Weather and cookies

It has been quite hot here recenty - around 25 or 26 each day!  That's quite a treat!  I am reminded of how lucky I am to have this kind of weather when I go on the internet and look up the forecast for my hometown of Hamilton, Ontario.  So today is another sunny hot day.  My parents are coming in 2 days!!! So I thought I will make the same cookies I made about a month ago.  (Or was it just a few weeks?  I forget.)  They're the peanutbutter speculoos cookies.  Very tasty!  I'm excited to announce that I'll be putting chocolate on all of them this time instead of just a few. 

That's all of my news.  Friday was my first day working completely alone at the airport.  It went quite well.  I was busy for a bit, but nothing I couldn't handle. 

That's all!  I haven't got anything terribly exciting to share so I'll go now.  I have to go buy butter for the recipe.  Bye!!

Visitors!

Well, in 6 days, my parents will come to visit!!  YAY!  I have some plans to take them around town on walking tours.  I will be sure to take lots of pictures with them in my favourite places around town so that I can make a blog post about their visit!  Short post today, nothing new with me!

Helixir

So.  This post is about my job at Helixir.  That's the juice bar at the airport.  So far, I'm enjoying it for lots of reasons!  To mention a few: I can drink a lot of smoothies which are not only really good for me, they're delicious.  I go through the security part of the airport (you know when you go on vacation and you have to go through the metal detector and such) every day.  That isn't annoying for me, it makes me feel like I'm going on vacation.  I've learned to put all of the metal stuff in my backpack that I bring with me, so when I walk through the thing it doesn't beep.  The best part of all of this?  I have a card that allows me to bypass everyone in line!  haha.  There was a really big line today and I got to walk past them all, go straight to the security people and go right through!  Fun!

Anyway, that's the news.  I will be manning that location by myself starting on Friday.  It is in Gate B which has all of the planes which leave for North America, so most of my customers are English speaking with the odd French one (which is fine) or the odd Dutch one (which I can't understand at ALL).  Anyway, it's only open in the morning, from around 6:45am-11am.  Before and after that is office work and cleaning.  So, Mon-Fri, I will be the only person stepping into the store which I find so exciting.  Everything will be exactly where I want it, every mess I clean up will be mine, I can organize the whole shop the way I see fit.  Oh, I'm excited.

My other jobs are going well too, but nothing so exciting that I have to put it up here.  My private teaching is great, my students are learning and it's very satisfying to see/hear the difference already!  My 'field researching' position is going well, nothing really ever changes in that job!  Although the first day it took me 3 hours, and now it usually takes about an hour and 15 minutes or so.

Well, that's all [he] wrote!

Rouladen

One of my hobbies is cooking.  Some people eat to live, I live to eat.  I really really like a good meal.  It can improve my mood by leaps and bounds and I love seeing other people enjoy the food I make.  Today's project (which spontaneously came to me whilst in the grocery store) was Rouladen.  It turned out to be amazingly good.  Seriously, it's one of the best things I've cooked!  It takes a while for the preparation and the cooking time, but it's worth it.

Just thought I'd mention that latest development in my culinary journey!

Tomorrow I'm very busy.  Here's my schedule:
6:30am-12pm - working at the juice bar at the airport
2-4pm - teaching
before 6pm - field researching at 8 hotels

I will be busy, but at least I will have something to do, and once the pay cheques start coming in I'll feel even better!

Bye!

Jobs

Well, after a long search, I have found a job.  Actually, 3.  I have 2 private English students, one of whom I taught yesterday and one whom I will teach this afternoon.  I also will work at a juice bar (kind of like Booster Juice in Canada) located at the airport.  It's like a smoothie place, where you get a smoothie of blended fruit, frozen yogurt and other stuff.  I've had it a couple of times and it's really really good.  A bit expensive, but now that I work there I don't have to worry about that!  I start that job on Thursday.  Then I am working also for a market research company which I visit hotels for around the city.  It's pretty simple.  In fact, I did it today and it only took me an hour and 20 minutes. 

So, like I said I will teach this afternoon in about 2 hours.  It should be fun.  I used my rubik's cube in yesterday's lesson!  Actually, I started the lesson with it.  I gave it to her (almost finished) and told her to close her eyes.  I gave her verbal instructions on how to finish it, and she did.  It was to illustrate the importance of listening and understanding - 2 things that are most difficult when learning a new language!

I don't think I'll start my lesson like that today, because my student today is not at an advanced level of comprehension, like my student yesterday.

Ok, time to go. Bye!

Versailles

So on Tuesday I went to Versailles, France.  It's a place just 17km from Paris (I saw the top of the Eiffel Tower from the highway!) and it's most famously known for the Palace of Versailles.  It was originally a hunting lodge, but Louis the XIV changed it into a huge palace.  Here are some pictures!

Welcome to France!  Eiffel towers for sale at the rest stop on the highway

The front of Versailles.  Well, part of it anyway... it's way too big to take a picture of the whole thing!

The chapel

One of the ceilings

Hall of mirrors

Me in the hall of mirrors!

 Now to the gardens - soooo big.

The back of Versailles, about 1/3 of it.

Looking from the middle of the palace into the gardens

 Annick and I!  She's the one who invited me to Versailles - thanks Annick!

Looking back towards the back of the palace from about half way through the gardens

This is the Orangerie whatever that means.  Very well kept though!

Where's Waldo? Ian?

Well it was a great trip.  The palace itself was so impressive, and the gardens were so big it was hard to believe you were even still in a city!  On the way home we watched a movie from 2010 called Karate Kid.  It had Will Smith's son and Jackie Chan.  It took place in Beijing, which I liked because it brought back memories of when I went there in 2009. (and pictures).

Ok, time to go for a coffee.  Today I'm going to the Cinquentenaire park.  There is an event there, with only about 10 or 15 people going.  We are going to have a picnic and play frisbee - we've been having great weather!

Bye now!

More birthdays!

Happy Birthday to my sister Jill!!!!!! 

P.S. I'll put a blog post about Versailles later today!

Commercials and cookies.

So 2 nights ago I had a dream that my best friend Steph and I either baked cookies or brownies (by the time I woke up I had forgotten), so I really felt the need to bake some myself.  I found this recipe which is great, but I changed it a little.  First of all, I couldn't find baking soda here, but here's the thing.  The baking powder I found had sodium bicarbonate in the ingredients, and that is what baking soda is, but the box said it was baking powder.  I assumed the ingredients were telling the truth so I treated that as my baking soda and ignored the powder.  There is a possibility that it was all blended into one, but I wasn't sure. 

Then, the recipe called for a cup of peanut butter.  I changed that to half a cup of peanut butter and half a cup of Speculoos, which those of you at home will probably recognize if I put it in this format:

They're the Dutch Windmill Cookies.  They're mainly cinammon, ginger, nutmeg, pepper, cloves and cardamom.  They're DELICIOUS.  Anyway, it comes in a spreadable format too, which roughly has the consistency of peanut butter so I put half that stuff and half peanut butter.  The final result - amazing, truly divine cookies.  Here's a picture.

I realize they just look like cookies, but they're soo good!  The best part is that they stay squishy and soft even after they've cooled down.  So I experimented with the last 6 of the batch and put a little chunk of chocolate in the middle of them just before I baked them.  That was a decision I wasn't about to regret - they were baked, eaten and loved in about 5 seconds.  As such, I don't have a picture of them :)

Yesterday, I had another commercial!  This one was for a French insurance company.  This was a bit different than the first one I did.  This commercial was a much bigger production.  They had 2 makeup tents, 1 wardrobe tent with lots and lots of clothes, and as always - WAY more people behind the scenes than you would ever imagine. 

I got there early because I truly detest being late.  I drank a coffee, was greeted by the casting director and met some people I'd be working with.  Then I was shooed off to hair and makeup.  This part was cool.  They didn't do that for the other commercial.  I sat down in this chair in front of one of these things:

I think I had 2 people working on my hair and one girl putting make up on.  She just put some powdery stuff on my face and that was that.  I think it was to take away the shiny on my face that was created because it was SO hot in that building.  Anyway, then they used some cool gel in my hair.  It looked like baby powder or icing sugar or something.  They sprinkled it into my hair, then moved it around and it turned into gel!  So cool!

After that I went to the wardrobe tent:

This is where they decided what I'd wear.  I guess I should explain the scenes.  We did 3 scenes.  The first was an airport in 2011.  That was easy, they just asked me to wear my own clothes that I had brought with me.  The second was at a swimming pool in 2011.  I had to wear a bathing suit (which in Europe means SPEEDO !) but it was fun because I got to go swimming and I got paid for it.  Actually, it was tiring at the end because we did that scene over and over from I think 4 different angles and it took 3 hours!  The last scene of the day was set in an airport in the 1980s and that's where I had to wear this outfit:

It was all quite fun again.  Unfortunately, this time the food wasn't as good.  I am still thankful that they give us free food though, it saved me a days worth of money!

That's all.  I haven't had any other offers yet for more commercials, but I'm sure they'll come in again.  I like doing them, it's fun!

Next bit of news - tomorrow I'm going to Versailles with a friend Annick and her students.  I haven't been there.  In fact the first time I went to France was just when I went to Strasbourg, so this will be fun!  Of course, I'll have pictures!

Birthdays!

Happy birthday to Dad, Happy birthday to Dad.  Happy birthday to Daaaaddddd, Happy birthday to Dad.

I hope you have a smashingly good day!  Wish I could be there for it at the family dinner!  At least I plan on being there for the big 6-5!

No news really today, so that's all there is in terms of the post!  Bye now!