Knit Wit

It's summertime in New Zealand but that's not stopping me from knitting my little fingers off.

The pattern for this Police Line scarf was what got me into knitting in the first place. I bought a couple of copies of Craft Magazine in Booksale years ago but it's only now I got the courage to try Fair Isle knitting. It's not as difficult as it seems but it's definitely messy.

I knitted the scarf for myself but as soon as Marc saw it, he *arbored it. Grr... What's worse is, it looks better on him too!

Then I wanted to knit another two color project. So I borrowed an Intarsia knitting book and did the easiest thing. It's a bit late for Halloween, but maybe next year I'll have made a whole cat suit. Hehe. *cat sound!*

*I know for non-Filipino speakers that link doesn't help define the word but I thought I'd put the link anyway.

Some links

Just some quick links that I like.

I found Deep in Vogue on Feedly. It's a fashion blog obvs. It's mostly about what the blogger Vera wears from day to day. Blogs like that can get a little (or a lot) self-indulgent but with this one it never does. She's cute and stylish and doesn't talk about herself much.

Also through Feedly, Sexy People. Just go. You won't regret it.

I'm a fan of old time radio, especially mystery shows. Here's a link for mp3s of the CBS Mystery Theater. Based on the commercials between the shows, it's from the late 60's (if I've got my American history right).

And finally, a very interesting interview with Balki Bartokomous (sp?) aka Bronson Pinchot from the AV Club.

Do the Dance of Joy!

Euro Trip

Inspired by fellow blogger Brian, I'm figuratively getting off my ass and writing about the trip to Europe.

This was my first trip to Europe and it served as a honeymoon of sorts. I had always wanted to go to Europe and never believed that I would actually get to go. And flying there with my husband was even better (since I never thought I'd marry either. Gee, I'm kind of a glass half-empty person, aren't I?).

Germany in the summer is wonderful especially in the region where Marc's parents live. Mutterstadt is a town next to the Rhine river and is in the middle of wine country. I'm not much of a wine drinker myself but I did enjoy seeing fields of grapes everywhere. What amazed me was that none of the fields I saw was fenced in any way. You could just go right up and pluck a bunch of grapes if you wanted to.

I can't (or don't want to) go into too much detail about what we did but here are some highlights, in no particular order:

- the best thing I had to eat in Germany was bar none the snails broiled in Kräuterbutter (herb butter) and cheese. It was so good I still dream about it.

- the Ren Fair we attended on our last weekend there. It was a lot of fun. Maybe if a Ren Fair ever rolls over to Christchurch I might be moved to go in costume.

- Wurst! I love wurst. All kinds of wurst. Sauerkraut not so much.

- My parents-in-law. They are so nice and accepting and just great people. Even though my German is confined to about 10 words we got along pretty well.

- Castles! I told Marc I wanted to see castles! He reluctantly delivered, calling them "just piles of old rocks." I liked the one in Heidelberg the best.

- The Polterabend! Meeting Marc's parents was nerve wracking enough but meeting his friends was even worse! Good thing they turned most of their attention on Marc and I was spared from any uncomfortable questioning (aside from the usual small talk). Compared to my friends, Marc's friends were the epitome of self-restraint. Hah!

- H&M! I'm not much of a clotheshorse but I made it a point to go to H&M. You know how hard it is to find a good quality white shirt? Also, you can never have too many gray tank tops. Seriously. I <3 H&M.

- The roadtrip to Italy was long but not as long as I thought it would take to cross 3 different countries. Being an island person, it's almost inconceivable to me that one minute you're driving through Bavarian hills and the next minute you're in Austria! I suggested to Marc that they put up a big Las Vegas-like sign on the border (with tourist-trap stores by the side of the road, natch). So at least you'll feel some sort of change.

- Italy to me was both new and familiar. To a casual observer, the similarities between Filipinos and Italians are never ending, with their shared love to food to the confusing roads and blase manner of following traffic laws.

- Florence! It looks just like it does in photos, only with more people than you could possibly imagine. We thought it would be interesting to see Florence from above so we climbed the Duomo's tower. By gahd, 414 step to the top! My knees were shaking and I was thirsty as hell. The Americanized consumer in me thought that the tower's operators would make a killing if they put up a stall that sold water and other little goods at the top. Why they haven't done so boggles the mind. A killing!

- Florentine Steak! Pizza! Gelato! Yum! I gained two kilos in 3 weeks! Egads!

Well that was pretty much it. And after a 24 hour flight (with stopovers) back to Christchurch, the best thing was seeing Walter again!

(sorry, no photos, blogger doesn't want to upload my pics!)

ETA: I highly enjoyed Pisa as well. It was beautiful.

The people on Facebook have been amazing in their efforts to help in the aftermath of Ondoy. Lorie, Manolo and Lizette are unceasing in their posting and reposting of appeals and updates.

I was worried for a second about my own family in Manila but I had a feeling they were okay. Eventually my mom emailed me (after forcing Mel to text Mom to see if they were safe) and said she was stranded for a few hours at a friend's house and finally made it home late in the afternoon.

I told her to just give away (most) of the clothes I had left behind. Her response was, "Of course I'm giving it away! What did you think?" Sigh, that's my mother for you. My only appeal was that she not donate my wedding dress.

Donating my clothes is pretty much the only thing I can do over here. Aside from pray of course.

***

As for me, the job hunt continues. I don't want to talk about it.

***

Meanwhile Walter, the cutest cat in the world, suffered minor injuries while presumably fighting other creatures of the night. He didn't exhibit much damage save for a sprained paw. But like new parents, we rushed him to the vet and got some anti-biotics (he had a fever) and a pain reliever for him.

A day later and he's back to normal but the vet strongly recommended we keep him indoors at night from now on. So no more gallivanting for Walter.

***

Some people out there might want to hear about our exploits in Manila and Europe so here's a brief summary:

A day after Marc arrived in Manila, we flew to Boracay to take in a little sun and breeze. There was definitely a breeze but alas, no sun. I'm not a beach person so that was fine with me. There was a lot of wasted time though, because the airport in Caticlan was closed so we had to fly in from Kalibo and drive another 2 hour to get to the island. This meant having only a day in Boracay.

I lived it up and made use of the hotel's fancy spa. I'm not used to such luxury when it comes to massages. Meanwhile Marc went diving. Not as exciting as Anilao but at least his gear got wet again after a year stowed away.

Then, back in Manila we had our own version of a Polterabend. Marc never heard so many squealing girls before and I think it overwhelmed him a bit.

The plate breaking was fun but I think you guys had a little too much fun with throwing those plates on the ground. Maybe it should be a custom from now on, even if no one's getting married. Just meet up to break stuff. Fun!

Then off to Singapore for 10 hours. Thanks to Zak's recommendations we were able to make the most of the little time we had. I like Singapore. Marc liked it even better once we went into Sim Lim and a toy helicopter flew past his nose. I just turned to him and said, "You want that, don't you?" He nodded and then rushed off to the store and came out with a big box under his arm.

Hmm, this post is too long now. So I'll save Europe for some other time. Hope all is well with you!

Ich weiss nicht

After a very long flight and a 10 hour stopover in Singapore. We're finally here in Germany. There's too many things to write about but so many lazybones in this writer.

We quite liked Singapore. Zak's recommendations guided us through the city state with minimum stress and maximum efficiency. I thought we Filipinos were mall crazy but it's nothing compared to Singaporeans.

There wasn't time to really shop but Marc fell in love with a remote controlled toy helicopter. Sigh. There was no getting in between those two.

Germany seems to be neck deep in summer although I was told it was raining on and off before we arrived. But so far, I've seen nothing but cloudless skies.

My parents-in-law are wonderful. Even though the language barrier keeps us from any real conversations, they really seem to like me (or perhaps it is because of the language barrier that they like me, hmm...).



I don't want to prattle on about the neato things I've seen because that's just like showing people my slide collection. Let me just say that it's been awesome and I'm very happy and I've posted photos on Facebook.

Just chillin' with Michael (and some barbeque).

Somebody finally cleaned out the ANC mailing list for people who no longer work there. So I won't be getting 20 emails daily anymore about Malacanyang press briefings, employee complaints and dirty jokes. I think I'm going to miss it a little.

***

Came across a shaky video of a one man dance party. If you can stand the urge to hurl due to the camera movements it's a fun clip.

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Our cat becomes a man! Walter caught his very first mouse and brought it up to the bedroom for Marc to see. Wasn't that sweet? And like any proud dad, Marc took pictures of the occasion.

Odd/Ends

Finally got my damn laptop fixed. Ever since I got home it's been overheating. It doesn't help that the weather has been unbearable for the past couple of weeks.

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Went out with friends last week. That's always eat-splitting fun. I still find it hard to believe that my friends read my blog since I never hardly ever get any comments. But I suppose that's my fault since I don't really write anything to comment about.

I'm off to another party a little later tonight. I have to get all my partying done while I'm here in Manila in the next 2 months. Christchurch isn't exactly a hotbed of excitement. Although I guess you could say the same about me.

So people who read my blog, invite me to your get-togethers and I promise I'll show up (unless it's really far and I don't have a ride). I might even bring along a six pack of beer. Or a mix tape! Oooh.

***

I've seen Terminator Salvation twice now and I kinda liked it. Mostly because Anton Yelchin is in it and I love Anton Yelchin.

I've been reading message boards and reviews of Terminator Salvation and I'm still befuddled by the animosity towards T3. Whenever interviewers bring up the Terminator movies to the actors or McG, they always skip over T3 in their questions, like it never exsisted. I mean, sure, it's not a great movie but neither is it so bad it made my lose faith in all humanity. But there are a lot of people on the board who act like they gouged their eyes out when they saw it.

Terminator Salvation isn't getting great reviews either but I doubt the ill will towards it will rival T3's. But course I could be wrong. You never know with those damn fanboys.