Monday after the Oscars

I missed the Oscars last night because ABC doesn't stream video outside of the USA. Oh well. I read that Natalie Portman won best actress. I liked her role in Black Swan, but I didn't think that it was the best performance of an actress in 2010. Also, I saw The Kids Are Alright on one of my 9 trips to and from Puerto Rico in 2010. I thought the ending was unsatisfying. I would never have thought one of the actors from that movie would have been nominated for an Oscar! The movie was on par with The Jonseses, another one I caught flying over the Atlantic.

Glad Batman picked up his first. "I'm not wearing hockey pads!" 

One more week till Ambar Comes

Only one week till Ambar gets here. I've been working hard these last three weeks trying to get a lot of leg work done on my project before Ambar gets here. We'll want to go out and spend time together in the city in March and April.

It's official, we're going to Switzerland on March 12-15th. April we'll be in Milan, Italy for Easter. But I'll post something on that when the time comes.

I eat a lot of soup in the house. It costs about 70 cents to buy a can of beef soup. I pour that soup into a pot and add another can of water and add salt to dilute the taste of water. I add a bag of fresh carrots, celery, and two other vegetables that I don't know the name of.  I add some tomato sauce to the broth too. That makes a pot of soup that can be eaten every day over the weekend. We'll see how Ambar likes it. She'll probably have some smart twist to put to it, which is always welcomed.

I want a chili recipe. I want some chili before it warms up. You gotta eat chili when it's cold outside! And we got chilly days here in Hamburg. Email me some simple chili recipes!

Valentine's Day Overseas

My darling wife gave me the best present.

Superbowl Sunday

It's SuperBowlSunday! I'll try to find the game in a sports bar in Hamburg. I saw it last year. We are about seven hours ahead of US central time, so the game should start after midnight here. Fun. 

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LiMA office

LiMA provides the doctoral students with offices. I am posting pics of my office.

I got a 21 inch iMac with wireless keyboard and mouse.

 Where's Waldo?

 There he is!

 Eating a Turkish döner at my desk on a Sunday.

Here are the offices before the computers came in:

Down the stairwell from the 4th floor:

Out front during the snowstorm in January 2010:

Lüneburg, Germany

Ambar and I went to Lüneburg, Germany in October 2010. I had just started taking an intensive German class at the beginning of October and one of the requirements was to participate in a trip to a small town in Germany. It was great that it coincided with Ambar's visit in mid October.


Lüneburg is a small town located about 30 minutes outside of Hamburg. We enjoyed getting to see another part of Germany. It's so small that we were able to walk around the entire town in about 2 hours. It's nice to know that we can escape the big city if we want to.


We met my classmates in front of an electronics store called Saturn before boarding the train.

This is the typical look of a small German town, no?

We call this next one my European shot:

We had a delicious piece of pie and some coffee at a little cafe about halfway through our walk, and then a nice little snack just before we left the town.

Here is Ambar inside Michaeliskirche. St. Michael's Church started construction in 956. Johann Sebastian Bach was a choirboy at this church from 1700-1702. 

Ambar in front of the church:

 We did some 1 Euro shopping in a store that was on the main strip.

Europe in summer 2007

I backpacked through some of Western Europe in the summer of 2007. A paper that I was working on with my research group at the University of Puerto Rico in 2006 was accepted at the summer meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. The conference was held at the University of Amsterdam from 18 June to 21 June. I left San Juan on June 7th.  The first stop was Madrid. I stayed in Madrid for two days before traveling south to Sevilla. In Sevilla I found a nice bum to talk Spanish with.

 The Cathedral of Seville was impressive:

Next I made my way further south to Cádiz. I finally got to swim on the other side of the Atlantic. I stayed in Cádiz for a day and a night, and then I moved back north to go to Córdoba. Below are some pics from Córdoba.

After experiencing southern Spain for a weekend, I travelled north to return to Madrid.

I stayed in Madrid for another day and then moved on to San Sebastian, an eerie city on the north coast. I have one pic of San Sebastian. I took it as I was leaving in the morning.

I left San Sebastian to go to Barcelona for a couple of days. I hung out on Las Ramblas and saw Beastie Boys at the Sonar Festival 2007.

 Here is a video of some breakdancers on Las Ramblas.

Ambar and I are going to Barcelona as soon as we can. The flights from Hamburg are about 100 bucks roundtrip. How cool would it be to escape to Barcelona for the weekend!

I left Barcelona and traveled 8 hours to Paris. I stayed in Paris for a day, and then went on to Amsterdam for my conference. I don't have any pics of my team or me in Amsterdam! After staying in Amsterdam for four days, I went to meet up with an old friend in Belgium. I met him in Brussels and we went out for a night. The next day we drove to Antwerp and hung out at his father's house. I stayed in Antwerp for two days before moving back down to Paris.

After spending two lonely days in Paris, I boarded a train for a 12 hour ride over the Pyrenees. I spent the last two days in Madrid. I got to visit Museo de Prado and walk along Calle Atocha and Calle Sol one more time before flying back to San Juan. I spent three weeks in four countries. A nice adventure for a 25-year-old.

blogging

I have lots of memories to blog about. I want to post my honeymoon pics from summer 2010, my trip to Luneburg, Germany back in October, and video from Spain and Amsterdam from 2007.

For now I will show you what my darling wife does when I start blogging.

Isla Verde Wedding 2010

Many exciting things happened to me in 2010. I just started this blog, so I will have to refer back to some of those events to get readers up to speed.

For one thing, I got married in Puerto Rico in July.

The ceremony was bilingual. My mother-in-law Alida did the parts in English and the pastor of the church did the parts in Spanish. It couldn't have gone smoother. Ambar said her vows in both English and Spanish, and I did mine in English (with a little song in Spanish at the end). 

After the ceremony, we drove to the reception hall in Isla Verde. It was called Casa Cuba and it overlooked the beach. We had some of our pictures taken there at sunset. After that, we ate and danced and laughed and took pictures for about 4 hours. Around 11, Ambar and I headed to the Ritz Carlton for a couple of nights and then flew to Greece for our honeymoon. I will post some more of those pics later. 

I was thankful that some of my relatives from Owensboro, Kentucky got to fly down to the Caribbean to celebrate with us. My sister and brother-in-law came from Salt Lake City and brought with them my niece Gracie and nephew Sean. Little Isabel was there too in my sister's belly! 

Three of my friends also came from Dallas, Chicago, and New York City. My brother was my best man.

I'm blessed to have Ambar. I'm the luckiest linguist in the world. 

Hare today gnome tomorrow

My days are my nights and my nights are my days. I think that I have Ambar's jetlag and, to top it off, we're both getting over colds. Hopefully we'll be alright for our last week together in Hamburg.

We're jet-setting newlyweds. Together we've been to Athens, the Greek Islands, Ephesus, Paris, Lunenberg, Dallas, Santa Fe, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Madisonville, Owensboro, Trujillo Alto, Fajardo, and more. Right now we live between San Juan and Hamburg. Below are some pics from our honeymoon and our first Christmas together.

Patmos

Santorini

Mykonos

Hamburg, 24/12/2010

Paris, 25/12/2010

We're going to Italy in April and possibly southern Germany and on to Switzerland in March. We're excited to eat great food in Switzerland. Although I doubt that it can equal the breakfasts that Ambar has been making us when we wake up every morning (afternoon really) for the past two weeks. She's an incredible cook. I'm going to miss that when she leaves. Back to pieces of bread and a glass of tea in the mornings I guess.