Food allergies while traveling

I have just come back from Japan. I have allergy to and intolerance of milk products. Mostly when I travel it is not a problem to communicate my issue in restaurants or hotels but there are places where English is not very common. 

What have I learnt during my trip in Japan is that our allergies don't have to limit our food experience during our holidays and for sure they should't limit our traveling destination choices. 

What I did and what totally worked for me in Japan is that I had dozen of small cards with written in English and Japanese that I am allergic to dairy products. Whenever I had a doubt if the dish I want is fried on butter or has milk in it and people wouldn't be very fluent in English I would just show them my card and point on a dish of my interest.

It worked perfectly. I kept them in my bag, wallet and most of my pockets so that they were always handy.

If you do not want to make such a cards yourself there are web pages where one can print them from, for example those I took to Japan are from justhungry.com.

In Japan there are places where you can easily communicate in English as from my experience very often English skills are quite basic and as it is just enough for simple practical touristic issues (like directions, shopping, etc.) I wouldn't recommend to rely on it when it comes to allergies. 

Such  cards will work in any country that English is not a first or a second language. 

I highly recommend to each time you travel print them and keep them handy. Maybe you won't need it but maybe it will save your mood each time you in a restaurant.

 Happy Holidays ;)

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Niedawno byłam w Japonii. Mam alergię na i nietolerancję produktów mlecznych. Przeważnie podczas podróży nie mam problemów by powiadomić w restauracji czy w hotelu  o moim problemie, ale są miejsca, w których angielski nie jest powszechny.

Podczas mojej podróży po Japonii przekonałam się że nasze alergie nie koniecznie muszą nas ograniczać.

Miałem kilkanaście małych karteczek z napisanym w języku angielskim i japońskim, że jestem uczulona na produkty mleczne. Ilekroć miałam wątpliwości, czy dane danie smażone było na maśle lub na mleku i ludzie nie byli za bardzo biegli w języku angielskim to pokazywałam im moją karteczkę i wskazywałam na danie.

To działało idealnie. Trzymałam karteczki w mojej torbie, portfelu i większość moich kieszeni, tak aby zawsze były pod ręką.

Istnieją strony internetowe, gdzie można je wydrukować na przykład moje które miałam w Japonii są z justhungry.com.

W Japonii są miejsca, gdzie język angielski wystarczy, ale nie wszędzie. Jeśli chodzi o alergie to lepiej być pewnym ze zostało się prawidłowo zrozumianym.

Wydaje mi się że takie karteczki będą działać w każdym kraju gdzie angielski nie jest pierwszym lub drugim językiem.


 Udanych Wakacji ;)

one day in traditional Japanese kimono

While traveling in Japan I have visited Kyoto. Kyoto is a fantastic city with infectious cultural vibe. People even from Japan go there to experience Japanese traditions. One way of letting oneself immerse completely in the culture is of course to wear traditional clothes, in this case it is of course a kimono.

I have rented kimono for a whole day and got a bit of makeup and hairstyle done to create a coherent look.
I wasn't alone. Kyoto is a city filled with people wearing kimonos. It was a great experience and brought me closer to people around me.
I am glad I did it.

Kimono is still worn to special occasions like weddings, birthdays, etc.

May wrap up

Travel

With my husband we went to visit my friend from high school near London, England. Since I have been not once in London before we haven't done much of sightseeing except of a trip to Stonehenge and Cambridge.

I went to Japan for my honeymoon and it was amazing! :) I visited Kamikochi mountains, full of culture Kyoto, and breathtaking Tokyo. I hope to write some more about Japan in separate posts.

Books

Firefight by Brandon Sanderson - fantastic sequel to Steelheart. A bit slower in pace than Steelheart but every page is worth reading because of final "battle". Sanderson is amazing writer and he created very rich universe. In Firefight he is expanding the universe, introducing a lot of new characters and the only sad part is that the next book Calamity is coming in a year time, and trust me when you get to the end of Firefight a year to wait for more will seem like eternity.

Your Fathers, where are they? and the Prophets, do they live forever? by Dave Eggers - I loved this book. It is a fast read, written only with dialogs.  It is about desperate man searching answers about his country (US) in a very extraordinary way. Very tense, well paced book.

Movies

I watched a lot of movies this month. It was my holiday month, and I had two 11h long flights during which at least for me it is pretty hard to sleep. All in all, I feel a bit excused ;)

Far from the madding crowd - I haven't expected much from this movie but I actually think it was good. Soundtrack is very nice and pictures are beautiful. Story is interesting and I am really looking forward to read the book one day to get to know the characters a bit more. I find man-woman interactions from nineteenth century very interesting. The story is settled in the British countryside and follows a "relationship" of Gabriel Oak a young shepherd with a loan and leased farm and Bathsheba Everdene a proud beauty who arrives to live with her aunt. Gabriel falls in love with Bathsheba but when he makes her an unadorned offer of marriage, she refuses. When next they meet, their circumstances have changed drastically. An inexperienced new sheepdog drove Gabriel's flock over a cliff, and after settling all his debts he emerged penniless. On the other hand, Bathsheba has recently inherited her uncle's estate and is now wealthy...

Ex machina - movie about survival and intelligence. Artificial Intelligence versus humans in a very basic set up of a house in a mountains. Very disturbing movie and that is why I loved it.

Still Alice - beautiful story about alzheimer's disease. How it is when you define yourself through your intelligence and richness of your language skills and suddenly your memory do not work and you cannot express yourself anymore. From being one of most bright people an independent woman Alice becomes sloppy, forgetful, dependent on others. This movie is very touching.

The signal - it is not too bad teenage movie. The idea is interesting and I guess it was shown as good as they could taking into account it is a low budget production. I liked the little mind games played in the movie. Anyway, movies about research mostly appeal to me.

Epic - family movie, I liked it. It is a sweet story about civilization of little people that move much faster than we do therefore we cannot see them.

Big Eyes - very interesting movie based on true story of a painter Margaret Keane. I liked it a lot.

Mad Max - crazy, violet but really cool. I haven't seen the old one with Mel Gibson so I have no comparison. But this one is very entertaining and I liked it a lot. As far as I know it is a trilogy so there is at least two more movies to come in this anti-utopian universe.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron - as always Avengers are very entertaining to watch. Movie is full of action, and the action movie type of sense of humor, that I personally really like.

Tomorrowland - very inspiring Walt Disney movie. I loved it! The better world demands smart people that do not give up and want to make a difference. I thought it was uplifting but I guess one can also feel depressed afterwards. In the end, it is a movie about utopia.

April wrap up

Book

Mitosis (1.5 in Reckoners series) by Brandon Sanderson - I loved this novella but it was way to short for my liking. Anyway, fight of humans against Epics started with Steelheart (1.0 in Reckoners series). This time David and Reckoners are fighting Mitosis, and eating Chicago hot-dogs. As in previous book there was action and good sense of humor. However, this book is just a teaser of what is going to happen in Firefight (2.0 in Reckoners series). 

The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion- very good and funny book. I would start first from Rosie Project which is very funny comedy about very calculated, organized and not emotionally driven guy that has to realize that he fallen in love. Rosie effect is a continuation of his relationship struggle but with new project BUD - baby under development. I recommend it to anyone who is expecting a baby, but I would especially recommend it to nerds like me who has no logical thinking problems but find social interactions challenging or unnecessary (to smaller or bigger extend) ;)

Movie

Duff - this movie is very overrated. It is funny enough but really not my cup of tea. But then again, maybe I am just too old ;)

Is this really the only movie I saw this month?! I guess I had been busy with life stuff ;)

Life Event

Photo taken by tmx studio.

I've got married and I am having the best time of my life! I am infinitely happy! Wedding party went very well and guests seemed to have a lot of fun.

Travel

I have visited Poland since my wedding took place there. I have done a little road trip and train trip to see as much as possible with my guests. Before wedding we visited Gdansk the capital of amber, and the Malbork castle from year 1406. 

Then we went to Szczecin where my wedding was organized. I haven't done much of sightseeing because I had to take care of my look. My nails, skin and so on needed a bit of extra care from specialist to assure that I will look my best during the wedding day ;)

After celebration we took a night train to Krakow, which is beautiful city with a lot of monuments and history. I highly recommend following restaurants: Pod Aniolami, Wesele, and Starka (here you need to order some vodka shots because they have many different homemade flavors) food and atmosphere is just fantastic in those places. It wasn't my first time in Krakow but those restaurants are on my must visit list each time since I tried it last summer ;)

I have also gone to Auschwitz, and Birkenau (near Krakow) to reflect on human race. I think everyone should see it and understand how unacceptably cruel was what happened there. There is no words that can describe it. You walk around thinking how to describe and then it becomes obvious why one of the prisoners who survived invented a new word to describe it - holocaust. It was an important experience for me because when we discussed it during history lessons at school I think I was too young to understand it as something that really happened, that happened not so long ago. On cruelty in ancient times we can look as believe that humans have changed since then, but can we really claim it with something that happened 70 years ago?

Near Krakow there is also an old salt mine Wieliczka. The salt exploration on this territory started already 3000 years BC. At the turn of XII and XII centuries AC they began to drill deeper wells. It is a nice and very impressive place to visit. There is also a Saint Kinga's of Poland Chapel which is the worlds biggest underground temple. It is 101 meters (331 feet) below the surface.

Inspiration

Emmy Noether - I do not want to write a lot. I am just mentioning her because for some reason I have always assumed  that a man invented the Noether’s theorem, which you come across all the time in physics. I was wrong and the truth blew my mind. Emmy was  an extraordinary lady and I am so happy I got to know a bit about her and her mathematical contributions to science.

Video/Music

Started as a Baby by Jon Lajoie - this rap song made it very difficult for me to stay quiet in silent zone in train I was taking form Copenhagen to Odense. This is just too funny. But if you weren't a baby you wouldn't understand. Thus, it is only for those that started as a baby ;)

international spring wedding

There is plenty of things to think when you are about to get married.

You will be forced to have an opinion about things that never crossed your mind you need to have any opinion about.

Like choosing a photographer after looking on million of photos of happy people getting married. Or color of napkins, type of decoration on wedding table: famous dilemma we were put in front of was "Two or three candle holders" ??

We were dealing with an international wedding, I will try to organize things one has to take care of but then the truth is the chaos is bound to occur ;)

golden rule: ask for rules and regulations million of times, because probably nobody really knows ;)

Part 1 (the date)

- decide on the date
- find a party/reception place
- find a church and a priest who speaks more than one languages that your guests demand
- decide on guest list (remember that roughly for 100 people invited around 30 might not come)

- send out save the date information
- talk about traditions you would like to follow (e.g. blessing from parents, seeing or not each other before church ceremony, throwing flowers)

Part 2

- decide on dj/band
- deciding on having or not an after party (we had a breakfast for guest that stayed at the wedding hotel)
- menu (it will dictate the price of the reception and you might have to agree on that when booking the reception place)
- remembering about food allergies while discussing menu with the reception site owner/manager

- find a hotel for guests (I recommend having a party at the hotel where most or all of the guest can get a room) and reserve it for your guests

- decide on schedule (what time is the church ceremony and what time the reception starts)
- send out invitations (include names, when and where, and additional information if you want to)

- choosing best man, maid of honor - they might need some documents

- bridesmaids

- bachelor party

- bachelorette party (maybe in more than one country)

Part 3

- church wedding papers (if you getting married in church)

- matrimony office rules for both sites

- translation of some documents

- wedding dress; shoes; vail; underskirt; something to cover shoulders in church; jacket (during colder months)

- suit; shoes; belt; vest set; cotton napkins
- organizing traveling of the bride and groom to the city where the party is
- organizing any events that are taking place just before or right after the wedding (like in our case a short trips with friends/wedding guests)
- buy wedding rings (it might take up to month to make them)
- make sure your guests know how to get to the city where the wedding is (send out some practical information)

Part 4 (at least month before)

- decide on hairdresser (trying session very important)
- flowers in your hair (yes or no), discuss with your hairdresser

- decide on make-up (same trying session is essential)
- book time for manicure, pedicure, waxing, facial or whatever you want for a day before the wedding
- write down a wedding day agenda
- go to tailors and do the fitting of the wedding dress and the suit
- get to know wedding traditions of both nationalities
- meet with dj/band, priest and wedding site owners
- take some dancing classes
- decide on first dance song
- send out information about wedding ceremony to people that are not invited to the party maybe they would like to participate in the church ceremony

Part 5 (chaos)

- decide if you will take wishes from guests right after the church or at the wedding reception (for us it was easier at wedding reception - it was cold in the church and guests were happy to first go to hotel before lining up to give us congratulations)
- wedding gifts table

- wedding cake taste

- table plan

- table name tags

- photographer

- camera man (we didn't have one)

- choosing alcohol/ drinks

- labels on alcohol e.g."wedding vine"

- decide on the decoration of wedding reception room

- detailed agenda of the party (speeches, traditions, meals, first dance, wedding waltz, ....)

- transport for guests from hotel to church and from church to party

- presents for parents

- wedding bouquet (should fit more or less flowers in hair if you have any)

- choosing a new family name (or deciding what about surnames after marriage)

- learn the first dance choreography (we did swing)

- practice waltz to concrete song you will have to dance to during the wedding (I mention it if your first dance is not a waltz)

- choose church hymns that are known in both nationalities

- prepare a speeches

- decide if you want kids to through flowers in church or carry rings 

- ask what is allowed to through in front of church (rise, money... - for example many priest do not want rise because of difficulty of cleaning it afterwards)

- prepare menu in all languages that your guests demand

- it might be fun and useful to print little essential dictionaries

- in case your guests might not know each other languages you might like to decide on a translator

- decide how bride and groom are going get to church
- special car/ or car decoration
- decide on the form of the after wedding thank you cards

...

And no matter what else I was adding to this list I had a constant feeling that there was something I was forgetting about...

But, now when it is over, I can say that if I forgot about something then it was nothing big because it didn't ruin the party.
Where there things that went wrong YES hahaha like for example I forgot my wedding bouquet at the hairdresser and realized it 15 minutes before the church ceremony (I have awesome friends so it was solved very quickly). Were I excited and nervous YES but it was all natural and if one is surrounded by good people on that day they will make everything go very smooth :) I was lucky and I had friends and family being very engaged in making the wedding day special and they also took care to have a lot of fun!

We had only one candle holder, green napkins, pink name tags and pink/white flowers. It was very spring'ish. Weather was fantastic, quite cold but beautifully sunny.
I had a time of my life. I got so much love, kisses, hugs and wishes that I have now energy of thousand persons ;) My legs were so tired from dancing! I woke up at 6:30 am to got to hairdresser at 7:30 am. At 11:00 I started putting my dress on.
The marriage ceremony started at 1pm in church. We got a short photo-session in a park where we got engaged. At 3:30 we entered the wedding reception room and the party started. At 2am we ate last hot meal and went to bed 5am.
We met most of our guests that stayed at the hotel where the reception was held for breakfast at 10am. Were we tired? YES but it didn't matter because we were infinitely happy :)

I think it is priceless how important it is for both families to get to know each other, and I can not describe how much positive energy such a meeting can produce. Every single minute we invested in preparation of this day was worth it!

Both trips before and after wedding were a blast. We were lucky and the weather was sunny all the time.

It was a half a year project. It was a lot of work. But it was worth it! I am very glad we made it!
It just proves that putting a lot of heart into something will blossom with some type of goodness.

Lots of love from me and my husband :D

March wrap up

Well this was definitely getting ready to wedding month. I am getting married in few days and I am very happy. It was a lot of preparations but I hope our guests and we will have a blast :)

Book

Stealheart Brandon Sanderson - It is an awesome superhero or actually antihero action book. This anti-utopian story is very well paced, and have a nice plot twist. I've really enjoy it. It gives a bit of things to think through. People get superpowers and instead of becoming heroes they become villains. New gifts attenuate in them human nature. I already have second book - Firefight. However, there is 1.5 book Mitosis so obviously I am planning to buy and read this one before getting into Firefight, which I heard is even better than Steelheart.

The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald - I think I've managed to get through it only because I saw movie (which I liked). It is classic story, so worth reading/knowing it but I enjoy it. It is written as a memory so there are a lot of details of the story that we do not know because guy that tells the story do not know. I am glad I am done with it.

Breakfast at Tiffany's Truman Capote - I did not like the main heroine Holly Golightly, so it made it difficult for me to enjoy this story. I am generally not into stories like Pretty Woman. Which goes something like that; an intelligent, handsome and successful man falls in love with an undereducated, churlish, ill-mannered lady of easy virtue. I just cannot believe it could ever happen and if it did then the guy is probably far away from being desirable in my eyes. This story is a bit different but still Holly is not a person I could or would like to ever identify myself with.

Fifty Shades of Darker E L James - It is a second book in "Fifty Shades" trilogy. It is ok. Maybe slightly better that the first book. My fiancé says it is crazy that it take 1000 pages to cover 4 weeks of cheesy romance. I guess he is right, but ten again it is easy read, funny enough and I already know and like enough main characters. I think story gives very shallow character description and dialogs are poor. It seems like Ana and Christian could have way more to talk about but we never get any proper sample. I am probably going to read third book since I already have it and it is not so bad story to abandon it.

Movies

Kingsman - I liked it. Fun movie with a lot of action is my type of entertainment.

Whiplash - Very good movie. Fantastic music. About working hard, about limits, about morals... I think it is a must see!

Cinderella - I do not like Pretty Woman, but I do like Cinderella. I think it has a good message. That being good, brave and educated is a huge value and it will shine from with you.

Jiro dreams of sushi - it is a documentary movie about Jiro who is one of the best cooks in the world. He makes sushi and he makes it well. It is about his strict working morals about his life philosophy and about his dedication to improve his skills every single day. Very inspiring.

February wrap up

This was a very short month, wasn't it?

I have signed my master thesis contract and from March 1st I have one year to work on Effective Quantum Field Theory of Dark Energy and Inflation. I am excited!

Other than that, I am spending most of my free time on wedding preparation.

Books

"Brida" Paolo Coelho - lovely book about taking a risk of following your heart and using your talents. It is an inspiring read.

"50 Shades of Grey" - in my opinion not as scandalous as it is proclaimed. Mr. Grey is definitely abusive, but Ana agrees on things he does to her even she do not have to. Language is very colloquial but it doesn't bother me so much since english is not my native language. It ends in a way that you need to immediately start on the second book "50 Shades Darker", and that is what I am reading now.

Movies

"Imitation Game" - what a story! Mathematics skills is a great power.

I am almost sure I have watched more than one movie but I do not remember?!

I have checked my movie theater membership account and I found out that I also saw Jupiter Ascending :)

Travel

I have spend my "Valentine's Weekend" in Copenhagen with my fiancé, his family, and our friend.

 I have spend 10 last days of February in Szczecin, Poland.

On my way to Poland I have visited for few hours Berlin just to go to PRIMARK and buy some cheap basics t-shirts. 

In Szczecin I stayed with my family. I was taking care of my health and well being while running around like crazy to finalize some things regarding my upcoming wedding. I also had my bachelorette party which was a cosy evening mainly with one awesome friend.