My Journey…

Wanna know what alcoholic drink you are? Click here.

So do you knowif you are an alcoholic? Click here to find out for yourself.

I can’t believe the outcome for me is "the chances are that you are an alcoholic" Just because I sometimes drink alone, that does not make me an alcoholic right? =(

In England, my MIL told her brother innocently ‘Other than her cup of coffee in the morning, Yvonne drinks only water or alcohol’

Damn malu, sound like alcoholic really. She made that statement because at her brother’s house when asked what I wanted to drink, I asked for a glass of water, I am not a tea person like the English.

We have been keeping ourselves updated with Hurricane Dean. We are online on CNN, BBC, Hurricane Centre and watching the news on tv. As of today, it seems like Dean will not make it to Texas. YAY!

Dean will continue going West into Mexico but things could change. If Dean changes its course once it made landfall at the Yucatan Peninsula (instead of heading West into Mexico), it could go up North into Texas.

On Saturday the skies were dark and cloudy and on the roads you see signs reminding people to fill up their gas tanks as a hurricane is approaching.

Alot of people were at DIY hypermarkets getting planks, torches, batteries…etc to get their homes ready. At the grocery stores, alot of people are stocking up on water and non-perishables. We went to the store to get some beer on Saturday and it was packed!

For some selfish reasons, we were also constantly checking the news if Dean will hit the Dominican Republic. We don’t want our holiday spoilt obviously. Good thing we are going to the North of Dominican Republic and Dean just breezes through the South. Little damage in the South and the North was just getting alot of rain, so all is good now.

I think we will know for sure if Dean is heading my way come Wednesday.

Hurricane season is not fun. Some weeks are just too hot, last week most days were up to 39C and some weeks it will be pouring so hard many areas will be flooded. The Hurricane Centre saw Tropical Storm Erin brewing and predicted that it was to hit South of Texas at Corpus Christy but when Erin did come yesterday, she decided to skip Corpus but pay a visit to Galveston and Houston instead.

Yesterday many streets were under water. A few freeways were flooded and water is high in some neighbourhood. On the news you see car after car submerged in high water or freeways all backed up miles because it’s not passable. I always thought that my area is pretty safe since we are living in the city but 3 blocks away from where we live, the feeder roads were flooded with 3ft to 4 ft of water. The flooded streets were my normal route to my friend’s house.

Just when you think that it is over, Hurricane Dean is storming in the Carribean sea, heading towards Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and the US. It’s exact course is unknown just yet but apparently Galveston and Houston is in the projected hit area. Dean has just gone past Martinique and St Lucia and 1 death reported. We just have to wait until the weekend to have a better idea of Dean’s route and by Wednesday we will know if we will be hit.

That started me thinking about how prepared I was for a situation like that. The day before the heavy rain, I bought another 24-bottle pack of bottled water. The apartment has enough to drink, alcoholic or not. What about food? So yesterday I decided to go to the store to get some more food to stock up the fridge. It’s scary to see how many people in the store buying water and canned food. It feels like a state of emergency is coming and everyone is getting prepared for it.

When Adam got home last night, we discussed how prepared we were. I made a list of things I need to get so today I went out shopping so that we don’t have to fight the crowd when everyone starts buying stuff over the weekend. I bought 2 cans of propane fuel for our camping stove. That should be useful if the hurricane comes and cut off the electricity. We have alot of perishables in the fridge to feed us for at least a week so I bought more non-perishables today. We have so much food now I don’t know what to do with them if the hurricane does not come! Just kidding…

I think we are as prepared as we can be. So the question comes, will we choose to evacuate if the hurricane is coming towards Houston? Answer would be no. The streets are more dangerous that your home, especially when there are so many people trying to leave that the freeways are jammed, just like what happened 2 years ago when Rita was said to hit Houston.

I guess now we just have to check our hurricane survival guide again and be sure we have all we need should a hurricane come, wait and hope that Dean weakens when it makes landfall in Houston come next week. Oh well, my first hurricane experience, should be fun.

By the way, do you know what sells out quickly when a hurricane is approaching? Guns and ammunition. Yes, scary isn’t it?

I totally didn’t plan to start my Happy Hour at 2.30pm on a Monday. A friend just got back from a holiday and since she’s still on leave, she called me out for brunch. We went shopping after that for some groceries and we headed back to my apartment.

We didn’t intend to have a drinking session (really didn’t…). We thought since we are not working today, maybe we can have a little Rum & Coke. That leads to more Rum & Cokes and Vodka & Tonics until Adam came home around 7pm to join us.

At 7.30pm (after been drinking for 5 hours now) I prepared dinner. I was hoping not to screw anything up. The fish was delicious, mashed potatoes just right but the steam vegetables weren’t that safe.

I normally steam vegetables by putting all the vegetables in a metal colander and have that colander over a pot of boiling water. Somehow I don’t quite remember what happened, the water in the pot dried up and when I realised this smokey smell fuming up the kitchen, I quickly turn the flame off and the bottom of the pot is filled with black burnt out stuff.

Quitely I served the meal and amazingly over dinner, Adam and Sandra loved the vegetable with the smokey taste. Hmm… didn’t know the burnt smell got into the veg and gave it a smokey taste!

So what happens when you had too much to drink and then you prepare dinner for 3? It’s either you screw the meal up or the meal goes on well because everyone else is too drunk to notice the screw-up!

Obviously Sandra didn’t go home. By the time we went to bed past midnight, we had finished 1/2 bottle of dark Colombian rum, 3/4 bottle of vodka and 2 bottles of red wine.

I feel yukky this morning and I have an SSA meeting at 10am. Gotta go get ready for my meeting soon. Adam’s already at work, poor thing but Sandra is still asleep, lucky her.

That’s Adam’s favourite English dish. Eh? Apa tu katak? There are no toads, frogs or any other forms of amphibious lifeform in a traditional British Toad in a Hole dish.

Essentially, Toad in a Hole is sausage covered and baked in Yorkshire pudding. It’s a favorite pub food and also a classic dinner, usually served with roasted potatoes, vegetables and gravy.

Yorkshire pudding is an English savoury dish made from batter. The Yorkshire pudding recipe is not an actual pudding, but a baked pudding made from flour, milk, and eggs.

When my MIL came for a visit in Feb, I asked her to teach me this dish. After 5 attempts, I finally made an entire meal successfully. Success is determined by how well the pudding rise and that is determined by how hot the oil in the pan is when you pour the batter in but your batter has to be well beaten if not it will not rise even if the oil is hot enough. Simple dish yet difficult to master.

I have slightly changed the cooking methods to what my MIL taught me. Somehow my way suit me best and it works for me.

Recipe
4oz plain flour - sifted
1/2 pint milk
2 eggs
Pinch of salt

Measure flour and sift it into a mixing bowl.
Add a pinch of salt.
Create a well in the middle of the flour mixture and break in 2 eggs.
With wooden spoon, mix eggs with flour.
Add milk and mix well.
Beat the batter with a hand mixer for about 3 - 4 minutes.
Once done, let it stand for 20-30 minutes
Stir again before pouring the batter into the pan.

8 sausages

Cook the sausages in a pan and set aside.

Cooking instructions
Drizzle some olive oil into a square cake pan.
Put the cooked sausages into the pan and place it into a pre-heated 450F oven for 10 minutes
Remove the pan with the bubbling hot oil and pour in batter.
Let it bake for 30 minutes.

Adam likes his Toad in a Hole with steam vegetable, roast potatoes and gravy. For gravy my MIL suggested I get Bisto which is a brand of instant gravy powder she uses in England. Thankfully I can find it here and that saves me time from making real gravy.

I also made individual Toad in a Hole, the same method as above but just use a muffin tin rather than a sqaure tin. I like the looks of it.

If you like some British food, give this a try but please be reminded that

1) the batter has to be well beaten. Using a hand-mixer is the best way to do it.
2) the oil in the pan has to be very hot before you put the batter into the pan.
3) try not to open the oven door the first 15 minutes when it’s baking.

Good luck!

The first Monday in September is Labour Day, so we thought of going somewhere over that long weekend. Since we have not really been on a holiday this year (England and Malaysia doesn’t count) we thought we should do something.

Adam has been itching to do some windsurfing so that’s why Cabarete in the Dominican Republic came to mind. Cabarete is on of the best places in the world for windsurfing and kitesurfing.

The intial plan was to go for 4 days but since it will take us half a day to get there and another half a day back, we decided to go there for 8 nights.

I don’t know how to surf, windsurf and kitesurf so this would be a good place for me to learn. While Adam does his stuff, I’ll learn a new sport from the experts.

Cabarete is unique in the sense that it has alot of other things to do as well like hiking, horse riding, quad-riding, caving, dirt biking (which I won’t be doing), snorkelling…etc. Cabarete is also well-known for its rum (I want to go to the rum distiller) and merengue (which I want to learn)

I am really looking forward to this trip. This will be our first trip to the Carribean islands and with the variety of activities set out for us to pick from, I can’t imagine any day being a dull one. Oh, the night life there is said to be very good too!

We are almost all set now, I am just waiting for the return of my passport with the visa I need for DR.

A good day is a day you set out with friends to get a few (not so important) things done but end up not doing it because you were too busy gossiping over coffee first, then wine and before you know it, it’s time to go home.

On Friday, I was to meet Beatriz and Cristianei (my Brazillian friends who has just moved to Houston) in the afternoon, go the to library to get a library card (becauce the libraries here offer alot of goodies) and then grab some lunch before heading home around 5pm as that’s the time our husbands get home from work.

At 11 am I called Bea and asked her to prepare a pot of coffee because I am coming over with some freshly baked cinnamon buns from the bakery. YUM! We had a great time chatting and having a good laugh before Cris come over after her English class.

Although in our minds we have every intention to go to the library but we were just too into the topic of conversation we were having, you know what women talk about when they get together. Bea decided to cook us some lunch and when the wine came with lunch, we knew we were not going anywhere that afternoon.

It’s a great way to spend the day, especially when everyone else was at work. Great friends, good conversation, loads of laugh with some wine from noon. Cheers to Bea and Cris, lets do this again Monday.

I was online looking for information on getting a tourist visa to the Dominican Republic. As usual, I need a visa to almost everywhere and Adam can either go there without one or can get one on arrival.

Anyway, I came across the Dominican Republic Consulate in New York’s website and this tickles me.

All Nationals holding a United States Alien Resident card need visa to enter the Dominican Republi. Such visa will be issued the same day, except for Nationalt from CUBA, COLOMBIA, SAUDIT ARABIC, BRAHREIN, ARGELIA, MARRUECO, SOMALIA, SUDAN, TUNEZ, YEMEN, LIBIA, ARABIC EMIRATE, IRAN, IRAK, JORDANIA, KWAIT, LIBANO, OMAN, PALESTINA, QUATAR, SIRIA, TURQUIA, AFGANISTAN, HONG, KONG, CHINA, INDIA AND PAKISTAN. Wich will required a 5 to 7 bussines days period to process it, once submitting the requeriments. (Valid passport, proof o residence of the they live, air tickets and Hotel reservations).

It’s just funny how a consulate does not know the spelling of so many countries! I am not kidding, you can check it out on this website.

So far the process of getting a tourist visa is tougher than I thought. It’s not difficult getting one but the process of getting one is frustrating.

Firstly, there isn’t a Consulate in Houston so I have to pick the closest one which is in New Orleans. I would not want to go to New Orleans just to get a visa, so I tried calling them several times but no one answered the call. I left a message, sent them an email and the following day still nothing.

I then called the Consulate in New York to get some information but NY said they don’t accept mailed-in applications so they asked me to call Washington DC instead.

Called Washington and after 7 calls only was I connected to a machine. Yes, a machine! Asked to speak to an operator, was put through but no one answer the call so I left a message. Looked up their email address online, sent them an email and the email bounced back stating invalid email address. Hmm… very helpful, no?

So back I went calling the Consulate in New Orleans. After 3 hours of trying, I finally spoke to a person. This lady told me she will email me the instructions and application forms.

She did send me an email within 15 minutes, I was totally impressed with her efficiency but the forms she sent me were in Spanish. Again I called her back, which luckily I reached her at the first try, and asked her if she has any forms in English. Her answer is no and that I should get someone to translate or fill up that form for me.

Anyway, nevermind I thought. I can ask some friends for help, no problem. And how much does it cost me for a 90-day visa? $85! Yes! Bloody rip-off. It’s way too expensive but what to do if we want to go there? We have to pay right?

Will get the forms done tomorrow and hopefully can send them off the same day. Wait about a week and a half to get it back and off we go to Cabarete in September!