Viggostuckenbergsvej

Ahhhhh....*rubs tummy*

Cabonara was goooooooood.

Aga invited our IntroWeek group to her house at 29 Viggostuckenbergsvej (I just had to put this down cos it sounded very much like some guy stuck in a burger) for dinner last night. Before I reached her place I was under the assumption it was going to be a Polish dinner and all, but the pasta preparation in the kitchen hinted otherwise. In fact, it was going to be an Italian sort of dinner (as you might have guessed from the cabonara that was mentioned before), with Alvise wearing his chef's apron, and taking care of his pasta and bacon concurrently.

Well, I now have some idea of how cabonara is made just by watching (hurray!), along with one new thing I've learnt about cooking pasta, a secret ingredient which adds flavour to the final dish (although one can't really taste it). Sorry peeps, can't give it away until I've cooked you all one pasta dish, so try and remind me.

Dinner started proper only after 8, when both the pasta and sangria were ready. Interestingly, we had no beer for the night, instead, wine, and sangria were abundant. What I really like about such dinners are really the fact that everyone has something to share about his language, culture, country, etc, and everyone started exchanging words of how to say this and that in their native language. I can't remember who was saying this, but it almosts sounds true enough that "Danish is like speaking German with a potato in your mouth" where Joel said "Danish is like speaking English backwards". But the best part was Mikolaj (from Poland) teaching us how easy it is to speak in Danish - sticking one finger in your mouth and pulling one side of your cheek, half-closing your mouth while you pronounce your words! We tried it for the word "Lyngby" where DTU is, and it actually works! Hilarious!

I don't know what got into us, but half the table of 15 was obsessed with the word "screwdriver", "ladle", and so on, in various languages like Polish, Italian, Danish, German, and I just couldn't remember what it was in Chinese... *slaps himself*. Here's only as much as the sangria and wine allowed me to remember:

Electric Screwdriver
Polish: Veerrrr-takka (with an emphasis on rolling your letter "r")
Danish: Bor-mo-skee

Ladle
Italian: Mess-te-row
Danish: Soo-per-skue (you have to say it reeeeeel fast)

It was difficult to pronounce some of their words and I couldn't even remember half of them, much less this Polish tongue twister they tried teaching the rest. I specially got a video of that so I would have somewhat of an impression when I return. IMPRESSIVE if I might say. I love table conversations, especially when Aga and Chiara's Apple and Chocolate cakes were the centre of attraction after the main course was over. Joel, Alvise and some of us were eyeing the "last" slice of apple pie and debating how to split them, steal them without others knowing etc, when Aga emerged from the kitchen with more of it! I had at least 3 slices of each, before we started taunting each other to eat some more, contrary to what we initially started doing.

Towards the end, when it was past midnight, most of my Intro group people had to leave to catch their last bus home, while my Chinese writings on their poster attracted a lot of attention. Basically, everyone who visited their house was to write some well-wishes and messages to indicate their "I've-been-here, and thank-you"-messages in whatever language before they left, and I, the not-so-good-in-Chinese-Abel decided to give a shot writing some lines on the wall. The moment the first few characters emerged, the Italians and Polish (cos those were the ones remaining) began focusing their conversations around it. I must admit, it was nerve-wrecking for me speaking in Chinese, much worse in words. But I pulled it off, and they were convinced that Chinese was a whole lot more difficult than Danish considering our hanyu pinyin of 4 sounds per character.

I taught them why China was called Zhong Guo because they once believed they were in the centre of the world, and Italy was called "Yee-Da-Lee" because their horse-shoe-shaped country was "one big piece" (which I seemingly was so convincing in). They started asking me how one would text or type in Chinese using a phone or computer respectively, as they were under the impression that the keyboard would probably have a million strokes to combine before a character appeared on screen. Thankfully my trusty handphone came with the Chinese language settings so I could demonstrate how Chinese characters are chosen based on the English letters (hanyu pinyin) before one word appears.

It got more interesting when everyone tried drawing something out on a paper plate (cos there was no paper in sight) and asked if that mean anything in Chinese. Surprisingly, 75% of the time I could think of some character that looks remotely similar to their scribblings, and they too were impressed at how Chinese really is an art.

After the whole Chinese thing, and after ensuring they know English is our first language and Chinese, our second, we moved on to Singapore and its culture. Pavel (from Poland) remembered that Singapore has some death penalty in place for trafficking drugs and I re-confirmed his doubts. Monica (from Italy) and the others were stunned and simply couldn't fathom why that was equal in punishment to killing someone. And the chewing gum issue was only secondary. Heh. Oh yes, when I told them you could travel from east to west in 45minutes and north to south in 30minutes, with an area of 648 square kilometes in Singapore, they too were amazed. When I mentioned how Coke in Denmark is about 4 times that of beer while in Singapore it was the opposite, Pavel mentioned that the beer in Poland is 4 times less that in Denmark!

Reached back around 3am after a 15minute cycle from Aga's house, and got online with Iris in Phili, and talked till 5 when I concussed and awoke around noon today (It's 2 now). Too bad for us, she would be in London visiting her sis a week after we will be there. And it would be difficult to take leave to come Copenhagen anytime soon too. Let's hope Roland Garros (French Open) will bring us to Paris.

Fili invited me for his Italian dinner in our container tonight. Guess I'll miss the Singporean one and someone's first chocolate cake. I wonder when I'll get tired of pasta. Hmmm. Anyway here are the pics: http://ableabel.myphotoalbum.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album12 and you'll be glad to know www.myphotoalbum.com is now offering free video uploads! I've uploaded the Polish tongue twister by Aga and Pavel so you can see/hear what a real challenge is like. Bon Appetit!