Treasures hiding in plain sight

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen ! Bonsoir Mesdames et Messieurs ! I haven´t been around for couple of days. Last week I was down in Böblingen, visiting my sister and her family. We were celebrating the birthday of my nefew, and my skills and attention were needed, so I had no time to do my usual stuff. But this week there are no such interruptions, so it´s time for new adventures of I.S.S. Rover. And here we go !

Originally I planned to do a cooking post as my double deck cooking plate just arrived earlier this week. But things happened today. So let me start at the beginning.

The plan was to go down to town, and get all I need for today´s “christening” cooking event. So I frst got to the turkish store to get me some olives and some turkish coffe – not that I need them for today´s cooking, but I´m finally able to cook turkish coffe as I have a coking plate, so I got me some coffe too. And the olives are simply cheaper at the turkish store then at the other stores.

And till here everything went as planned, but then things started happening, and that is the actual topic of today´s post – not that I didn´t cook after, but that is a secondary thing now, although the chilli beans I made were good, and there is plenty left for tomorrow and the day after. But back to the morning event.

So as I left the turkish store I stopped at a gas station to pump up a bit the tires of my bycicle, and there I decided to take a small detour and take the way through the main square of the town. And what a choice it was. As I rolled into the square there was a sight I was not expecting. There were small trucks converted to stores and tables everywhere, with people behind them selling different products. A smile appeared on my face as I realised: “Finally, I found the weekly marketplace !” There were local farmers and different artisans sellng their homegrown vegetables, homemade foodproducts etc. And there were also stands selling “fast-food”, though much more delicious, than the usuall McDonalds and Co. stuff.

First I bought some eggs, as I ran out of them this week. Next I stumbled upon a stand selling cheese, and after talking with the cheese artisan, and trying some of the cheese, I bought some of it. Did I mention that I am a cheese monger ?! Yes ?! Whatever ! So after having me eggs and cheese I set out to look around a bit more, just to get the feeling, and to see and feel all the buzz around me. When the stand of a turkish baker ambushed me. I was pushing my bike when I saw something that was similar to the burek from the Balkans. Burek ( or börek in this case, as it is called  by the turkish ) is a family of filled baked pastries made of a thin, flaky dough. Traditionally filled with cheese or minced meat, but nowdays you have also burek with mushrooms, pizza filling etc.. My favourite is the cheese filled burek. And here I was standing against a börek filled with cheese, basilicum and some spinach. At first it´s a bit unusual, at least for me, as I´m not a fan of spinach – although I liked Popeye the Sailor cartoons – but whatever I had to have a bite of it. What bite ?! Give me a whole börek, right away !

And now that I had my börek I had to find a place where I can sit down and eat it in peace. It took me measly two minutes to find a free bank, so I settled and started eating. The outer crust was as crunchy as it needs to be, and as I got nearer and nearer to the middle part there was always more and more cheese in the subsequent chunks of bites, an exquisite feeling. And the taste of spinach wasnt as dominant as I feared at start. It was a harmonious and creamy experience. Something I hadn´t had for few years back.

To be more exact: something I didn´t expect to experience so far to the west from what I used to call home. But again, an experience I´m glad I made. And also one that I wouldn´t have made if I had stayed in Hungary. It feels kind of like a small wonder. Yet another since I arrived. So one more point for Kempten ! And thank you everyone who helped me to get here !

That would be all for tonight. Thanks for sticking with me ! Enjoy your night, or day, and have fun ! See you soon as the next installment of the Black Company series is coming, not to mention some surprises. Captain of I. S. S. Rover over, and out !

Old (?) habits rarely die (?)

Here I´m again. Just hours after I have finished typing the new Black Company reread post. I´m struck with the need to write about, and share my new experiences, as that was my mission statement about one year ago. This is the 46th post on this blog, and so as the first anniversary nears I am overjoyed as it seems that I will reach and maybe even surpass 48 posts in under a year, which amounts to a 4 posts/month rate, which is aproximately one post/week. And this fact makes me happy, as it means that there are quite a few moments I could share with you, who care to read any of the posts I have published.

It might be that these moments haven´t been that varied till now, as my possibilities have been quite limited due to my material constraints, but now “things have changed …”, just as Bob Dylan sings. Things have changed, in general sense for better: I´m living in Germany, have a job many would consider good. It´s better than anything I´ve had in the last couple of years, and the paycheck allows me to live on my own, not to rely on help of my parents, which gives me greater freedom than I have had for a long time – and that is definitely good. Not to mention the fact that I´m living in the mountains, which – after a few days of frustration over having to climb too much to get home after work, or a trip to the city – means that actually a dream of mine realised, became true. And I was so busy feeling sorry over having to climb too much, that I missed this little fact; and now that I have realised both facts: having a dream come true, and missing that fact in first place I can´t stop laughing. But that´s not the main point of my today´s rant. So let me get to the point.

It´s about changing habits. Not only, or mainly because I live on my own now, as I used to be pretty independent even earlier. But rather the fact that due to the change in place of residence I have to adjust to the lifestyle and opportunities given in another country.
As I mentioned in my “returning” post first I had almost no acces to the internet, only through internet caffes. Since then I managed to get myself a mobile internet connection, so I can check the mail, read some news etc. on a daily basis, but no streaming media, no big downloads. This a substantial change in my life, as I used to be 24/7 on the internet back in Hungary. This also means that I will be missing some TV shows I used to watch regularly for the past few years, like: Sons of Anarchy, Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Justified, or some new shows like. Constantine, The Strain etc. This is an inconvenience, but will be overcome with time, and is also beside the point of this post, so let me continue.

Where did I stop ? Ah yeah: “24/seven internet access …” And now that I don´t have it, I find myself reviving some old habits from the era of 64 kbit/sec modems. I open a dozen of different websites, save the articles that I have interest in, and then go offline to read them in peace, not having to worry about the data-stream limit prescribed in the present internet service contract.

It is a cold, rainy sunday afternoon. I am sitting on my bead, having an opened bottle of bear beside me on a chair, sipping it slowly, listening to a radio station. Feeling relaxed and typing on my newly acquired notebook, and ofcourse reading the recently opened and saved various articles from all over the internet. It feels so retro, even though by historical standards at least the “internet” as a technology, a mean of communication, and source of information is quite young.

And I also have to admit that I enjoy listening to the radio more than watching – or listening in background – the TV, as it distracts less, and gives a chance for multitasking like reading, or writing ( be it a letter, or a blogpost, or anything else ), not to mention that they seem more substantial than anything I have experienced in the TV lately. And I still haven´t acquired a proper radio, I´m listening to it on my cell ( mobile ) phone through earbuds. Not as comfortable as lsitening to a radio without headphones, but good enough.

And I must admit that I enjoy the things as they are right now. Not that there aint things I don´t miss: like a cooking plate, so I could cook some more varied food than I can do with a steam cooker, or to boil me a water to make some decent tea. But it´s just a “matter of days” till I will overcome these small hindrances.

So let me return to my bear and reading. Go, have a drink – be it alcoholic, or non alcoholic beverage – listen to some good music, or some good live radio show, read an article, or a book. Slow down, and enjoy your day ! Your favourite captain out and over !

Return of the missing

And here I am Ladies and Gentlemen ! After some four weeks of being absent. Let me paraphrase the writer of Tom Sawyer:” The news of my early death are somewhat exaggerated.” – though I do know people who would rejoice if they weren`t; but then again, who doesn´t. The truth be told, this short period of my disappearance from the “ether” did sometimes feel like an experience close to death. As it was an absence not only from my blog, but from internet access at all. My whole usual routine and the communication lines were shattered ( a bit of an exaggeration is allowed here, I think ). It does sound dramatic, but it wasn´t half as bad as it sounds. There are sometimes changes in peoples lives that tend to do this.

But let me start from the beginning. In the middle of July I got a job offer I couldn´t refuse. And this job offer went with geographic relocation. But not only that, It also called for quite a number of bureaucratic actions too, not to mention the need for urgency.  I had ten days to wrap up the things in Hungary and to travel to Germany and take up the job. Luckily I had help in Germany to find accommodations, but those didn´t include a computer and internet access. But here I am now typing on my own notebook.

Though I have relocated to Germany, it is not a quite unknown country for me. I have spent some time here earlier. And I also happen to have some family members too living in Germany. So I enlisted their help. And among other accessories my brother in law did lease me a notebook that was standing in his storage. So, one problem solved. But that doesn´t mean that all the problems are solved. I still don´t have a stable internet connection. For the time being I´m hunting for wi-fi hot spots, and occasionally if needed I use an internet caffe to do what is urgent. And though it helps, it´s still not ideal: the wi-fi hot spots I found are at such places I cannot connect the notebook to a source of electricity, so my time there is limited by the capacity of the batteries, and the internet caffé is at a remote place and opens only at noon to be visited regularly.

So I will have to arrange for something with an ISP. Though, my choices are somewhat limited. I´m in the city of Kempten, in Bavaria. For the time being I live on the western slopes above the city. The owner of the flat I´m renting now doesn´t want to connect any landline internet connection, so I will have to go with a mobile-access. That will be enough for the everyday communication needs, and uploading the occasional blog posts ( as I can type the text offline in any text editor/processor and the copy and paste it – like I´m doing it right now ). Though it will still impose some limits to some other ventures of mine. But well, that´s Life for me now.

With time even these things will sort themselves out. The most important thing – that the regular communication channels are restored – is achieved. I´m back, and continuing my regular activities. I am soon going to post the new installment of the Black Company (re)read project: I not only finished reading the Bleak seasons, but due to lack of any other reasonable possibilities I read further on and finished also She is the Darkness. And not only that, but I also managed to read The Guns of August from Barbara Tuchman also. And I just started reading an anthology of early science fiction compiled by Isaac Asimov, titled. Before the Golden Age ( vol. 3). So there is going to be plenty of material up soon.

Some of my other projects are put on a halt for now. Like for example the Fantasy General replay, or the different Dune computer games replays as this notebook and other current accommodations are not suitable, or at least are not ideal for these projects. Maybe I will find a solution for it later this year, or maybe these projects will be discarded entirely, we will see what brings the season. I´m not ready to let go of these projects yet so, I will try my best to find some solution, and keep them on schedule too, but I can´t guarantee anything.

So for now welcome back on the I.S.S. Rover, and wish you further joyful journeys with the crew ! This was the captain speaking. Over, and out.