crazy revolution

it is time for the crazy revolution. why. because life is to short to sit and watch the days go by. its to short to worry about the things that happened yesterday. and it is far to exciting to get a clouded view of the fun that awaits. i am taking the happy road. life will get more crazy. i am throwing out the rule book of the average conformer and the rigid mindset of modern society. viva la revolution. viva le chef.

new look

the decision has been made to change our look. let us know what you think. you have to move with the changes. as they say. enjoy.

to my readers

hello and greetings to all the blog readers. here is a short run down of what is happening. montpellier is turning out to be the best time of my life. dispite being robbed life goes on at its normal pace. classes have gained momentum and it is a lot of fun. the structure of the classes are modular so we get written assignments and small exams every two weeks. sometimes we have presentations to do in between. we have had teachers and professors from around the world. german. french. brazilian. all experts in their field. with every course we do tastings. a lot of tastings. it is good and the learning curve is steap. but i am loving it. i have discovered that it is compulsory to do six months of the eighteen months of formal classes in another country. so it seems as if i will be spending next year this time in italy. either torino or milano. but time will tell seeing that there are other options too. apart from the academics. our class of ten has become a real unit. it is great fun to hang out with them and as we plan our holidays and trips around the wine areas of france and europe i can only see the next couple of months turning out to be the best years of my life. so keep reading. keep writing your comments. this is where it happens. salut. chef

tribute to swaer-ie

i have to mention my brother-in-law and the role he played in securring our saftey while everything was happening in barcelona. what should have been his weekend off and just relaxing turned out to be more work and more frustration for him. at least we got to cheers and sing while winning the world cup. so heres to the man of the hour. louis. a real captain. salut.

as it happened

i am staring out of the window. the train makes its way through the rough edges of the pyranees mountains. the catalonian coastline lies streched out to my right and i stare as the sun goes down over the mediteranian sea. i shake my head as the memories of the weekend stays in the front of my mind. i just does not want to let me go. what a weekend it has been. no words seem to fit the discription to word the feelings and emotions of the happenings that took place in the last fourty eight hours. where can i begin. what should have been a weekend of great excitement and celebration started out as a real nightmare. after not being able to find the place we booked to stay for the weekend we found ourselves driving circles through the streets of barcelona. all of a sudden two guys on a scooter pulls up next to the car and the one on the back signals that our rear tyre is flat. we pull over to changed the tyre. the same guy stops next to us saying that there is a mechanic just down the street if we need any help. we tell him no thanks and that we will be ok. he drives off and as we turn around the bags have been stolen from the car. it was not even five seconds. gone. laptop. cellphones. passports. even the infamous ipod. the one that survived the ordeal in the washing machine and the tumble dryer. the shock and the horror of those few moments after you realise what just went down is unbearable to think about. do you run. do you seacrh. do you call. who do you call. it is such a feeling of helplessness. clothes and things can be replaced. but it is the little things that you cherish that is not replaceable. so we got in the car and found our place. my brother in law was waiting for us at the appartment. we went to the agency to see if they can help us finding numbers to stop all the credit cards and rest. my problem was off course that most of my things were in french and it being a friday night every call i made was answered by fast speaking french people that i could not understand. utter helplessness. but eventually we managed to stop all. the drama was followed by not being able to find my sister that arrived on a later flight form london. she got on the wrong train and got off at the wrong station. we drove between mignight and two oclock in the morning from station to station in barcelona to find her. we eventually did. how i still dont know. it was the most remote place i have seen in my life. with the robbery of the afternoon still in my head. i was terrified for her safety. but all is well that ends well. the rest of the weekend had a bit of a cloud over it seeing that all the plans we had had to be re arranged so that the mess could be resolved. my parents had to reroute via madrid to get a temporary passport for my mother. so we had to get train tickets and change airplane tickets so that everybody could make it to their destination as palnned. so saturday was a bit of a waste and we got to know the station and police office of barcelona very well. a piece of advise. if you ever travel to barcelona. travel light. take the minimum. while we were in the police station there must have bee another thirty or fourty people that also got robbed in the last day. in hotels. in restaurants. in stations and airports. crazy. no wonder the officer behind the desk did not show much emotion when we arrived there early saturday morning trying to explain our situation. he just handed us a stack of forms and pointed towards a corner. next. but at least the mood of saturday started to change as we prepared for the rugby. world cup final. sa vs eng. believe it or not but we ended up watching the game in an english pub. my fault off course seeing that i thought it was irish. oops. we had good seats but realised our situation when the english army arrived. goodness me. what a sight. but after proudly singing out national anthem and being applauded by our rivals the game kicked off. well. the rest is history and now we have brag rights for the next four years! we celebrated our victory together with my moms birthday. the real reason for being in barcelona in the first place. well. i dont think the tapas bar will ever be the same again. with all the troubles forgotten we sang and laughted until late into the night. yes. the cava was good. happy birthday mom. our stay in barcelona ended with strolling around on sunday morning. we got our things and said our goodbyes. a weekend of mixed fellings and emotions. will barcelona see us again. i guess so. why not. one should not allow a bad experience to cloud your opinion of one of the most famous cities in the world. so as the train carved its way through the pyranees and up the cost to montpellier i had a good time to reflect and plan. where do i start. so much admin that awaits. but thats life i guess. all part of the learning curve. i guess the most important thing i learnt was that everything in life can be replaced. everything apart form human life. and looking back i guess that is the thing we cant thank our lucky stars. nobody got hurt. as the train pulled into gare st roch i breathed a sigh of relief. home. a warm feeling settled inside of me. jp and nuno was there when i arrived. they just laughed and shook their heads in disbelief as i told them the story while we drove back to the flat. another story for another day. what a life.

sound advise

heres to all of you that posses an ipod. two things never to do. put your ipod in the washing machine. two. then trying to compensate and fix the first problem by putting it it the tumble dryer. see picture. equals fried ipod. bummer. super shocker. no tunes. i will just have to sing.

rural france

spent this weekend in the mountains and forests of rural france. was perfect. the beauty of the landscape was astonishing. on friday i took the train to a small town in the counrty where my parents picked me up. was good to see them again. they are still traveling through europe. having the time of their lives. as they should. i can not think of two people who deserves it more. so we drove the thirty five kilometers to the stone cabin in about an hour. no easy drive this was. dad handled the left hand drive pretty well around the small lanes. what a legend he is. mom the back seat driver of note and watching them navigate themselves was a cry. on arrival the ambiance of the surroundings just swallowed me. it was breathtaking. perfect place to relax for the weekend. away from the city and the rat race. we had dinner with the other people. european friends of the family. a real little home coming n france it felt like. saturday morning we got up early. the planning was to drive through the gorge de tarn. this was only a fifty seven kilometer drive in the mountians but took us almost three hours. spectacular. the peace and tranquillity was too much to capture in words or even on film. we stopped often to absorb as much as we could. still did not manage to take it all in. the small ravine that followed all along the gorge had the perfect water for fly fishing and canoeing. the afternoon we went to see how the world famous roquefort cheeses are made. they took us fifty meters into the mountain into caves where these cheeses are made and matured. incredible. the presentation was magical. felt like having a cheese tasting in the kango caves. for those that dont know where that is. it is in south africa. that coming from someone that does not even like cheese. but now i like roquefort. yum yum. especially the real ones made from skaapmelk. back home we were all of a sudden surrounded by hunters and their dogs looking for wild boars. it was funny seeing that at that time i was sitting on the stoep reading the french version of asterix and obelix. the shots went off all around the cabin and dogs barking and bells clinging as what sounded like world war three was happening. the weekend was made perfect by the steak braai the evening followed by potjiekos that dad hammered together on sunday. it felt like home. it was good. it made me think of all the friends back home. a real home weekend it was. it made me realise how many great friends i have back home. with how many of them i would love to share these experiences. this weekend. the stone cabin. the ravine. the gorge. the hunters. the atmosphere. the peace. the joy of being out there.