Wow writing here after so long really does make me feel like I'm back home.
I don't really feel like I'm traveling anymore... even though I'm in Buenos Aires still, I feel like I'm on my way home, so I thought I'd write here instead of on my travel blog. It's like my travels were a bell curve and I'm on that low slope right at the end.
Am also back in a completely secular and touristy environment... which just makes me marvel and wonder yet again at the variety of people in the world. I've gone from people who dream to become missionaries, exclaim "Oh my word!" and have never said "B*tch" in their life, to people who get drunk on a regular basis, cuss without a thought and are always looking for boys or girls to kiss and maybe go home with. There is such a variety of people in this world that I think to be able to get along with them all, you just have to be a dull smiley drone devoid of any particular beliefs, values or even character. Actually, one of the people I met used the entire category of "evangelical christians" to describe those ignorant Americans who rarely travel, and when they do, give Americans a bad name. It's probably a thought shared by a lot of the modern, progressive, 'liberal' and worldy population.

I'm glad I went on this trip because even though I've lived an incredibly sheltered existence, you couldn't accuse me of knowing nothing of the world anymore. Traveling is great because you do gain a more global perspective of life... which some people believe is a necessity for any respectable human being living in this day and age, but I think it's unfair to say that there's anything wrong with someone who knows nothing more and desires to know nothing more than their home town. People are just different. Everyone is allowed to define the parameters of their own existence. And honestly, once you expand your horizons to include the whole world, you just make your life more complicated. It really is like the Dorothy stepping into technicolor kind of experience. Yes your life may have more possibilities, colours and dimensions - but what are you going to do about it all? If you see the poverty in a third world country, are you going to do anything about it? If you discover magnificent ruins of ancient civilisations, will you bother to increase your knowledge of ancient cultures? If your eyes set upon the deepest canyon in the world or the biggest waterfall in the world, will you walk away carrying a greater appreciation of the God who created it? Or will it eventually be reduced to just an old box of photos and postcards, and being able to tell your grandchildren, "One day long ago your grandmother traveled as a single young woman through South America, yes she really was a woman of the world"

The reason I'm sitting in one of the most beautiful cities of the world and am blogging is because the weather is rainy and miserable. But with only a few more days here I can't really let that stop me so I'm going to go out now, try to find as many indoor things to do as possible. It will probably involve many cups of coffee and too many pastries.

Have been following the Fuggirl's coverage of the Half Blood Prince premiere red carpets and just HAD to post up a photo of Emma Watson at the New York premiere because she looked absolutely STUNNING.



HELLO Hermione. Dress, shoes, hair, makeup all so cute & sexy AND age appropriate. Lucky that she's so gorgeous, I'm sure her career will go quite well despite the fact that her acting range consists of three facial expressions.

While I was hunting for a good picture of Emma, I also came across this photo:



And I thought "Who is THAT? Is it... is that Ginny Weasley!? WOW!" I've always given poor Bonnie Wright a bit of a hard time for not being quite "pretty enough" to  be a satisfying romantic lead opposite Harry Potter but she did well here! Okay, she looks about 20 years older than she actually is, but she's really chanelling Julianne Moore's sexy red-hair, red-lipstick look here and that's not a bad thing! I am now cool with the fact that you're the future Mrs Pottor.

One last thing... someone who scrubs up surprisingly well:


It's NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM!!!!! AKA Matthew Lewis - he looks like a young Clive Owen! That is, before he opens his mouth to reveal some serious dental issues that the producers have clearly not allowed him to fix in order to attain that genuinely goofy 'Neville' look, but not bad, not bad at all!

If I were feeling a little more self-conscious I wouldn't dare to write a blog about my readership - but I'm feeling a bit flamboyantly narcissistic right now, probably from all those endorphins after my pilates workout, and I will blatantly acknlowedge that I do check my 'footprints' occasionally and DO care about how many visits I've gotten (DON'T PRETEND YOU DON'T DO IT TOO!) I've noticed that the number of people who visit this blog has dwindled DRASTICALLY - and I'm not sure why. Is it Twitter? Is it the new colour scheme? Has everyone grown out of my self-obsessed ranting? Have I become less interesting? Have I gained weight? What is it?

Actually, if I had more than three readers, I probably wouldn't have the guts to write out ridicule-inviting blogs like this. Yes yes its ridiculous to want decent readership when the material is so sparse, dull and inane but we are all allowed our irrational and delusional desires aren't we? And my irrational and delusional desire is for people to find my blog FASCINATING. Not just readable, or vaguely interesting, FASCINATING. Okay I think I'm taking this a bit too far but I'm not going to back-track. If this blog has any endearing quality, it has to be honesty.

Ugh more and more in social situations I realise exactly how self-conscious I am, and therefore how much I make an unnatural effort to be funny, interesting, insightful, interestED, etc. I've realised this because most of the people around me are just naturally one or more of the above. Behind everything I do or say is some sort of forced effort - omg STORY OF MY LIFE. If I acted 'natural', I would just sit back, say nothing and make a sarcastic remark every now and then. Unless I'm tralking about Masterchef or what I'm eating for lunch - thats a different story.

SEGUE! (wow, it took me about 10 minutes on google to find out how that was spelt - Segway? Segueway?) My friend at work sent me this magnificant recipe for macarons today and I go really excited about trying it out. I recently ate my very first french macaron at Adriano Zumbo's patisserie in Balmain. It had passionfruit meringues, with a hazlenut cream AND surprise burst of passionfruit cream in the middle. It was seriously one of the most amazing things I've ever tasted in my life. You have to be ready for a big wave of sweetness though. Anyway I had made a plan to make these macarons on Friday night but as I read the recipe I realised this was impossible. I lack three essential tools: a) a food processor (will a blender suffice?) b) a proper sifter and c) a piping bag. Saddened. I would go out and buy all these things if I weren't so strapped for cash right now because of imminent overseas travels.

Thought I would post up the recipe anyway, it's from Gourmet Traveller.




  METHOD

1	Process icing sugar and almond meal in a food processor until finely ground, triple-sift into a large bowl and set aside. Whisk 90gm eggwhite in an electric mixer until soft peaks form (1-2 minutes). Add caster sugar, a tablespoon at a time, whisking continuously until incorporated and mixture is thick and glossy (2-3 minutes), then add food colouring. Stir in almond mixture in batches until incorporated and mixture slowly slides down sides of bowl when bowl is tilted. Add remaining eggwhite to loosen mixture, spoon into a piping bag with a 1cm plain nozzle, pipe 3cm-diameter rounds of mixture onto heavy baking-paper-lined oven trays, stand until a crust begins to form (4-5 hours).
2	Preheat oven to 140C. Bake macarons until firm but not coloured, swapping trays halfway through cooking (10-12 minutes), set aside, cool completely on trays.
3	Meanwhile, for white chocolate and raspberry ganache, bring cream just to the boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat, add chocolate, stand until melted (5 minutes), stir until smooth and glossy. Refrigerate until firm yet still pliable (45 minutes-1 hour) then stir until smooth. Add raspberries, stir to form a ripple effect, then spoon a teaspoon of ganache onto half the macarons. Sandwich with remaining macarons and refrigerate until set. Macarons will keep for 1-2 days refrigerated in an airtight container.