What happened was that she had sat comfortably in her bed, at her laptop, the lights and tv were shut off as Lydia and I were asleep and a rat crawled over her bed and scampered onto the floor.
In all my years in Malaysia, and travels to other places I have yet to encounter rats in the room! And here it is in Paris. There's a first for everything I guess XD. Just didn't expect it to be in Paris!!
So the light was on and tv was left on full blast in hopes of scaring the rat away, and I think I slept thru an French opera show, and the opening of the Winter Olympics colouring the fringes of my stupor.
On a much happier note, I experienced snow for the first time ever in Frankfurt at 5 pm, on the 11th of February! It was completely magical as the snow fell in soft wispy flecks. I caught the flecks with my gloves and I swear I could see the snow crystals briefly before it melts away. So utterly beautiful.
The wind picks up after that, and it became so cold my face went numb. It's nothing like I've ever experienced before, and it left me in awe somewhat, because seriously I could not have imagined anything can be so cold, and yet it did.
We ducked into a restaurant to have our first German meal after that. How can we not when the restaurant is so warm and inviting. I had beef goulash and bread dumplings (bread kneaded with flour and baked? steamed?) and it was the kind of food that's no-nonsense and stick-to-the-ribs to keep you warm and filled up during winter. The meat is stewed in possibly red beets and tomatoes, it was warm and tart and slightly sweet with a tinge of pepper. The bread dumpling is not my favourite thing as it's a kind of stodgy brick of carbs meant to hold you up, I guess, hence the sticky chewy and heavy consistency. It's not too bad when you douse with lots of the goulash gravy, but I'd personally stuck with just bread and potatoes.
I do love the Kaiserschmann (spelling?) that Nora got for us - it's basically a lovely chopped up pancake doused with icing sugar, raisins, and served alongside applesauce and raspberry sauce. I love textural juxtapositions in food, and this provides just that. It was soft and crunchy (from the bits that had been left longer in the pan and caramelised in its own sugar), and sweet and tart (from the applesauce). I wished I had more space in my stomach to finish this up! I heard that there's a lot of different versions of this dish, some more custardy/ crepe-like than others.. so am looking forward to trying them out!
I would so love to upload the pictures of the FOOD but being a hardcore PC user I'm having a hell of a time trying to figure out how to transfer photos from the camera to this MacBook. Where's the Autoplay function? Why doesn't the control key work like a REAL control key? What's with the funny command key? Why do stupid iTune kept popping up every now and then?? Until Nora wakes up and shows me how to work this out, I'll just try to make my way (albeit like a blind clown trying to light a candle with boxing gloves on) ...somehow.
It's finally light outside in Paris! I can see the morning sun streaming through from the curtains. There's actually lovely smell of freshly baked bread wafting up from the bakery downstairs. Heavenly!! Now all we need to do is just get rid of that rat...
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