Sunday, May 22, 2005

Random thoughts

Other than today's post about my new bike, I realize I haven't blogged much in recent days. Not for any particular reason, other than sometimes I just don't feel like sitting down at the computer and writing. So now, after a few days of not blogging, I have all these random things in my head that I will write in one monster-size post.

1. As bad as it was, I totally enjoyed watching Eurovision last night! I'm kind of sad to think I won't be living in Europe next year to watch Eurovision 2006. I'm very glad that the guy from Cyprus didn't get more than a few votes. He was a total Ricky Martin wannabe and I think Ricky Martin is a bit passé.

2. I've had to wear my glasses all weekend so that my eyes are able to breathe and hopefully rid themselves of whatever has been causing this terrible irritation. After seeing the doctor on Friday I've been using two types of Augentropfen (eye drops), one for allergies and also an antibiotic. Let's hope I can put my contacts back in tomorrow. Some people think glasses make you look smarter, but I just feel ugly in them.

3. Yesterday I took TWO naps! This is totally unprecedented. I'm not a napper. All this funk with my eyes has made me feel like I'm fighting a cold or something, so I was just feeling really wiped out yesterday.

4. Last week at Hieber's Frische Center in Germany I found something that resembles the bagel chips I used to buy at home. Only here they're called "Brot Chips" (Brot is bread in German). I bought the garlic flavor. Yum.

5. Speaking of bagels, I've been meaning to mention the bagel look-alike that you can buy at one of the grocery stores in Basel. It's called a "Sesame Laugen Bagel". (Laugen is a type of roll that's popular in Switzerland) Believe me, it's nothing like an actual bagel other than how it's shaped. But I've discovered that they are good to use for making peanut butter sandwiches. (By the way, we miss real bagels a lot!)

6. Does Paris Hilton eat anything? I'm just wondering. I sat down in front of the TV to have a snack this afternoon and saw Paris Hilton in a bikini on MTV (they were showing The Simple Life). She is so unbelievably skinny. I can't imagine she eats Brot Chips out of the bag while sitting on the couch on a Sunday afternoon.

7. Earlier today, I cleaned out and organized the food cupboards in our kitchen. It was long overdue, and I was inspired by the friends-moving-back-to-NYC-episode from a few weeks ago. Among the expired food products that I threw out (which I had originally shipped here in January 2004) were two boxes of Kraft mac and cheese, a half-used box of Bisquick, an almost full (yet solidified) bottle of maple syrup, and some old microwave popcorn.

8. I'm about 1/3 of the way through "The Time Traveler's Wife", which we'll discuss at our next book club meeting in a couple weeks. I find it really intriguing, but I keep thinking that I'm going to get fed up with it because it's so surreal.

9. I'm on day 22 of "The Purpose-Driven Life". I don't always agree with everything the author suggests, but I suppose that's good. It always gives me some good stuff to think about.

10. I really like the new Black-Eyed Peas song "Don't Phunk With My Heart". Every time I see it on MTV I sing it in my head for hours.

11. The Sopranos has got to be one of the best shows ever made. I know I've said it before, but how did we survive without HBO while we lived in the States? We have the first 4 seasons on DVD, and the other night we watched the episode where Janice shoots Richie and then Tony sends her on a bus back to Seattle. It was totally shocking.

12. Speaking of HBO, I've also started re-watching the entire Sex and the City series. My friend who moved back to NYC sold me seasons 1-4 (I already had 5 and 6) and now I have the whole set. I just started with season 1 again and it's just as fun as it was the first time.

That's it for now. Phew.