Time to travel

Last week Fried came back to Chicago to say hi to friends that he made here and to visit me. Ever since he was here in January we had been making plans to hang out this summer. Our original plan was to go to St. Louis and help a man renovate a house for a program called Work Away; criteria for Work Away is simple we offer about 5 hours of service for 5 days a week and in return we get accommodations such as shower, food, and power. Before we went we were told that we could wait a week to come so there would be power and water in the house. We went instead of waiting because we had tickets already paid for.The date of departure was the 26th of June that day was Sunday. Fried and I figured we could help Sascha get his all of things done and enjoy our time together. Well as we all know not always does everything work out the way we plan them. The trip on the train was quite enjoyable if i do say so myself. Upon arrival Sascha picked up from the train station, and showed us around St. Louis. Some things he showed us were The Arch, The Cardinals stadium, and the Wax museum. Then all three of us shared a couple of beers later on that day before we ventured over to the house. I had seen pictures of the house early this year in February, least to say is that pictures can be very deceiving. So that night we worked about 8 hours and ate a banana for supper. We personally thought at this point in time everything would be splendid within a few days boy were we wrong. The next day(was a Monday) we had pancakes for breakfast and proceeded to work from about 12 noon to 10 that night with only banana's for our lunch. That day we had gone shopping for groceries at Aldis's, it was like pulling teeth out of a baby. Fried and I understand the value of a dollar, but Sascha took that and elevated it to an extent that was ridiculous. He wanted use to eat nothing but cheap pasta for two weeks but that's not healthy for anyone. We fought with him to buy healthy meats, vegetables, and carbs. He finally agreed to listen to use once we gave him good reason to. That night we had a salad consisting of spinach, avocado, tomatoes, and sliced chicken breast. If your a guy you will understand this next part the best, Fried and I had one of the largest Bro-talks ever. I believe we had a talk that lasted for roughly 4 hours that night. The following morning(Tuesday) we were woken up around 9 o'clock so we could eat and get to work early. We had a great breakfast an omelet with bacon, tomato, and Italian cheese. Well we made a startling discovery that day while working. We were working in a house infested with black mold. We didn't mind at the moment because we were promised that all the copper we took out we would get the money for it. So that was our driving thought for everything. This day Sascha ran to the store about ten times. leaving me and Fried to work on our own which was great, we no longer had someone trying to hold our hand while we did stuff, we were finally productive. We got all the connections done that day took us about 10 hours. At this point we had finally had it we wanted to be able to enjoy ourselves in the city but we couldn't because we were working so many hours. That night when we were trying to decide what to eat Sascha's words to use were "We don't have to eat gourmet every meal." If you can tell me what is so gourmet about a spinach salad with vegetables and some chicken. Wednesday we had the day to ourselves because Sascha had to do something with his car. So Fried and I determined we would do some research on what our pay was coming out to be what it would be if he was paying us correctly and what the health risks of the black mold was. The pay we figured out came out to be about 50 cents an  hour for ten hours a day, this came from the food expense. The average starting salary for what we were doing was 25 dollars an hour. For the health risks of black mold it was : asthmatic symptoms, becoming light headed, bloody noses, etc. With these facts we went out to the city to make decisions on what to do either stay and see if things would get better or leave. Our decision was made once we arrived at Starbucks, we would leave and come back to Chicago. So we left that night at 6 p.m. from the greyhound bus station. We have been back in Chicago since the 30th of June. Today is July Forth happy Independence Day everyone.

Life since my first surfer

Hello, everyone
    Its been forever since was on this site to update my information. a lot has happened since my last post back in January. For instance i had two more surfers visit my house here in Chicago. Sadly I didn't get the time to cook any meals with the other two surfers. After Fried left another surfer asked to stay in February and so i accepted his name was Hannon, he was from California. Hannon was an intriguing fellow which made things interesting. While he was here we visited a part of Chicago called Lincoln  Park; he was here in Chicago looking for an apartment. During our trip to Lincoln park we went to a Microbrewery/pizza restaurant called One Piece. A pizza a pitcher of beer and two men was the setting of a great night, at least i thought so. later that night we meet up with other csers and from there he proceeded to drink more. Hannon drinking more was not a good idea, this made him think he could roam Chicago without getting lost in our streets.
Following Hannon's departure i got another request from a French student Studying in New York, his name was Nelson. nelson was only here for two night but it felt like he was here as long as Fried was. Nelson's visit consisted of visiting the parks such as Millennium Park, Forest Park, etc. I had class on one of the days he was here so he decided to go to some parks as was his plan; when we meet up later on that day he described how a crack dealer came up to him and was offering to sell him some, the audacity in his voice was more than i could handle. later that night we had some intense bro talks, allowing us to see that we had quite a bit of things in common. the following morning he went on his way to Canada. Someday i hope to visit him in Tours, France.

This is the lastest news on my surfing experience, sorry they aren't as detailed as my post about Fried, but i cant remember that far back to well with the way my schedule has been.

My First of Many Surfers



Hello to everyone and thank you for checking out The World is Our Platter. This is all about my first surfer Fried Filler from Germany and the many things that we shared And what he thought me and vise versa. Fried Was originally born in Bavaria Germany, he lived there for 12 years. Bavaria is a landscape full of trees and crystal clear Blue water. He now lives in Berlin Germany. The landscape for Berlin is a very flat and boring landscape not to much unlike the flat lands of America. Fried is at the beginning of his 250 day trip around the world. total price for him to travel for 250 days just over $12,000 U.S. Dollars. His journey began in Iceland on January 6, 2011. From there he traveled to New York. He now is in Chicago and will be leaving for Indianapolis. After that he will go to San Fransisco. From there to New Zealand then Australia. From Australia To South Africa. Once he is done with South Africa he will make his way back to New York then to Chicago St. Louis. Once he is done with St. Louis he will travel home and begin college. While he was here in Chicago for his six day we went around the town and seen many interesting things. The First day he went to my college with me and got to see what studying the Culinary Arts is like. The  next day we traveled all of Chicago from the Sears Tower now called the Willis tower, to Navy Pier, then to a great little place where we got ourselves a Famous Chicago Deep Dish Pizza. the next day we planned on going to Chinatown but it turned out to be way to cold for that so instead we got ingredients to make a German dish called Schweinebraten. This dish is made of pork shoulder, Sauerkraut and dumplings. After we got the ingredients we went to a nice party in downtown and ended up staying up until 7 o'clock the next morning. The next day was the big day between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears. Plus we went to the Vietnam War Museum. After all this was said and done we finally made the Schweinebraten Yummy along with that we made this wonderful little Raspberry Souffle. Then the Final Day came(very sad moment) but he still got to see some cool things such as the Shedd Aquarium he went to a baking class with me. Fried was wonderful to have stay at my house i loved every moment of it. I learned interesting things like Germans love things to be very clean, they also complain about everything he is an exception to that rule. He said the highest complement you can usually get from a German "is that's OK." The Taxes in Germany would make most Americans cry. They take roughly 48% of your earnings in a year then spend it on random things. When they buy stuff at a store it is usually 19% taxes. They have 28 different dialogs in Germany this made my jaw drop. He says that the way Bavaria is that they uphold a lot of tradition and don't like to deviate from their tradition. Bavarians speek a completly diffrent German then the other parts of the country. Fried gave me an example of it and it was confusing compaired to normal German.The recipes below are the recipes that we tried out while he was here and let me tell you every single one of them is great. I can't wait till he comes back to Chicago cause from here we are going to travel to St. Louis and  help fix a house down their with a friend of his. And finally i will be traveling after i am done with college and some day I hope To Surf his Couch. To follow Fried Go to the link ItchyFeet under the Blog Links.