Food and Groceries - Lebensmittel

Exploring the city through its grocery stores!

Last week the flu went through the entire family, but thankfully we are all feeling better! It is a good thing because we are just starting the two week Fall break German school children enjoy.

                  

Did you ever look at the Sunday comic (ok, or TMZ)  where you had to "Find the Difference" in side by side, seemingly identical pictures? That is very much like our food shopping experience here. It seems like it would be the same as in the U.S., but in reality, it is not quite there. 

Even though we continue to find new grocery stores almost every time we go on a bike ride, Lidl is the one we tend to go to. It is pretty close by, only about 5 minutes by bike. Netto is also not too far.

At all grocery stores, shopping carts are "rented" for 1 euro. But as long as you put the cart back where it belongs you get your euro back.

Here, like in the U.S., most people drink milk or use it in some capacity. In Münster, people buy milk that is shelf stable. It comes in one liter cardboard boxes like the ones below. At Lidl, there are two brands, and you can only buy whole or skim. There is another section that has all the Bio (organic) products, but it is even more limited than what you would find in the US, and even more expensive.

You may notice all of the juice bottles behind the milk. The last time we were in Germany, we learned that most people don't drink water from the tap. They drink carbonated water by itself or with juice. As a result, you can find so many different kinds of juice. There is also tons of soda - so don't let anyone say only Americans are soda junkies!

The baking sections are almost, but not quite the same. The first time I looked for Vanilla, I was at a loss. I didn't realize that Liquid Vanilla is almost unheard of here. Most people buy Vanilla Sugar. It comes in a cellophane wrapped package containing 10 packets of the flavored sugar.

Baking Powder is another ingredient that comes in little packets here rather than a larger container. By the way, if you are looking for baking Soda, good luck. It is almost impossible to find. 

Brown sugar is also something that is different here. It is brown, but not moist.

Eggs come in containers of 10 rather than 12. Usually they are not jumbled up like this, but I took this picture on a Saturday. Luckily, I found one container without any broken eggs. Notice also that the eggs are not refrigerated.

And now, the candy! Here is a small section of the Christmas candy. There is a huge variety of candy, cookies, cakes and other sweets. 

We have noticed that often when English is added, it is often incorrect or not quite right. This package of Liebkuchen says "Santa Claus in Town" rather than "Santa Claus is in Town" or "is Coming to Town".

There is another isle completely dedicated to sweets, particularly what people would buy for a Pausenbrot. A couple of times a day between meals, most people take a little break for 5 to 15 minutes and have a snack, a Pausenbrot (a.k.a. second breakfast). Whether they are school kids, college kids or adults at a job, everyone seems to do it. The picture on Wikipedia just shows a sandwich, but there is usually a bit of fruit or veggies accompanied by a sweet of some sort. This sweet could be a chocolate filled croissant, small cake or sweet bread. 

Russell and I do NOT like this habit because now our boys are getting used to having a snack (and a sweet snack at that) all the time.

Lidl and Netto are discount grocery stores. They have good prices on food, but you never know if they are going to have the same things the next week. They also have a few isles in the middle that are non food stuffs. You might find gardening tools, horse treats, sweaters, raincoats you wear while riding a bike, tortillas, rabbit food, Advent calendars, Halloween masks and just about anything else you could imagine. "Billiger" means it is on sale.

This is the section just for cheese, spreadable stuff like quark (something between cottage cheese and ricotta), butter and margarine and buttermilk. You can buy a wedge of cheese or sliced cheese  - we were surprised to see the sliced cheese is actually a bit cheaper.

The Meat section

This entire section is pre-sliced meat and wurst (sausages). There are so many varieties of meat here. I know a few vegetarians and I think it would be challenging to be a vegetarian here. The common diet is so meat heavy that there are few alternatives. Apparently, this is beginning to change slowly. Some restaurants have vegetarian options, but I haven't seen tofu very often or other meat alternatives in the grocery stores.

Below is the fruit section at the Lidl. There are actually 2 Lidls near our apartment and this is a picture of the bigger one. Fruit and vegetables are not shipped as far, so they tend to taste better here. I have heard that the stores are much less likely to sell fruits out of season just because shipping so far makes them not taste as good.

The differences in these sections are primarily presentation, although there are a few varieties of veggies that are not commonly used in the US that seem to be staples here, such as Celeriac. At some grocery stores you have to weigh your fruit or veggies on a scale and print out a sticker. It is not always done for you by the cashier.

There are no baggers here. As soon at the cashier rings up your items, you are expected to put your purchases in a bag or back in the cart before the next person in line runs you over.

At the end of the shopping trip, you move over to a little staging area to put your groceries in backpacks or ready them for the saddle bags. Some people have little rolling suitcases they use for groceries.

Since we have to carry our groceries on our backs and on my bike, we have to break our shopping trips up. Rather than only going to the store once a week, we end up going 2 or 3 times. Can you see the contraption on the right side of the cart handle? That is what you have to put your Euro in to use the cart.

We needed to put a few of our plants in bigger pots but had a hard time finding potting soil. Luckily we found some, but then we had to get it home! Here Russell is showcasing his mad Boy Scout knot skills.

If I am looking for something a little more obscure, like tortillas, there are other grocery stores we can go to. They tend to be farther away and/or more expensive, so we don't go to them as often. One we like is called Hit (which is easily as large as the new Harris Teeter). Another is Edeka. One more is Rewe.

The grocery stores we go to that are near by are definitely smaller than what we are used to in the US, but they have grocery stores in Germany that rival in size anything I have seen back home.  A few years ago, when we were in Bavaria, there was a grocery store called Real that had an escalator that carts could ride.

Since the boys have two weeks off, we re taking advantage of the time by taking a little trip. Tomorrow we are headed to Hannover to visit with the family of a exchange student we hosted a few years ago. Next week we may take a trip to Frankfurt or Bonn to get Russell a Visa for when he travels to Shanghai in December.

Bis nächste Woche!

The Circus, the Flu and New Friends

Ugh - I have been sick all week with the flu. I will admit that it was kind of great to read in bed for days and let all three boys fend for themselves. The bed I sleep in here is really quite cozy with the personal duvet that I can cocoon myself in. Although I am not sure the body aches, chills and head aches are worth it.

Of course, this also means that there was no way I was getting on my bike to trek out to the several grocery stores and markets for this weeks blog post, but that is ok since interesting things just keep happening.

Tuesday was the monthly meeting for the Internationaler Elternkreis (international parents circle) for the parents of students at Preston's School, Paulinum. We met in a very chic cafe called Faun. Being a cafe, it served a variety of coffee drinks and treats, as well as the ever present sparkling water and many versions of beer. One of the popular beers drinks here is something called a Radler, which is a mixture of Beer and lemonade or a citrus soda like Sprite. I know, it sounds bizarre, but many people here love it. The cafe also had some really interesting teas and hot chocolates. Next time I am definitely going to try the chile hot chocolate. Another part of the cafe had an area where you could buy higher end cooking items and ingredients as well as jewelry and other nicknacks.

The parents group discussed issues and challenges our kids are facing. At this months meeting, we talked about whether the kids are feeling integrated at the school or not. All the kids but one are having a positive experience and together we were able to come up with some ideas to help the family of the student who is having a difficult time.

The group itself is an interesting mix of nationalities. There is one other US family as well as a Canadian family. There are families from Brasil, Spain, Mexico, Hungry, Denmark, Afghanistan, Russia, Poland, China and a few others I can't think of right now. All in all, about 30 parents showed up. No matter where we are from, we all have the same concerns - is our child happy, what do we do if they are sick, how are their grades effected by missing regular classes for German as a second language classes - Preston misses biology.

A few days after the meeting, I noticed my parsley plant had some flies. I thought that if I walked to the front door some of the flies would veer off and stay in the room, so I opened the window and proceeded to brush them off the plant and out of the room. Alas, I had not watered the plant in a few days, so as I was brushing the leaves, it fell down, right onto my neighbors porch. I did not intend to brush the plant right out of the pot! A few moments later a teenage boy picked it up and peered up at me with a puzzled look on his face. Red-faced, I went downstairs to retrieve plant and when the door opened, I realized I recognized the mom from the parents meeting the previous Tuesday. Twenty minutes later I went back upstairs having gained a new friend.

This is also the last week till fall break starts here, so the kids have been working hard to finish up testing and the like. The other particularly exciting thing happening this week is the circus! The Sperlich circus has set up shop at Paton's school. As a reward for the kids, they get to spend this week learning circus tricks and then participating in performances. Sunday, many of  the parents met at the school to help raise the circus tent and set up the bleacher seats.

Russell was really excited to use the biggest sledge hammer he had ever seen to help put this up. Of course, he is still paying for it.

It is hard to appreciate the scale of the tent, but this is the inside of the tent pictured above. 

This is where the circus family lives while they are traveling.

Paton was my photographer for these pictures and I think he did a fabulous job!

The school kids are divided into 7 groups. Acrobats, clowns, magicians, Ponies, rope dancers, glass and fire feats and mimes. Paton has been practicing his upcoming performance with the Fakir/Feuer group. They are performing on a glass carpet, laying on a bed of nails and wiping fire across their hands. He thinks it is awesome. We, the proud parents, get to watch the show on Friday! I will post some more pictures after the performance.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Apparently, there is a saying here in Münster that goes, "Entweder es regnet oder es läuten die Glocken. Und wenn biedes zusammen fällt, dann ist Sonntag"  which translates to "Either it rains or the church bells ring. And if both occur at the same time, it's Sunday".

The sun teased us last week. It was shining every day and was almost warm. Now it is just rainy and chilly. On Sunday it was only drizzling, so Russell and I took a bike ride after lunch to scope out the church where we would attend. It was not especially close, but straight forward getting there. The church is located inside an office building near the train station. To get there we hopped on something called the Promenade and biked several kilometers. The Promenade used to be the city wall and is now a tree lined Avenue that is restricted from cars. It is a lovely greenbelt that just happens to be a fantastic way to get around the city. Only pedestrian, bicyclists, inline skaters and the such are allowed to use it.

You can see the Promenade, which looks like a green ring around the older part of the city. The green star to the left is the Schloss.


After leaving the Promenade we passed through what is considered the "shady" part of town.

Leave it to the Germans to make even the sketchy parts of town beautiful.

With the weather turning more and more Fall like we have kept the idea of looking at a sports club in the backs of our minds.  We were thrilled to pass a Sports Club while we were searching out the church building. I had no idea what contracts might cost, so I was happy to go inside to see for myself what it was like. We only went to the information desk, but there was a brochure  - only 16 Euros a month per person. The more I can exercise, the happier I am! With all of  the great food here, it is really important that I get my normal exercise!

Since the weather has not cooperated, I have been stuck inside more than than I would like. Coincidentally, I just realized we have cable TV (!). This realization came just in time as I have developed "Text Neck". I didn't know I had it till I read an article about it in the New York Times. I have spent so much time studying German, listening to German Language Pod Casts and doing German language games that I developed an annoying  kink in my neck. I decided to give my neck a break. I still peer outside the windows every hour or so to see if there is still rain (there is), and then return to see what I can find on TV. So far, my research has shown that you can watch an impressive variety of old US TV show that have been dubbed into Deutsch. The list includes: Little House on the Prairie (Unsere kleine Farm), Quincy, M.E., Gossip Girl, Ghost Busters, Finias and Ferb and loads of others.  I have noticed that I can understand kids shows much better than anything else, so I try to watch those. I figure the more I can practice listening and understanding, the sooner I will be able to understand more and speak better.

Today we made a run to the grocery store. I love going grocery shopping here. The main store we go to is called Lidl. It is a discount grocery store that is very convenient to get to. There are other full service grocery stores, but they are much farther away (7 kilometers or so, so 14 round trip). Lidl is so fun because you never know what you are going to find. Tonight, for example, I found a silicon Spring Form pan for 6,99 Euro! Now I can make a cheese cake without a care in the world!

I know it seems like a silly thing to be happy about, but there it is. We are still finding little things like this that make us giddy! As I see more grocery stores, I am excited to see what they have to offer and how they are different.

Next week I will profile a few of the grocery stores (Lebensmitel Markts) we go to!

Mühlenhof Museum

Warmth and Sunshine!

A few weeks ago we were given tickets to the zoo and an outdoor museum called the Mülenhof Museum. It was a long weekend for us (yay German Reunification Day!), so we, well I, decided that we needed to use one set of tickets.

We have been so lucky to have warmth and sunshine for the last week. After ten days or so of gray and dreary weather I told my family that we HAD to spend the long weekend outside - all of it! I even was able to wear shorts for part of the days.The zoo is an all weather zoo, so we opted for the Mülenhof Museum. It is an outdoor museum similar to Williamsburg.

The Museum is just off the Aasee, so Saturday we were able to jump on our bikes and ride there in about 10 minutes.

One of the boys favorite exhibits  was upstairs in the Weavers House. Even though they didn't have anything to do with weaving, there were several models of various windmills. They were not turned on, but you could see that they would be plugged in. Even with no power, it was impressive to see how complicated the machines were. My boys were dying to see them spin, so I (shhhh - don't tell) spun it manually with my hand a few times.

Another favorite spot was the Bee Museum. It had a bee hive that was encased in plexiglass with a door that you could open to safely see the bees. We even found the Queen. Preston informed us that she has a slightly longer torso than regular bees. Luckily, this queen had a blue dot on her back.

A few exhibits down the path was an apiary (Bienenhütte) with several working bee hives.

Another interesting exhibit was the linen bleaching hut. When people made linen, they would bleach it in the sun by laying it out on the ground and periodically sprinkling it with water. It would take several days.  Linen was so valuable that who ever was doing the bleaching would sleep outside by the linen in a hut like this one to protect it.

At the Shoemakers's House there were typical examples of old shoes, but I was really surprised to see some very strange shoes. It took me a minute to realize that were, in fact, shoes. The ridiculous trend of really high platform shoes has apparently been around for a long time. I really think Gaga would like these.

There were lovely kitchen gardens and other really interesting exhibits, but I think the real show stopper was the Well To Do Farmhouse complete with moat. It was huge and brimming with examples of everyday house and farm wares. In the middle of the house was an amazing hearth full of spits, kettles and pots used in cooking over the fire.

What formal dining room wouldn't be complete without a giant boar's head above the door?

I posted all of the pictures on Facebook, you can peruse all of 80 or so of them here.

We had a lovely afternoon, but the tour made me appreciate how rich the Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown experiences are back in Virginia. We saw a few volunteers at Mühlenhof, but with so few people explaining and using the various exhibits, I know we missed out on really understanding the workings of the time.

Münster Bike Race
On Sunday we went for a long bike ride and noticed some commotion near the Schloss (castle). There were tons of tents  being set up. We looked up the weekends activities at saw that there was a bike race on Monday scheduled and the finish line was by the Schloss.   The race was the Sparkasse Münsterland Giro 2011, which you can read about here.

So Monday, bright and early, we walked over and checked it out. I have done a few running races (Half marathon, a few 8 Ks and a sprint triathlon), but never a bike race. This made me very tempted to look into it.

As we walked to where the finish line was there were children's activities set up. The boys were able to grind their own wheat and later take a quiz about cows (auf Deutsch) in order to win a prize (the boys picked chocolate milk). Then, we made our way over to the race.

We happened to get there just in time to see the winner cross the line. Not ever having seen a race before, I was surprised to see the bikers so closely together in their packs. As soon as they crossed you could see their faces change from stern concentration to utter relief and pride. It was really emotional. There were people who crossed the line on foot because of injury or accident and you could see the frustration and pain, emotional and physical, on their faces. It was heartbreaking for them. Below is just a picture of random finishers, not the winners.

It was another eventful week for us here in Münster. We continue to go about our daily activities but keep running into unexpected occurrences.

One other fun thing we did this week was visit Burger King. I have been wanting to reward the boys for being such great sports these first few weeks. I know it can't have been easy for them to be not only in new schools, but in schools where they really couldn't understand much and didn't know anyone. After watching the bike race, we told the boys we were going on a bike ride and just didn't tell them where we were going. They were thrilled to say the least, hamburgers and milkshakes! I will admit, I really wanted a milkshake.

Tomorrow we are having our first house guests. We are going to have to borrow a chair from a neighbor in order to have enough seats for everyone. I asked the boys what they wanted to serve our guests and they all said soft tacos. Luckily we can find all the ingredients pretty easily. I even bought an avocado, but don't ask what I paid for it. Dessert is going to be a cheese cake because that is what I feel like making. They do have cheese cake here in Germany, but it is not the same.

Bis nächste Woche! (Till next week!)