It’s always a nice day on St. Patrick’s Day!

…Okay, so this post is a LITTLE delayed. I blame it on the gorgeous weather we’ve been having and my desire to spend every warm minute that I am not working, sitting outside on our balcony or on a patio eating lunch. But it could not last forever and 2 weeks later, the rain has come, forcing me to spend my afternoon inside.

But back to St. Patrick’s Day. What is it about St. Patrick’s Day that brings the hot air into what has otherwise been a cold week? Seriously, the past 4 years have been strangely warm and I have the statistics to prove it. According to the National Climate Data and Information Archive, the following temperatures have been noted for March 17 in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario:
2011: 12.8°C
2010:16.3°C
2009:14.7°C

On March 14, just 3 days earlier, the following temperatures have been noted:
2011: 2.2°C
2010: 4.1°C
2009: 7.5°C 

Nürnberg, Germany followed the same pattern in 2012. According to The Weather Channel, it was 7°C on March 14 and jumped up to 20°C on March 17.

Mother Nature must really dig the tradition of drinking green beer, celebrating the life of St. Patrick and really want us all to be outside, having a grand time while we do it! Well Mother Nature, I applaud your efforts and have been soaking up the sun every year.

In 2011, I was fortunate to have the day off, the whole month actually as I was unemployed at the time. I spent the week in Waterloo visiting my boyfriend and friends and spent St. Patrick’s Day at the Bomber with a true Irish girl. We even caught the end of some Irish dancing and got our picture taken with a leprechaun! It was the best St. Patrick’s Day I have ever had.

Irish Dancers at Bomber

Myself, the "Leprechaun", and my very own native Irish friend, Julie with her flag

I was looking forward to something exciting again this year. It was a Saturday so Matt and I both had the day off, we had warm weather, and we wore green shirts. We had everything we needed to have an excellent day. It was however, a bit of a disappointment. We sat outside on a patio for dinner which was a little premature because as soon as the sun went down, so did the heat. Fortunately, many of the restaurants in Nürnberg that offer outdoor seating also offer fleece blankets to wrap around your shoulders! The dinner was still enjoyable. Afterwards we made our way to O’Sheas’s Irish pub (one of the few Irish bars in Nürnberg). We got in, we found a spot to stand, and we each ordered a pint of Kilkenny. We were ready for the live band to start! By the time the band had started, O’Shea’s had become quite crowded. Too crowded. There was no one monitoring the number of people who came in or out, but mostly in; our standing room became invaded and we were constantly bumped by backpacks and Guinness hats; and at one point, there was a lady who expected to get back to her crew at the bar, forcing people to cram into what little space was left and Matt literally hugging the brick pillar in the middle of the room in order to create more space, where there wasn’t any. I was I had a picture of it but there was no place to set my beer or room to stand at an appropriate angle. By the time we finished our beer, there was no way to get another unless you were sitting directly at the bar or were the 6”5 guy beside us leaning OVER the people at the bar. We decided to leave and pick up some Guinness on the way home and listen to our own Celtic music. Unfortunately, the gas station was out of Guinness so we had to settle for shots of the Jameson Whiskey I had brought back from Ireland. It did however, do the trick. 

Lessons Learned: The German’s don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, so if you’re in Nürnberg and looking to find one of the few Irish bars that does celebrate this holiday, you should probably arrive early enough in the day to get a table, or else risk the chance that past 8pm, you will have someone pushed up against all of your sides. 

A week later, when the weather was still nice, Matt and I returned to O’Shea’s for lunch out on the patio and had the Guinness we should have had on March 17. 

Delicious Guinness

Brrrr, it’s cold out there! There must be a Canadian in the atmosphere!

How cold is it in Germany? There was a huge temperature drop and Thursday’s 9 am temperature was -19°C with the wind chill and not that much warmer at the peak of the day. I was told that Germany’s winters went as low as -10°C generally and had plenty of snow. I was looking forward to such a mild winter! Instead, my German winter has consisted of: hardly any snow..enough to just coat the grass..but even that only arrived the previous weekend, and freezing cold temperatures. 

Being from Ottawa, Ontario, I am prepared for the temperature to reach -40° C with the wind chill….but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it. 

The Germans keep saying things like “you must be use to this kind of weather in Canada”.

I enjoy listening to their perspectives on our weather. They’re implying this must be nothing for us or that we might even find this weather warm, in some cases. Well it is warm…when it has already reached the coldest temperature of the year and is then working its way back up to the warmer weather. Last year, my boyfriend and friends came to visit me in Ottawa during reading week of February. It was -30°C with the wind chill and they were only use to getting temperatures as low as -20°C on the cold days. “It’s freezing” they said. I told them it was much warmer than it had been the previous week, so this was an improvement!

However, it has only just reached this cold weather temperature and I am just as cold as everyone else is. I am not enjoying it!! I am just as excited to finally reach my destination and go inside to the heat. However, I am finding that once I am inside, that warm feeling only lasts for so long... 

It seems as though the Germans do not have central heating. Every room has its own heater (or even two if it’s a larger room) that you can turn up or down as you please. Every room except our kitchen and hallway, that is. Someone must have forgotten to install a heater in our kitchen so instead we have a space heater and heat the space as needed. It’s cold in the morning and again when we get home from work. The hallway between our apartment and the one downstairs has no heater or heat coming to it at all. It felt as though I was putting my feet into shoes that had been left outside overnight. And, it feels as though the heat we have in our bedroom/living room only reaches so far…the dressing area around the corner is cold as well. Although that might also be because for the past 2 hours, the heater has been blowing cold air and has only just decided it will heat back up again. We have already turned the thermostat up to 26°C!!! We should be overheating. The bathroom does have a heater, but the Germans don’t use bathroom fans, so we have to open the window in the mornings. To top it all off, the elevator at the apartment where I work, would not leave the bottom floor today because it was just too cold. So much for German engineering, poor equipment can hardly keep up.

All of that combined, it’s turning out to be a cold one here in Nürnberg. How lucky for me to be here in Germany, when they are experiencing such abnormal weather.

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Christmas will be here tomorrow and I’ve been doing my best to get into the holiday spirit and celebrate in Germany.
Here’s What We’ve Done:
Step One: Set up little 10 Inch Christmas Tree that Matt’s parents sent us.
Step Two: Hang Christmas window decoration.
Step Three: Buy a poinsettia, baking pans and track down Canadian equivalent ingredients (this also included e-mailing home to get additional Christmas recipes and looking them up on the internet).
Step Four: Bake lot’s of delicious treats
Step Five: Go to the Nürnberg and Bamberg Christmas Markets
Step Six: Make a gigantic Christmas grocery shopping list
Step Seven: Figure out how to cook a Chicken
….By this time it was still 3-4 days before Christmas and I still forget that it’s even December.
Step Eight: Put wrapped Christmas presents around little tree and clean up apartment.
..It looks a little more festive in here now. But one thing is still missing. Besides the fact it’s just the two of us, the SNOW is missing! It looks like November outside. It was so mild yesterday, I didn’t need to wear mittens and was getting too warm in a fall leather jacket. We had snow once this month! It came, it covered the ground, it rained, it melted. To be fair, it sounds as though Canada isn’t having a white Christmas either, or maybe they are. I can’t keep track with all the “It Snowed! Looks like it will be a white Christmas after all!” followed by the “We got rain and it was washed away”
The Nürnberg weather forcast is calling for mixed Snow and Rain or Snow followed by Rain so it doesn’t sound very promising.

However, I must say the Christmas Markets have been helping. Over 150 carts selling Christmas Ornaments, Gingerbread Cookies and Glühwein! I’ve decided I am going to try and collect Christmas ornaments from every country I visit. So far, I haven’t been able to just pick one. From Ireland, I brought home two leprechaun’s, one holding a pot of gold and the other holding a pint of Guinness. From Germany, I bought a Nutcracker, a cuckoo clock, and a little German girl wearing a dirndl. I also bought a Santa on Skies which has nothing to do with Germany but I was walking past 1000’s of Christmas ornaments and couldn’t help it.

Glühwein: one cup is never enough!
You cannot go to a German Christmas Market without getting a cup of Glühwein (mulled red wine, served warm and in a mug). I paid the fond and kept the Nürnberg Christmas mug. I purchased a second cup in Bamberg solely for the mug with the detailed Bamberg Rathaus and I purchased a bottle to bring home and drink over the holidays!

Matt and I are planning to have a proper Christmas dinner. We bought everything to cook a small chicken, stuffing, broccoli salad, and mashed potatoes. Neither of us have cooked a chicken before, but the Christmas baking turned out so there is hope! Hopefully it won’t turn out like that scene from the movie The Santa Claus when Tim Allen’s turkey sets on fire.

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas! If you are cooking your first Christmas Dinner as well, Good Luck!!!

Arrived in Paris

I arrived in Paris on Tuesday afternoon. Its ridiculously hot right now, hotter than when I was last here in July, 8 years ago. Ive had to dig out my summer clothes that I had packed for next year. Successfully used the subway and toured around Paris without getting lost yet but Matt gets full credit for that. I have yet to plan a route or follow the map. Tomorrow we move onto Dusseldorf; Germany. I am excited to see new things but I am dreading transporting my very large suitcase on and off the subway and up and down the stairs. Tip, if you are planning to travel around like I did, maybe take a smaller suitcase. The medium of a luggage set, not the largest.