Weekend in Gdynia

This weekend was with my parents in Gdynia. On Fri evening we went out for sushi for dinner. Yum!! Then we got some good wines and had a glass at home. Saturday was my health-treatment day: massage which I need to heal my slipped disc. Then we went to my cousin and together with her and her little boy we went out for a dinner. Nice place with some typical Kashubian dishes. Although my pierogi with wild svine meet were a bit too big and heavy ;)
It was a very nice evening.
Today we had a walk in the forest. My parents live 50m from a forest and right now there is like almost 1m of snow all over. Amazing!!! And I though we had snow in HH... this is nothing! The walk was good! It would be great to go cross country skiing although now the snow is a bit too hard and icy...
Then lunch and off to the airport.
1hr delay but it was bearable. The flight lasts 50 min, then the bus from the airport to HH almost 1,5hr..Hmmm..
Tomorrow Monday and the new week. Good it is a short one. Thu evening - Göteborg!

Catalan fish dish

Finally we made it!! Guillem was always so proud of this special dish and we decided to make it on Saturday. Alex arrived on Fri evening. Saturdays started with doing groceries for dinner. We started cooking around 15.00. Guillem came home with 2 kg of mussels, 2 kg of different fish. Monica brought I think 2 kg of shrimps and even more fish. MY GOD! The whole kitchen was like a fish market ;)
We had to support the chef so some white wines got opened, incl. Hungarian dry Tokaj which was sooooo good. Handan got the job to fry the fish. I got a task to clean a squid (oh yeah I forgot - there was also this big squid). It was a tough job to clean it but I made it!!! :) Below turning the squid inside out - like a sock ;-)



Kazuhiro joined as well (with mums chocolate from Spain). Dennis and Aga missed the whole cooking session but they joined for dinner.

We had to make some breaks during cooking (especially when onion with tomatoes sauce steamed for ca 2 hrs!!!). During breaks we ate mussels in tomatoe sauce which Monica made, I ate half of the squid, we had some good bread. Everything yummi!!!



Fish:


Crowd in the little kitchen:


Seafood after frying:


Handan in action:


When the main dishes were done, Handan made Monica's cake. Soooo good. Together with dark chocolate it was great.
We had also a good speed of wine drinking. I can count 9 empty bottles of wine and one half opened. Hmmm... that explains headache of some of us on Sunday ;-)

Mums cake!


Dinner was great; from time to time filled with some Bregovic or gypsy music ;-)

Sunday was nice and sunny and we went to celebrate our Swedish friends' daughter birthday. A different kind of party with many kids around ;-)
So it was a nice Valentine's day.
My apartment still smells some fish. I hope I cleaned everything and there are no leftovers anywhere...

Budapest (2)

Time passes by fast...when you check out the blog ;-) So I need to make update about 2 weekends. In the beginning of Feb I was again in Budapest. I was hoping for a better weather than last time but nope sorry - even more snow. But it wasn't so cold this time. On Saturday we went to a big park close to People's square (I think this is the right name...). There is a castle in the park and also some kind of "fair" - many stands with people selling everything! And there were many people over there. Despite the crappy weather.













On Saturday evening we were invited to Alex's colleague's place for dinner. It's a pair actually from Hamburg who work now in Budapest. We had a nice dinner with some good white wine.
Sunday was lazy but we went for a walk to the castle again. But this time saw more of the whole area.
I'm actually looking forward to seeing this city in spring. I guess I'm "done" with winter ;-)

Winter winter.... #4??

The most common topic of conversations nowadays: WINTER.
This year I think winter will finish in April. Anybody taking bets?
And I'm sooooo tired of it! Don't get me wrong - I love snow but in the mountains. While skiing. Not in a big city, snowing, melting, snowing, freezing, ice skating on sidewalks and streets, breaking legs, bike, sliding car, "blask" etc etc.
Anyway, on Sunday Handan, Hamid and I were brave and walked to Alster (in half melting, half freezing conditions). The weather was bad but it was good to get some fresh air.
Alster - man-made lake - pride of all Hamburgers - was totally frozen so there were thousands people walking around.





After the walk, we had fika somewhere nearby and then had to walk back... I was exhausted when I got home in the evening ;-)

Anyway, the coming week - again trip to Budapest. Hope landing and leaving will go smoother than last time. Meaning - no fog or snow storms. Pleeeeeaaaase!!!