Snow in Virginia

Calling it now

We may be a bit premature but we are calling it for Hilary right now. Oh, sorry, we meant Maraaya.



Just two months to go for the Eurovision.

P.S. We are also loving honorary European nation Australia.

P.P.S. is it just us or does Maraary look like our favorite Hilary (with only one l!)

Some Unposted Pics

Some final pics of our holiday. First of all, some more wildlife from Big Cypress National Preserve:





And then a few more pics from St. Augustine:

Especially for Tuncay

Bear!

We saw this bear last weekend, after a hike in Shenandoah National Park. It was actually jumping between trees, while I was getting the camera ready.

Back Yard Wildlife

We have quite a few deer in our yard. At one point I counted more than twenty deer frolicking in our front yard.



I had not seen these beauties yet though.



They were attracted by the left over waffles and egg we threw out.



Too bad the Easter Bunny did not show himself today! He lives in the left hand corner of our yard, and he had a busy day yesterday: we say him leave for work, and hop across our yard in the morning, to only return in the evening. Hiding eggs must be hard work!

Oh Deer

Das Reh.



La Bambi.



Ostrich?



Yes, West Virginia, there were quite a few deer lurking around our cabin.

Caturday

Mr. Bojangles was a little wild, which made this caturday quite a challenge.

Foodz from the Roadz

Before we left Saarbruecken, we drove around town a little bit to see where we may live next year. We came across a slaughterhouse with a couple of meat wholesalers and restaurants.



We had boudin noir, that apparently is not served shaped like a sausage in Germany. It had a wonderfully clovey taste. Also, we had Weißwurst that was even better than Cafe Konstanz's Weißwurst. We did not take a picture, but we will make it up to you in a couple of months.

Instead of heading north, we decided to head south, to see what else what more or less in the neighborhood. We found simple French supermarkets, that already stocked all kinds of exciting foodz, and, a little further down, we even found wineries. We ended up in Lapoutroie which we visited one and a half year ago.

The hotel that we stayed in then was full, so we went to the other restaurant.





The farmer's salad was good, the onion tart was very delicious.



How can one visit the Alsace in winter without eating choucroute?



Or some civet de gibier?



Finally cheese cake. I think we can live here.

Stefan's "I guess I would call this my tribute to Frans"

... 6lbs of premium brisket in the smoker, before, during, and after.






Sorry about the delay in posting this, Stefan! As you know, we are just too f***ing lazy.

By the way, we (or at least me, Anke) miss Ithaca like crazy these days. How is it over there? I wish we were there and we would be walking out the door and taking deep breaths and stepping into Gete and shopping at Wegmans and Green Star and going camping in the Catskills and and and... going to the library and borrowing books we could actually read and saying other words then "I am from Holland" and "I don't understand" to random people and and and... I guess I am slightly homesick... for a country I don't even have a visa to live in.

Guest blogger: team Wild explodes some bacon

Some time ago, we received a truly great guest post from Team Wild. Whence the delay in posting such a masterpiece? ...We can only give the very very lame excuse that we received it while we were still holidaying in Yunnan, and we subsequently forgot to add it to our blog once we arrived in Hong Kong. How could we forget, you ask? It is indeed a mystery. Judge for yourself:

On the 31st of January, Team Wild made the unforgettable BACON EXPLOSION... as publicized by the NYTIMES.








We are at a loss for words...

798 Art District

More backlogged photos. These are from our visit to the 798 Art District which is located in an old factory. Maybe Emmanuel can remind us what the uplifting message conveyed by the big red writing on the ceiling was again?



It's a shame that prices are at European/American levels here, otherwise we would have shipped the lady and her whale to team Wild.

Not a rabbit

Here's the garbage-loving animal Frans wrote about a few posts ago. If you know what this is, or how to prepare it, please leave recipes in the comments...

Back from the flu' -- part III

While Frans was sick, it was also the time of the most important social event in the so-called life of a graduate student in Operations Research: the Big Red Barn party.

Here are some pictures from the evening, but more importantly, here is a video of my favorite band that actually came and performed that night.

Special Guest Post: What Today Ate Team Wild?

Here are the pictures of Team Wild's dinner today, from the comments of the last post:



Wow, that looks really awesome! I'm getting hungry just looking at these pics, even though I just finished my dinner.

Rijsttafel, the never-ending story --- final edition

(not shown: nasi putih (white rice) and nasi kuning (yellow rice))

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.

Curry and Elsie

We had team Wild over for dinner and made eggplant curry. Team Wild brought arugula from their garden.


Great news! After Elsie's lap dance, we were totally in love with her, and she gets to stay with us this week, while the rest of team Wild goes to the Alaska Wilds.

Spring rolls with Team Wild

Stefan and Hilary invited us for dinner! Alas, we had to assemble our own food....

Strawberries and cream and proof that Stefan is a much better food photographer than we are:

We did not eat Elsie, but Elsie gave Frans her version of a lap dance.