panini e birra

i know, i know... i'm already off my schedule for posting. but i've told myself it's because i wanted to give everyone i e-mailed about this site a chance to view the first posting at their leisure and decide whether or not it's amusing/interesting enough to read on a regular basis... or i could just be a procrastinator. ;P

this postcard is one i wrote to my family on st. patrick's day from milano, italy:

"..since arriving in italy i've discovered just how bad the french "panini" are, here they are sooo delicious. in france they are just warm. also had a can of beer from the sandwich stand on the side of the road. have decided i'm not doing enough casual european drinking. you can even get beer at McD's!"

it really was very amusing - there was a small hut that made sandwiches and some picnic tables right on the side of the road. luckily it was a sunny and somewhat warm day.

it was a quiet st. patrick's day in for me. the hostel had a kitchen available for guest use, so i cooked up a packet of instant risotto milanese accompanied by a bottle of white wine. from my personal journal:

could be the vino, but i'm v. excited about my upcoming travels. keep thinking of molto mario!

i have food on the brain at all times... a few days later i got it into my head that i could re-create a spinach and ricotta panino i had in milano by simply buying and mixing spinach and ricotta... i do not reccomend this.

next post will be posted next week (first week of may), i promise!

in the beginning

...there was spacekitty.net. but those days are gone. the impending due date for renewal of the spacekitty.net domain got me thinking. since my server account was once again unaccesible (it was free - through a friend of the family, someone i do not know) i decided to take matters into my own hands. and the solution i came up with was push button publishing - with my own, personal style. my intention for this site is two-fold:

1. to share a few post cards from my trip to france and italy (first one is below), and some excerpts from my personal journals on my experience living and working in japan
   
2. to have a way to communicate my thoughts and experiences when i hit the road again (it's bound to happen, my wanderlust is strong)

as for my current situation - i do have a job, yes a real, full-time, benefit giving, vacation time earning, US job. and as with all things there are pluses and minuses. but for now i'm looking forward to a steady paycheck, vision care, paying off my credit cards, and saving for that next, inevitable fall off the employment wagon. this postcard was written to my family, and now i'm sharing a bit of it with you, and hoping you are as amused by it as i was when i read it again. for those of you with more freetime than you know what to do with i've also put links (bottom right of the page) to my old blogs from france and italy in 2003 and from india in 2004

3 march 2003, monday ...in an attempt to be more frugal after my confusing expensive lunch i went to the grocery store and got 8 things totaling €8.80 - the wine being the most expensive at €1.97 and everything else being somewhat healthy. do i know how to grocery shop or what?! i can eat for two days on this stuff.

i do love to grocery shop... according to my personal journal i bought: wine, bread, cheese, butter, lettuce, juice, water, and soup (clearly i was so impressed with myself that i thought this worthy of note). that was pretty much my diet in a nutshell while i was traveling.

the best thing about sandwiches in france is that they put butter on them. i met a boy from california when i was in arles, in the south of france, and we got to talking about sandwiches. we both felt that buttering sandwiches was the most fab idea. he also had this idea for sandwich sandwiches.... where the filling of the sandwich was another sandwich. so if you ever see a sandwich sandwich somewhere - i know that guy!