Breaking the fast...all over the world

After a long night of digestion, a restful sleep and sugar-sweet dreams you will need a gorgeous, healthy breakfast.  The best way to start your morning off and to gain energy for the day is a decent meal. Skipping breakfast is said to be very unhealthy as you lose your energy for important things, puts you into greater risk of being overweight as well as losing joy because food makes people haaaaaaaaaaaaaaappy.

All over the world people start their day with a yummy breakfast but all those meals look different.

I'm sure everyone has an idea what an English breakfast is:

An English breakfast usually consists of bakes beans, sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and toast. All this is washed back with a cup of black tea with milk.

I've never been in England, however, a friend of mine, who is from London, once made us a very delicious original English breakfast. When I was in Scotland the B&B I stayed at served the very same things. In addition, they offered haggis, which is a traditional Scottish dish, at the buffet.




In Hawaii the usual breakfast consists of fruits, bagels and cream cheese. Well, I'd call that a healthy start into the day! In Russia they eat oladi, which are Russian pancakes, with soured cream, honey, jam or berries. In Spain, they usually eat very little for breakfast, sometimes just a coffee. When I was in Barcelona we sometimes had magdalenas, which are sweet, little, lemony cupcakes (I made the experience that I don't like them, they are too sour and too sweet at the same time). Once I bought rolls  filled with ham and cheese which, in contrast, were really good.

A friend of mine was so kind as to tell me what they usually eat for breakfast in Egypt. She said, a traditional breakfast consisted of ful, which are cooked and mashed beans, falafel, sheep's milk cheese and eggs. Sweet alternatives are bread with halva, sweet syrup (they refer to it as "black honey") or sesame paste.

In Bosnia we eat a great amount of white bread, not only for breakfast but also for lunch and sinner. And snacks. We like to eat in Bosnia, that's a fact. To return to the topic: A breakfast normally consists of white bread with spicy sausages (sudjuk), cheese, ham. A sweet alternative would be kajmak (a creamy dairy product) or butter and jam.

Well, that sounds delicious, doesn't it? Oh boy, I'm pretty hungry now writing about food all the time makes one's tummy rumble!

W(h)erewolf, Whowolf, Whatwolf, Whywolf ???

The best party game, except of Activity perhaps, is Werewolf. Activity is fun but the party or the gathering is quasi over if someone forgot to bring the game to the party. What should be done then? Well, first of all, don't panic! There is still another option: Werewolf

The advantage over other games is that you don't need anything, except a piece of paper, which is cut in small stripes or little cards, and a pen. It's a simple game for a large group of people, however, it is a little tricky at first to get the procedure of the game and you need at least seven people for it.

Here are the rules:
before starting the game you will need

• to choose a moderator (preferably with a good imagination)
• paper stripes or cards, on which you write (or if you prefer draw) the different characters. The characters are two werewolves, a seer, a witch and villagers.

After the preparation everyone, except the moderator, draws a paper stripe on which they see which character they are going to represent. The werewolves' goal is to kill all the villagers, which includes seer and witch, before they identify the werewolves as such and lynch them. 

The game changes between day and night. During the night everyone closes the eyes. First, the moderator asks the werewolves to open their eyes, choose one person in the circle they want to kill and close their eyes again. Then the moderator asks the seer to open his/her eyes, choose one person in the circle whose identity he/she wants to learn. The moderator sticks the thumb in the air if the person is a villager and down if the person is a werewolf. After the seer went to sleep again, the witch awakes. The  person who plays the role of the witch can either kill or save a person but only once. The moderator tells the witch whom the werewolves killed before, so she can save the person or kill another in addition to the already killed player. 

The sun rises and everybody opens their eyes. This is where Werewolf gets really exciting. The moderator announces who was killed and who was saved overnight. During the day the players can say and do anything, including lying, bluffing and drawing off the attention from themselves in order to convince that they are innocent and that another player is the werewolf.

At this point usually a huge discussion erupts. By the end of the day the players have to nominate a person they suspect to be a werewolf and lynch that person. The nominated person has to reveal the identity after the moderator announced his/her death. 

The procedure starts again, the sun sets, the werewolves wake and sniffing through the cold night they make their way to their new victim...

The person who remains at the end is the winner.

There are several possible variations of the game but this is the way my friends and I play it. When there are more people we usually add some characters. For example, cupid who chooses two players at the start of the game and these players fall secretly in love. If one player should be killed during the game the lover dies with the murdered. 

A hint for the moderator: he or she shouldn't speak in the direction of the player with the eyes open, this could be a hint for the other players and the fun fades away quickly. 

The game is real fun, you should try it out! 

Here are two links where you can print the cards out:

WEREWOLF CARDS

WEREWOLF CARDS

Gather some friends around you and get the party started!

Why Elvis Presley is the dwarf in the priest's garden...

Whoever reads my blog posts will notice at some point that I have those little obsessions I can't, and don't want, get rid of. So, I want to share one of my obsessions with you because it's related to language learning in the most interesting way imaginable: etymology.

Etymology is the study of word origins and how the meaning of a word changed throughout time.

This is a rather new obsession of mine, in fact since my last birthday. I got an incredibly funny and informative book from a very good friend for my 20th birthday and I immediately fell in love with it. The book's title is "The Etymologicon- A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language" by Mark Forsyth. The author is a blogger and goes by the name Inky Fool which I think is a very catchy name. In my opinion, he writes in such a wonderful, clever and hilarious way that I would really recommend everyone having a look at his blog.

Who can find out what the title of this post is about? Why is Elvis a dwarf???