medousa’s Neighborhood

I tried to make martabak telur (Indonesian eggroll) the way my mom makes them. Something must have gone wrong in the folding because now they look like lumpia! It was good anyway, although it was rather naked (no acar to go with it) and we ate the entire batch in one go since the misfolding makes them bite-sized.

Every other Swiss person I'd interacted with, always referred to the Museum für Gestaltung as "museum of applied art" when asking whether I'd visited it. It's an interesting expression, hinting at the Swiss design philosophy; I know people who define design as applied art and vice versa, people would argue against it. 

I'd hoped to be able to visit the Spielzug Museum on Englischviertelstrasse to see their collection of 18th- to 20th century toys but unfortunately they are only open on the first Sunday of the month (from 11.00-16.00). I ended up walking around the area, to the Altstadt-Niederdorf-Neumarkt district. It was an overcast day, and colder than Milan, but walking uphill and occasionally cozying up with a cup of coffee in small cafes kept me warm throughout the day.

Wow, how dead is this blog? I've been terrible... There is just so much going on and there's so much to write about but the words don't come out.

Knitwit

Yeah so I spend a lot of time commuting between Milan and Turin for work, around 3-4 hours a day. I thought that if I learned to knit, I could make a scarf for everyone I know.

I found a great video podcast on knitting, and taught myself. Now I am addicted.

I'm now on my eighth scarf, I've given three away, the ones at home have been reserved for friends, and this week Sara invited us to come round to her place to have a knitting-and-homemade-hummus aperitivo. The idea was to hang out and catch up after the summer holidays, and teach each other some knitting. But all we did was eat (omg, Sara makes heavenly hummus) and talk. It's all good.

P.S. Now if I can just learn Italian from podcasts the way I learned knitting, I could just make out the instructions of my paperwork. *sigh*

Cards

August being national holiday month in Italy, and many people I know buggering off on holiday somewhere, I experienced a sort of loneliness, with the amount of little green dots on my Skype window reduced to nearly no green dots at all. Milan actually becomes quite livable in August; quiet, deserted, with only the most important services open. The studio where I work closed down and everyone left. Not us, though, since we're doing a big trip at the end of the year, so we spent our time swimming in the lakes on weekends, knitting, tinkering, working, writing letters to friends. Life does slow down when the crowds are not there.

I got all these lovely letterpressed cards from Etsy. I thought I'd write more letters by hand. Although some of the cards are so pretty that I want to be selfish and not share them and keep them framed in the studio. I ended up writing random short stories on the cards, to friends. I even did a one-word blog entry on the back of one!

Do you own all the albums of any particular musical artist or group? Who?
Submitted by dutterman.

Oh, many... Off the top of my head: Pixies. Morcheeba. Air (the French one). Groove Armada. Kruder & Dorfmeister. Kid Loco. Kid Koala. Money Mark. Nouvelle Vague.

What set you apart from the rest of the kids at school? 
Submitted by jks.

My accents: when I transferred after 4 years of living in Genéve, Switzerland, I spoke with a French accent. Imagine speaking Indonesian with a French accent; my teacher even called my mother to ask if I'd been diagnosed with a speech impediment because, "She sounds awfully nasal." Then it was London after 4 years of living in the US, and my British friends would ask me, "Ooohhh, please can you say that again, it sounds great when you say it...."

My travels: it's not just how I've been brought up but it's the travel addiction. My oldest, nearest and dearest friends have similar backgrounds to me, so to them, it's not a big deal, but to the general population at school, college and, to a lesser extent, at work, I think they found it exotic that at every holiday break, I would jet off somewhere like Portugal or Indonesia, wherever my parents were at the time.

My parents were supportive of our travels, too... During highschool, they didn't think it was a big deal if I just hopped on a plane to New York for a week or to Paris or Amsterdam for the weekend.

What is the most creative gift you have ever given or received? 
Submitted by Nacwolin.

My first Christmas in the Netherlands, I found a couple of wonderful toy shops, the ones that sell beautiful handmade wooden toys, as well as small visual-illusion toys like zoetropes, flipbooks, etc. I bought a small toy for each of my colleagues in the department (something like 25 people at the time).

I hid each toy on a colleague's desk, and made a huge Christmas tree on the bulletin board using pushpins (well over 200 of them), with small paper instructions for each colleague on how to find their gifts: they were hidden at another colleague's desk to start a social conversation.

It was really cool to watch all my colleagues come into work, stare with wonder (or puzzlement) at the pushpin Christmas tree and then at the smiles creeping up their faces when they read the note and finding out they have a present somewhere in the studio.

For about 15-20 minutes, people were running around the studio looking for their gifts and then having fun playing with their toys. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards, many of them kept their toys on their desks as a reminder of that Christmas season.

I've left that studio now, but I hope the toys would be a cool reminder of our times together.