Happy new year!

A bit more than a week a go, precisely on 21. 12. I had presentation of my thesis titled Analysis of print quality of digital duplicators, which was the final project of my studies and I finally graduated. Now this is ticked done and I can do whatever I want, yeah!


After the presentation I stayed in Ljubljana for two more days to meet friends. I slept in Celica hostel, a former prison of Yugoslavian army. Premier Janez Janša was once imprisoned there. But it's renovated now and changed into a hip hostel. The designers decided to keep a little bit of prison spirit so there's a choice of 20 unique prison cells where you can sleep behind the prison bars. I wanted to stay there since the hostel opened but never really took the chance. Untill now. This is the cell where I slept. It was fun!

The Christmas I spent with my family in Kavče. It's getting really big, this family of mine, a lot of nephews running around and a lot of big people too, so it was a real full house. There's a bit of snow in Kavče and the temperatures are very low, brrrrr, not to walk around too much...

I will spend New Year's eve in Nijmegen. I'll see for if Dutch fireworks are different than the Slovene ones. :)) Here below is a greeting card for you, but you have to click it in order to see it played. Somehow this blogger can't really digest animated giffs.

Busy december

It's been quite a week. I was in Slovenia. I had to bind and deliver my thesis (picture above) and I also helped at Animateka festival in Kinodvor, together with a nice crew of projectionists: Maja, Marko, Jakob, Aulne and Anja. It was also nice to see people I haven't seen a long time.
The festival is one of the best film festivals in Slovenia. It has a nice atmosphere and also takes good care of the crew (that is very important if you are a crew member or if you are served by one of the happy crew members).
Here is a link to the official site, maybe you can find me on some pictures (hardly possible): www.animatekafestival.org. Maja took a lot of pictures of the background, like this one, where Aulne (new French projectionist colleague) and me are doing the competition program action. You can find the whole collection of Maja's pictures here (you really should take a look, they are very nice!).

IDFA

These days I am working in the film/video controle of the festival IDFA in Amsterdam. There is about 400 film titles, mostly video (Beta SP, Digibeta, HDCAM), but also 35 and 16mm prints, and all these have to be checked and verified before they are played. I'm sitting here in front of a video monitor for the 5th day now, and my eyes are SQUARE.



The good and interesting thing is, that we are situated in the Tuschinski cinema in Amsterdam (the upper two pictures). It's a very impressive old building where you can easily get lost. Kinodvor cinema in Ljubljana looks a little bit like that, but then in a very simple basic version (the down picture).

We are back from Geneva!!!

Yes, we are back! And we survived! And they let us out from Swiss!

It was a real trip. We departed from Geneva on Friday at 11. I was nervous and pissed because I thought it's already 12 and that we are very late. But only the clock in the van was still showing the summer time! Sorry, Joyce and Jan Dirk, I was awful.

Next thing was, the phone with Tomtom dropped dead out of battery just when we got out of Geneva. Despite being on the charger all night! Shitty, but we got in a better mood after stopping at a Coop market by the high-way and spent all of the swiss francs we had left on croissants and candies!

It was going OK till the border, the weather forecast - the rain and snow - didn't really come true, we only saw a few snowflakes dancing in front of the window, just to say hi.
We were passing the border in Basel. There are two LKW border passes, one is with the France and the other one, which we took last time, is with Germany. We decided to try with the French, since last time the Germans didn't want to give us a stamp, we thought the French are nicer ...

Swiss didn't make much problems at the customs, they gave us the import money back, but then at the barrier the officer sent us to weight the car. It was a disaster: 4500kg! That is 1 ton more than what I am allowed to drive with my license and what the car can be loaded. The officer called the police and while waiting for them we tried to get a stamp from the French. They didn't want to give it. You should go to the same place where you got in - at the German boarder!

Then the police came, Joyce and Jan Dirk explained that we don't know where all that weight is from. Some machines and some small stuff, it can't be soooooo much. The police was calculating and talking, took a look inside the car. See, it's almost empty!
When they heard we are artists, going back from an exhibition, they let us go, even without a ticket. They said, we saved 700 francs and that we should use it for the art. I can't believe, they really let us go.

Since the French didn't want to give us the stamp, we thought we could try at the other border pass, but the officers at the barrier didn't allow us back to Swiss because we were too heavy. So we were trapped between France and Swiss with an overloaded truck and it was getting late.

Joyce and Jan Dirk tried again with the French customs person. First it was a solid no, but then he heard their discussion in Dutch, which he happened to understand. He could hear that we are not trying to fool him around, and then gave the stamp on that thin piece of paper.

I couldn't believe when they got back with the paper and we drove away. We really got away with it. Amazing. It could be a lot lot worse, Joop was almost organizing a saving squad from Holland.

We bought a car charger for the phone on the way to Mainz where we stayed for the night and had some very heavy food in one of the filled pubs. Next morning we left and I was still afraid that the German police might stop us and send us for being weighted, but luckily that didn't happen. Only some rain.

The last problem was parking in Nijmegen on a Saturday afternoon. Well, not parking, that I know quite good by now, but more finding the parking space :)).

But even that we found and I got very happily home, had a nice loooooong shower and Joop cooked a fabulous Spinach risotto.

Here you can find the whole collection of photos from Geneva.

Lake Geneva

You can take a cruise on the lake...But see the front of the boat ...
Oooooops ...
Bad driver ...
Tststs ...

I am an art piece!

I'm going to be in the catalog of the exhibition!!!

Geneva printing

3 minutes of printing.

Geneva

Knust is going to Geneva to print a Dotdotdot magazine within the context of the group exhibition 'Wouldn't it be Nice' curated by Emily King and Katya García-Antón (25 October – 16 December 2007).

There goes a stencil machine from down the first floor...

Straight into the van...

Where everything is nice packed...

Waiting at the German/Swiss customs along with the real big trucks...

Our working space at the gallery (Centre d'Art Contemporain Geneve)...

Which we share with the other art pieces. You see a hammoc? That's my favorite.

Anderhalfwitavond in Extrapool

Anderhalfwitavond is an evening where the novelties of the Halfwithal shop are presented. Halfwithal shop is a part of Extrapool which is open every friday afternoon and is selling books and fanzins, CDs, LPs, Tshirts, badges, which you can't get anywhere else. There's also an online shop.
Next week there will be the next Anderhalfwitavond (write down this date in your agenda: 27. 10 at 21.00 in the Onderbroek). Next to presentation of books, there are also concerts and cakes and DJs and here you can see more about the program.

Registering at the Gemeente part 1

Gemeente means municipality in Dutch. Slovenia became a part of the EU in 2004, and joined the big union with workers movement and portability, and everything got so much easier, and you can get a lot of information about that on the EU portamobility site here.
Well, don't believe that it's all that simple. The workers market in Holland only opened in May 2007 and several other countries of western Europe are still requiring a work permit if you want to work.
But ok, I want to work in Holland, and now I can. Only one small detail. If you want to work in Holland, you must be insured. Ok, I am insured in Slovenia, and by having an EU health card, I get the same rights in other countries as I have in Slovenia, no?
It's a bit hard to find an answer to that question. EURES - The European Job Mobility Portal is only giving information about moving to another country. Well, I am still staying in Slovenia, thanks, I just want to work in Holland, when I am in Holland.
So I asked around. The employer is only leaving an option of a dutch insurance company and I couldn't find a solution for my case. Maybe my case is a bit dubious, but for example, I come to Holland for 2 months of season work, picking up the strawberries, or whatever. For staying under 3 months, I don't have to register at the municipality, but what about the insurance? I couldn't get any answer. Maybe the only place where they might give me a hint would be some organization specialized in providing foreign workers to Dutch working market. I guess there are many for Polish workers, but for sure none for Slovenian.
So, there it will have to be. Dutch health insurance, as an addition to my Slovene one. But another problem, in order to get a dutch health insurance, I need to be registered at an address in Holland. So now I have to register although I travel to Slovenia at least every 3 months.
So in August, when we got back from Slovenia, I decided to register. It said on their web page, that one has to register in 5 days after the arrival. A bit strange, what if I decide to stay after 2 months. But whatever, I went to the municipality and asked at the desk, where can I register. They told me, that I need to make an appointment if I am moving from abroad. Again an appointment, I thought, nothing happends in this country without an appointment.
"Ok, let's make an appointment."
"No, no, no," he said at the desk: "we can't make an appointment here, you have to call this number and make an appointment."
And he gave me a phone number. How ridiculous, I am standing at the desk, and he can't make an appointment for me. Why doesn't he call that number? Huh.
So I went home and I called. The person who picked up the phone didn't make an appointment for me, but only took my data and asked for my phone number.
"We will call you back."
Phhhhhhrrrrrrrr. I have to register in 5 days from my arrival and I need to have a phone number. If you are moving to Holland, first thing you need to do is buy a prepaid phone card, because everything will go over that phone. I learned much faster how to say my phone number in dutch than how to spell my name (btw, they never wait for the spelling of your name, they just write something and then you have problems when your name is not matching with the one on the appointment schedule).
I was called back the next day and was told to come next week on 22. of august at 10AM. I need passport, a birth certificate and a permit for moving in a house where I am going to live by a house owner.

Bio cultures turning everywhere

That's what happens if you leave right turning cultures out of control. Click on the picture to see it bigger. For more information refer to my previous post about Right turning (bio) cultures.

English pie

I watched Nigella Express the other day, a cooking programme on BBC2, where she prepared chicken pie. I was surprised that she is calling something, that is just covered with puff pastry and thrown in the oven for 20 minutes, a pie. Here's a common definition of pie: A baked food composed of a pastry shell filled with fruit, meat, cheese, or other ingredients, and usually, but not always, covered with a pastry crust. I agree with that, you can't call something covered with some puff pastry a pie!
But I thought it might be interesting to try, so I made my own version - off course not filled with chicken. I took some precooked potatoes and cauliflower, and mix them with a sort of bechamel sauce, cheese and spring onions. I covered each model with one sheet of puff pastry and let them bake for 20 minutes at 180ºC. This is what came out.



I will call this an English pie. It looks nice, but the inside part was very very hot because of all the liquid which came out of cauliflower and not very thick bechamel. It was practically boiling! And we were very hungry and wanted to eat it immediately, so that was a real minus for this recipe.

Paksoi lasagne

Here is a simple recipe for a paksoi lasagne for 2 persons. I found it again when tiding up my recipes and remembered that it made a really nice meal. You can replace paksoi with "blitva". I'm sorry - I only know the Slovene name for it. It's very similar to paksoi.

Ingredients:

8-10 sheets of (green) lasagne
1 piece of paksoi
1 onion, chopped into small pieces
a bit of oil
2 tomatos, in slices
100g feta
2 eggs
(optional 100g champignons, in slices)
2dl yoghurt
pepper and salt
oregano
rasped cheese
3 table spoons of bread crumbs

What you need to do, is:
Wash paksoi and chop it into smaller pieces. Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the onion, throw in (the champignons and) the paksoi and let it steam for a few minutes (until the paksoi leaves drop). Crush feta cheese and mix it through the vegetables.
Oil and fill up the lasagne model with layers of vegetable mix and lasangne sheets.
For the topping: mix eggs, yoghurt, half of rasped cheese, oregano, salt and pepper and pour this mixture over the lasagna. Take care that the top layer of lasagne is nicely covered with the topping mixture. Put the slices of tomatoes on top. Mix two spoons of rasped cheese with the breadcrumbs and spread that over it.
Bake at 180ºC for 30-45 minutes.

The topping is what makes this recipe really yummy. Cheese and crumbs make a really nice crust on top. And yoghurt mixture with eggs is a more light option than the creamy one.

Right turning (bio) cultures

No, this post is not about politics, it's about food and chemistry. I thought I was done with organic chemistry when I finally passed the last exam of study program Graphic arts technology at Faculty of Natural Science and Engineering in Ljubljana, but then I happen to see this on the fridge shelf at a local supermarket: standyoghurt: rechtdraaiend melkzuur, aangezuurd door rechtdraaiende bio-cultures. Translated, right-turning milk acids, made by right-turning bio-cultures.
I have to admit that I find yoghurt in Holland quite different from those which I know from Slovenia. Holland yoghurt is more creamy and it is sold in tetrapak, like milk. The above mentioned standyoghurt was packed in a cup, and I learned that it is different from the other ones. But not because of the right turning milk acids!
There are two different types of yoghurt which differ by the temperature and the duration of the making process:

• Roeryoghurt, which is more common in the Netherlands, is processed at a lower temperature (32°C) for 10-14 hours. It can be made in big containers (up to 20 cubic meters), where it's also being mixed. Because of that it has a very creamy texture and it's easy to make big quantities and then fill up the tetrapaks.
  
• Standyoghurt is a yoghurt known in the rest of Europe. Cups are filled with warm milk and acid cultures and closed. That is then being kept at a temperature of 40-45°C for about 4-6 hours. This yoghurt has more sensitive structure which is destroyed if stirred, that's why it's packed in cups and not tetrapak.

And what do the right turning cultures have to do with this all?
Milk acid is chiral and has two optical isomers.

Optical isomers are substances, known for the ability of turning the polarized light into left or right. Depending on the side of turning, we call them left or right turning substances.

But what does it matter? Left or right turning?
Not much, it doesn't affect the taste nor quality. As a fact, most natural milk acids are right turning. Someone just thought it could attract customers if this is written on a package.

Cauliflower and sweet potato curry

You need (for 2 persons):

1 middle size sweet potato
1/2 of a small cauliflower
1/2 or one small onion
a hand full of green beans (sperziebonen)
1 small teaspoon of curry pasta (for example chilly&garlic by Pataks, which is very hot, so in that case take care the small spoon is really a small spoon)
1 teaspoon od garam masala spices powder (available at toko's)
1 teaspoon of vegetable bouillon
1-2 spoons of (olive) oil
2 spoons of cream yogurt
basmati rice for two persons (don't forget to cook that :)

Clean the green beans and cut it into 2-3 cm long pieces. Put it in a pot with some water and vegetable bouillon and bring it to cook for a couple of minutes. In the meantime clean the cauliflower and divide it into small pieces. Peel the sweet potato and cut it into cubes (1-1,5 cm wide). Cut the onion into small cubes.
Take a larger (teflon) pan, heat it up and moisten with oil. Add the onion and fry for a minute or two. Add curry paste and powder, stir so it all divides equally and you can smell the spices. Add cauliflower and sweet potato. Stir around till it all gets covered with curry.
Then take the smaller pot with beans and bouillon and add all together to the bigger pan. Lower the heat, cover the pan and let it simmer for about 15 minutes till sweet potato gets softer. Then, open the pan, higher the heat and let the rest of liquids evaporate. Turn of the fire and after it calms down, mix in 2 table spoons of good cream yogurt.
Serve immediately with basmati rice.

That was today's dinner and we finished it before anyone even thought about taking a photo for the blog. Sorry, maybe next time.

Kiiiiii and Le Club des Chats in Extrapool

There was a concert yesterday at Extrapool. Well, it was in the Onderbroek, since Extrapool is still being under renovation process. There were two bands playing, a french duo Le Club des Chats and two japanese girls called Kiiiiiiiiii.
I didn't see much of the first band, because I was sitting at the kassa with Ani, but I saw the japanese girls and they were crazy. My camera died, it's last words were CHANGE THE BATTERY PACK! so no pictures from me.
But you can take a look at these videos to get a taste of the concert.

Kiiiiiii



Le Club des Chats

...

Making a mushroom risotto

Some champignons were left after yesterday's salmon champignons quiche, so I decided to use them together with two umbrella-mushrooms (portabella in dutch, marela in slovene) and make a mushroom risotto.
Joop offered to go to the shop to get some more ingredients, including risotto rice. In Holland almost everything comes with a recipe which tells you how you could/should use the product.
This one caught my eye because of the line which suggests serving risotto together with some beefsteak and beans. And as a type of the dish it says a main dish.
So, I am supposed to make this risotto as a main dish and serve it together with beefsteak and some veggies??? Wow! That's real Italian style cooking, oh, yeas! Amazing! Thanks for the tip Lassie!

Started to work at Extrapool

Today I started to work at the graphic space of Extrapool.

Behang van plint tot plafond

As Extrapool being a part of exhibition about tapestry at Coda Museum in Apeldoorn, Joyce, JanDirk, Maaike and me went on a mission to plaster a bit of a fancy glass museum in Apeldoorn. When we got there, we found out that our space for putting up the tapestry (behang in dutch) is not in the area of the exhibition. Een beetje vreemd, but we did a great job with it anyway.
Coda was presented also at the Woonbeurs in Amsterdam, where Joyce and JanDirk were plastering next day. The upper picture is from there.

Getting a Burger Service Nummer

This is a bureaucratic story about me coming to live in Holland. It started in may, when the Dutch government finally decided it is ok for the people from new (who joined in 2004) member countries of the EU to come and work in Holland. That means that workers don't have to apply for a work permit if they want to work here which makes things much easier.
If you want to work in Holland you must pay taxes. To make it trackable, every person has a number, which was then called So-fi nummer, now it is called Burger Service Nummer. However, all people who are born here get this number automaticly. If you come from abroad, you have to apply for it.
So, few days after that, I thought it would be a good idea to get that number, or at least apply for it, who knows how long does it all take. On the website of the belastingdienst it said I have to call and make an appointment. There was just one general number, and I called it.
Off course all in dutch, I had to get through about 4 levels menus, and there was no option for English.
Finally someone picked up the phone. "Dag, met Polona, mag ik engels praten?" "Ja, dat mag."
So, I told I want to make an appointment, but that was not possible. That doesn't work like that. The person asked me about my details, where I am from, what is my telephone number and in which bigger city I would like to make an appointment. I told everything, luckily I did have a dutch mobile phone number already, and then he told me, that someone will call me back and make an appointment. So that was in the beginning of may.
I was waiting for that call, well, quite long. Three weeks later I went back to Slovenia, but I kept my dutch phone close all the time just in case if they would call for the appointment. They never called me back. Nice, he?
In the beginning of July I came back to Holland, that's exactly 2 months after that call. So, I called again, got through all the menus, and a person who picked up the phone said: "Yes, you can speak a little English."
So I told the whole story and the guy said someone will call me next day. Indeed they called, but not to make the appointment but again to take my information and phone number. 2 minutes after the phone call, my phone rang again, and it was another voice saying exactly the same lines as in the first conversation. I was totally puzzled and I said I have told this already to another person, but I told all information again just to make sure and I said they don't need to schedule another phone call for me. It was all very fast, early morning, and all in dutch, so at the end of the phone call I wasn't sure anymore what exactly they wanted. I got very worried that they misunderstood and that they canceled the first arrangement, but I had no contact number to call and I was afraid I would make even a bigger mess if I called again to the general number with the 4 levels of menus.
So all I could do was wait. I was sleeping with my phone in my hand and waiting. I was worried I would miss it and then they would never call back.
But, about a week later, my phone rang in the morning! Weeeee, belastingdienst Nijmegen, to take my information again (they should really make a system for that, they ask for it all the time), asked about the reason (SOFI nummer) and made an appointment for me on Wednesday 18th of july at 9.00. Yeah!
What a release, I was really worried about those two phone calls.
But, half hour later, my phone is ringing again with a hidden number (all those calls had a hidden number, so you can't check if it's really belastingdienst or not - beware!). There is a guy saying exactly the same what the first one was saying. Oooooh, not again!!! After his introduction the conversation went like this:
I said, "yeah, I was just called, I have an appointment."
"Yeah, but an appointment for a SOFI nummer, when would you like ... " "I don't need an appointment, I have it already ... " "Ah, so you want to cancel appointment?" "No, no, no, I don't want to cancel anything, it's all arranged." "What do you want then?" "I do need an appointment for a SOFI nummer but someone from the belasting dienst just called and we made an appointment. But I don't need two appointments, just one. So we leave everything as it is, OK?" "Aha."
It was again so strange, he didn't sound very convinced to me, so I was hoping he didn't clear my appointment.
When the day of my appointment came, I couldn't sleep at all and I was awake early. So I walked over there to the belasting dienst, I was 10 minutes too early. In front of the entrance there was a bus just leaving and a bounch of people sitting on the stairs and waiting there looked like a bunch of teenage kids to me. I was thinking ... how strange, school excursions to the belasting dienst when there is no school. As I got closer, I heard they were Polish, but I didn't realize until I walked inside: they are all here for the same reason as I am. I hurried to the counter and thought they just got there, so I can squeeze in front, but the fact was, that because it was so many of them at the counter they were making groups of 10.
I told at the counter that I have an appointment and gave my ID. I tried to speak in dutch but didn't understand something, so we started in English. Se seemed happy about it, it is indeed easier and faster to talk English than trying to understand my beginners dutch. She told that my name is not on the list. I got nervous, but then saw something similar to my name written next to the time of my appointment. I pointed it out and convinced her that it was misspelled. She gave me a number to wait. After more than an hour I walked out of that building with a blue envelope in which was my brand new shiny Burger Service Number.
So, the lecture of that story is. If you need a Burger Service Number, first walk to the nearest Belastingdienst and try. All this calling here and there, it's taking a long time, makes confusions and in the end they don't even put the right name on the schedule. I don't believe all those Polish people from the bus had been through the whole calling and making appointments ceremony. And don't bother to speak dutch if you are not comfortable with it, it doesn't bring you any extra points, it's just slowing down the whole thing. For the forms you have to fill in they have all sort of translations (ok, not a slovene one).