Dinners, festivals, group feeding, pubs and other similar social gathering events

After a while.... some common denominators have risen from all the stuff that happened. First, I foolishly dropped my old beloved small handy camera on the ground, sending her poor photographic soul to its maker. A new/second handed Canon PowerShot A700 replaced her after a week. Fortunately we had become some kind of twisted tech-dependent animal species and we own cell phones with lots of pixels and flash and zoom and memory and....
I got used to the "traditional" Fridays in the Big Red Barn, the queue to get teh "BRB" mark on your right hand, which proofs that you're eligible to buy beer. They just sweep your Cornell ID and get all the info about you. If the free pizza is for students only, you are directed to the beer stand. No pizza for you. There is some free junk food, though. Help yourself. And enjoy the evening. Just until 7 p.m.. Ten minutes before the closure a guy goes around (yap, BRB is perhaps the only place in Ithaca where you can sit out in the grass sipping your beer without being afraid of cops arresting you because of drinking in a public place - being part of the campus has its advantages) yelling that it's closure time and no beer will be available in 10 minutes. And some people get frenetic.

This time pizza was for all, also for the "Faculty/Staff" labeled ones

Colorful October

Israeli and Scottish attaché

Brasilian temper

Then there is The Chapter House, where every Thursday at 9 p.m. (finally a human hour) takes place the European Club Gathering. "May I see your ID please?" it flatters me, I'm way over 21, but I don't feel like carrying around my passport to a pub. Other foreign ID is not accepted. Luckily the guy at the door has the memory of an elephant, so regular costumers don't have to show the passport any more. Probably this is the place with most different beers in Ithaca. Most of them have this funny taste, of course, fruity. But the bartender knows what is more likely you would appreciate, if you ask for a bitter beer, European style. The European Club gathering is all about knowing people. And everyone is welcome. And there are so many delicious "collectibles" me and my room mate Jo have become very fond of. See the pictures. The collectible No. 4 is still wanted. But the exchanging period is not over yet, hua hua hua hua!

Collectible No 1: taxi company advertisement on a pint beer glass (O_o)

Collectible No 2: for all the dog lovers

Collectible No 3 (pay attention to the flag on the table)

Collectible No 4: yes! I want a revolution and I want that piece of funny glass!

Collectible No 5: the mystic glass (the subject's reaction is not linked to it - yet)

After it..... a pizza! Argh.... well, as a researcher, I have to behave like one, so let's try that wonder. I've already noticed in the stores, that the omni-present pizza add is something called "peperoni" - it looks like a slim Hungarian-style salami and is supposed to taste like one. Supposed..... in fact it has no taste. And has nothing to do with any kind of paprika(peperoni/chili/etc. But it can be found everywhere. In salad, on pizza, in pasta, in sandwiches... name it, you'll find it! Final analysis: the pizza tasted very good (we've had some beers, though), it has nothing to do with an Italian pizza, but it tastes very good. The belly was happy and so were we. Climbing up the hill back to the apartment.... those damn hills....ž

The best pizzeria in College Town

Jalapeno, green olives, peperoni, roasted bell-pepper, mushrooms (adds)

Another option: the sushi restaurant. Been for the first time, and loved it! Spicy tuna "Dynamite" and shrimp tempura in rolls "Mermaid". With lots of wasabi. Gorgeous.... .

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... and then came the weekend..... The Apple Harvest Festival, traditional in the first weekend of October. I was expecting some kind of farmers market/festival, with stands of local apple production. I got on the Commons to meet my ex room mate Evelien, and got into a horde of people, mostly feeding people. The Commons were overloaded with legs, pop corn, thai food, caramel apple, curry, gyros, fries, sweets, apple-on-the-stick (which reminded me of Jeff Dunham's José, the jalapeno on the stick... but that's another story), cider, apple juice, heavy cider (for the record...... cider is better known to us as natural fresh non-filtered aplle juice and heavy cider is his slightly fermented form), apple wine..... we've of course tried that one, in its many forms, but it was so unbelievably sweet and juicy, that we soon gave up. The plain apple wine tasted like a sweet wine, suitable for some white vin bruleé. Anyway, we had our lunch at the Thai stand and fought through the mass of people to the side street with local handcrafts, from leather goods to hand made postcards, wooden kitchen ware, jewelery and other.
I discovered the second hand clothing stores. They sell practically new stuff for little money. I got myself a pair of never worn high hills for 12$ and an elegant jacket for 15$ for the evening birthday party I've been invited to. Happy as a squirrel with a nut.

Apple wine tasting and the eternal "may I see your ID, please?"

The crowd on the Commons

An annoying street performer

Frames of reality

And the evening came and I dressed up (as I was told to do) and the room mates laughed at me in my high hills, a tight skirt and a jacket on my racing bike, and I met Evelien, also dressed up, and we showed up to that big white house fashionably late at 10:30 p.m. instead of at 10. Discovery No 1: being dressed up was not as popular as it was presented to us and we were way too overdressed, but that's ok, we are Europeans with some style (let's put that way). Discovery No 2: the attempt to get to know new people was futile as everyone was mingling only among known company. Discovery No 3: now I know why they sell beer in 6-packs with a holder. Everyone was carrying his own basket of happiness and just pouring beer in his mouth. Which leads us to the Discovery No 4: here people are very efficient in getting drunk. They just keep drinking as a thirsty man in the desert, until they are able to. Doesn't matter if it's 8 p.m. at the BRB or midnight at  a birthday party. Then they start to dance. Inconvenient Discovery No 5: think about the parties back home. Now, if you're told to bring your beer at a student party, you usually keep it simple, buy some half liter cans, leave them in a plastic bag somewhere under a table, just to make it harder for the others to find it and go to take another beer when you've finished the one you're holding. Well..... the "tall boys", as they call the half liter cans, are the "redneck kind of beer", usually a cheap one (I admit, the Budwiser wasn't the best - nor the worst beer, but it was quite cheap. And remember, those cans were supposed to be left somewhere!). If you are among people with some standards in their life (O_o), then you're not supposed to drink that kind of beer. You're not supposed to drink it anyway. F*** elitists.... I'm an an European! (again) And the Spanish colleague was happy to share it with me and Evelien! We had to seem quite odd that evening, I think :) both dressed up like hell and sitting on the porch with those vulgar tall boys in our hand ha ha ha ha! It was a really nice evening, though. And it smelled like in the Red District of Amsterdam, when you went to the bathroom. A local tradition kept alive from the days of the student movements back in the '70....
And again that damn hill to get home into the bed....

The odd Europeans with some funny stuff from the Apple Harvest Festival