Archive for July, 2007

The butler did it!!!

Monday, July 30th, 2007

That is to say: Finished Harry Potter.

Love is in the air

Monday, July 23rd, 2007

Thirst things first :-)

CONGRATULATIONS MICHIEL AND BARBARA!!!

They got married last Thursday, and gave a splendid party. Barbara was beautiful in her wedding gown, and Michiel was also radiant.

Having said that, what has happened the past few days? Lessee… Well, after the bike trip my bike squeaked a bit — not too bad, but still. Worse was that the rear tyre had a leak. Apparently a small one (the kind I really hate, because it’s incredibly hard to find and I am not that good at repairing leaking tyres anyway). On top of that, the profile of both the front and the rear tyre was roughly, well, gone. So, instead of working at it myself, I decided to get the bike repaired. Pieter found a bike repair shop in Luxembourg on the Net, and it turned out to be the one I had spotted once and was already considering :)

I took that as a sign, and so my bike is having a holiday there now. It may deserve that, but then, so do I, so I am in Zurich right now. Last visit was really nice, but a bit short, so here I am, a bit longer in Zurich, spending my time typing these words ;)

Yes, I’ll stop in a minute. Final updates: we (SaToSS-youth we, i.e. Pieter, Baptiste, Sasa and me) have had some fun over the last few days. We saw a few movies (Die Hard 4.0 — like the previous ones, but more over the top. Somewhat entertaining, but a bit too much over the top; Harry Potter 5 — Best movie of the series, but that’s because the previous movies all fail at certain points with respect to the books. Book 5 is easily the worst of the bunch, so that’s harder to mess up. But fair’s fair: it’s a nice movie, and it is the best of the series.) and had an icecream at Cafe Veneziano. There was one waitress there, whose appearance caught the eye of one member of our petite group sufficiently to ensure a pleasant conversational topic within our group for the rest of our stay.

To finish how I started this post: congratulations also to Cas & Yen-Ha with their new prodigy: Nathalie Rose Cremers; and congratulations and all the best to Sasa and Laura, who just announced their happy circumstances as well.
Last movie seen: Transformers; short evaluation: don’t go.

Bike inauguration

Monday, July 16th, 2007

Yesterday we had a slight celebration to inaugurate the fact that each member of the SaToSS group is now proud owner of a bike. We did this in style, by having a small(ish) bike tour. Target of this tour was Echternach, mainly due to the fact we all pass a sign every day on our way to work saying “Piste cyclable à Echternach“. Due to packing his house, Sjouke could not attend, and due to perceived lack of aptitude in his bike, Pieter opted out.

We agreed to start from the office at 13:00. So, at 13:30, Baptiste and me arrived at the house of the Swiss guy (weren’t Swiss people known for making clocks that run on time??), and slightly later, we commenced our quest. By car, the distance between Luxembourg and Echternach is about 33 km. Since bike traffic is much friendlier on nature, and much more versatile, a bike road can be much more direct.

“Can” being the operative word there. Piste cyclable 2 (as the route is called — yes, that indicates that Luxembourg has a scarily low number of bike roads) has a length from start to finish of 39 km. And it starts at the end of Kirchberg — the far end of Luxembourg. So, all in all we biked a bit more:

To Echternach To Luxembourg
Avg spd: 21.2 km/hr 20.0 km/hr
distance 47.42 km 46.54 km
time 2:13:51 2:19:22
max spd: 58.6 km/hr 58.6 km/hr

The way back was indeed quite more harsh. We were all less fresh, and more saddle-sore. Moreover, the long road started taking its toll: Baptiste’s bike began making funny sounds due to a weird dent in the rear tire (not the wheel, the tire), Sasa was starting to ache just about anywhere, and my brakes started complaining. Nevertheless, it is a nice road, and Echternach is a cute town to visit.

Partying en Luxembourg!

Saturday, July 14th, 2007

The academic year in Luxembourg has ended. This of course means that it is time for a party! The Luxembourg University Students association organised the official end-of-year party of the University. It happened to be on our doorstep (campus Kirchberg), so of course we went, and we had a spectacularly wonderful time. There was music, Sasa & beer, barbecued sausages, Sasa & beer, fun with Daniel & Tessa, Sasa & beer, evaluating the dancing studentes, Sasa & beer, talking to Ragga, Sasa & beer, dancing with Ragga, foosball, more dancing. Did I mention Sasa & beer? Thought I did :)

Well, the dancing proved to be more than successful, so we decided to repeat the same thing on Friday evening. There just so happened to be a party at the Coq — that is about 200 meters further than Thursday’s party :) Well, I came by a little late — had a nice evening admiring Sjouke’s new home, and having a cheese fondue which started delicious with his family (too bad that in reheating, the children’s fondue was burned. Luckily dessert consisted of chocolate fondue, which made up for it :). When I came, the party was underway, but we immediately jumped into the headbanging rockiness that was a covered version of AC/CD’s Big Gun. Done almost okay — which might explain the empty field of grass in front of the main stage. This gave us of course plenty of space to jump and goof around, and we did, with verve! Later we checked the RnB stage as well. There were more people doing audacious moves to the happening grooves there, but still, we were vogueing with the best of ’em. Last stage to check out was the dance stage, which had by then toned down a notch. That was a shame, ’cause I am more into upbeat trance. So seemed the rest of the crowd, actually.

We had some fun after the party ended with finishing our drink-coupons. I still had all of them left when the music died down, so we quickly went for some drinks. Of course, the drink that would finish my (substantial) portion of the tickets was only good with ice cubes in there, and since the ice cubes were gone, they could not sell it. The Luxembourgian girl in front of me in the line advised me some wodka orange, which also dwindled down my supply of tickets, but did little in the way of alcohol. Still, two coupons left — not enough for anything, but close. Upon mentioning this, Pieter first suggested some tricks to get more tickets, and then suddenly pointed, bent over and picked up 2 more tickets. Back to the cocktail stand it was. Well, they couldn’t supply me with Sangria, so I asked for anything alcoholic for four tickets. The bar personnel exchanged a quick glance, nodded approval and then continued to pour me a .3 l glass for 3/4ths full of tequila, with a dash of orange juice for colouring.

Wtf?? I just spent 6 coupons on a weak wodka! This was hilarious :D

Well anyway, after that we went to get the bikes to go to the Muko Muko. Pieter had lost his key, so he had to walk home and didn’t join for the Muko, but Baptiste and me explored this disco. Entry is frigging expensive (9 euros), and music tends a lot towards Latin. So, not too sure if I’ll revisit that venue all that soon. But, there’s the other disco near Grund, which is still on the list. Anyway, tonight it’s Hollerich, and after this weekend all of you visiting will have the benefit of me knowing for sure where the best parties in Luxembourg are. Which so far is the special events they hold — those are way cooler than disco’s/pubs so far.
Recently seen: Live free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4.0) — mwah.

Feeling hot, hot, HOT!

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007

Curry.
And I am not talking about any curry either… green curry.

For those of you uninitiated into the wonderful world of metal-sponge-scrubbed tongues and fireblasted mouths, suffice it to say: HOT!

It seemed like a good idea:  I had this curry sachets to try out, so we got some chicken and tried them out. Yeee-ouch has a new definition! And we didn’t even add anything spicy – heck, we even added coconut milk, which should wear down the overall hotness. Well, all in all it was a nice dish, only just a tad on the hot side. Got a couple of ideas on how to mitigate that for a next attempt. (Despite what you may think, I am not a donkey, and hence have no reservations about making mistakes more than once.) It was a memorable way to celebrate Baptiste’s birthday. I’ve only cooked in that kitchen 5 times now (I think), but I am pretty sure I shall never cook as spicy a dish ever there as I did yesterday. Sasa bravely powered through, but even his hunger was not up to the task. Although the faces he pulled were hilarious :D

So what else is new? Well, holiday plans are coalescing. I’ll be visiting my friends in Zurich for a bit longer (raced in for a weekend, didn’t have that much time, so I should revisit them). Sailing will be happening too. In between that there’s Paris. Hmms, doesn’t sound too shabby, now does it ;-)