Mastering Other Appliances and Being Grateful

I have not used a microwave in about two months. Yes, everyone can gasp!! For me, the microwave is the number one way to cook things but being here, I have learned other ways to cook.

Our flat as a little kitchen with a sink, stove top, conventional oven, fridge with a little freezer and a washing machine. I now use the stove top for basically all my meals. I am now unafraid of lighting the burner with the lighter which I am very proud of! I typically cook pasta and use tomato paste for sauce. Lately I have been experimenting with several types of meat to put in the sauce which has turned out well. I also have found my love for peppers so I have adding red/green pepper on top of my pasta.

I also make soup and cook meat in a skillet and of course, lots of tea! I was brave to use the conventional oven as nobody had used it in a long time and had no idea what to do. It didn’t seem that bad so I got some mini frozen pizza and it indeed does work!

My meals are pretty simple but still very tasty. I love going grocery shopping to find new foods to try. I also am very use to washing everything by hand now as we have no dishwasher. Usually we wash our own dishes we use but sometimes we just do all the dishes that are on the counter to be nice.

For washing clothes, we have a washing machine that takes several hours but get them dry enough so there is no dripping. Then I just hang my clothes around my room or on my heater until they are dry.

We do have a shower which typically has hot water. Our water heater broke a few days ago so we had to pay to get that fixed. But I have become very appreciative for many things being here. I know some of my friends abroad do not have showers and have to use a bucket so I am grateful for my shower. I also realize how dependant I am to the internet. Today, it stopped working for a while and my roommate for Taiwan and I were very panicked. She actually went to the library (and still there) to Skype with her sister. The past few hours now, it has been going in and out. While I was cooking supper (soup) tonight, I realized just how fortunate I am to have basically internet all the time. That I am able to communicate with my friends and family through Skype, email and Facebook. It just really made me step back and see how lucky I am and how I take things for granted. I am now going to be much more appreciative of the things I do have!

Gotta love the pink drying rack!

We have to buy water as you can't drink the water here

How we heat our water for tea. And that is my tasty soup