290/291//356: Berlin

Little trip for tattooings.

As always when I travel to a different city it is very easy to do new things. It's a little harder when you arrive late on friday, got a full saturday and then leave again early on sunday. Still, there is so much new stuff around that I don't have to think a lot to find something.

I tried two new coffee places, a new restaurant, was at a "new" metro station, bought something at a new shop and so on. Nothing much to say about the coffee places but the restaurant was really good. I randomly walked past that ramen bar and decided to go in to try it. It was pretty good I have to admit! Since I like making ramen myself, I always like to compare. Mine are good ( I like to think) but these were really good. If I get the chance next time I am in Berlin, I will go there again. Since it will be probably in autumn and my project will be done by then, I won't feel like I need to try a new place.

I have one more session left on the tattoo so I will be back in Berlin soon. I think this time around I will stay another day or two to really take in the city. It is such a cool place that it is a shame I don't get to do much when I am there. Bad planning on my part.

289/356: Chocolate Chip Cookie

Oh my memory.

It might be that the first for friday is a coincidence. I can't remember that I did something on purpose for the project. Maybe I finally managed to forget it. I have a joker if it ever happens but I just remembered that I don't have to use it for last friday.

I was at the airport Zürich waiting for my flight to Berlin and on a whim decided to get a chocolate chip cookie at starbucks. Good thing I did because otherwise I would have not done a new thing on that day. I have never bought a chocolate chip cookie at starbucks and never bought anything at starbucks at the airport Zürich.

phew...

288/356: Caviar De Tomates and Chewing Gum

More Food.

This time around I tried tomato caviar and a new chewing gum.
I picked the chewing gum over lunch because I needed some chewing gum. Chewing gum is kinda my addiction during work. This one is similar to the long lasting one I had a few weeks back. I really like them but they are rather on the expensive side.

The tomato caviar, well it's very good but a bit weird. Caviar usually is fish eggs so I don't know how they came to name it like this. I am pretty sure that tomatoes don't lay eggs. I had it just with bread and salad and yesterday I put it in a sauce for my pasta and it tasted very good both times. Actually just thinking about it is making me hungry right now. So I guess this means I will have it again somewhere down the line.

287/356: Heinz Hot Sauce: Yellow Habanero

I got around to it.

A few months back I tried a Heinz hot sauce one "hotness" level down and stated that I would try the hotter one before the project is over. I just did that last week and I have report that even this hotter one is not very hot. It has more spicyness then the last one for sure but still quite a bit less so than Tabasco.

The hot sauce does have a very nice taste so I will use it up pretty quickly. I don't think I will get it again though. There are plenty more hot sauces out there that I have left to try. I am sure I will find the perfect one for me one day. Tabasco is pretty close to my favourite, but you got to mix it up every now and then right?

286/356: Small Difference

After being able to do quite a few things that had nothing to do with trying different food, I am going back to that for a few posts.

For this day I got fried veggies and rice at my favorit take away. I usually go for the same two dishes and never had this one. It was very good as well and since I am trying to reduce the amount of meat I eat, I think I will go for this more often now. Maybe I can get him to make me the fried rice with only vegetables ..hummmm.

I also got a carrot juice for the first time. Well to be perfectly honest, there was lots more in that juice than just carrot. First time that I had juice that also contained carrot. Let me rephrase it to that. It was quite pleasant but I think if it was only carrot it would had have not been my thing.

285/356: Xbox Fitness

Consoles are not just for couch potatoes.

For the first year of the Xbox One, Xbox Fitness comes for free. Since I have always enjoyed working out with the Xbox 360 I decided to give this a shot as well. To be perfectly honest with you, Xbox Fitness was one of the reasons why I upgraded my Xbox.

Xbox Fitness is a program that has a selection of workout videos. But it captures your bodies motion and tells you if you are doing the exercise right or wrong. All in all it worked well and I am happy with the experience. But it isn't able to give you a program for four weeks or so based on your performance. This is something I enjoyed very much with Nike+ Kinect training on the Xbox 360.

I will switch to Xbox Fitness for the moment and see how good it is but I would like to see more excercise "games" to be released for this console generation.

284/356: The Stairs Of Bern

A walking tour of Bern.

I have something similar in autumn of 2013 but not the same so I will consider this a first. I did a walking tour of Bern focusing on the stairs leading up and down from the historic part of the city. I came up with the idea because I discovered most of them by coincidence and I thought not many people know about them.

For that reason I put up a CS event that would cover most of the stairs in the old part of the city. I had about 14 people that showed up for the event and the weather was great so it was a great success. I had a really good time show the people around my city. I didn't prepare much but did tell some stories about the places we got past during the walk.

We ended the day by having a a beer in the park. It was the perfect ending for a very nice day. I might repeat this walking tour a few weeks from now.

Sadly no pictures were taken.

283/356: Restaurant Lumière

Dinner with dad.

It took me to restaurant Lumière which conveniently was also a first. As always my dad showed a good hand in picking a restaurant. The food was really really good. The restaurant mainly serves French food with some local variations.

I usually don't like to take pictures from food in restaurants but I had to have something for the blog right? So here it is.. my delicious dessert. No way one can go wrong with mousse au chocolat.

282/356: Xbox One

One for my inner geek.

I spent the first evening with my brand spanking new Xbox One. I spent it playing Titanfall. Which was also a first. Well after I installed the initial patch and downloaded the game.

I was thinking about buying the Xbox One for a while now and now after Titanfall came out I decided to final go for it. I was worried about the steep price but I just had to remind myself that my cellphone cost the same and suddenly it was OK.

So far I am really happy with the Xbox. The new Kinect is much better than the one for the Xbox 360. I used that one a lot to work out with programs like Nike+ Kinect Training and liked it alot. I will use the new console for similar things.

281/356: Magners Irish Cider

Wooo cider.

First time I tried a Cider during this project. Can't really remember when the last time was that I had Cider but I am sure that I have had it before. I am pretty sure though that I have never had Magners Irish Cider.

It was actually alright. I was expecting it to taste more like apple though. I have no idea why I had that expectation. Or maybe I was just expecting it to be sweeter. Well, it wasn't. Cider is ok but probably not something I will go for often. If I want an alcohol drink around the same area I will probably stick with beer.

280/356: Audi FIS Ski Weltcup Finale Lenzerheide

What a glorious day!

I went to my first ski racing event and it was such a great experience. Yes it did mean that I had to get up at 05:30 and yes I did a total of six hours on the train just that day but I wouldn't want to have missed the experience.

Skiing is pretty big in Switzerland, as you might have guessed. So we are pretty good at it and the sport is pretty popular. They show all the races throughout the winter and somewhere around December I decided that I wanted to see a race live and got tickets for the last race of the season.

What I failed to notice though, was the fact that it would be pretty much on the other side of Switzerland. I didn't think about this until the day before so I just surrendered to the fact that I would spend a lot of time on the train. Since I like riding the train it wasn't that big of a deal.

I was lucky enough to get a great day. The sun was out and not a cloud to be seen anywhere. The men's race wasn't very interesting because the swiss didn't achieve anything but the women's race was a different story.

It was the last race of one of the Swiss skiers. She started the race as second and put a time on the board that would last until the very end. She ended up in third place. Oh dem feels! It was great to witness this. But it didn't end there. Lara Gut managed to do even better and won the race. So in the end we had two ladies on the podium. It was a great day even without having a swiss win anything, having two of them in the first three made the day perfect.

This day will be one of the greater memories of my little project. Neede some more of these before I end it in about 70 days.

279/356: Ticket The Night Before..

.. I went on a trip.

This first is rather trivial but hey it's not food! I have a cool new one for 280 but it ment that I had to get up early and I wanted to stay in bed as long as possible. For that reason I bought my train ticket the evening before. I have never done this for travel within Switzerland. I felt so well prepared.

278/356: Croccante, Mandorle Di Sicilia E Pistacci

Beer and Sweets.

These are the things I like to try most when I do a tasting. This time I tried Croccante, Mandorle Di Sicilia E Pistacci, which I can't tell you what they would be called in English. they are really good though. I will not buy them again but for a totally different reason. Each and every one of them is packaged separately in plastic. they probably have to do it because otherwise they would stick together or something but from an ecological stand point it is not something I am OK with. We already generate enough garbage as it is.

Too bad, they ARE great.

277/356: Beertasting, The Millionth Edition

Ok maybe it hasn't been a million beers.

There have been quite a few since I started the project though. You and me, we both know this. For this one I was having high expectations. It does have a sign on it that says it was the best beer and a competition with the most competitors anywhere.

Is it really the best? Well, I can't really say. Tastes are different so it is hard to place something as better than something else. I do admit though that it is a very good beer. I enjoyed it thoroughly and will probably have it again at some point. The name is "Crocodile", this is rather surprising if you mind the fact that it is Swedish.

276/356: Threefold

A hearty breakast...



... this was my new thing for the saturday a week ago. And yes, I am playing the catch up game with my posts again. I always promise myself to get better but then life happens.

So after my first day at school I went for a full breakfast of new things. I tried a new choose, I tried bison dried meat and tiny pieces of bread. Long story short, it was all very good. I do have to admit, I couldn't tell much difference from the bison meat to the similar meat I have very new and then. Could have been horse or beef, I wouldn't have noticed a difference.

275/356: First Day Of School In Olten

An easy one!

My second semester of school started last Friday. Contrary to the first semester, this one is in Olten and not in Basel. I am glad about that fact mainly because it only takes me half the time to get there than it took me to get to Basel. This means I can sleep longer in the morning, which is always a good thing. Also I get to see Olten a bit more. Never spent much time there.

This semester is all about business process engineering. This is something that really interests me so I am looking forward to cool few days of school. This time around I won't be in school on Thursday and Friday but on Friday and Saturday. Of course this is not one of the positives but all in all there will be only 15 days of school so I think I will be fine.

Some of the people in the course with me where with me last semester, so it is nice to see a few know faces on the first day of school. Even at thirty it is a bit strange walking into a room full of strangers on the first day.

271/272/273/274//356: Four In One

I am catching up some more with four days in one past.

Over the last week, new foods and drink dominated again. Don't even have an excuse for it.

 Started Monday with these little chocolate balls of delight. It's a new Ragusa product and I have always liked Ragusa so I thought it might be a quick win. I was not dissapointed. These things are delicious. But then, whenever there is chocolate involved, how can that go wrong anyhow?

 Tuesday I tried a beer called "Cobra". The name is flashy but didn't take away anything from the taste. It was good any I enjoyed it. But it is not a micro brewery beer. I have been spoiled a bit with the different kinds of beers I had the pleasure of sampling over the last few months.

 On Wednesday I tried Pepsi Twist. It was umm, a tiny bit lemony. Not really sure if it deserves such a fancy name and bottle to set it apart from the normal Pepsi. Grab a Pepsi, but a slice of lemon in it and you probably have exactly the same.

Thursday I had two new things. This tonic called "Gents" (how could I not go for it?) and the energy bar made with "Dinkel". Umm I have to admit I did not find a translation for that word. Maybe help me out? It is supposed to be really healthy. Don't know about that but the bar tasted healthy. With that I mean it was slightly pleasant but not so much that you would feel like you are eating something really unhealthy.. and well all know that the stuff that tasted really good is usually unhealthy.

270/356: Flea Market @ Reitschule

To close the week out I did one more thing that didn't have anything to do with food.

Looking back I am actually really happy with the past week, I was able to do quite a few things that made me do something and not just consume something. I always try to have it like this but sometimes I succeed better than other weeks.

On sunday I went to the fleamarket at Reitschule here in Bern. It is always on the first sunday of the month and I have been wanting to go for at least three or four months now. Somehow I never managed to get there. I was always busy on the day.

The whole experience was not so exciting though. Maybe I built up too much hype for myself. It kind off felt like a lot of it was stolen and it was the best way to get rid off. I don't know how many cellphones were on sale, but there were many. I walked around for maybe twenty minutes but didn't see anything that tempted me. I had planned to buy something to extend my first for the day. But I am not going to buy something to just for the buying sake. Maybe it was my fault for arriving around 3pm. It could be that the good things were long gone.

Anyhow, it was something interesting to do on a Sunday afternoon. Still I am not sure if I will ever feel like I have to go there again. Maybe flea markets are just not my thing.

267/268/269/356: Arizona, Active O2 And Cavacas

I am way behind posting again so I will put three new things from last week into the same post.

Three days in a row I tried something new to eat/drink again. I still have some cool stuff coming up in the next few weeks but it is getting very hard to do something during the week at this point. Actually it was two soft drinks and a dessert.

The dessert I picked from the foreign food at the supermarket. Again I wasn't too sure what I was taking but it looked good so I took it with me. Some thing with the so called "Active o2" drink. This is again one of those that looks like it is "healthy" or "sporty" but it is actually just sweetened water. The third thing was "Arizona XEnergy herbal tonic" I guess when writing the name down now I am not sure what I expected. It looked appealing so I went for it.

In the end i liked the dessert the best. It is a very light and nice snack.

266/356: Improv Comedy Kitchen @ Ono

This was an interesting one.

Last Wednesday I went to see my first improvisation comedy show. The show as held at Ono here in Bern. I have never been in Ono so it was also very nice to see that place but of course the main attraction was the show.

I have never seen anything of the kind so I was very interested to see how it would turn out. I was a bit skeptic because my humor is a bit special. I was trying to keep an open mind though.

The show was narrated by an american guy while three others, an English, an American and and a Swiss actually did the improvisation. So essentially the narrator gave them little games or tasks to do. For example he asked the crowd to give him a place, a profession and a set of mind and then the others had to improvise a little sketch with that info. Or during the break each visitor wrote a a little sentence on a piece of paper and then they had to weave a story with those sentences. It went on and on like this and I would guess there were about 15 "segments" like that.

All in all I enjoyed the experience. Not everything was so funny to me though. If you asked me if I would see these guys again, I would probably say no. It was their first show in this constellation and you could really tell that they don't have much chemistry in between themselves yet. I did like it good enough though that I might try something similar some other time.

I really liked Ono though and since there are many culture events going on there, I think I will back there soonish.