A new hiking tradition

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, I had made a promise to myself. A promise that I vowed to uphold no matter what the cost. The promise was to write one post a day, everyday. Now, two months later, I am sorry to learn that the promise was nothing but a pipe dream, one that looked and sounded doable but was very difficult to implement. I am eating Movenpick to help me cope with the loss of this dream. In my defense, I'm busy actually having a life, for the first time in a long time. But still, the loss of a dream hurts. Only dessert can help dull the pain.

Anyway, the last post I promised to let you know why I had to wake up at 9am, after going to bed at 7. It was because I had foolishly assumed that I had superpowers and didn't need sleep and had promised a friend to go hiking with him. Last weekend was the first nice weekend we had in over three weeks, so no way was I going to let it go to waste over unnecessary things like sleeping! My friend C and I went up Uetliberg, which is a mountain right in the city of Zurich. Within minutes of beginning our hike, we were overtaken by old people. I am convinced that these people never made it to the top and in fact turned around halfway and took the train the rest of the way up. That's why we didn't see them once they overtook us, I'm sure of it.

In the 45 minute hike up, I must have cursed at least fifty times, stopped at least thirty times, and felt my violent tendencies rising at least three times. I love hiking, but going uphill is the worst thing one can make me do. Well, the worst thing one can make me do is make me watch the Kardashians on E!, but this comes a close second. Anyway, after huffing and puffing, we reached the top, or so we thought. Upon reaching the top, we found out that we had to climb atop a TV Tower to get the best views. By this time, I wasn't going to let things like exhaustion and inability to breathe stop me from getting a look at the freaking view. So up we went. This is how high we were:



I'm glad we went there though, because it was an absolutely beautiful day, with stunning views:



and here's some more of what we saw:



We stopped for a quick lunch at one of the restaurants at the top and proceeded to walk on a flatter trail toward Feldsenegg. The idea was to take the cable car from there down to Adliswil and then take the train back from there to Zurich. We foolishly put faith in my ability to navigate and follow signs, and needless to say, we didn't find the cable car, even though we were at one point standing right next to the entrace of the stop to take the cable car. We hiked down a pretty steep path for over thirty minutes to get to Adliswil. The landscape en route to Adliswil was absolutely beautiful:





Ever since I began hiking, I only have one tradition that I have no choice but to uphold: I have to trip and fall at least once, and subject myself to deep embarrassment and utter humiliation. Now, you may say that hiking can be challenging and that many people are known to trip or fall, so I shouldn't be embarrassed. Well, allow me to thrill you with the knowledge that unlike most people, I don't fall while I'm hiking. I fall when we have completed the hike and find ourselves on a flat surface. Yes, I fall on the road. And I fell again last week. Now, some women can look very elegant while falling down. They almost descent to the ground with a dancer's grace. Not me. No sir, I fall with arms flailing and bags flying and clothes tearing and knees bloodying. I had to crawl to the edge of the road, since said falling occurred right in the middle of it.

To say that I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole to end my embarrassment would be an understatement. My friend C secretly wanted to burst out laughing, I'm sure, but he had his game face on and first made sure that I was okay. Then he snickered a little bit. But this whole situation was just too funny, even for me, so we both gave in and burst out laughing. I'd love to tell you that this ends here, but pretty much the same fate was repeated yesterday, when I went hiking again. Only the embarrassment levels were a thousand times higher because...I think I'll save that story for another day.

New week, new humiliations

So finally, after a decade of darkness, the sun came out this weekend! We literally had a month of nothing but rain. Every. Single. Day. My pantry is full of empty ice-cream containers that I had to finish to help cope with the depression. The waist-line has expanded exponentially. But all this is in the past, because the last four days were the most amazing that I've had all year! Friday evening I had dinner by the lake with a couple of friends, and we basked in the glory of the sun for a few hours. Saturday was dinner at my friend R's place. She made wonderful risotto and lentils and had strawberries and ice-cream for dessert. We ate on the terrace and I had a tan within 2.5 seconds of being in the sun. Topped the evening off with too much wine and attended another friend's housewarming party.

I felt fat from all the gluttony of the previous two nights, so Sunday morning, I went for a run by the lake. I had a nice long run, and on my way back, I wanted to check if the water was warm enough to swim in. So stopped by this one spot which was kind of the shore and decided to dip my hand in it. Next thing I know, I'm in the lake. Yes, I fell in the lake. No one told me that the rocks by the shore were slippery, and that when wearing sneakers, one can fall into the water! This was clearly not my fault. I'm a mere victim of lack of information here. I had to finish my run wearing wet sneakers and tracks. The rest of the day was spent reading by the lake and trying to get over the embarrassment of having fallen in the lake.

Now, May 23 may have been just another day for you, but for me, this was a monumental day. An epic day. It was the day that would usher in the end of an Era. A day when I would get my Tuesdays back. A day when I would stop being ridiculed by the non-believers. May 23, Ladies and Gentlemen, was the day that the Lost Series Finale was to air. For six years, I have devoted my Tuesdays or Wednesdays or Thursdays to this show. Numerous dates, happy hours, parties, birthdays, and alien sightings have taken a backseat to this show. Six years of commitment led to these final 2.5 hours on Sunday night.

But, there was a crisis at hand. The show was set to air at 9pm EST, which was 3AM Zurich time. Additionally, the show doesn't air here in Zurich at the same time, and even if it did, I bet it would have aired in German or even worse, Swiss-German. So I did what any normal person would do - I woke up at 2.30am and posted about my situation on a dozen or so messageboards. Luckily, one of the boards produced a link - a link that was streaming the finale. IN HD. This was God's reward to me for being a dedicated Lostie. So, I watched the finale live. In HD. from 3-5:30am. The plan was to go to bed at 5:30, but the finale was just so momentous that I had to sit for an hour and just soak it in. And you know what? I don't care what anyone else says - I loved it. It really did stay true to the Lost tradition and was ambiguous and comforting in a way that Lost has always been. I will miss my dudes and freckles and "Don't tell me what I can't do"s. My life, once full of promise and hope, has become meaningless again. I suspect I'll need therapy for years to come.

Anyway, I finally fell asleep at 7am, only to have to wake up at 9am. Why? Come back tomorrow to find out!

The downward spiral continues

Today was the second German class. It went even worse than the first one, if that's even possible. I had my housewarming party last night that only ended due to the Zurich tram system, so I was exhausted today. Anyway, today in the class, we were learning to say, "I speak xxx language", which translates to Meine muttersprache ist Englisch. First the instructor said he speaks German, to give us an example of how to phrase our sentence. Due to my exhaustion, I thought he said, "My employer is AlphaSprachStudio (the name of my German language school)" in German. In fact, he had said that his langague is German. How I took that and translated that to "my employer is AlphaSprach" I have no idea.

He then asked me in German to tell him what language I spoke. I ended up saying, "Mine muttersprache ist XYZ Company(which basically translated to my language is XYZ company!!). Again, everyone started laughing and I had no idea why. Thankfully, my agent A who also takes this class with me, told me that he was asking me what languagues I spoke. The embarrassment I felt was beyond comprehension. I just wanted to throw my arms up in the air and walk out. I'm sure this wouldn't have happened had I had my beauty sleep the night before. I also forgot what city I lived in. Yes, I forgot where I was. Let's just say my life has seen better days, and leave it at that.

Going back to the party - I hosted my first housewarming party last night, and it was a lot of fun! Due to my OCD issues, I started cooking two days in advance. I made three different trips to the grocery store: One to pick up all milk products, another to pick up bakery products, and a third to pick up chips and soda. I even enlisted various unsuspecting invitees into hauling all my loot back to the apartment for me. Here's what I ended up making:



(from L to R): Homemade tomato bread and peta, Veggies, crackers, yogurt and cucumber dip, pesto and sour cream dip, homemade pesto and veggie pizzas, guacomole and tacos, cheese, homemade banana bread, and pinwheels, and assorted bruscetta - all made from scratch!

Here are a couple more pictures of the food, because really, who wouldn't want to just look at food all day and sigh?





Everything, including the tomato bread, was homemade. The only items that were store bought were the pizza dough, the olive bread for the bruschetta, and the cheese, of course. And I'm not going to lie to you, fights broke out over the Banana Bread that my friend Raquel made.

Seeing as everything was made Monday and Tuesday night and neatly tucked away in labeled tupperware, I may have gone a little overboard with my OCD while planning the menu. The party came to a halt at midnight when people had to make sure they could get home before the trams stopped running at 12:30. There is a night transportation system that is in place once the trams stop running, but I don't think any of us have ever used it, so no one wanted to take the risk of missing their trams.

The fact that escape was made just in time for cleaning has not escaped my attention. In future, I'm going to implement a "failsafe" process, where music shall be stopped at 11pm, and brooms and mops will be handed out to all the attendees. Only after every spot is left sparkling and shiny shall the music commence. So to all those who made it over last night - you have been warned.

Ich bin idiot

Hunger does strange things to me. I think we've established this time and again. In case we haven't, I have yet another example to make you aware of such a theory. Today was my first German class. I arrived with literally seconds to spare before the class began, and was thus forced to sit in the first seat. I had forgotten that the class was one-and-a-half hours long and thus didn't haven my first dinner before the class. As a result, two minutes into the class, I started experiencing hunger pangs, and it became harder and harder to focus.

The first thing we learned was how to say "I am..."which is Ich bin...We also learned to ask, "Are you..." which is Bist du...?We were then asked to introduce ourselves to the class, and ask one of the other students if he/she was x, y, or z (based on the placards with students' names written on them)? So, all I had to say, in German, was, "I am Jigisha, are you Carl?" This should have translated to "Ich bin Jigisha, bis du Carl?" However, due to my hunger issues, I ended up saying, "Ich bin Carl, bis du Jigisha?" , all the while not even realizing what I was saying. The entire class, including the instructor, burst out laughing, and only then did I realize that I in fact introduced myself as Carl, and asked dear Carl if he was Jigisha. I'm sure this wouldn't have happened had I eaten my first dinner.

By the time the class ended, I was almost blinded by hunger, so much so that I couldn't even find a way out of the floor on which the classroom was located! I opened every single door I could find, and each one of them either led to the Women's Bathroom, Men's bathroom, a utility closet, or a coat closet! Driven by hunger induced insanity, I asked someone to point me to the way out. She pointed me to the door that said Exit and asked me to open that to go downstairs. Apparently, hunger can also make you lose the power of sight and English word comprehension. I'm just letting you know these things, so you are never a victim of hunger that I always am. I'm now going to do my walk of shame back to my bed and am going to rewrite this evening's events in my head in a way that doesn't make me look like a bumbling idiot. Guten nuit!

The Butterfly effect

As most of you know, I love reading. I'm a quintessential nerd - I'll read books and then find forums to either share opinions or read about others opinions on the book. The last couple of weeks have been really busy at work, so I wanted to read something low key and chill. I bought this romance novel by one of my favorite authors. This book is a third in a series of four books and is about four friends working together, with each book giving one of the friends a happily ever after. The first two were fun reads, so I went ahead and ordered the third one online. I started reading it Wednesday night, and halfway through, I wanted to scream and slap people in anger. To say that the book was disappointing would be a major understatement. The whole story felt so contrived, superficial, and unemotional that at the end of it, I was crying in frustration. "Why is this important for me to know?" you ask? Well, it's like the Butterfly effect - a seemingly innocent flap of a butterfly's wings in one side of the world can lead to a Tsunami on the other side. This is exactly what happened with me, and is the reason why I did what I did on Saturday night.

Since this was a long weekend, my brother was visiting me. Where did we go when he was here is another story for another time, but long story short, we went shopping on Saturday, and met up with a friend for dinner Saturday evening. I went back to the Ethiopian place to share the joy that it had brought me the last time I was there. Unlike the last time, Saturday night was buffet night, so the waitress explained us what the different vegetables were, and we proceeded to eat. And this is where the earlier story places such an important role. You see, even though my trauma over my favorite author writing a piece of shit of a book seemingly ended Wednesday night, deep in my subconscious, I believe the pain was still very much alive. I'd go for hours without thinking about the horror of the book, but every now and then, the pain would come alive, and I'd need comforting.

Well, exactly such a thing happened over dinner. We were talking about random things and all of a sudden, I remembered the tragedy that was the book I read, so I needed comforting. And honestly, what is more comforting than good food? So I finished my first serving at the buffet, and politely waited for my brother and my friend to finish theirs so we could get the next serving. To my surprise, neither of them seemed in any hurry to get some more food, so I went ahead and came back with a plateful of veggies and Injera. This happened yet again. It was only after 30 minutes of eating that I realized that I out.ate.my.brother. This NEVER happens. I mean never. It's legally and metaphysically impossible for such a thing to happen. To make matters worse, not only did I out-eat my brother, I out-ate both him AND my friend!

The reality of what I had done finally sank in, but by that time I had eaten so much that I physically couldn't get up. Eventually, I did make it to the tram, and berated my brother the entire time for not eating more than I did. He must have seen how this was impacting me psychologically, because he made us get Ice-cream at Movenpick on our way back. Needless to say, I out-ate him on the ice-cream too. And all this happened because of the terrible book I read. I'm sure of it. If I had not been so distraught over the book, I would have recognized the fact that my plate was the only one that was full a good 20 minutes after we started eating, and I would have stopped. Or at least been more discrete about the eating. Instead, I out-ate two grown men and had both of them staring at me in shock and horror. I'm pretty sure the rest of the restaurant was doing the same. I don't think I can show my face there again - at least not for a little while. I really hope Hugh pays me a visit in my dreams to comfort me tonight. I need it now more than ever.

End of a relationship. Or is it?

When I first came to Zurich, I fell in love with the lake, the people, the cheese. And I fell in love with the weather. 65 and sunny, almost everyday was cool and brisk. Then it started getting warmer. It went up to 80. I was able to do this and this. But then, things started to change.

At first, it was just little things. A shower here, a thunderstorm there. As with any new relationship, I chalked it up to mood swings and decided to give the weather some time and space. I even went away for the weekend, hoping that would make things better between us. Imagine my shock and horror when, not only was I welcomed back with pouring rain that Sunday evening, I even had to don my winter jacket back on! The weather knows how I feel about my winter jacket. It knows that hell hath no fury like a woman stuck in a jacket that makes her look fat. Yet, it made me wear it. Not only that, the weather didn't even have the decency to bring me some sunshine - for days on end. I coped with this devastating development the only way I could: by eating. Everything. I have lost count of the number of lunches and dinners I've had within the last two week. By now, everything has turned into one giant food eating entity. It’s hard to tell when exactly lunch ends and dinner begins.

Last Saturday, I saw rays of sunshine. I thought maybe our relationship could be mended. But tonight, things were back to the way they have been in the recent past. Now, every time I see the rain pouring, I feel like punching a cloud. But since such punching cannot occur, I take solace in food. I hope the weather is taking notice of my downward spiral, and realizes how important I am to it, and changes its behavior. It should soon realize that I’m the best thing to have happened to it. If it doesn’t, then I can’t be held responsible for what happens next. I have already stopped smiling. Are you listening, weather? Will you bring me sunshine, or give me more rain? Or will this be the end of us? The ball is now in your court. Do the right thing.

Also, Thursday is a Public holiday in Europe, and I'm taking Friday off, so will be gone for the long weekend. Where am I going, you ask? Well, you'll just have to come back next week to find out!

When tragedy strikes twice

If you remember, a few weeks ago, I talked about rediscovering religion here and here. I was a born-again believer. I believed the Almighty was all encompassing and powerful. Well I am here to tell you that unfortunately, this is not true. Before I begin telling you why, I'm going to digress and talk about my near death experience.

This Saturday I had grand plans to go shopping in Germany. Yes, I can go shopping in Germany if I want to. How very Mariah Carey of me. Anyway, the plan was to go there with a few friends, but as always, come Saturday morning, laziness set in, and ultimately won over, so I bailed out of going. Saturday was the first day in nearly eight days that we saw the sun, so I decided to sit outside in the backyard and just chill. After my first lunch, I started to feel guilty about my fatness and decided to go on a bike ride. I had ambitious plans to ride the bike for 25 miles and go to Rapperswil, which is apparently a cute little town right outside of Zurich. The ride itself is along the lake on a very quiet and a not-so-busy road.

Ten miles into the ride, I decided that I was a bike-expert and could do jumps through slopes and over sidewalks with my "kids" bike. I was feeling badass and decided to do a bike-jump on the sidewalk from the bike path that was on the road. Needless to day, this ended in tragedy. I ended up with bruising on various parts of my lower right leg and my palms. My leg is currently sporting various shades of red, and apparently I also hurt my right wrist. The worst part of it was that there was no knight-in-shining-armor to even pick me off the road! I had to haul my bike and my fatness off the sidewalk myself and make sure that said humiliation was not witnessed by any other living being. Thankfully, the road was deserted, so my shame was mine alone. The worst part was that I had to ride the bike all the way back to my place, with a bleeding knee. And one of the wounds on the leg was on the bone, which led to swelling, so now my one calf looks fatter than the other.

As if all this wasn't enough, I was faced with an existential crisis this morning. The final part of my migration over from New York to Zurich was supposed to get done on Friday, so the hope was that Monday morning I'd have everything the way God of Microsoft intended. Imagine my shock and horror when, upon going to work this morning, I discovered that my email, internet, intranet, chat - nothing worked. And all my documents and files disappeared! The curse of Microsoft had hit again, putting my computer in a catatonic state. I called my God, the one who defeated the Microsoft warlord the last time around, hoping that he'd work his magic again. Unfortunately, and to my immense disappointment, he didn't know what to do! He said he was helpless and powerless in this situation. I felt hope slowly leave me.

I frantically called five different groups and was always told to contact someone else. After SIX hours of chasing my own tail, I knew this had to end, and went "New York" on everyone. I called one group and told them that I'd keep calling them every ten minutes until my access was restored. And I did. Within thirty minutes, I finally had access to chat. The rest of the things were still being worked on, but at least I could communicate with other people! The rest, I'm being told, will be fixed tomorrow.

This whole ordeal got me so stressed that I even forgot to eat my second lunch, can you believe it? I promptly made up for it by eating two dinners with a couple of friends and a dear friend who is visiting from New York. I feel marginally better, emotionally speaking. I just got back and it's now time for me to go to bed and dream hot men dreams, so good night and please pray that my system is up and running as it should be tomorrow morning!

Things that have happened this week

Average number of meals consumed per day: 6

Number of times I tripped or fell wearing my heels at work: 5

Number of times I tripped or well at the same spot, by the same coworker's desk: 5

Number of people who think I don't know how to walk: 1 x 5

Number of times a day I alternated between crying over the weather and wanting to punch a cloud: 124563

Average number of dreams I had about Viniero's strawberry shortcake: 234

Number of weeks I am behind my TV shows: 2 or 3 for all shows except Lost

Number of hours I cried because of the tragic happenings on this week's Lost: 3

And finally...

Number of husbands I dreamed about having, sequentially, of course: 3 - Hugh Jackman, Robert Downey Jr, and Sawyer from Lost.

That's it for now, be back on Monday!

Visit to Nuremberg - Part Deux

Day two began where day one left off, with food. We had a wonderful breakfast and were all set to march on and face the day. It was raining in pretty much all of Europe, but in Nuremberg, the sun shone high and bright. For about three hours. But still, you take what you can get. Before we talk about the day, here's a brief history of Nuremberg. This was the city where the Nazi party used to hold its many conventions, mainly due to the historical significance of the city. Fittingly enough, after the end of WW2, all the officials involved in the Holocaust were tried at what are now known as Nuremberg Trials.

Now that you have a ten second crash course about the city, we can proceed. We started the day off by taking the subway to the downtown area. As Venice is a sister city of Nuremberg, there was a Venitian festival taking place in the area. There were numerous wine, sausages, and glass products from Venice being sold in the square. We walked through it and made our way to Heilig-Geist-Spital, which was an old age home in the 14th century. It is, to this day, used as an old age home. I wanted to expand my modeling portfolio for future movie roles, so I took pictures like these:



The small cafe by the river looked really good, so we took a picture of that too:



It had now been a full two hours since my last meal, so hunger was starting to kick in. We had apple juice with soda, a German specialty, at a cafe by the Square. At this time Daniel, who had been forgotten about by me, made his presence known with the loudest shrieks of all time. Apparently, kids cry when they are hungry. Who knew? I personally think it's a great strategy and am finding ways to implement it in my life as well. After he was fed, we walked toward the Pottery Market, also taking place in the square, and saw beautiful pottery and clay work like this:



Across from the market was Frauenkirch, Our Lady's Church. The clock tower at the top of the Church pays homage to Emperor Charles IV. At noon everyday, there is a production of sorts where a mini-statue of the Emperor comes out of the top of the tower, and his electors tend to him and pay their respects. Since I was busy eating at noon, we missed the show, but from what I've heard, it is supposed to be quite good:



The Pottery market took place right next to the Schöner Brunnen, which means Beautiful Fountain. According to the legend, rotating the gold ring on the fountain to a full circle is expected to bring one good luck. I was so busy being embarrassed to be the first and probably only adult who had to climb on the railing to reach the ring, that I forgot to make a wish once I actually rotated the ring!



Here's an image of the actual fountain:



And now, I began my alternate career as a nanny. We wanted to go up the Imperial Castle, with up being the operative word. Since going uphill meant pushing Daniel in his stroller up, I decided to become the nanny for the day and his stroller up the hill, looking ridiculous like this:



Once we got there, I had a strange encounter with a door whose lock was bigger than me. I saw this door as another reminder of my vertical challenges.



Another two hours had passed since my last meal, and I had worked out by pushing the stroller up the hill, so I felt like I had earned a decent meal. We went to an authentic German restaurant, ordered an authentic orange-ginger German soda, and ate asparagus and potatoes. Healthy living and high thinking has always been my motto:



Halfway through the tour, we decided to swap roles: I was now the famous Indian actress in disguise and hiding from the paparazzi, and Inga was my nanny, holding my umbrella over my head for me. We tried to get pictures of such activities, but couldn't find any volunteers to take one in the steady downpour.

Finally, we made our way back for coffee and cake, and proceeded to have the final meal of the day: Dum Aloo, that I had made in Zurich and took with me to Nuremberg. The next day, Inga took out the Penn State photo album, and I was confronted with my Ghosts of Christmas past, where I was basically two people in one body. My fatness from those days haunts me even now. Why else would I seek comfort and solace in food, when things go wrong?

I tried playing with Daniel after the trip down the memory lane, but he probably was too traumatized with my former and current fatness and found building blocks a lot more interesting. Another one bites the dust. Such is the story of my life. We ended the weekend by reminding me of just one of the many reasons why I can never play basketball, football, or any sport, really:



All in all, I had an absolutely fabulous time and will definitely be going back, even if I'm not invited. Things may still work out between Daniel and me. All is not lost. I'm hoping that distance will make the heart grow fonder. Amen.

Visit to Nuremberg - Part 1

It's past my bedtime but I'm still here, blogging about my Germany trip, just for you. Never let it be said that I don't keep my promises. So, without further ado and with only limited theatrics, here we go:

Friday I left work a bit early, in order to catch my train to Nuremberg. I had to stop by the apartment to have a quick second lunch and pick up my bag and tickets. I was running about seven minutes ahead of my schedule, so was only suffering from minor paranoia about missing the train. Needless to say, I made it to the train with plenty of time to spare. The train ride itself was 6 hours, with one transfer in Stuttgart.

I found my seat number, which was 96, and saw a cute guy seated across from my seat. I was super excited because such things don't happen to me, and even mentally planned the January wedding. Unfortunately, a rather grumpy woman was sitting on seat 96 and convinced me that I had the wrong seat number. Since I didn't want to look like a biatch in front of my future husband, I went and sat on seat number 46. Now let me explain - I had a ticket to Nuremberg and back. Seat 96 was the To seat, and 46 was the Back one. But I thought the grumpy woman was right and that 46 was my To seat, so I sat there, thereby taking someone else's seat. I'll just stop here and let you know that my moronity did come to light eventually, but by then the future husband was long gone. There went my moonlight wedding by the beach.

Eventually, I made it to Nuremberg and saw my dearest friend Inga after 9 yearS! In that time, she has become a Psychologist, got married, and had a baby. I, meanwhile, lost 30lb and am doing my best to gain it all back. We hugged enthusiastically, and after I asked her how she was doing, I asked her what was for dinner. I'm very prim and proper that way. Turns out, dinner consisted of brot (German bread), pesto, 855 different cheese, and the most fabulous salad I've ever had. I was in love. Salad was made by Inga's husband Olaf, who, from here on out, will be referred to as the Gentle Giant, because of this:



Now, there's one thing I need to mention. Actually two things. Actually both have names and gender. One of the things is a she. And her name is Sina. And she is a cat. Now, my fear of dogs has been well documented in numerous journals and pictures. But cats, I've had not much interaction with. Until this weekend, I always felt nothing but indifference toward them. Well, I take no pleasure in announcing that my fear of dogs manifests into fear of cats when dogs aren't around.

Confused? It's ok. Maybe this will help. Imagine you are hungry for food and excited to see your friend and her family. You made dinner and sat down to eat it. As you are eating, something brushes against your feet. You jump off your chair and shoot up in the air, thinking you felt a rat. Turns out, what you felt was really a cat. Let's call her Sina, for purposes of this illustration. Sina wanted to play with you. But she also has teeth. She can bite you. And she's a cat. She doesn't live by the same social structure that we do. No one will call her crazy if she bites someone. Be honest - wouldn't you be as afraid of it as I was? Wouldn't you fold your legs up on the chair and say a silent prayer every time you hear a "Meow"? Wouldn't you request, no, demand, that the cat be locked out of your bedroom and issue a restraining order against it? So what if she's giving you pitiful looks like these? In your heart, you know it's all a ploy to get her to like you, just so she can bite you and claim victory. So you lock her out of her own room and sleep with one eye open, in case she can open locks and makes her way on your bed. It's hard out there for an ailurophobe, you must admit! Here's a glimpse of Sina, trying to butter up the mistress of the house:



After dinner, Daniel, Inga's thirteen month old son woke up. I'm going to admit something here that I didn't tell Inga when I was staying with her: I'm secretly afraid of babies. I think they basically think, "Oh god, what a moron" when they look at me. And they'd be right. So they scare me. But Daniel, aka my One True Love, was different. The minute I met him, we had a connection. I knew he was special. He didn't cry when I held him. He even let me take pictures of me holding him, thus dispelling the myth that I scare little children. I don't have words to describe his cuddliness, so I will let pictures do the talking:







Tomorrow: Our visit to downtown Nuremberg, some insight into the history of the town, and my performance review as a part-time Nanny/famous Indian actress who is in Germany to escape from the paparazzi. For now, I'm going to sleep and hope Sina doesn't make her way into my dreams to get even.

Food intervenes. Again.

I had hopes of blogging about my trip to Nuremberg, but then there was food explosion at work today, which put me in food coma (again) tonight. It was a coworker's birthday and he brought these really amazing nussgipfel, which are basically nut croissants. I had one for breakfast and went to heaven for a few hours. Reality was starting to sink in, so I took two more and had another one with a friend later in the evening. There was also a box of cookies lying by someone else's desk. I was tempted to ask him if I could have a cookie, but I managed to retain an ounce of my self-respect and restraint and walked by as if they never existed. So now I fully expect to be tormented by dreams of being chased around by giant chocolate chip cookies tonight.

But tomorrow, I promise, we'll be talking about this:



and this:



Until then, may you have more chocolate than I got to have today!