Red curry chicken

or my first Thai wok.
After the successful pineapple fried rice from last week, tonight I tried something a bit more challenging: a red curry chicken.
Actually it was not that hard, key is to succeed with the sauce as once the sauce is ready you just add the chicken in it (obvious I know).
Not only did it look like it was supposed to but on top it tasted as spicy as it should be. It was a real pleasure to eat it and reminded me of the curry at Purple Haze. Something tells me that we more practise I should be able to invite guests for a Thai dinner some night, now that I am sure of the result. Anyone in the mood for some Thai?

25 euros

that's how much I spent on my new bread knife.
Expensive you would say for a knife, true.
But priceless compare to having Wolfram complaining every time he would use my former knife. Peace of mind is really what was behind this purchase :)

Another lie from Mobistar

For weeks now it has become a game to ask each Mobistar center I find whether they have iPhones or not. Always the same answer: "No, we don't have any. Each time we get some it's only 5 (to 15; depends on the place) and they are gone in 15min. First come, first served"
Today this answer came with a little something on top: "you can order it on the apple store online"
Really!?!?
How come we never heard of this before? Maybe simply because you can't. We checked just in case something had changed since last time we checked but the only way to buy an iPhone in Belgium is via Mobistar.

Now why would he tell a lie? Just to get rid of potential clients? For sure by now, I will never never never become a Mobistar client! Why would I want to use a provider when its people are incompetent, thief (they stole the cable from Conan remember) and now liars.
PS: Apparently we can now order iPhones from the Apple shop in Brussels. It costs 30 euros more and delivery takes between 5 and 10 weeks. Not really worth paying more...

My new addiction

For 2 weeks now I've been "exercising" with Wii fit with more or less success. I'm not sure my balance is improving nor my bmi but I've found myself a new addiction: Step Plus.
See by yourself here.
Principle is simple just follow the steps. Tricky part is that you have to stick to the rhythm, to the exact rhythm so you can achieve "Perfect" and score all the points. I could do it for hours (actually I already do it several times in a row which drives Wolfram ready as you either love or hate the music).

Bye Bye Marina

Today was Marina’s last day. After 31 years working in the company she is leaving on early retirement.
Marina was the admin in my group and has truly been the glue behind the different groups. She really knows how to take care of her people and for sure we will miss her.
It felt really weird when I realized she joined the company the same month I was born. What can we say, time is flying.

Elevator is still not working :(

Apparently the elevator was damaged during last week storm and they have to call the insurance company etc. before they can repair it.
This means my bookshelves are still on my parking place. It's killing me to have it right there and cannot get it home.
Patience, patience...

A dream comes true

Boys, you can skip this entry as you will not understand it.

Girls, let me introduce you to my jewelry chest! The jewelry chest you dream of when you are a little girl, the one where you can store your treasures.

And when it's open:

As you can see it has many drawers where I can put all my jewelry.
Did you notice the mirror? Isn't that convenient to have it right there? On top the two side panels can open revealing little hooks where I can hang my necklaces.
Isn't it fantastic?

No more searching through all the bags and boxes, now in one go I can see them all and find the one I want.

I'm so happy with it. I could spend hours in it and will for sure spend some quality time putting everything in and finding the right place for each earring, necklace or bracelet.
I love it!!!

Pineapple Fried Rice

When I was in Beijing one of my favourite restaurants was the Thai Purple Haze and one of my favourite dishes was the pineapple fried rice. Back in Belgium I long for some pineapple fried rice but don't think the Thai restaurants here will have it. Still I haven't checked them all yet.
Motivated and in possession of a Wok (thanks Joy & Yann) and a book (thanks mum) with a recipe for pineapple fried rice, tonight I decided to give it a shot. I also have a guinea pig on hand willing to test it with me. Hopefully he will not regret his decision.
First challenge was to find all the ingredients. I have most of them, change some for similar (i.e. dried or frozen instead of fresh) and potentially will have to do without some (at least this time until I go to the Chinese supermarket).
Of course I didn't read the details of the recipe before today so did not realize you are supposed to make the rice the day before or worse case scenario 2 hours before. Let's hope 1 hour before will be ok.
After chopping all the ingredients I proceeded with the mixing and after 10min of stirring it was ready. Smelling and looking quite promising I would say.

Verdict: very good :)
Suggestion of improvement for next time: more pepper and cut the pineapple in even smaller pieces. Obviously in a wok what takes the longest is the chopping and cutting before hand.

My Chinese furniture is here!

On Thursday I received an email from Ingrid. The shipment from China had arrived and I could come and pick up my furniture whenever I wanted!
So on Friday right after work I went to their new apartment (absolutely gorgeous in the center of Wemmel; so nice made me want to live in that area but that's another story) and picked up the 2 apothecary cabinets. The rest will wait Sunday.
Of course I had not realized the size and weight of the two of them and had to pick up Wolfram on the way so he could carry them for me (I know but what can I say when I bought them I never lifted them as someone did it for me). Anyway those two are now home.
Today was the 2nd round with the jewelry chest, the bookshelves and the bike. Of course all of that cannot fit into 2 cars but how would I know :) Wolfram always claims he has a big car but not wide enough for my bookshelves. Kindly Benoit offered to drive it to my place in the monospace they have rented this week.
One car with the bike.
One car with the jewelry chest.
One car with the shelves.
We dropped the bike at Wolfram's and continued our trip to my place.
Of course today the elevator is out of order :) what a better day to have the elevator not working than the Sunday we are moving furniture around? I wonder...
Anyway the two strong men carried the jewelry chest upstairs (come on, it's only one floor) but the bookshelves were a problem. Guess what, the staircase is not wide enough at one point so they cannot pass :(
Finally we left the box on my parking space until tomorrow when the elevator will work again (cross your fingers).
Then I will start thinking about where do I put them in my apartment. That's when the fun and the dance of furniture start :)

Police spend £3million on tea and biscuits

Now we know where to go for the afternoon tea :)
Read the details here.

Spider exterminator

You all know that I started a war against spiders. Tuesday after the invasion of my bed I went to buy some products to prevent spiders from entering the apartment. That was the short term fix as getting filters for the windows or a new cat require more time to implement. This turned out quite challenging are there are plenty of products for cockroaches, ants, slugs, flies but not much for spiders. Still after asking we were advised to use this one. With not much conviction I bought it. After all it's just another spray.
Maybe not.
Tuesday night I sprayed and killed 2 huge spiders once again.
Wednesday night we saw one spider on its back, dying by the window. It must have stepped into the product. If that's the case it's pretty effective.
Thursday nothing.
Friday nothing again.
So now I start to wonder what is in this product because no matter what it is very efficient. I hope it will last.

Now what?

Obviously my computer was not in the mood to work this morning. Several programs acted weird until Outlook gave up.
I will have to restart it hoping it will fix it. Sometimes I wonder why I rush to be early in the office only to face my computer not working. I could have slept 15min longer...

My worse nightmare

I was asleep not too deep as usual lately when I felt something walking on my face, or maybe flying nearby. Maybe a mosquito I think so just pushed it away. Still there was no sound of a mosquito. Then I felt something walking on my arm and all of a sudden I’m wide awake and thinking: SPIDER!!!! I stood up on the bed, I grabbed the blanket and shook it. Nothing. I switched on the light and there it was: a huge spider. That thing was not only in my bed but had walked on me. A spider walked on my face!!!!! Imagine if my mouth would have been open I could have swallowed it.
At this point poor Wolfram is awake trying to figure out why there was light all of a sudden and the reason of my screaming. (note for the future) I need to remember than without glasses the guy don’t see much far away so obviously he couldn’t see the spider on the floor now.
While I was in total panic mode incapable of moving he got up, chased it and killed it. On top of which he moved everything in the room to prove me there was no spider left so we could sleep.
It was 4:40am when it happened. I never got back to sleep (nor did Wolfram as a consequence of me being so stressed), keeping my eyes open just in case.

I am now officially at war with spiders. Any suggestion of ammunition is welcome.

How can we resist?

These are kittens from the cat of Yann's brother. Obviously for us to choose one
or maybe two



Honestly how can you resist not to take the full basket?
PS: any preference?

Busy bee

That was me today.
Wolfram left for Aachen early this morning so I had the full day ahead of me.
I started with bringing the bags of grass to Woluwe Saint Lambert. For some obscure reasons garden trash is not being picked up in Ixelles where I live. Therefore I had to bring my bags to a place where they would be picked up (only on Sundays, before 2pm). I loaded the car and drove to Woluwe saint Lambert. Found the first street where I could park and unloaded the car. By 9:45am I was back home feeling very satisfied with myself that I finally got rid of those bags (1 month after my dad made them when they visited... I know shame on me).
I had my first session on the wii balance board. Not as easy as it looks but quite fun. All it takes is maintain the red dot in the yellow circle: now go do it standing on one leg only and let's see how is your balance. It's very cute to see your Mii dressed in a sport outfit and sadly they also make it look as big as you (in every dimension... I guess it's for motivation).
I cleaned up the house to make it spider free or least try to and then took a 2 hour nap on the coach.
A good Sunday I would say.

Tennis elbow

It turns out that playing tennis on the Wii can give you sore arms. Obviously we're missing practice as the two of us had our arms aching after playing yesterday. We'll take it easy today and start by going to the park to enjoy the sun.

Wii!!!!!

Tonight I went to Fnac to buy a Wii (the first console that even my parents enjoy playing with - I'm looking forward for the next family tournament). While I was piling up the Wii, the extra wiimotes, the wiifit and so on I must have looked like I knew what I was doing as some parents asked me what they should buy for their son. Needless to say that there was one salesman for 20 clients in the place (boy, I miss the service from China sometimes).
I got back to Wolfram's place as quick as I could and started unpacking while he was cooking (isn't that the dream of every woman... men cooking, you relaxing... sigh). That console has been designed in a way it is very straightforward to set up and start playing. In less than 15 min I was already playing tennis. Or shall I say trying to play tennis as my tennis skills whether real or virtual are not that good.
It was about 7:30pm and it's around midnight that we stopped playing (only because I was tired; Wolfram could have gone on much longer).
Now after so many hours of training we did progress a lot: we can send back the ball aiming more or less (but more by luck than intent). Tomorrow we will practice more, maybe try another sport, maybe get on the wiifit, maybe get in touch with our friends who have a wii and play together...

Welcome to the 20th century

That's what Joy said when we switched on the TV.
I've had a small TV bought when I was a student many years ago (obviously). For some reasons given it still works perfectly I never changed it. But let's face it, each visitor would sooner or later ask the question "why do you have such a small TV?" and I would answer "because this one works very well, because I don't watch so much TV..."
After 1 year or so in China enjoying watching DVDs on a very big TV (and even a plasma screen) it was hard to get back to my little TV. But I did not run to a shop to buy my own flat screen. I just inherited the old one from Yann. So still a cathodic TV but at least 3 times bigger than the previous one.
I'll join the 21st century when I change living-room. Then I'll go for a flat screen TV and a new sofa and a new furniture etc maybe even a home cinema kit...

They are back

Tonight just back from Germany I was getting the house ready for my visitors (Joy and Yann!!!) and while moving things around here is what I found:

Just to give you an idea the metal bar is 4 cm wide...
Every year comes September I'm invaded by spiders, huge ones. Nobody believes me when I say huge because I'm scared like hell of them so people think I exaggerate. But see!!!
I managed to kill this one only to see another one running around :(
Spiders are back, that's for sure. 2 months of stress ahead of me, checking every corner and every wall when I enter a room...

Mercedes museum

After a good night of sleep and a huge breakfast Wolfram and I left for the Mercedes-Benz Museum! Yes I confess I like cars and I love car museums, especially those with old cars. I don't know why I am fascinated by old cars. Somehow they have a charm that current cars do not have.
We met there with Alex, Silke and little Fabian and started the visit. The building itself is quite impressive, very much in the style of the Guggenheim in New York so naturally the visit starts at the top level and you spiral down through the years and the history. Each level is one step in the history of Mercedes-Benz and you get to see the most representative models of each era.
Have a look there.
We spent 4 hours in this museum and no one got bored as each level brings its surprises. That's your chance to learn that you could buy a chassis from Mercedes and get the car body made by someone else as it was cheaper than a Mercedes one or that the reason one of the car has the doors opening from the top (like wings) is not per design but because the new armature chosen for the car body was not compatible with side doors...
One of us (me) felt slightly sick after going in the race simulator but that was to be expected when you ride a formula 1 Mercedes in the Monte-Carlo Grand Prix :)
So if you are in the area go and have a look!

Es gibt viele Baustellen

We left the office shortly after 4pm to drive to Stuttgart. My experience of driving in Germany so far as always been slowed down by roadworks. Germany is famous for having highways where you can drive as fast as you want - in principle. Now when there are roadworks every 10km or so, forget about speed and think more about traffic jams. But it's not because it happened to you several times in the past that it will happen again. Hopefully at some point those highways must be in good shape to be driven.
Well that was not today as we had to slow down I don't know how many times due to roadworks. It turned out a good opportunity for me to learn a new word in German: Baustelle i.e. roadwork.
To entertain ourselves we also looked at the license plates hoping to see some funny ones. We caught a bird:

who got Knock-Out but recovered and was OK in the end.

We arrived at Wolfram's parents' place shortly before 10pm. I'm happy the trip is over but at the same time a bit anxious about meeting his parents. Now I regret I didn't have more time to refresh my German (yes the one I haven't studied or talked for at least 5 years...)

Erratum

Obviously the meaning of my name generating quite some discussion :) and some further info came out. So instead of dark lips it would mean: the young girl with with red lips" or " the young girl with shiny beauty". I really prefer those to the vampire / monster I found. Especially because I will always be young, it's in my name :)

What does Lamia mean?

What does Lamia mean?
That’s the question I was asked by the team I met today. Well that's the first name of my grandmother I answered. But the team was not satisfied: "it must have a meaning".
I knew there was a town in Greece named Lamia but that was about it. Team (i.e. the MEA - Middle East Africa team) was sure it must have a meaning in Arabic. So we googled it. Man that was a bad idea.
Here is what we found:
- in Latin it means witch or vampire (nice isn’t it)
- in Swahili it means glitter (that’s probably where my tier 1 plus side comes from)
- it translates in Arabic into “dark lips”
- in the Greek mythology it’s An evil spirit who abducts and murders children (now I’m very happy to know that)
After finding out my name is the name of a monster, I stopped searching further. Me sad about that finding, the team laughing about it. For sure they will remember me. I just wish it was not for that reason...

Geneva is maybe not that bad after all

Today I flew from Warsaw to Geneva. Monika came to pick me up and we took the shuttle and the bus to get back to her place. She (finally) moved into her apartment about 2 months ago and since then it's always full of visitors. She did such a good job at convincing us to come and visit that we grab the first opportunity to do so. On top it is much better to stay with a friend than in a hotel (as nice as it may be) even on business trip.
Monika's apartment is really nice, full of potential. The only challenge is that we need to get her to spend some time in it so she can start decorating it. Somehow I cannot imagine Monika without thinking crazy schedule and travelling so we will see. At least next time I know what to bring her: a plant :)
After a drink at her place we went to the city (or shall I say town) center for dinner. Asian food of course (but sadly not as good as in Asia) and we chatted for hours catching up on our lives and sharing experiences with our respective German boyfriends. There are some similarities whether or not those guys are willing to accept it :)
After dinner we walked by the lake where there are the "Fetes de Geneve" i.e. a funfair organized every summer around the national day on August 1st. I had never seen so many young people in Geneva :)
I have to say that this visit to Geneva is much better than the previous ones. Probably it has to do with me visiting Monika and the great weather.

A good day

1km swimming
+ a good breakfast
+ 2 good focus groups
+ quick walk around in the city center

The palace of culture and science

+ store checks
+ dinner with the team and crash course on Bonux business
= a very productive day
now I'm ready for a good night of sleep.

1km

After a good night of sleep I jumped into my swimming-suit and went swimming. This Hilton is the only hotel I know which has a 25m long swimming pool so I’m making sure to fully use it.
It’s good to swim again. I miss having a swimming pool in the building where I live…

First business trip in my new assignment

I started my new assignment working on Bonux for CEEMEA (Central and Eastern Europe Middle East Africa – in case you wonder what CEEMEA means) less than a month ago and discovered last week I would have my first consumer research in Warsaw on Aug 3 and 4!
Today I packed my travel partner (i.e. my suitcase) and Wolfram dropped me at the airport. 2min after he left I saw that my flight was delayed by a little more than 1 hour. I called him back right before he left the airport ground and we enjoyed a coffee at Starbucks (much better than last time).
Almost 1.5 hour behind schedule we finally took off for a very shaky trip due to turbulences. I waited half an hour the luggage and finally reached the hotel around 11pm. Isn’t it a nice way to spend your Sunday night?
Luckily for me my king size bed and its 6 pillows are waiting for me :)

Esperanzah

Today we met with Aurelie and Romain, Sophie and Martin (a friend of them with her little baby boy) in Floreffe for the Esperanzah festival.

This festival is a world music festival I had joined them last year and had a great time. This year I dragged along Wolfram (yes the guy who says "I don't do festivals") hoping to change is point of view on festivals. How can it not be pleasant to listen to music while seating on the grass under the sun? I wonder.

After a home made breakfast we drove to Floreffe. The festival takes place in the abbey which is a really nice location for listening to music.

We started with Bassekou Kouyate from Africa. Lot's of percussion and good rhythm.

Then Color Humano much more rock and punchy.

The discovery of the festival for me was Souad Massi from Algeria who mixes different music styles from traditional to jazzy.

The highlight of the festival was Tiken Jah Fakoly with his militating reggae denunciating all the injustice in Africa. Apparently he sings in French but Aurelie and I never managed to understand more than a few words from the lyrics. This aside rhythm was great and the whole crowd was dancing.

During the afternoon we received a green paper plane. The concept was to write a message on it and at 6:50pm we would send them in the air exchanging them. Wolfram took the task very seriously and here is all what we wrote:

and at the given time the planes were in the air: