Meat and wine

Good meat, good wine, best French fries in the state.


The wine was silky as advertised. A little boring on its own, but surprisingly tasty with the meatz.

Goat

Looks nice, tastes pretty aweful. Who knew goat had to cook for more than 1 and a half hours to become edible?

Boeuf de cascade

Waterfall beef. Another one of those that looks horrible, but tastes fingerlickin' good. Or something. No wine seems to go with this. :(

Eggies

Yum. Pinot gris too sweet, but it worked well with the eggies.

Turkish food

Even though Tuncay has never heard of it, we still believe this is authentic Turkish food. We paired the chicken in Tahini-Pekmez sauce with a red Bourgogne, which was a nice combo.

It's Kuey Teow time again

It was time for Kuey Teow again, and again, Kuey Teow did not disappoint.


We paired it with a Riesling from the Alsace. The pairing was fine (boring), but the wine itself did not impress us that much.

Dinner @ Team Wild

Team Wild invited us over for some traditional Swiss food.


We were very pleased. Also because we got to see our god-dog Elsie.

Sunday Offal Day - early edition

Anke paired the Moroccan chicken liver salad with a Muscadet. Some interesting fact I can mention from the wines class is that this wine was left on the yeast residues, giving it a minerally quality.

As my first food-wine pairing, it was not clashing, but not a great combo either. The wine was very interesting by itself and so was the food. Next time, I may try a Gewurz or a Bordeaux... Suggestions are very welcome. The orange flower water, preserved lemon, cilantro, coriander and cumin in the recipe make it an interesting challenge.

Vitamin D

Back home we make sure that Anke gets enough vitamin D.

Some more pictures from the conference

I am at home again, and found that there are lots of photos of me on the conference web site, which I hereby submit as proof that I really did not spend all my time sightseeing. The fact that a lot of the photos are from the social activities is not really my fault, now, is it...

First evening of the Graduate Student Get-Together.

My first presentation. I look like I myself don't really believe what I am saying is true...

Look, I am attending a talk:

The welcome reception.

Coffee breaks.

Diving excursion.



My second presentation.

Multi-culti Jerusalem

I awoke to the sound of the imam at 5, and to the sound of hymns sung by Christian pilgrims at 7. It's pretty multicultural in Jerusalem...


JEWISH

wailing wall (women standing on chairs on the women's side to look at the action on the men's side)
bar mitzvah

MUSLIM

Dome of the rock and golden gate


Muslim quarter
falafelwailing wall plus the temple mount in the background


CHRISTIAN

via dolorosa (apparently, people believe Jesus walked this road bearing his cross, even though street level at that time was a couple of meters lower).



Church of the holy sepulchre (where it is believed that Jesus died on the cross (although this was decided only 300 years after the fact))

Food and smoking

After walking around in the little dark streets full of leering men, I finally found a restaurant that was still open. I guess they were not joking when they said the Old City shuts down at 5 (like they were not joking that there was no restaurant in Ein Gedi -- I guess I just don't understand that you could really have a place that serves no dinner...)

The food was actually pretty nice, and the owner was very friendly. Even gave me a free beer, plus free waterpipe. Of course I did not inhale!


On my way back I saw this little cafe, where men were sitting outside smoking the waterpipe. How I wish I were a guy, so that I could join them...

Jerusalem!

After safely manoeuvring Betsy back to her place in Jerusalem, I entered the old city through the Damascus gate. It is a pretty impressive sight, with narrow streets full of people, and slippery cobble stone steps. Definitely not the best place to lug your overpacked suitcase. I got somewhat lost, and a nice young boy offered to take me to my guest house. He then proceeded to take me into the completely wrong direction and molested me thrice. I am sure this has some deeper meaning. It was not threatening at all, and I managed to slap him some, but it was pretty annoying that I had to drag the suitcase further than necessary.

The place I am staying at used to be the Austrian consulate I think. It is on the corner of the Via Dolorosa. Here are some views from the roof.


And some views from the place where I had a beer upon arrival.

Dead sea

There it is. The Dead Sea.

...and again...


... and again... I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but the shore is not sand, not soft, not nice. It is rock hard salt.

Yes, I floated. I float in regular seas, so you can imagine how I floated here.


I tried to swim a little, but found that I couldn't keep my legs in the water, so it was actually impossible to move forward without using my arms. Weird.

After the float, it seemed to be the thing to do to cover yourself in dead sea mud.


...and then shower off with very smelly sulphurous water.

Of course, I did this too.

And I think it worked. My wounds from the Bob Treman-David hike are not yet gone, but I would say they look about a day older than they actually are.