think that Justyna, the bartender/new friend, are going to the Indian Restaurant on my street, Namaste. This coming weekend, I will head to Phantasialand in Germany with some of my colleagues, another amusement park, who knew I would go to more amusement parks in Europe than I have in the US! I will have some more pictures for you then. Hopefully something more exciting to tell than working hard and working hard!

Snubbed by the Mouse!

So Disney was fabulous. I suppose anyone who knows me should have no trouble believing that I would have a great time someplace where there are a lot of stuffed animals and make believe characters. We started out on Saturday morning at about 8 am for our 3 hour drive to Disney. The hotel was great, we tried to spend some time enjoying the hotel as well as the Parks. We checked into the Holiday in, each hotel had a theme. Ours was the circus. It was cute in a stylish sort of way, very nice room. We made our way over to the park and had lunch there and looked in some of the shops in Disney Village. I bought myself a couple tops the first day because there were some really cute peasant blouse type tops and I want to wear one the next day. After that we decided that we wanted to relax at the hotel so we went back, checked in and laid by the pool and read for a couple hours. It was nice to be in the sun and have some time to chill out. With the extrodinarily long hours I have been working lately it was much needed. After that we went out for a Steak Dinner in Disney Village. The restuarant was meteocre but the night was beautiful out. We sat outside and then we moved for a drink someplace else. We retired early that night because Sunday was going to be a long day. Sunday we were at the park by 8 am, the lines did not open until 9:15 but it gave us time for breakfast and to get in line for the gates early. We were in the park by 9:30 and it was faboulous. We did both parks, Universal and Magic Kingdom and just picked the things we wanted to see. I am sure Jenni will be happy to hear that I did go on the roller coasters, and that they were a lot of fun. We also did a character lunch where I was so unhappy because Mickey would not stop to take a picture with me. I tried to get a picture with him two times and he just shrugged me off and walked right by! Mickey Francais est stupide!!! I did get a picture with Chip and Dale, Gephetto and Pinnochio, and Goofy. I wore my Minnie ears the whole day and Goofy pulled them off every time he walked by....I think maybe Goofy was flirting with me? How wierd is that? But he is my new favorite now! All in all I love Disney. On the way back on Sunday we stopped in Reims in France so that I could see the cathedral, unfortunately the batteries on my camera ran out!! So I guess I will have to make it a point to go back. Now it is back to reality...French class is going well, I am doing well with communicating, hopefully I will at least be comfortable with speaking when I get back...with any luck fluent but that might be a stretch. I am coming home for the 3th of July, hopefully I will be able to see you all then.

The Cookoff

This weekend was all about the cook-off. Jim has been boasting...since well before I got here, I am sure, that his chicken parm is the best and would rival anyone in the North End. Since it is one of the only two things he can cook, naturally this gloating could not go unnoticed by those of us who cook many different things and never miss an opportunity for a good face off. So Kathy challenged Jim to a chicken parm cook off and I also was invited to take part. I went all out. I got up early Saturday morning because I wanted to make my own Pasta Sauce too and I was off to the store. Since the big grocery store is a twenty minute bus ride, I did not make it back until 11am. Another disadvantage for me is that apparently people do not use breadcrumbs in this country! Who ever heard of a country without breadcrumbs!!! Jim and Kathy had gotten some at the army base when Kathy still had a friend over here, I made my own. Sounds like that would be a bonus, but making breadcrumbs not as easy as you may think, especially without an oven and with fresh not stale bread...Amy S. I think I need a lesson when I get home! Anyway over all I think for having a few bumps in the road it came out pretty well. We all brought our dishes to Kathy's house and baked them in her oven. And being the forward thinking person that I am I made an extra dish to bring for lunch for the week, which has now turned out to be the lunch for my group tomorrow...I am the only girl and I think the only cook, go figure! Kathy invited four of her friends over and they were the judges. She won by a landslide! So the good news is Jim did not win (although his Chicken Parm was really good) and the bad news is I did not. Maybe next time we can pick something that I have made before and something where the ingredients are easily accessible. On a high note, my sauce came out awesome! Sunday was again low key, but it was another beautiful day. I slept late and did some laundry, then I went to one of the many outdoor cafes and read my book and drank some coffee. After that I walked around the Casemates, someplace I had not been to before but really beautiful outdoors. I tried unsuccessfully to take a self portrait and the one that the tourist I stopped took of me was very unflattering so maybe next week we can rectify that. Next week it is off to Disneyland in Paris! I guess the next pictures will be with the Mouse!

I am slowly being integrated into the country

This weekend was a little more low key than most, I stayed in Luxembourg for the most part. Friday night, I went out for a couple of drinks with my friend Dave from work. It was a beautiful night out so we went to Urban and sat outside. Dave is one of the Irish guys that I work with, and it was cool to be able to sit down and chat with him and get to know him. We move from there to The Tube, an English Bar that is made to look like the Underground. We left at about 12:30...He was going to our boss' wedding and I was leaving around nine to meet Kathy. Kathy and I went to Belgium on Saturday, to go to IKEA...nothing like spending more money on things you could easily by at home for less money but what the hell, that is part of the experience! and I kept the spending to a minimum. We also went to and Italian market with really inexpensive fruits and veggies and then to the British Store where you can buy things that you would get at home for a premium of course. Who thought there would be a place in the world where Water Crackers would cost less than Ritz? From there we went to the big supermarket and bought more food! Totally worth it though because I have a lot more of the food I would want to get than if I was at the little markets. We had lunch outside. This was the nicest weekend we have had. Believe it or not we at at Pizza Hut...not like the Pizza Hut's back home though. This is a sit down cafe with appetizers, entrees, pizza of course and a full bar. The food was good too! We listened to the musicians from the conservatory play in the centre and then we walked around the fair. After that it was time for me to leave, I went to Laurence's home in Belgium for her birthday dinner. I met her closest friends and made it through a dinner with almost complete french. Her friend Matt explained some things that it was clear I would not understand, but I pretty much got everything by myself! It was a late night, I was home at 2:30 in the morning. Sunday I met Kathy at the fair in the centre and then I went back to the cemetary and took some pictures. It was a nice weekend with a lot of running around, but I have added some more friends to my list (Matt and Mimi) and I will be watching Nouvelle Star with them starting next Wednesday! Today was the beginning of my french classes, I think I am somewhat ahead of some of the other people in my class, but they use the first class to place people so if they think I should be in a higher level they will let me know. I sat next to a nice guy from Germany, his name was Gero. We chatted for a bit before class. Everyone else seems nice, but not everyone speaks English so there was not a lot of socializing, French skills being somewhat limited and all. But I think I am going to like those too. I am adding some of my pictures from the cemetary for you all to see. This week I am going to go out on Wednesday I think for a drink with my coworkers and then to Kathy's (we have Thursday off) and then on Thursday I might go with Dave and Steve (the Irish Guys) to the Circus. There has been some joking around about whether it is a kids circus (only one tent) or a live porn show! Either way I am taking pictures! = ) Just Kidding, I am sure it is a real circus, but either way it should be interesting!!!

So I think I found Karl Marx's house?

So this weekend was Germany. I finally made it to Trier..which is about 45 minutes away from here. Trier is a very interesting place. I had never hear of it before but it has some very interesting claims to fame. It had the Ponta Nigra and some other roman ruins, it was at one time I think the capital of the roman empire, at least according to Wikipedia. Also the church there holds the robes of Christ. I did not know that they were still existing someplace and if I would guess I would have put them in Rome. Also, in case you did not guess from the title, Trier is also the birthplace of Karl Marx. We arrived in Trier at about 10 or 10:30 am. Kathy drove which was nice. We walked around and she showed my around the center a little. There was a Woolworths there. Since it does not exist in the US anymore I had to take a picture of it and those of us who are old enough to remember it will appreciate it here. It is still just as inexpensive as it has always been. I bought a windbreaker there for 6.99 EUR because I needed a jacket to wear out, the zipper on my fleece broke. Even by USD conversion standards that is a great deal! From there we went in search of Karl Marx's house, we stopped in some stores along the way, we followed the signs and we came to a white building that said something in German about Karl Marx, we think is it the place and I took at picture. After that though we talked to another woman to help us make sure and she pointed us in a different direction, but when we got there we saw signs pointing us in the direction that we came from. So the picture posted here is maybe Karl Marx's house or it could be some random german dwelling...who knows? We also went to the Catherdral to see the robes of Christ. You can't actually see the robes but you can see where they were housed and the church is quite beautiful. I also saw the Ponta Nigra but I did miss some of the ruins..I will go back and plan to take those in with my family. One of my favorite things about Trier...I could get a large cup of coffee!!! I would almost say that BBH needs to relocate me out there and I will commute, it kills me that my coffee is the size of a shot glass! We had some traditional german food for lunch in the center and did some more shopping. All in all we had a great time. We came home at about 4pm because one of my friends from work was going to be playing the guitar and singing at one of the Irish pubs that night. So I had a couple hours to catch up on my email and my calls on Skype and then it was off again to dinner at Villa d'este. I had Tortellini de la Nonna and Laurence had a salad with Foie Gras and some other interesting, better to remain nameless things. I did try them though and it was really good. She said it was just better for me not to know what I was eating thought and I decided to take her word for it! We went to the pub early so that we had a table and good thing because it got packed. Steve sounded really good. He is from Ireland, he played some traditional Irish music and also some classic rock like the Beatles etc... I called it a night at about 1 am and Laurence was nice enough to drop me at home. I went to bed around 2pm and was rudely awakened at 6am by the continuing saga with my neighbors...somebody was ringing my buzzer at 6 in the morning. This lasted until about 6:40 at which time I was wide awake and a little freaked out, but eventually I went back to sleep. Sunday was a beautiful day and although I was exhausted I did make it out for a 2 1/2 hour walk to see different parts of Lux. I tried to find the US embassy, to no avail, but I did find some really beautiful places. The public park is huge and I spent some time walking there. As well I walked through the cemetery, which unlike ours is kind of pretty with lots of statues. I will probably go back and take some pictures there too. Are you freaked out yet? Now maybe I am being a little wierd? Well you knew that already! = )