A little Spice in our Life

Salt!

I like to think that I have an open mind when it comes to trying new things, so when our friends asked if we wanted to see their local salt museum we were ready to go.

My first thought was, "How many things could you see in a salt museum?"  It turns out there is plenty! I really had no idea how lovely salt could be.

Blue and purple salt crystals form in the presence of radiation

Salt can take many different natural forms.

According to our guide, it was important to have and wear a uniform - whether or not you were in the military. This is what the employees wore for special occasions when the Prussians were in charge.

Once those pesky Prussians were expelled, they had to have new uniforms, right?

Salt is not formed naturally in convenient tiny, white crystals ready for your popcorn. It has to be mined and/or refined one way or another. Take this salt slab for example.

A pillar of mined salt in its natural state.

Salt Henge.

This is a retired salt mine train now open to the public for the enjoyment of children and the awe of adults who wondered how these men fit inside.

Here is a lovely stained glass window. There is beauty and honor in everything, even in a salt mine.

We are thrilled whenever we happen upon an amusing sign. This one says, "Achte auf alles zuerst auf Gefahren". Pay attention to everything, but the danger first.

This was, as always a wonderful visit with our good friends at the beginning of our Spring Break. At the end we took a trip to Berlin, but more on that next week!

Hamburg or Bust!

Out of Control!

Spring break has arrived!

Two weeks off of school for Spring Break is a long time, so we are trying to squeeze in a few trips since our time in Germany is starting to draw down.

Our first stop was Ronnenberg to visit the Kellersmann family again. They are so good to us. Our trip wasn't as long as we would have liked because someone (Russell) had to teach a class. Oh well.

Our friends wanted to take us to Hamburg for the next day, so we all hopped on the train and off we went.

The train ticket we had, a Niedersachen ticket allows you to ride any local train (which means not the fast ICEs). Luckily, that ticket also included water taxis. Once we arrived in Hamburg, we hopped onto a water taxi and had a tour of  the Elbe through Hamburg.

I took a picture of this building before I even read the text painted on the house.  It says "Out of Control". I love the mixture of styles and colors on this row of building!

I also saw these two amazingl doors. 

This one made me a little home sick. Mermaids are the symbol of Norfolk. If you look closely, you can see the mermaid enticing the sailor.

We took a short walking tour of the city and saw the Rathaus. A Rathaus is basically city hall. Hamburg's Rathaus is open to the public and holds concerts and exhibitions. It is not a museum, but the building itself is pretty historical so there are tours through it.

Our next stop was an Italian restaurant where we ordered, then waited and waited for our food. Then waited some more. Sadly, bad service seems to be exactly the same here as it is in the U.S. I am convinced the waitress forgot to put in our order!

Luckily our children were very well behaved and waited patiently.

Our final destination of the day was the Miniatur Wunderland.  Just in case you have no idea what that is, imagine an entire building filled with model train layouts. I am not talking about your strange neighbor's train set that circles the basement. This was truly amazing. You can walk through a good portion of the world in HO scale. The lights were set on a timed dimmer to give you the night time perspective every few minutes.

There were so many amazing displays that is was hard to pick a few out to share.

Can you see the Ferris Wheel in the picture above?

This palace reminds me very much of King Ludvig's Chimsee palace in Bavaria. This is the same king who constructed Neuschwanstein (Cinderella's Castle) .

This exhibit (below) was one of the most popular. There are doors on the wall that let the model airplane through on it's "take-off", complete with jet noise sound effects.

There was even a post war exhibit - "Never forget" is pretty important here.

The exhibits included city and attractions from around the world. It was interesting to see what someone from another country would pick as a representation for other lands. Here is a desert scene from the US. I think it is supposed to be a part of Utah.

Here is a depiction of Las Vegas. The details were pretty impressive. This portion was complete even with the column of light beaming out of the Luxor.

Here is a scene from Scandinavia. The water in this section was no simulation!

One of the last sections we saw this beautiful replica of a church in Scandinavia.

The last section was a winter wonderland, complete with sign warning you that the snow is actually small pieces of glass that can cut you!

No matter what age you are, if you ever have a chance to visit Hamburg, the Miniatur Wunderland is definitely worth a visit if you have time.

One day is really not enough time to really see Hamburg. There is so much to see there that I really hope we can visit again to experience more of the city.

Pinkus Braürei

Six Months Later...

It is hard to imagine we have lived in Münster for 6 months now. We feel at home, but in some ways it feels like we are in a holding pattern at the same time. Since I am not in my own home I can't start on most of the projects (home improvement, gardening, etc.) boiling away in my brain. I am not *really* home. We are not tourists, but we are living here with an expiration date, and no matter how much we try to immerse in life here, the end of our stay will come.

However, instead of counting down the days till we are back in our official domicile,  we are living a very full and happy life here. The nice thing about knowing we are only here for a limited time is that we are much more likely to go out and do and try things, because we may not have a chance in the future.

This week, a colleague of my husband invited us to join him at a very traditional style German Restaurant, the Pinkus Braüeri.

Pinkus Braürei

Keeping with the traditional German style, most of the tables had bench seating. This is not a Biergarten, so there was no outside seating under Chestnut trees (but I will be sure to visit a Biergarten when spring comes).

There are plenty of decorations and paintings to give the restaurant "been around for a long time" feel. This restaurant is over 150 years old and is still run by the same family.

I don't know if this glass window is a depiction of a original founder of the brewery, but can you imagine the skill creating this out of glass would take?

Eintopf

An Eintopf (single pot) was explained to us as traditional peasant food. You fry up the potatoes you ate for breakfast or lunch and top it with the meat left over from your previous meals of the day. Maybe they were cooked in seperate pots in the beginning, but they end up together in "one pot".

Russell and I ordered two portions of an Eintopf. The wiki page is rather misleading. In ours, the meat consisted of two portions of two different types of wurst, and two portions of pork similar to a ham steak on top of a bed of fried potatoes.  Can you see the (hot) brick under the plate?

Needless to say, I think me met our monthly meat needs with this one meal. Whew!

Sauerkraut

I have never been a fan of sauerkraut, but I could eat this kind everyday. Our friend related a story to us about sauerkraut when he was young boy. His mother would make up a huge vat of it and keep it down in the cellar. During the winter months they would eat a portion of it every day, not because it was cheap (which it was), or poor people's food, but because it was such a great source of vitamin C. Today we can eat fresh fruit and vegetables year round, but at that time, you had to do your best with what you had.

Another happy surprise was Lima Beans! I am sure they were swimming in bacon fat and butter, but I ate the whole bowl.

Mmh, pan fried potatoes.

Quark - our dessert. I have mentioned before that one of our most pleasant food discoveries is Quark. It is low in fat and carbs yet very high in protein and it tastes so creamy and smooth.

This recipe includes sour cherries (hiding on the bottom, but peeking out a bit here) with a rum sauce and crumbles of pumpernickel bread.

We never get tired of finding new things to try. As the seasons change we keep discovering things we have not yet seen. There is always something new going on in town or something new in the supermarket. So, the adventure continues next week! Bis Nächste Woche!

Expanding our Minds at the Picasso Museum (And our bellies at the Eis cafe)

Münster Picasso Museum

Frau mit geblümter Bluse

Spring really is almost here. We took advantage of a lovely, non-rainy, day to visit one of Münster's highlights - their very own Picasso Museum. Our youngest child gave us a great tour since his class visited the museum last fall.

Here is the facade of the museum.

I love the doors.

The museum is located in the Altstadt of Münster and even has it's own cafe. In addition to the Picasso pieces, there was also a huge exhibit of work from another Spanish artist named Eduardo Chillida.  We spend the first part of our trip looking through his works. I downloaded the image below from here. The exhibit showcased  drawings, sketches, and three dimensional works in metal, stone, and paper.

For about 20 Euros, the cost of a family ticket, we spent a lovely afternoon expanding our minds a little.

Take a virtual tour of the museum here.

Of course I didn't actually take pictures of my favorites (photography is verboten!) I snapped these images off the museum tickets.

Überraschung!

Surprise!

As we made our way home from the museum, we noticed some sort of commotion at the Schloss. We dropped the boys off at home and went back to check it out.

As it turns out, we had stumbled into some sort of fabric Flea Market (Stoff Flomarkt).

This find was particularly convenient since I have been itching to make a blanket for a pregnant friend. Of course, the main problem is that I have no sewing machine here.

I found this really cute burberry plaid fabric and knew I HAD to make a blanket. I had seen knotted fleece blankets and thought I would give it a try.

I cut a square, about three inches in diameter, out of each corner of the fabric. Then I cut three inch slits, about one inch apart along the edges of the fabric.

This fabric is two layers of fleece fused together, but it easily pulled apart to tie the knots.

I tied every other strip, then flipped the blanket over and tied the other side.

I cut 4 inch slits on the sides that had the selvage and then snipped it off the extra inch before I tied it. It is probably  easier to cut the selvaged edge before you cut the strips, but these scissors are very dull and pulled the fleece too much to try to cut a straight edge.

I think this worked pretty well for my first attempt at fleece blanket making.

My report about our next adventure will have to wait till next week - on Tuesday we visited the Pinkus Braüerei for a wonderful, authentic German dinner.

Der Alltag - The Everyday Life

Routines...

Now that we are truly fully settled in, our routines are set but never mundane. After lunch on Fridays, we walk around the corner to the San Remo Eis Cafe. The menu has over a hundred kinds of ice cream concoctions to try.

This is just the menu for the ice creams. There is another menu if you actually want food.

The boys always get two Kugeln (scoops) in a Waffel (cone) and then eat it with a spoon!

Every week Russell and I try something new. We have never ordered anything twice, even so we will never be able to try the whole menu before we return to the States. We are waiting for visitors to come (hint hint) so we can try the party sundae. I think it would take about 6 people to eat the whole thing (it includes fruit, sauces, nuts, and  about 20 scoops of various ice creams).

This week, our selection was a Mango Becher. It had Mango, Vanilla and Raspberry ice cream, mango chunks and slices, whipped cream and mango sauce.

Still discovering new things...

Last weekend the boys went to a birthday party in a nearby town. It took us about 20 minutes to bike there. Russell mentioned that he overheard someone mention a huge grocery store was out there. On Saturday, the weather was relatively warm and dry, so we biked over to see what the store had to offer.

The store is called Marktkauf. Imagine a Wal-mart (but not dirty or unorganized and with a staff that is pleasant) mixed with a Home Depot, and you get the idea.

One thing that has been nearly impossible to find here is liquid Vanilla. Here is a bottle with 30 Milliliters of Vanilla for 2.29 Euros. Look at your pinky, that is how big the bottle is. I decided I am going to try my hand at making some myself.

Our older son really wanted us to buy these hotdogs.  This is the only way I have seen Hot Dogs sold over here - bun included. He left disappointed since I didn't indulge him. Don't feel too bad for him - he ended up with plenty of treats.

The boys have been seeing commercials for mini winis (pronounced meenie weenies) since September, but we have never seen them in the grocery stores we usually visit. Well, guess what we found at the enormous market?

After biking to the store and back, we had lunch and then it was time for the boys to take care of their cleaning responsibilities. Each Saturday, one cleans the bathrooms and the other cleans the living room thoroughly. This is not something they are paid to do - it is part of their responsibilities. The grown ups took this opportunity to go for a walk to get some quiet time. 

We decided to take a walk around the Schloss (castle) that is down the street from our apartment. On the way there I noticed this painted electrical box. We commonly see these normally unattractive boxes decorated with charming pictures.

We walked along a path that follows the moat encircling most of the Schloss. The weather is certainly warming up, but is still cold enough that the ducks can still walk on ice in the moat. 

As we walked around the Schloss, we noticed the first flowers peeking out. 

As we made our way around to the front of the Schloss, we noticed a group of people gathered and chanting. As we walked closer we could make out their signs. They were protesting ACTA - it is the anti-counterfiting treaty sponsored by the U.S. 

Taking Care of Business

We don't want our boys to be too far behind when they return to their lives in Norfolk. We have extra homework to make sure they stay up to snuff in regards to reading and writing in English. We are also trying to make sure they don't get too far behind in their scout troops. We have been fairly diligent in fulfilling requirements. Today our youngest fulfilled a Bear requirement making oatmeal cookies.  I must say, the provided recipe is a little dull, so we took a little artistic license.

If you feel like trying them out, this is how I, I mean my son, made them. He really did, I only back seat baked.

Ingredients

3/4 cup shortening *   **see notes below

2 table spoons butter (softened)

1 cup brown sugar *

1/2 cup granulated sugar *

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla - or one packet vanilla sugar if you are in Deutschland

1/2 cup cocoa powder - or more if you like it more chocolatey

1/4 cup water

1 teaspoon salt

3 cups old fashioned oatmeal

1/2 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda - or half a packet of Backpulver 

Directions - preheat the oven to 375 F
1. Combine the shortening, butter, sugars, egg, vanilla, water and salt. Mix these until they look fluffy and the color lightens.
2. Add cocoa powder and mix well.
3. Mix in baking soda, flour and oatmeal. I find it is easier to do this with a spoon.
4. Use a table spoon to drop the cookies onto a prepared cookie sheet.
5. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes.

*Please note that I am using European sugar and vegetable shortening which are a little different than what you get in the States. You may have to play around with adding a little more sugar and shortening to get the cookie consistency you love.

** I let my son pick between using shortening and butter. He chose shortening while I would normally have used butter. If you want to use butter, you can substitute the same amount of butter for the shortening.

If you are feeling adventurous, add a dash of cayenne or cinnamon or both!

Enjoy!

This blog entry is already pretty long, so I will wait till next week to write about the promised visit to the Münster Picasso Museum we made on Sunday.

Bis nächste Woche!