International Meals (1/27-2/3/1983)

Thursday, January 27, 1983

I was ready to make myself spaghetti when Jong-Soon invited me to dinner. She had a chicken cooking in a pot with a spicy sauce. She also had rice and a Chinese cabbage salad soaked in spicy oil that had fermented itself. A delicious spicy meal.

Friday, January 28, 1983

I was boiling water for spaghetti again, when Christel W (former nurse who lived next to Jong-Soon) came in looking for Jong-Soon, who wasn’t around. Christel invited me to go for a walk, so I turned off the stove, and we left. Walking through the old town, we saw Jong-Soon approaching ahead. We stepped in the doorway of the Stadttheater/City Theater to hide, and popped out when Jong-Soon passed. Christel literally dragged Jong-Soon along with us on our walk. We went Seevorstadt and along the Schusspromenade to the lake. The lakeshore was lighted here and there, and looked both eerie and romantic. The lake had white caps and the full moon was fogged over in prismatic colors. We returned to the Personalhaus/staff residence and I cooked my spaghetti noodles as Jong-Soon prepared a sauce, sautéing onions and carrots, adding water from the noodles, mayonnaise, oil and vinegar, and paprika galore. An unusual spicy spaghetti sauce. We ate sitting on the floor in Jong-Soon’s room, watching her mini-TV (the screen being 2 inches square if even that!).

Saturday, January 29, 1983

A rainy day, so I stayed home to take notes from “The Agony and the Ecstasy” and an Italian guidebook. Marsha C arrived about 18:30 from her vacation in Arosa with Fr Dr Jo D. After dumping off her things, she went over to the hospital for x-rays of her hand. The x-rays were not definitive, but she may have broken her first metacarpal/thumb from a fall when skiing!

Tuesday, February 1, 1983

After work I went down to the Popularis travel agency in the old town and booked an Easter weekend tour to the Côte d'Azur. The flat price for transportation, full pension, and a couple side trips was 545 CHF/$273 per person with no possibility of half-price reduction with our half-price train passes. I next went to the train station to book a weekend trip to Paris for me and Marsha C, and Sibylle B as well. The standard package for a double was 145 CHF/$73 per person, the train fare itself was 135 CHF! First I asked if we could get a three person room; yes, with a 10% discount for the third person. Then whether we could use our half-price train passes for the Swiss portion of the trip. Surprisingly, yes! It came to about 128 CHF/$64 for each of us. I was asked for a down payment of 50 CHF/$25 per person. As I was not expecting to have to deal with money now, I only had 100 CHF with me. That was accepted. The receipt was in the form of a gift certificate which I would use to pay the final bill when I picked up the tickets. On my way home I picked up the skis and paid only the 140 CHF/$70; nothing extra for adjustments, etc. The boots were in the bindings, otherwise it didn’t look like they did any other work. The edges were sharp enough, but it seemed like the skis needed wax. I carried the rather heavy skis and boots home, and could not manage an umbrella when it started to rain, so got soaked.

Thursday, February 3, 1983

After work I walked home with Jan for the purpose of taking notes on Paris from their “Let’s Go Europe” travel guide. Kirby invited me to stay for dinner, so I explained I was helping Sibylle B make us a spaghetti dinner. But Kirby had made an extra special dinner and I was convinced to stay. We had tonkatsu/pork cutlets, chopped lettuce with dressing, sautéed zucchini, and slices of orange. And quark/farmers’ cheese for dessert. I was stuffed, and at 19:30 I ran back to the Personalhaus/staff residence where I thought I would be late to help Sibylle, and I had the key to Marsha C’s room where all the herbs and spices were kept. But as I rushed up the stairs, Sibylle was just arriving herself! She began making her spaghetti sauce; a tomato sauce with onion, garlic, carrots, and pineapple chunks, along with every imaginable spice! The secret may be the pineapple. When Marsha came home from her German class at 20:20, we cooked the noodles and I fixed the salad. Marsha made the salad dressing, and Sylvia W came up to join us to eat. I managed to get away with taking only a few strands of noodles and picked at it slowly. The sauce was really tasty. Sylvia made coffee. We were all too stuffed to have popcorn.