Tuesday 4 February 2014

and again happy new year~

Yes, happy new year again!
Haha, actually I never really care much about the lunar new year but this time I couldn't help but notice the start of it because I took chinese class last semester (I hated it though haha) and there was some sort of little festival about it too. Besides, it's the year of the horse ("my" year as I'd like to say)!

It's kind of funny because after the 31th of January things went a bit more easy going. Or maybe I just thought they were... I could not be bothered much about exams but still lately all I have been doing was studying and trying to eat healthy... more or less. I feel like all I am doing lately is peeling carrots, I am so tired of it!! But baby carrots are twice as expensive while a pack is much smaller... ugh.


I thought that if I kept eating just vegetables with hummus I will soon be too weak to cut carrots haha. But I also made rice pudding often! With whole full-fat milk (I hate skimmed milk so much omg) but sweetener instead of sugar. It tastes great, you should try it! The only problem is you have to make sure the milk does not burn ... that happened to me. It's not a nice thing to clean up later (TT)

Enough of my healthy (and not so healthy, that I don't show) eating habits. Also enough of exams even though I still have one to go (and am really crossing my fingers to pass all of them because I really didn't study much at all)...

Actually I wanted to show some of the pictures I took when I was at my friend's place! We agreed to spend new year's together (the western new year I mean haha) and it was great great great great! I went to Hannover, the city where he lives together with his girlfriend and where they work (as assistants in the University and on their PhD).

I haven't seen him for a while but we know each other since I was in high school and he is basically one of the very few close friends I have. All we did at their place was basically playing games (and they had tons of board games which are just really really fun with the right people) and eating. But we also went to a some sort of garden (I forgot the name... it was basically too cold for me to care about anything). Well, you can see shows of my coat here haha.



We made salsa!! (or rather they did, as they cooked for me the whole time ; A ;) Excuse the drawn on hearts, I have seriously no patience to download brushes for photoshop or put this on my iPod to put on filters or anything but I hope you get the impression of the wonderful time I had!

Besides, on the first we went to a steak house. I thought I can treat myself just once a year with a good steak. It was so expensive that my jaw almost dropped (about 30€), but I tried to keep composure and it was a set-menu so then I thought, come on. But my friends insisted to pay for me (TT) I felt so guilty but at the same time so happy and they told me I shouldn't look at the price and they just wanted me to enjoy the time while I am with them. I was so extremely happy. And I was so full with good food - with good meat actually, that I rarely get to eat lately.


I took this picture with my friend's girlfriend's iPhone camera that is why it turned out so good haha.
 Ahh and of course I started eating first and then remembered to take a picture. It just looked SO good I could not resist!!  And it was good, my god, I cannot remember when was the last time I ate meat that was this delicious (probably when I had kobe beef... I think they sometimes have it as an offer in this restaurant too!).


Then there is my friend's steak and his girlfriend had the same. I tried that one too and it was really really nice, too.
Since I had watched the whole Matrix triology over christmas like 3 times (because it was on TV during christmas), we kept remembering scenes from the Matrix and then I was trying out how much of the exact dialogues I know by heart... and I tried playing that scene when Cypher eats that steak when he meets the agent in the matrix and talks about how delicious it was. It was so fun haha.
(Yeah actually I must have watched the first part of the Matrix 10 or more times already, I used to be really crazy about this movie and still am!)




More food they cooked for me (the pasta sauce was so spicy and soooo delicious!) and then board games! This game was funny because we just kept making stupid jokes and basically my friend was sort of lying on the floor/carpet and when he had to give other players the cards they had earned (he sort of was 'the bank') he kept taking the cards from the bank and put them on the floor, behind the table (where only he could see them) first because it was easier to grab for him that way - but it looked like he was cheating, especially since he kept humming while doing that sort of thing happily hahaha. It was really amusing.
We played other games too, like Twister and Taboo, which I also filmed and when I watch it I just have to laugh because of the atmosphere haha. Though of course, the parts I did not film were way funnier haha.

Then, I already went home soon after. I just stayed three days over all and when my friend brought me to the station I was already getting a bit nostalgic. When I sat down in the IC train (so much warmer and way more quiet than regular trains, I was so surprised), I still felt really comfortable and tried to read a book for my studies but only got through 20 pages. 

But then, once I arrived home, I was feeling so down, I could almost not handle it. I am generally a slightly melancholic person and I like to be alone sometimes but that sadness crushed me. It was the kind of feeling that I get when I come back home from Japan most of the times. It was so disturbing, I could not even watch my favourite anime Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds because I just wanted to linger in the great memories.

I guess after all, your real home is where your friends are, the people who really really care about you, right?
What I enjoyed most about this trip is that I could have so many great talks with my friends and I forgot totally what it is like to first think about what you are going to say because I directly just said out loud what I was thinking and they listened to me and I listened to them and we could talk just like civilised people about all kind of things going on in the world (even though inbetween we were making fun of russian swearwords and how funny they sound haha).
I know this sounds like this is a rare thing but actually it is to me! I do not want to sound like a snob but what I mostly miss in my life is intellectual conversations. Not the kind that are on TV and in university (though sometimes!), just the pure thoughts, just people letting their thoughts wander and think about stuff and getting sad about thinking too much and letting it happen. I could enjoy that with my friends because I felt like they are so open-minded and think about new ideas and ah, this is just what made me happy at my heart.
Talking to people who are just on the same wavelength, as one of my acquaintances would put it.

I enjoyed this so much that of course I keep this as one of the greatest memories.
And if I don't end up in Japan after all, I might actually just ask my friends if they want to adopt me or something. I'll just be their puppy haha.

Yeah, this is the story I basically wanted to share before it is too late and I forget things. I think it is really important to treasure the people who stick with you after all, even if you become a completely different and maybe partly terrible person. I do hope everyone else has these kind of people in their life, too. Actually maybe this is the kind of people I always wanted to have in my life and that is why I adore(d) Yu-Gi-Oh and Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds so much, because they are stories about real friends.

Now this entry got so long again haha.

I will stop here but there is some more things ahead of him this month which means you will hear of me soon again.
Take care and have a good year of the horse! (read: enjoy 'my' year! haha)