Post-Four Germany

Where to start when you only have a few moments to blog? We have not even had time to go into the details of our trips to Berlin, Prague, Munich Brussels, and the city of Giessen. For another day with pictures, perhaps! Needless to say, each trip consisted of endless comments like, ''Wow!'' and ''That looks delicious!'' and ''Maybe just one more...'' and ''Which one of us smells'' and "'Who's the boss?" (Angela or Tony?.....or Mona?.....)

After saying goodbye to Rob and Linden in Germany, the fearless foursome was split up, and James and I were down to just us two for the next week. While we were sad to say goodbye, we were also looking forward to a week of meeting new people, seeing different countries, and experiencing more of the good life of Euro-culture (aka: Belgian fries, beers, and waffles!)

We spent two days in Brussels, which was suprisingly quaint with lots to do! The people were incredibly friendly and laid back, and it certainly didn't feel like a capital city of1.2 million. We loved the giant parks the best, I think. People will sometimes tell you to skip Brussels and head for Brugges or Ghent (smaller, more picturesque towns) but Brussels was worth the visit.

Next, we went to Ghent and fell into great luck because right now the town is in the middle of an annual 10-day festival in which the entire town (500,000) turns out to jam out, indulge, socialize, and shop. It is customary to stay out the entire night, and the city does not close down until about 8am or so...we lasted until a little before 2am before fighting our way through the thongs of people (pretty much all locals!) to turn in for the night.

Tomorrow morning we head off for the last leg of our trip, Amsterdam. We'll spend 2 days there before heading back to good ole' Guate.

Blog Easter Egg: A short, gentle mohawk combined with a short, gentle mullet is a dapper 'do these days, and in German they call the mohawk `Euro Cheese`! We prefer the combo-terms "Mulhawk" or ''Mollet." Post comments on other suggested terms for this weirdly popular hairstyle!

An Ironically Slow Trip on the Autobahn: Weekend in Berlin, part 1

July 10
It's been a goal and dream of mine for some time now to drive on the Autobahn, preferably in a BMW. Thankfully Linden shared this dream. So, the four of us rented a car to drive over to Berlin as it was actually cheaper than taking a train. Rob made a reservation for a sporty little BMW 1-series, but unfortunately when we went to pick it up, they were out (typical car rental experience, right?), but they did have an Audi A3, which is an equally fine example of German auto engineering...for the first couple hours of the trip.

Icey Hot Stuntin'

Before we had troubles with the car, it was really fun to drive, having a six-speed transmission and a diesel engine offering lots of power and great handling. I won't go into the details of how fast we drove for the sake of my mother!

Linden taking a turn at the wheel

With the help of the navigation system, we took an hour+ scenic detour around some backed up traffic and really enjoyed the German countryside. There are so many small, charming towns scattered throughout the country, many featuring a castle overlooking the town, that it was really fun to drive through.


At about three hours into the drive, the dash suddenly displayed a warning and the acceleration was moderated. The car could no longer accelerate as before, so passing slower cars and quickly getting out of the way of the really fast cars was problematic. We called the rental agency and they instructed us to pull over and wait for someone to come out and take care of the situation. Long story short, the four of us became caught up in battle between Audi, the rental agency, and the towers that lasted from 10:30-2:30 a.m.! We were stuck waiting forever for the companies to agree on the arrangements before we could take our new rental car, which was ready and waiting for us the whole time; we just couldn't drive off with it until the paperwork was correct. We finally arrived at Rob's mom's house around 4 a.m.--nine hours after we left.

Thankfully the rest of the weekend went great, and we'll write more on that soon...

Rhine-ing and Dining

Roses for sale at the Giessen farmers' market

There are two inescapable qualities of Germany that have caused us to fall in love with the country: The beauty of the hillsides (both the towns and natural scenery) and the consistently high quality of the food and drink.

Starting with the beauty of Germany, there is so much to discuss here it will be hard to limit this post to only the architecture and the nature.

The buildings in Germany -- in large cities and small towns alike -- are magnificent! At all times we find ourselves walking among the quaint Germanic old-style buildings, marveling at the gothic-style churches and cathedrals, or staring in wonder at the castles. We love the detail that was put into each building: each window sill has something delicate painted around it, or a lovely flower bed holding it up. Each cathedral has been kept in top-notch condition, each doorway has some level of filigree to mark your entrance and exit. It is almost as if there is some law (and perhaps there is?) that buildings must be painted and restored every few years.

Germanic Buildings in the shopping district of Marburg

The natural beauty is hard to pass up, too. Because there is no problem here of urban sprawl (based on the way cities were built and then maintained with city centers and public transportation), train trips out looking out the window go something like this: You are looking at a patchwork of dark and light greens and yellows for farming, and every so often you see a city on a hill or in the distance. You can see the entire city in one place. It has a beginning and an end. It is contained. There are (seemingly) no suburbs. After ooh-ing and aah-ing at the town's cathedral spire and wood-beam sided Germanic buildings, the town ends and you are again looking at rolling, colorful hills until you see the next enclosed village. Amazingly compact and preserved in its own way.

A typical German hillside with a small town

Little did we know, but Germany also seems to have a fetish for fresh flowers. We have seen countless varieties, mainly roses. Everywhere we go seems to smell incredible because everywhere we go seems to be covered in flowers! There was a huge rose garden at the top of a castle we visited over the weekend.

Rose garden at Marburg Castle

We recently took a 4-hour boat tour on the Rhine River from the small town of Rüdesheim up to the larger city of Koblenz, and the rolling hillsides were quietly blanketed with forests and whispering trees, sleepy villages, imposing castles, and colorful cathedrals. It was filled with gorgeous panoramic views and we were enthralled the entire time. Everything just seemed to quiet and serene and perfect. Wow.

On the Rhine

Castles towered above small villages

Churches galore...

Click on the panoramic to see the Rhine in its splendid glory!
You won't regret it :)

*****
German food is the other constant enjoyment! We don't want to brag on Germany, but the food here is darned near perfect each and every meal. Breakfast has already been covered. Lunch and dinner are meals where the richness and description of entrees makes you all warm and fuzzy inside without even having taken a bite!

People here enjoy their food. In the pedestrian district where Linden and Rob live, there are dozens of eateries where you simply buy something small to snack on, and stand at a standing-only tall table, eat, enjoy, leave. You have many choices of what to eat, of course...everything from currywurst (bratwurst cut up with ketchup and curry powder), french fries and mayo, gelato, coffee, small glasses of beer, seafood, meat-cheese sandwiches, mini pizzas, crepes, and of course, bread, bread, and more bread. :) A favorite afternoon snacks is a pretzel.

We have had the pleasure of devouring a few delicious dinners and delightful drinks from breweries. Disappointment is not on the menu! James has made some interesting choices such as blutwurst (blood sausage), leberwurst (liverwurst), and veal gulash. Some more memorable meals for me were the potato and salmon soup, and 'Pizza alla diablo.' One day we only had gourmet cheese and chocolate....7 different types of gourmet chocolate to boot!

A meal of blood sausage, liverwurst, and mashed potatoes smothered in gravy.
MMMMmmmm!

"Prost!"

The beers have lived up to their German heritage. James could speak more to what makes them so great, but they are all fresh, on tap, and zesty! My current favorite is the bierbowle, which is a beer that has fruit in the bottom. It makes the beer taste fruity (strawberries, peaches, etc.). James is enjoying the local pilsner varieties.

Bierbowle: check out those berries in the foam!

All in all, we have absolutely, positively nothing but praise for everything we have eaten and drank in Germany. Everything about this vacation seems so pleasantly perfect!

German July 4th

This was our first Fourth of July celebration without fireworks, country music, or a park full of people decked out in red, white, and blue. Despite missing some good old American patriotism, it was nonetheless a great day!

Before the day really began, James roused the four of us into singing a spirited version of the Star Spangled Banner (with James taking the high parts), including impromptu marching, saluting the curtains as a flag, and fabricated cymbal crashes. That was about as much a part of the American way of the holiday we spent celebrating our independence.

As noted in the previous blog post, we started the day with bread and coffee, then made our way out for a stroll around the pedestrian shopping district, enjoying the simple ability to walk around outside in a city. Since the weather here has been pleasant, we made our way to an outdoor cafe, and had baguette sandwiches with locally brewed pilsner beer, and read our books, wrote in journals, and watched the good-looking Germans riding their bikes or walking their dogs.

James at the Turmchen cafe

After spending a few hours relaxing at Turmchen cafe, we met back up with the Muellers at the apartment for a nice 6-mile run in the nearby forest we had previously run in. Although James and I have been mainly confined to gym workouts and treadmill runs over the past year, we have felt in good enough shape to partake with Linden and Rob as Linden is training for the Berlin Marathon (26.2 miles) in September. The forest running has been amazing for our eyes, souls, and legs! We have truly enjoyed our time outdoors, in the soft, lush, green forest with a safe, wide running path. (more on running in a future post)

Running in the German forest

After the run, we went to an end-of-year barbeque at Linden's university. It was Linden's last day of school for the semester, and her coworkers wanted to celebrate. With a few exceptions, her coworkers were mainly German or Scottish. So the food was German: meats, breads, and potato salads (no true barbeque flavors, mainly bratwursts with mustards and lots of--you guessed it--good bread) and the entertainment was Scottish.

Chunky playing the bagpipes

One of the Scottish blokes (nickname: Chunky. Pasttime? Hill running) had brought along his set of bagpipes, and he was really good at it! After serenading the Americans with the three American songs he knew (Amazing Grace, Star Wars, and In the Jungle), some of the other Scottish teachers suggested dancing, so we moved ourselves to a nearby patch of land for some true dancing--Scottish style!

Before Chunky started up his bapipes again, he taught us all how to "Strip the Willows," a male/female separated dance, focused on couples, pair-by-pair. First, the woman strips the willows (dances a short jig with each man in the line). Next, the man strips the willows on the female side of the dance line. Finally, each partner goes down, stripping the willows on each sides, and jigging with their partner in the middle in between each new person in the line. It was breathtaking, and quite an exercise! After, we were also impressed with Chunky playing the bagpipes the whole time!

Nicolas and I "stripping the willows"
(A Scottish partner dance to bagpipes)

James and Anike stripping the willows

Rob and Dominic stripping the willows

After the party, we walked over to the Mueller's friends' house to chat a bit before heading home. It was another full, fun-filled day!

Chunky let Linden try the bagpipes...
With Linden's clarinet background, she impressed us all!

Give Us This Day

Unequivocally, of the best parts of German cuisine is the bread. German law seems to have included a clause that each city block should maintain at least one bakery and one biergarten (for a later post).

The German imagination for what can go into a bread is creative and masterfully produced. The bakeries are not simply a few dozen rolls of white bread, or a few pastries to eat with one´s morning kaffee. They are full-blown doughy amusement parks for the mouth. German bakeries, even the hole-in-the-wall ones, offer a wide variety of brotchen (bread rolls), streusels (pie-like cobbler), pretzels, baguettes, scones, croissants, muffins, pastries, cheese breads, and mini pizza pies, to name a few. This of course is only on the front serving section. The back wall of every bakery, even those in train stations, is lined with large loaves of breads, ranging from ryes and pumpernickels to seeded bread, wheat bread, salted bread, herb bread, seasoned bread, crusty bread, flat bread, dark bread, faccocia, nut bread, fruit bread, and so on.

A SMALL bread stand at the farmers' market (above)

Streusel bigger than the size of your hand! (below)

YUM!
We ordered a streusel topping-only piece and a rhubard piece of streusel

The choices are overwhelming and exhilarating all at once. We have managed to make due with our limited German vocabulary of bitte and danke (please and thank you) by pointing, holding up our fingers like a four-year-old to let the nice German lady know how many of each type we want, and then narrowing our eyes at the register´s digital numbers to figure out how much money we owe. We then act like a four-year-old again while our eyes grow large and a big grin slow spreads across our face like warm butter, and we immediately dig into the bag, taking at least one bite of each piece we bought to sample our newfound treasure: Bread. As we wipe the crumbs off of our face or lick Nutella off of the knife, we enthusiastically discuss in detail which bread we liked best and why, which fortunately often leads to a second taste-testing of our top choices.

Frisch vom Brotshop
(Fresh from the breadstore)

Breakfast is not a boring affair in Germany. It has become an early day pick-me-up. We wake, walk to the cupboard (or bakery), take out at least four pieces of bread, and then begin the process to divide and conquer. we cut the bread up to share, and then luxuriously cover each piece with Nutella, creamy local butter, peanut butter, or a PB-Nutella combo (our favorite). We drink our coffee, and experience a little Nutella-smeared slice of heaven.

Our typical morning breakfast: a piece of wheat bread, multigrain bread, cheese bread, poppyseed break, and chocolate croissant. This is before we cut them in half and spread Nutella on them, too!

There is even a Mueller bakery!

German Joy

Just arrived in Frankfurt!

Outside of the main Frankfurt bus station

On July 1, James and I started what has thus far proven to be the greatest decision ever for summer plans: a trip to Germany! The flights went great, and since we are only traveling with our backpacks, customs and immigration were a breeze! The travel took so long, we actually arrived the morning of July 2, sleepy but excited, and revived by Rob and Linden Mueller, some of our best friends, who we will be living with while we are here! Linden and I have been best friends since the 4th grade, and when Rob and James entered our lives in college, the four of us got along swimmingly, and we have all stayed close through the years.

After flying into Frankfurt, we took the train to their town, Giessen, about 45 scenic minutes away. Linden had to go straight to work at the town's university (she only had to work through July 4, and then she gets a 3-month summer vacation break!). The Mullers are in Giessen because Linden is simultaneously working as an English teacher and getting her Ph.D. in Linguistics here. Rob works from home on the internet (kind of like James, except he has to work 8 hrs. a day; not free lance.). Their apartment is very cute and Euro. It's on the top floor, small and compact, but well-built for being small! The washer is in the bathroom, the refridgerator s hidden in the kitchen, and the Muellers have done a lot with their space. They completely furnished the place with IKEA furniture, which James and I love the look of. It's modern, practical, and aesthetically pleasing. Their apartment also looks right over onto the main pedestrian shopping district, which is full of cute clothing stores, bakeries, bratwurst stands, coffee shops, beer gardens, flower stores, and ice cream parlors. It is heavenly. What only makes it better is that everyone we see is young, attractive, fashionable, rides a bike, and seems much cooler than we could ever hope to be. We can't tell if this will be Europe in general, or if this is just a hip college town. It's sort of intimidating! on the other side of their apartment building there is a bar called "Bitchen" which is hilarious to us, but simply means "A little bit of Bitburger beer" but the translation makes the bar, well, bitchen!

In one of the many nice residential neighborhoods

Rob, James, and I more or less strolled around the pedestrian district, with James and I having to pick up our jaws every few feet from them falling off our faces based on what we saw. Each house could stand alone as fantastic. Each bakery was worthy of visiting. Each cute outfit begged to be tried on. Each flower needed to be smelled. Each coffee needed to be drank! We were honestly in a mixed state of delerium and euphoria from the lack of sleep and sheer joy of German life. We feel so glad that we will get to taste real German life in a smaller, non-tourist town instead of fast-paced metro Berlin or Munich where every one might be a tourist, and we might feel guilty about taking it at an easy pace.

Linden and I in front of some Beatles painted box

When Linden returned from work, we went to their favorite Doener (dooh-ner) hole-in-the-wall restaurant (the best kind of eatery, I think), truly Turkish-run! A doener is like a Gyro served in soft flat-bread, with lamb or beef, lettuce, red cabbage, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, and a choice of garlic or yogurt sauce. They were humongous and tasty! We had our doeners with beer (cheaper than the water), was a filling and delicious meal. Then, because it stays light out until 10:00 pm (much better than the year-round 6:00 pm Guate curfew), the four of us wandered through some pretty neighborhood streets, with me snapping a picture every 2 feet of every building, because each building was different and full of its own detail! The mixture of old-style and ultra modern buildings kept us interested the entire time.

These two buildings, classic and modern, were right next to each other in a residential neighborhood.

We also found a beautiful church (one of many, I'm sure) in the neighborhood, too.


We found ourselves wiping stupid grins off our faces all of the time because we were so gosh-darned happy and amazed at the culture, lifestyle, and beauty of it all, guided by some of our best friends in the world. We feel so lucky to be on this vacation! After this long, long day, Rob and Linden let us sleep to our heart's desire, which ended up being 13 hours! Then, we were revived for Day 2, with no real jet lag leftover, ready for our next fun day in Germany!