7. Visit my Love in America!!

It is so sunny in Palo Alto! If you go out without sunglasses you will come home with a headache from too much squinting. Coming from Berlin winter, where sunrise was 8:30am and sunset was 4:00pm (and I work from 8 until 5), it was a very welcome change! They definitely still had shorter days, and it could get pretty cold in the shade, so you could kind of tell it was winter, but it was just so lovely! Of course there were other things that made it lovely - seeing my Love in his regular habitat, seeing where he lives, works, and plays was good, and now that I am back in Berlin I find it easier to picture what he is doing when my mind wanders to wonder what he is doing, a regular occurrence for me!

I briefly got to meet my Love’s flat mate before he flew to Canada to see his girlfriend, and to my horror I had my very first experience of long-distance relationship jealousy:
My Love got home from work, started making dinner for the three of us, they chatted about buying their first car together, and then put the x-files on while we ate dinner, and my Love said “This is pretty much what we do every night here” and my brain went ‘Why are you living our life with someone else?’, when I picture our life-after-Ph.D. (does it exist?) I picture us living pretty much that life exactly, so it is hard to see him doing it with someone else- silly I know! I absolutely love that he gets on so well with his new flat mate and that they will soon have a car for fun weekend adventures, I just wish I could share his daily life with him. Our time will come!

My American experience was very interesting, I didn’t have any expectations that I was aware of, but once I was there I realised that I had built up a rather unfavourable image of Americans, and I was pleasantly surprised with the type of people I came across in California. The only excuse I have for my previous ignorance /prejudice towards Americans is poor marketing on their part and my lack of curiosity for finding out more about the USA. The image of Americans that is projected to the rest of the world (in my experience) is those reality shows where people are fight over possessions, or food, or fame. Add to that their reputation for fast food and obesity and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. Thankfully Palo Alto seems to be nothing like the image I unknowingly had in my head of America. So I walked away feeling slightly sheepish regarding my prejudgment of the American people, and feeling like -should the opportunity arise- it would be a pretty fantastic place to live! So I’m sorry America, I was a bit ignorant before I met you, but I would like to be friends now please!

We did several of the ‘must-do’s in San Francisco, but still left some things for my July 4th trip :)
Mostly I just spent the days working on my Ph.D. readings and my evenings being with my Love, pretending that it was our real lives and not just a holiday. I spent a day or four looking up the possibilities of transferring to Berkley or one of the Universities in the area, but the timeline of applications etc. would mean I would be heading over there in about 2 years, and as I am already almost a year into my Ph.D. here I would be almost finished by that time anyway (all going well …).
So when all of our scheming to get me to move to Palo Alto had failed I sat packing my suitcase the night before I had to leave. My Love heard me sniffling from the other room and came in to be with me in my pathetic state, he just held me while I told him what a fantastic man he is, how important it has been for me to move to Europe on my own and gain my independence, and how grateful I am that he understands how much I need this. 

It was lovely, America is lovely, and being with my Love was lovely. I am very much looking forward to next time!

PHOTOS:

I smuggled this deer head into the country because my Love had fallen in love with it when he came to Berlin - and I even managed to keep it a secret! (I’m terrible at surprising people - who can hold in the excitement?!) Also there are our Christmas decorations from giantmicrobes.com I was SO EXCITED to open them!

Our Nerd-mas tree with our decorations from giantmicrobes.com we were very happy with our tiny tree, we also made pumpkin pie from a can, it wasn’t a raging success :/ will have to do it properly next time!

The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, pretty!



The Golden Gate Bridge!



Hoppers Hands are just beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, for runners to high-five as they turn around, with little dog paws at the bottom so that dogs can high-five too! Too cute!



Hemp Plus Granola! What a way to start the day!



The tram conductor turning the tram around manually in San Francisco!



A late night trip to Google to see their cool statues! They were hard to photograph in the dark, but they were so cool!



And Google campus HQ!

10. Take a foreign cooking class

This was a rather unexpected thing that we ticked off my list - but it is one of my favourites so far! :) My Love, my parents, and I all attended a cooking class in Palo Alto! It was called the ‘Date Night: Italian Feast’ cooking class held at the Sur La Table store, and we made the following:

     Arugula and Fennel Salad with Blood Orange Dressing

     Osso Buco with Citrus-Herb Gremolata served with Creamy Parmesan Polenta

     Mascarpone Semifreddo with Caramelized Apples

*drool* I am salivating just remembering it! It was so much fun, we learned about the different types of utensils and kitchenware we were using, I even picked up some awesome tips for egg whites which will hopefully help with my Pavlova technique! They are:

•     When making meringue (or pavlova one assumes) to get more volume just leave the egg whites out over night before you start working with them - she explained how that works, I might find out why and update this later


•     The alcohol content in vanilla essence can have a negative effect on the crust of your meringue (again; or pavlova one assumes) - to ensure that you have a delicious crunchy crust use vanilla paste instead!

It was SO much fun and I learned so much. It did, however, increase my lusting after a stand-mixer, not even bringing into the equation how much cheaper Kitchenaid stand mixers are in America than they are in New Zealand! *wimper* …. my time for a stand mixer will come, I hope!

The course was fantastic and you walk away with an awesome experience under your belt as well as a booklet with the recipes you used. Also that store is HEAVEN for any foodies, we spent a half hour wandering around the store before our cooking was served up for dinner, and my goodness! Every 30 seconds I had found something new I wanted to buy, unfortunately three of our party were about to fly away so there was not nearly enough suitcase space for all of the things we wanted. I bought my Love a nice sharp kitchen knife after doing battle with the ones in his kitchen for the previous week or so. Even my Dad (Dr. “glacé-cherries-would-go-great-in-an-omelette”) had a good time, and learned some new tips and tricks that might re-spark his culinary talents (he’s not bad - just out of practise I think), but that remains to be seen.

I think I will do another one when I am heading back for the fourth of July. I spent two days after the class just trawling through the cooking classes and stumbled across their Culinary Vacations, where you pay XXXX amount of dollars and it covers hotels and cooking classes and tastings in New York, or London, or a few other places (airfares not included), they are VERY expensive for our budget, but my goodness, a girl can dream!

I will take more pictures of our creations next time, it completely slipped my mind!

18. Go to the Berlin Christmas Markets

Before it is too far after Christmas, I should probably update you on the first of my 25 before 25 tasks that I ticked off over holidays; I went to the Berlin Christmas markets!

I went to some in Potsdam with some colleagues from work, where I saw the most fantastic salami selection I have ever seen in my life! They had some salami that had been rolled in chilli flakes, some that had been rolled in fried onions, and a few other coatings too! It was awesome - I taste tested the chilli one, that was probably a mistake, but my tongue has recovered now!
I also went to my local market; the Schloss Charlottenburg Christmas markets, where I bought some Christmas decorations for my sisters and my Mum. I drank some glüwhein and also some Christmas beer - which didn't taste particularly Christmassy to be honest - it just tasted like beer, but it was still good beer. 

They had the most fantastic food stall where there was some kind of fish set up over the fire, it smelled delicious, and I was very tempted to try some if the line hadn't been quite so long!

I also went to Alexanderplatz and had a quick wander through the stalls, it’s hard to pick a favourite because they are all so similar, but I think a mixture of the Potsdam and Schloss Charlottenburg markets would have nailed it, mainly for the salami and the fish!

The Christmas bonus for me was going to the Potsdam markets with my workmates, the lack of socialising with colleagues threw me a bit when I first moved to Berlin from Dunedin - where we went out for a beer every Friday and my supervisor bought the first round. Here they mostly do their socialising in their lunch breaks, and my German isn't nearly good enough to understand them yet, especially when there are a few different conversations going on around the table! So it was nice to get to hang out with them outside of the Laboratory setting and they worked hard at speaking English to me, teaching me a few of the German Christmas traditions and asking me about Christmas in New Zealand.

I spent my Christmas in California where you couldn't really tell it was winter, so I am yet to have my first ‘White Christmas’ - something to look forward to for next year perhaps!