Thursday, May 30, 2013

Whiteboard


So, I got back to university for graduate school. And it's cool how everything feels totally different from the boring bachelor's degree. After discussing lots of physics with colleagues and my supervisor, I realized that whiteboards are exactly where the magic happens. That's why I got obsessed with getting a nice whiteboard for home.

I looked at many options, I was about to spend $60 in whiteboard from Staples, but since we were in front of IKEA, we got in there to see what do we find. They sell an actual whiteboard which looks nice (even though I would need like 2 of those to fit in some formulas).


However, we bumped into a 70 x 100 cm aluminium picture frame for $15 that is just perfect. You simply draw on the glass, and, even after many days, it's extremely easy to erase.


I use it a lot, and I actually own a bunch of different markers for the sake of good science!




Sunday, May 26, 2013

Radio 557

Some months ago I lost my backpack in the Skytrain with my laptop inside and someone took it. It was a terrible thing. The "find my mac" app from Apple was supposed to block the computer but it did absolutely nothing. Thanks to Chrome, I could see from another device all the things that this person googled trying to wipe everything out of the laptop until he finally did so. Also, Gabi did a great detective work on Craigslist and we were 99.9% certain that we found the laptop, but we couldn't contact the guy.

Anyways, I'm telling this because today I remembered that between lots of pictures that now are lost forever, there were the radio podcasts that I did with my friends from Barcelona three years ago. I am actually really proud that we got to broadcast 42 programs, and today, searching in my old emails I could get some of the cover pictures of the show, which brought me lots of good memories. The covers were made late at night by Oriol Roca while Albert and I were uploading the thing.










Saturday, May 25, 2013

Grillin'

We're on patio madness mode around here. It's definitely not summer yet, but it feels nice to be able to sit outside just because.
And then I saw this post on Buzzfeed (talk about procrastination!) about vegetarian grilling recipes... Combined with a portable barbecue sale on Canadian Tire and our new balcony, I guess I figured out what could be the next home upgrade. Pau is not THAT on board with my idea, but I would love to grill pizzas and sandwiches and vegetables and try to have an actual barbecue at least once with all the fake meat we can find here in Vancouver.
Off course the 10 dollar grill from Canadian Tire is not nearly as pretty as this Cast Iron Grill


Or as portable as this flat fold grill (I can only find the uglier black version for sale)



But I just wanna grill an asparagus and Gardein chicken lunch like this one!


and grill away like Bob Dylan!

Monday, May 20, 2013

Kettle update

We have finally substituted our old kettle that was dripping a lot to this new one about a month ago


A week after we got it, we went for a walk in Chinatown and found these other two kettles that we absolutely love for half the price of ours, but there's nothing we can do about it now... Next time we need any kind of cookware, Chinatown will be our first stop, for sure.


My favourite is the one on the left and Pau's favourite the one on the right. I would be happy with either one of them, but I can't complain, I'm quite happy with ours too.

We didn't buy the kettles, but we did get this enamel mixing/ serving/ peeing bowl and the most amazing papier-mâché head traditionally used during the Chinese new year's celebration that now sits in our bookcase.






I'll try go back there this summer for the new Chinatown night market, to buy our lantern string lights and to take pictures of the pretty pots and pans that we weren't allowed to photograph this time.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Balcony

We have finally fixed our kind-of-a-balcony. Pau says it's a "back porch".
It's a bit of space we have outside of our back door, by the stairs that lead to the back alley. Each of us neighbours have a piece of land like this that sometimes get invaded by people coming up or down and ours has never been anything.
We had a nasty small couch that the previous tenant left behind resting there that got substituted by our own old couch after we got a new one for the living room. After we finally sold the couch we were left with an open storage space. There was my bike, Pau's bike and two abandoned bikes we found on the streets. We sold them one by one and in the end there was only my bike and garbage left over from our kitchen renovation. Once there were also some embarrassing bags filled with kitchen garbage that we forgot to take down and got attacked by racoons (up in the third floor!).

We have been dreaming about this for a while and with summer starting to show its face, we decided it was time to take action. We took the old countertop and other junk to the dump, tied the bike standing up, cleaned the infinite amount of black dust and spider webs that we've been gathering for all these years and off to IKEA.


We managed to fit everything (perhaps illegally) in the smart car from Car2go and drove home through a storm. When we got home the storm had already stopped so we did some easy IKEA carpentry work transforming our nasty old space into a great summer spot! It got so great that we're working from here right now, even if it's still a bit nippy out.


The next step is to get some string lights for the night time. We already bought a huge pack of tea candles on this trip to IKEA, but string lights look so nice and cozy and pretty...
I've been researching on which on to get. I really love the look of the globe lights at night, but Pau has a point, they don't look so good during the day.


We're leaning towards the japanese lanterns made with nylon instead of paper so they can stand the Vancouver drizzle and look good in the day and night time.


But I've seen so many other fun novelty or more expensive string lights online...
I like the mini street lanterns or the "cafe" lights with a metallic dish on top from here. And I like all of the caged string lights a lot as well.



Bamboo lights for a tiki look, or straight tiki lights.


From the fun novelties ones that I'm sure we won't get, there are thousands of great ones (including some penis lights)

But I would have the greatest fun with these grape ones, just to reenact this video over and over:

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Flowers

How nice is it to revive a pretty almost dead bouquet found on the streets?


Dansk Kobenstyle

Browsing on Etsy just because, I came across this enamel dutch oven that I really really liked and decided to investigate.


It's made by Dansk, an american company, and the Kobenstyle line was created by an Danish designer in the 50's. Recently Dansk reissued the whole cookware line with some extra items, and I want to collect them all, vintage or new.
Searching for "Dansk" on Etsy it's possible to find many many options.
They have these beautiful handles on the lids that double as a trivet and make it easy to stack the pots for storing or displaying.



I'm in love with them all. The wood handle on the frying or sauce pans are wonderful and so are the shape of the big paellas and ovenware.






Saturday, May 04, 2013

Québec

Pau went to a Genetics conference close to Montreal and I tagged along for a short vacation. We spent four days at the hotel in an amazing room with views to a frozen lake. It was great, although Pau had to work most of the time. He presented a poster and a short talk and I couldn't be more proud.





After the conference we spent the rest of the week in Montreal, getting to know a tiny little bit of the city. Right in the first hours a couple passed by us on monocycles. We were definitely in the city of Cirque du Soleil and Just for Laughs. Not really our kind of entertainment...
We rented a beautiful loft on AirBnb. Beautiful on the inside, that is. The building itself was really squatty and noisy, but it was fun and a lot more private and cheaper than a hotel. I was prepared for all the cold weather I expected from april in Quebec, but luckily it was sunny and warm every single day we were there.





I don't want to say we were disappointed with the city because we did see some really nice places (like old montreal, one nice neighbourhood with lots of cafes and bookshops and this art instalation with musical swings), but I admit I was expecting a lot more. French really is the first (and pretty much the only) language there, which is awesome but made me feel a bit weird at times, having to explain I don't speak french everywhere. It was one of my first trips, and definitely the longest, to a place where I don't speak the language at all.
I'm probably spoiled by the way things are in Vancouver, because I felt the city to be a little bit decadent and dirty. There were abandoned buildings right downtown and a lot of potholes on the streets and sidewalks. It was also weird to see a lot of strip tease and sex- related shops everywhere. The shop's windows were also dark, dirty and decadent... I wish we taken more pictures to illustrate it all. We're still not very good in the picture taking department.



As for the culinary adventures, there was not much on the conference phase since we were stranded on the hotel eating buffet food, but in Montreal we tried Shabu Shabu, which is a sort of Japanese fondue, that has nothing fondue-y or tasty about it, unfortunately, because the idea seemed really fun. It's a pot of vegetable stock placed on top of an electric stove to which you add tofu and vegetables to cook, dip them on different sauces and much, while sipping on the vegetable infused stock. It all ended up tasting next to nothing with very strong hints of a foul algae. Definitely a one time thing.
While in Chinatown we bought some fake meats made with shiitake mushroom to cook at home that were really tasty. On our last day we had veggie burgers and poutine at a very very cute place on Mile End, that nice neighbourhood, finishing up with a sugar and lemon crepe and coffee for desert.




...

This is Pau taking over. It was a very lucky coincidence the that the first time we're in Quebec my best friend's band from Barcelona is playing there. We got to spend almost 24 hours together which fuelled me up with social happiness enough to survive until we next time visit Barcelona. Plus we went to an awesome punk show with Crazy Spirit, Glam and Una Bèstia Incontrolable. Pretty preeeetty cool altogether.



Just an ordinary French-Canadian punk car, I guess.


Glam.


Crazy Spirit.


Punk house breakfast.

Last but not least, we bought a totally awesome vegan shitake mushroom lamb in a Chinatown supermarket and we cooked the best of meals. Too bad that we didn't take any pictures of neither the frozen package nor the final outcome.