The hotpot, McGyver, X, Y & Z

Fortunately, I don't stop doing interesting things, meeting interesting people, visiting interesting places and being busy enough not to have time to tell everything on the blog. The last few days I have had even more fun than usual. Everything is ok at home (I'll tell you later), and the job is ok as well (I'll give a miss to it, there are better things to tell). Two Sundays ago I was with Vanessa and Chao, the Chinese couple I was living with the first three months I spent in Oxford. I was really looking forward to meet them, specially because they will have a little baby girl by the end of December and I'm very happy for them. She will be my 'little Chinese niece'.

First we came to my new place so they could see it and they liked it a lot. It is important for me to have Vanessa's approval because she knows a lot about this. Then we went to their place and they invited me for dinner, obviously Chinese food. But the Chinese food, I tell you in case you don't know it, is totally different when it is cooked by a Chinese person in his/her house, it is not like the one in the restaurants of course. Vanessa put food enough to feed an army and all tasted very good. The funniest thing was actually the way we prepared and ate it, as it was some kind of 'fondue' but with Chinese origins called huoguo. There was a big table with the big pot in the middle surrounded by chopped food. The pot had the stock boiling with some ingredients already in it and we just had to put in pieces of food little by little in small baskets so they got cooked. Everything was so good and tasty! On top of that, as you were eating just bits, you didn't realise about how much you had eaten until you stopped one moment, touched your stomach and felt it was fed up, hahaha.

Trying such a traditional cooking was great fun. Vanessa and Chao explained me how to do it, what was best with what, how long things should stay in the stock (Vanessa for instance likes to leave the vegetables short time because she says that otherwise they lose their taste and vitamins, and she's right) and they also told me that it is usually eaten on especial occasions, so I felt very honoured with them preparing it for my visit. It is typical for example to eat it in the Chinese New Year.

Well, apart from the food, it was also good to chat with them, to listen what they have done lately, the plans they have... And telling them the same about me. In spite of living together 3 months, they were the first people I met in Oxford and they helped me with everything I needed. It is always nice meeting them again and keep in contact. Although it doesn't happen very often, we see that "we're still there". And I'm really really looking forward to meeting my 'little niece'!

What does all this have to do with McGyver? Nothing, of course. That's another story. Something silly which happened without planning it. The Monday after that I met Javier and Nico, two of my first and best friends here who I know from the company. We went to have some dinner and then we were watching a film which, exactly, was of McGyver. Some kind of merger of two episodes that they made at the end of the series. Something awful, since McGyver was supposed to be archaeologist (did anyone know it?) and we had some good laughter watching it, because as it usually happens in this cases, any similarity to a real situation is merely coincidental. It was good, I hope we do it more often.

And finally I want to tell you what I did last Saturday, something like 'Driving Miss Daisy' hahaha (I hope these Miss Daisies don't get angry for what I've just said). I went to Burford, a pretty village which I had already visited before, with other three people, who have specifically asked me not to mention their names, ages, genders or even fields of study, so I have decided to call them X, Y, Z -I'll use the masculine gender for the sake of the comfort, which doesn't necessarily mean that they're male. The reason to keep this secret is that they are ashamed of their sickly behaviour, hahaha. Yes, they're sick. Junkies up to losing their vision when they smell their dose of...

We hired a car and I drove them to buy books to a rather special library. The trip actually looked more like a Viking raid with thirst of plundering. Yet in the car the tragedy could be felt: "We are going to spend an obscene amount of money, like in Pretty Woman, hahaha". Once there, they moved among the shelves fast, checking books, making small heaps and gathering them to end making a huge heap. "Let's go to the other room which is not advertised in internet!". And there they went, flinging like if the books had to be saved from the Inquisition's bonfires.

After this, the moment to be realistic arrived and they had to choose only those absolutely necessary and the bargains, that is, 90% of the books from the huge heap. And then another filter more, and another and yet a new one... Until the amount was 'only' obscene. When making the calculation of the final price, X told Y: "Think that your heirs will sell them by weight..." It was a rather entertaining morning among so many books. I was really close to buying a tiny edition of The Metamorphoses by Ovid in Latin printed in 1650 (I had to read it in the university and I really liked it) which wasn't that expensive... £80. But at the moment I have other expenses and I thought it was crazy to afford the whim. After this activity, we had a well deserved meal and... yet Z decided to phone to ask them not to put the books he dismissed back in the shelves because he was regretting and he said he would go back after the lunch to get them!! As I tell you, sick... Gosh, and what a bad time I had having to leave that edition of The Metamorphoses bound in white covers, with the edge of the pages in golden colour after fingering it for 15 minutes... snif!

Oh well! I'll forget it tomorrow, Wednesday. I'm going to some awesome concerts to London! Besides, I'm going with a colleague from the company who is showing me plenty of bands and with Seóirse, a friend who is not living in Oxford anymore, I don't meet him since long ago and he likes music as much as I do (maybe more? naaah...)