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!