4 posts tagged “germany”
Ok, I know it's a few days late, but apparently I've been really bad at blogging lately! Here's the 2008 recap:
January
- January 1st: Shadow breaks my nose. Happy New Years!
- January 13th: I get smacked in the nose again at a CERT drill and realize that my nose really is broken.
- January 17th: I started EMT school - so exciting!
February
- February 28th: My first of many encounters with the neighborhood turkies.
March
- March 8th: Houseboat weekend with Brigitte and Amber!
- March 15th: Mather Air Show Day One: lots of patients to practice on!
- March 16th: Mather Air Show Day Two: more patients!
- March 26th: My hospital rotation - a life changing experience!
April
- April 18th: Rivercats baseball game with Dad, Brigitte and Amber
- April 19-20th: CERT Mobex - disaster drill in Clovis
May
- May 10th: Kati graduates from UGA - Mom, Dad and I flew back for a fantastic weekend in Georgia!
- May 13th: NREMT exam - I passed and am officially an EMT!
- May 24th: EMT party - absolutely hilarious - everyone came dressed as some sort of victim... it was great!
June
- June 10th: Metro's CERT team is called up to help out with the local grass fires
- June 21st: Saved my first patient at a CERT event
July
- July 14th: Visited my customer in Houston. Hot and sticky. Ate more steak than a girl should!
- July 20th: Kati moves home from Georgia!
August
- August 8th: Joanna and Chris come to visit!
- The rest of August - Kati and I go to Germany, France, Italy and Greece... it's the trip of a lifetime!
September
- September 14th: Met Mike! :)
- September 24th: Had a close encounter with a tomato hornworm. Had to call Julie in for backup.
- September 26th: Went to the Neil Diamond concert with Kati!
October
- October 9th: Went to the New Kids On The Block concert with Julie, Mindy, Amanda and Chris.
- October 16th: Selected for the Sarah Weeden jury - little did I know it would last two months!
- October 31st: Halloween party!
November
- November 1st: Went to the Madonna concert with Adam and Eva!
- November 4th: Barak Obama is elected president
- November 26th: Thanksgiving vacation at Lake Almanor
- November 15th: Second Annual Friends Thanksgiving!
December
- December 11th: Sarah Weeden trial ends
- December 30th: Kings game with Mike
- December 31st: Mike's New Years Eve Party - LOTS of pig!
All in all, I'd say it was a fantastic year! Who can complain?!
Hope everyone had a wonderful New Year! Mike's party was a blast - they roasted 120 pounds of pig! It took four of them just a few minutes to cut it all up (lots of practice apparently!). Here's a picture of the pig on the spit:
It was insanely delicious! The party was a blast!
As you probably know, today is my birthday. It's been fantastic... it's 2:30pm and I'm still in my jammies! I've watched a bunch of episodes of "ER" (thanks Mike!) and some "Friends" reruns. It's been wonderfully relaxing!
I know, it's taken forever to get to this. Jet lag killed me. Then I caught the "plane cold" which just today turned into a sinus infection. Fun times.
That said, without further ado, here is my review of the fabulous food Kati and I scarfed in Europe! Click on the names below to see pictures of each dish.
Germany
There was pretty much nothing that I didn't love in Germany. Of course, I grew up on it, so how could I go wrong? Some of my favorite dishes:
Schnitzel (pounded veal that is breaded, fried and you squeeze lemon on)
Kaesspazten (a doughy noodle that is covered in cheese and onions)
Apfelstrudel (a delicious dessert that is an apple filled pastrey)
Rouladen (beef wrapped around pickles)
Pretzels (just like Oma used to make them - way better than Auntie Annie's!)
And, of course, there was beer. It was delicious. Never as cold as we tend to drink it here in the US, which I actually like better. My favorite beer was the last night... I had a delicious hefewieizen that was to die for. Kati fell in love with what they call the "Radler" beer. Basically, it's beer that's flavored with Zitronenlimonade, or lemon lime soda. If you're not a mjor beer fan, it's a good way to go.
France
Crepes (they come in a wide range of flavors... I loved the ones with the dark chocolate in them)
Chocolate Croissants (these were awesome in France... I ate more than one every day!)
Roasted Chicken (this seemed to be a big French thing... we had a lot of chicken)
French Champagne (we had this at the mMoulin Rouge. DELICIOUS!)
Baguettes (I have never tasted French bread this delicious before)
Apple Beignets (these had an apple filled center that was like a pureed apple sauce)
We also had some fantastic wine while we were in France... in Saint Emilion I had a glass of merlot at this little sidewalk cafe... it didn't taste like alcohol at all!
Italy
Spaghetti (I discovered that tomato sauce in Italy tastes much better... it's much less sweet and more like real tomatoes)
Canolli (I had one of these as soon as we got off the plane in Italy... it was to die for!)
Gelato (I fell in love with the chocolate)
The first day that we were there Kati and I shared this amazing salami sandwich... rather than having mustard and mayo, they used this spiced, olive oiled bread... it was so flavorful! We also had this wonderful, but simple, pasta dish on the ferry. It was linguine pasta, with bell peppers, all with a little bit of olive oil. Simple yet incredible delicious - one of the best pasta dishes we had!
Greece
Greek salad (I'm not a huge fan, but this was delicious. I even ate the feta cheese!)
Kati had this fantastic pastry (that I can't remember the name of) which had a creamy custardy center with a phyllo dough outside. Sometimes it was even vanilla cream. Yum! We weren't there very long and were still craving pasta, so we ended up eating spaghetti while we were there (I know...). It was really good!
Diet Coke is also different in Europe. Besides the fact that they never serve it with ice (we had an Italian waitress tell us it was because Italian women teach their sons that it will hurt their tummy), it had a different taste. Less Splenda and more natural sweet. I sort of liked it! We also had a really hard time getting water that wasn't carbonated (or "with gas" as they said). I felt like I was ordering toilet water when I asked for tap water!
Well, that's it for the review. Enjoy!
Hi everyone! Kati and I are having the most amazing time!
Day 1: Driving (Germany)
After a LONG flight on the BIGGEST plane I've ever been on, we finally made it to Munich, Germany! The first thing that we did was get the rental car. Now, I had to rent manual because it was much less expensive, and I had one driving lesson from Tony. I did fine, until we tried to leave the parking garage. It was a little hill, and needless to say, I'm not so great at first gear on flat ground. After several stalls, the gate closed on me and I had to drive up to get another ticket. The whole thing was very embarrassing! We went to the Hoffbrau House for lunch (they had a live polka band!) and got completely lost driving around the city, but had a blast seeing all we could see. Once we got out onto the autobahn, I was fine (ok, I did drive a little slower than most of the people there). The German countryside is absolutely amazing - it's so green and lush! We drove all the way to Mindelheim (it did take us quite a while because we got pretty lost). The family there is just amazing - we were staying with Anna and Seigfried (Anna is my Oma's sister and Seigfried is her husband) and on the first night they rolled out the red carpet! We climbed to the top of this little castle that overlooks Mindelheim (Mindelberg) and got to see the whole city. We also drove past Mom's old house. The whole family came over (Heidi, Bergit, Helmut - my mom's cousins, Christoph - my 3rd cousin and one of Christoph's friends). Kati and I were exhausted, but it was so fun hanging out with them and meeting everyone!
Day 2: Neuschwanstein (Germany)
On the second day Kati and I had planned to go to Neuschwanstein on our own, however, the whole family wqnted to take us and show us everything around there. I was more than happy to relinquish my driving over to Johann (Heidi's husband). The German countryside was so amazing - there are lots of corn fields (I was later informed that there are 5 types of corn gorwn in Germany) and cows everywhere (with real cowbells!).We got to the castle and took a short walk over to the Alpsee, which is a lake in the Alps that the castle overlooks - it was so serene and beautiful. Then we began the hike up to the castle. Forty-five breathless minutes later, we were there, as was my 78 year old great aunt! I couldn't believe she made the whole hike! The castle was truely amazing - we took the tour and saw all of the rooms that were open to the public. After hiking back down the hill, we headed over to the cafe for a delicious German lunch, the highlight of which was the apfelstrudel! After leaving the castle we went to the Wieskirche, which is this beautiful Catholic church out in the Bavarian countryside.
Day 3: Rammingen and Munich (Germany)
Fannie, my Opa's neice picked us up on the third day and took us over to Rammingen where we met up with Martin and Seigfried (her brothers) and Jan (Martin's son). They showed us around the city and then took us to see the Swabian farmers museum, that has an actual villiage set up to show what things would have looked like during the farming times - it was so cool to see what the technology was and to see the actual restored buildings (our family farmed back in the day). After that, we headed in to see the Basilica, this extremely beautiful church that had an amazing pipe organ and some of the most ornate decorations I've ever seen in a church! We had another delicious Bavarian lunch (hooray for rouladen!) and then headed back into Munich. We stayed overnight zith Bernd (he's a third cousin) who was really cool - he speaks almost perfect English and took Kati and I out to dinner. After three days of struggling with my German, it was so nice to be able to talk to someone in English! We had to leave super early the next morning to catch our flight to Paris, so we didn't get to hang out nearly enough with Bernt!
Day 4: Paris (France)
We took the super early flight into Paris and began our navigation of the tricky metro system. We have these really cool passes that let us use the metro wherever we want to go, and I must say, Kati has found her niche. She's lost pretty much everywhere else in the world, but for some reason has absolutely no porblem navigating the streets of Paris. We took a great bus tour in the afternoon (after dining on a lunch of the best baguette I've ever had and some beignets) that tooks us all over the city - for 2 hours. We saw everything and then laid out our plan for the rest of the time here. Our first stop was the Eiffel Tower. We had a little miscommunication and didn't get to climb the stairs up (we did take them down though) and finally made it to the top - what a fantastic view! we have some great pictures from up there and from the ground!
Well, that's all so far - I will write about today from the next cafe because we still have lots to do! There are tons of pictures that I'll send out once we get home, but for now, au revoir!
I'm ridiculously excited. Kati and I are planning a backpacking trip through Europe. We've been emailing, calling, etc back and forth for the last week making all sorts of exciting plans. We've got it narrowed down to four countries: France, Germany, Italy and Greece. Tonight we're working on swapping air miles to make sure that we can both get over there for free. We'll see if it all works out!
Europe, here we come!
