We are nearly up north now. We made it here despite 24 hours of rain in Whairangi. We spent 2 days around Whairangi. The second day it was raining so we did some bad weather activities, like visiting the clock museum, tasting the remaining 2 beers at the Frings Brauhaus (Drought and rye beer ‘Catcher’), eating hokey pokey ice cream and taking pictures of the most photogenic waterfall of New Zealand which had become a steaming mud monster due to the rain.
We got started on the drive rather late and it turned into an adventure of itself. It was dark and raining. The street was always in danger of flooding or landslides. The meadows to left and right had turned into the swamps they used to be before the sheep came.
Sometimes it seemed there could not be civilization at the end of this road, in the end we made it here in one piece and found a very nice place to stay and that is where we will remain for the next 2 nights before finally going up to Cape Reinga. After that it is back south, to Auckland and then on to Samoa.
our two days in hkg were very nice – of course one cannot explore all of the city in that time. i still managed to take a lot of photos. we had a most wonderful room with a great view of the habor at The Excelsior. too bad we missed out on the 34th floor bar because we wanted chinese food and not steaks.
we went walking around the island the first day and took a trip up to Victoria’s Peak. spectacular view of the city plus some nice souvenir shopping.
the second day we went to kowloon with the ferry and did lots of walking again. no museums even though we passed several.
the afternoon we returned to the hotel to get ready for the second flight. the plane was verry uncomfortable and we arrived here very tired.
flight over auckland was great, nice weather – though autumn is irritating. rental car pickup was nice and easy. everyone at the airport was so helpful and friendly.
we found the hotel easily – the nokia does very well as navigation system. however since the rom was not ready we walked around a bit. discovered we are located near the university campus and managed to find a helpful kiwi who showed us the next atm before we tried to buy a snack and a drink.
so for now we might go out a bit. more here soon and also on twitter as delusions_de (closed profile need an account to follow sry)
So here’s the reason for the quiet season around here: we were too busy preparing for this:
I hope I will be posting a bit in the next few weeks – so stay tuned.
I have not written a lot here about our hobby – or should I say habit? – of Whisky (meaning mostly Scottish Single Malts) drinking.
But I just pre-ordered another book on Whisky and thought some of my readers might like to know about it.
99 Drams of Whisky by Kate Hopkins from the Accidental Hedonist, one of my favorite food blogs.
I pre-ordered with Amazon.de. Until this one will be available in May you may also like Raw Spirit by Iain Banks of “Wasp Factory” fame.
I am glad that more books on Whisky are appearing. I already own many books on food – not counting my cookbooks! – and reading more on Whisky is a great thing :)
The install is fresh and there is still a Windows installation on the hard drive, but – as you can read on my WoW blog – I am back to using Linux at home. I needed a re-install of Windows and ended up downloading Ubuntu.
I had been putting off installing Windows forever – once I decided to give Linux gaming a chance it took me one day to motivate myself and it paid off: installing Ubuntu has become trivial. I was very impressed with the ease of everything. Gone are the days of cryptic installers where you have to be an expert for hardware and software specifics to get a nice system running.
The most impressive is that booting the Live CD (aka USB drive in my case) is quick and easy and then you just have to click the “Install” button and while you watch the Installer do it’s thing you can surf the web. I had assumed the browser was only for show but when I started it and entered the guild’s forum url … I started laughing, because it isn’t for show.
I have already solved several of the remaining “problems” I had with my gaming keyboard and the games. Fun – windows-less – times ahead!
Na ja nicht wirklich. Aber hier ist unter anderem deswegen so wenig los, weil wir voll in den Hochzeitsvorbereitungen stecken.
Dazu gibts inzwischen auch schon eine nette kleine Webseite und nein auch da steht nicht – noch nicht – wo wir feiern.
Gestern abend hatten wir zum Abendessen seid langer Zeit mal wieder ein Jamie Rezept gemacht. Man findet die “Pasta Bianco” irgendwie auch nur unter seinem Namen im Netz – dabei ist es bestimmt original ein italienisches Rezept. (Das Jamie Rezept ist hier drin)
Nun ja das ganze ist hochgradig einfach und doch genial: man schwenke (frische – bei uns aber nicht) Tagliatelle in Butter in der man gepressten Knoblauch angedünstet hat und gebe dann Parmesan hinzu und etwas vom Nudelwasser. Noch mehr Parmesan obendrauf und dann schnell essen.
Zugegeben ich hatte extra teure Pasta “Artisanal” – die Tage beim shoppen gierig gewesen – französischen rosa Knoblauch mit riesigen leckeren Zehen und Parmesan, den uns der Nachbar aus Italien mitgebracht hat und von dem ich am liebsten ununterbrochen naschen würde so gut ist der … aber diese wirklich einfache Kombination von Zutaten hat es in sich.
Unbedingt gewärmte Teller verwenden, das kühlt unglaublich schnell aus. Lieber eine kleine Portion machen – gerade weil es so lecker ist. Macht sich bestimmt hervorragend als Vorspeise zu meinen Zitronenschnitzelchen (Scaloppine a la limone oder so *g*). Im Rezept steht noch was von “gute Grundlage für weisse Trüffeln”. Nicht dass ich weiss wo ich die herkriegen würde … aber ich kann mir das lebhaft vorstellen.
Auf keinen Fall darf man dafür “verachtungswürdigen” Käse benutzen! (Das ist vorgeriebener Parmesan aus der Dose oder Tüte und na ja der ist verachtungswürdig)
Ich hab den Geschmack von gestern immer noch auf der Zunge – und das liegt nicht nur am Knoblauch :)
Jan on 
Jule on 
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