My Journey of Breakfast

Until I got married, breakfast meant nothing to me or it only meant plain or stuffed parantha with yogurt and pickle with a hot cup of tea. And, on special Sundays, bread toast and sandwiches.

Then, I picked up sprouted beans, fresh fruits, tetra pack juices to fresh juices. Boiled egg and omelet to poached eggs(water or oil poached).

When I landed in Europe, then whole grain rustic bread and rolls with a whole new variety of cheeses and butter and a hot cup of coffee.

Then, I started eating sauteed vegetables as a hot salad in breakfast with mozzarella cheese and olives.

Poha and upma landed somewhere in between this breakfast journey.

My mother-in-law favorite is a piece of white bread with fruit jam or jelly or peanut butter.

My husbands favorite is a piece of white bread with butter, sprinkled with black pepper and sugar.

Lately, I have started eating granola or oats in breakfast, which is known musseli in Europe. And, banana smoothies is also a personal favorite.

A 3-min soft boiled egg is also a newly discovered entity in my Sunday's breakfast.

Buttergipfel - normal croissant made with the maximum amount of butter.
Gipfeli - could be a buttergipfel as well, but it's the regular croissant.
Laugengipfel - the brown croissants coated with some kind of food grade alkali (lye?)
Weggi - pastry roll, usually with a sausage in it. Swiss pinky-in-blanket

Sausages and Salami

Wafer thin Smoked chicken

Smoked Fish.

french style Brioche

Something Technical

1. EVM: Earned value management
2. Selenium: It is a set of tools and libraries that automates web browser actions.
3. Arduino: It consists of a physical programmable circuit board, referred to as a microcontroller and a piece of software known as IDE(Integrated development environment) that runs on a computer, which is used to create and upload program on the microcontroller. Arduino is an open-source hardware and software company that manufactures single-board microcontroller or microcontroller kits for building digital devices and interactive objects that can sense objects in the physical and digital worlds.
4. NodeMCU: opensource IoT environment. 
5. Types of work organizations:
1. Corporations(corporate jobs): These are meant to make profits. So, its employees have to work really hard to always be a good performer. These are big companies, lots of meetings and paperwork.
2. Startups
3. Entrepreneur
4. Private Limited companies
5. Public Limited companies
6. Spring Framework (Spring) is an open source software development framework that provides infrastructure support for building Java-based applications on any deployment platform. Released in June 2003 by Rod Johnson under the Apache 2.0 license, Spring Framework is hosted by SourceForge.

Shopping Mall

I love to visit shopping malls. There are so many interesting shops that you might like to explore.  I always like to put the things into the categories. Following are a few categories you always find in any big shopping mall.

1.  Beauty Products
2. Cameras and Photos
3. Wellness Products
4. Baby Products
5. Books
6. Mobiles Phones and Telecom specialist
7. Pharmacy and Perfumery
8. Lingerie and Swimwear
9. Women's, Men's and Children's Fashion
10. Watches and Jewelry and Accessories
11. Hairstylist
12. Grocery
13. Sports Shop
14. Home and Consumer Electronics
15. Video Games and consoles
16. Shoes
17. Bookstore
18. Travel Center
19. Optician
20. Toy store
21. Food Court
22. Event area

Christmas

Nutcracker:

It is again that time of the year, autumn, with the crunch of dry leaves under my foot, gives me an indication that winter is approaching soon. And, with the arrival of winter starts the festive season. Colorful electric light clad streets, Christmas tree, family dinners, and exchange of gifts. Streets and trees are also clad with fresh white snow, backyards are displaying the beauty of snowman, it seems heavenly! During Christmas time markets are beautifully decorated and flooded with gift options. One particular item that really amused me was 'Nutcracker'. It is something which is found only Christmas time in the stores. I was first introduced to this amusing toy or doll in Canada. And, during Christmas, Christmas- themed shows are also put up for the family fun. One of the classics in this theme is 'The story of Nutcracker'.

Fiddler on the roof:

Marcel the Moose: A story of a deer named Marcel.

Another thing that I recently discovered while my stay in the Christmas dominated countries is that kids leave milk and cookies for the Santa on Christmas eve, indicating the message of sharing and caring with others.

Christmas Tree: It is not a pine tree.

Lighting:

Strasbourg: One of the oldest Christmas Market in Europe.
  

Journey of beds

In India, to date, traditional, heavy wooden beds are common. In Bengal, it is the wooden canopy style beds which are very common. Another trend, I saw in India was the wrought iron beds. Storage beds are also a common style in India.

But, when I moved to North America, I found a whole new world of furniture. My first encounter was the inflatable mattress. The next encounter was with the platform bed, which has a metal platform to put the mattress on it. When I moved to Europe, I found another kind of bed or say boxspring type bed.

While in India, I knew that bed comes in only two sizes, single or double. While exploring the world, I also got the chance to explore the world of beds. Beds to come in a variety of sizes, single, double, twin, king and queen size. During my recent travel to Germany, I also came across a new term i.e. French Bed. I started dreaming something very elegant and romantic, considering such a poetic image of Paris. After exploring little on Google, I found that it is a fancy word to mention about a small bed. In case you are investing in a wooden bed, there are different kinds of wood to select from, like pine, oak etc.

140 cm wide is a double bed.
160 cm wide is a queen bed.
180 cm wide is a king bed.

200 cm long is good for anyone with height under 6'2".
A lot of emphases is put on the mattress.

Accessories:

1. Fitted Sheets
2. Blankets
3. All season Quilts
4. Duvets
5. Pillows

Beauty and Woman: Girly Talk

Being beautiful comes naturally to a woman. Though, I strongly believe being beautiful does not necessarily mean the physical, external beauty. You must agree when two girls meet, they always talk about dresses, makeup, shoes, and accessories. And, I am not an exception. Sometimes, I feel the guilt that I am being too selfish by indulging so much into self-care but Self-care is not selfish at all. After coming to Europe, I have fallen into a new love of knowing about all this. I love to put things into categories and classes.

Following is a list of all the categories related to fashion and accessories, that every female aspires to have.

1. Clothing
1. Coats
2. Trench Coats
3. Jackets
4. Quilts and puffers
5. Capes and Ponchos
6. Dresses and Jumpsuits
7. Gowns
8. Skirts
9. Shirts, Tops,  blouses: Button-down shirts; tie-hem shirts; curved-hem shirts; Peasant top
10. T-shirts and sweatshirts
11. Pants and Trousers
12. Jeans
2. Bags
1. clutches
2. Tots
3. shoulder bags
4. Small and mini bags
5. Cross-shoulder bags
6. Backpacks
3. Fragrances
4. Scarves
5. Accessories
1. Wallets and card cases
2. Hats and gloves
3. Sunglasses
4. Belts
5. Keys and Handbags charms
6. Jewelry: Jute; Dogra; Oxidised
7. Watches
6. Makeup and cosmetics
7. Footwear: Shoe love is true love
1. Specification: Insole
1. Outsole: rubber, TPR, EVA
2. Insole
3. Inner material
4. Outer Material
5. Color
6. Functionality: water and wind resistant
2. Sandals or flip-flops
3. Flats: lace-ups, driving mocs, slip-on mule
4. Boots
5. Sneakers
6. Pumps: High heels(heel is over 2 inches) or kitten heels: where the front of the wearer's toe is covered i.e. closed toe without buckles. Formal shoes.
7. Wedges: Sole of the shoe is flat and think.
8. Stilettos: Pencil heel
9. Ballerinas
10. Open Toe
11. peep toe
12. Ankle strap
13. T strap
14. Sling Back
15. Kitten heels
• Types of Heels
1. Block heel
2. High Heel
3. Wedges
4. Kitten Heel

Luxury Fashion Brands

1. Burberry: London
2. Michael Kors: American
3. Gucci: Italy
4. Coach New York
5. BCBG: America

Phir Zindagi...

It is a beautiful, sensitive Hindi movie with a message. Life keeps throwing challenges and sometimes we are in a total dilemma.  How a mother, portrayed by Ratna Pathak Shah, makes the heart-wrenching decision of donating the organs of her young but brain-dead son. His young son was the victim of a road accident and was not wearing the helmet and suffered the severe internal brain damage.

This incident reminded of an incident happened with one of my dear friends a few years ago when she lost her husband due to the liver failure and could not find the matching donor to save the life of her husband.

The other character in this movie is played by Nasruddin Shah, which is my all-time favorite. He performs extraordinarily well in the sensitive roles.

The information is only brain-dead people can donate their organs. And, the message is why is it so important to protect ourselves from the head injury.