Czech Food Diary

The idea for a food diary was inspired when one of my close friends from home asked me what the food was like in Germany. She wanted to know what the traditional dishes were, how they were served, etc. I did my best to describe the food, in terms of what it looked like or what it might be similar to in Canada to which she replied, “I need pictures!” I promised I would start photographing my food and put together a little diary to satisfy her craving. While I have started to do this for the German food, I have yet to sample all of the important dishes, so the German food diary has yet to be compiled. However, I went to Prague, Czech Republic this past weekend and as I only had 2 and a half days to sample ALL of the traditional dishes, I did my best to try plenty of different things. While I would like to say that I just loooove to try new food, it’s really not true. I know what I like and when it comes down to choosing something I know I will definitely like or something new that I am not overly sure about, time and time again, I’ll go with what I know. It’s the reason why my German food diary is so far behind. I am not the biggest pork fan, but I do love the German Weiner Schnitzel and I choose it every time we go out over the other pork dishes. I always try a bite of Matt’s pork dish but I am always happy that I ordered the Schnitzel instead. But when I only had two and a half days in Prague, I thought of my friend and how she would want photo evidence. So while the Weiner Schnitzel is a popular Czech dish, I opened my mind to new food and left the schnitzels for Germany. …oh and I also managed to snag a few photos of the dishes that I might have been willing to try as well, just for her pleasure,  so she could get the full picture.

And so, without further adieu, here it is, a photo diary of all the Czech dishes I opened my mind to this past weekend, and a few of the others I might have if I could have spread it out over a week. I dedicate this post to Julia. 

Pancake with ice cream, fruits, whipped cream, caramel, and nuts.

I am not sure how "Czech" this dish is, but it's what I had for breakfast the first morning. It's what was on the menu at the traditional Czech food restaurant. It's also actually a crepe, but the menu said pancake. The fruits are hidden underneath and consisted of: pineapple, grapefruit, and something else that was a bit sour. These are my least favourite fruits, but the ice cream was good!

Beef Goulash with bread dumplings.

The dumplings are not quite what I expected, but they were pretty delicious, and they did an excellent job of soaking up the beefy sauce. Unfortunately, I was really sick during my weekend in Prague, having picked up a stomach virus from the kids. The stomach pains I had during this meal were fairly awful and I really just wanted to lie down at the table. It's one thing to have to force down a bad meal, but it's really sad trying to force down something so delicious. 

South Bohemian cream-of-potato soup with mushrooms.

The soup was delicious. This dish was recommended by our tour guide, something her mom use to make when she was a little girl and something she still makes at home today. I was feeling much better by this point, and I enjoyed every last drop.

Potato dumplings stuffed with smoked meat, cabbage, and bacon.

 

The potato dumplings are a lot heavier than the bread dumplings and I was only able to eat 3/4 of the meal. It also left me feeling very full and was the last Czech dish I was personally able to ingest. 

Light Beer, enough said

Of course we can't forget that the Czech Republic brews some excellent beers and that they should be ordered with your meal. 

On this brings me to two other dishes I didn't have personally but might have been interesting choices:

Roast beef with cream sauce and bread dumplings.

Somewhat similar to the Beef Goulash I had, this is a dish that Matt ordered. The bite I had was delicious. 

Pork Knuckle with bread dumplings and sauer kraut.

Ya, that's a BIG PIECE OF PORK! I don't know the guy who ordered this, but he was part of our tour group and we all ended up sitting together for lunch afterwards, so I asked if I could photograph his meal. The outer shell all sort of came off in one big piece and he didn't think his stomach would be able to break it down, so he just ate the pork inside. He said it was good.

Overall, I ordered THREE THINGS that I wouldn't have normally ordered and really enjoyed them all.

Can everyone in Germany really speak English?

So often, when people have asked me how much German I’m able to speak or how my German is coming along and I tell them it isn’t great, they utter the response “it’s okay, everyone in Germany speaks English anyways.”

What a relief that is for a foreigner, coming over to Germany with little speaking ability, hoping to get a job or even get by in daily life, to know that it will always be okay. To be clear, it’s not just travelers who have passed through Germany throughout European adventures, but the local Germans as well who tell me this. Well, I’m going to be real with you and the glass bubble you are living in is about to shatter. Not EVERYONE in Germany speaks English. Is it likely that the staff who works in the tourism industry (a.k.a. hotel and hostel staff, transit workers, and customer service reps in retail or food and beverage) can speak English or at least enough to communicate with you. However, if you are going to live here, you might want to keep that phrase book handy. I would like to illustrate this point by recapping the interactions I have had over the last 4 months with German shop owners and whether our interactions were successful.

Did they speak English?

The young girl who sold me a pair of boots earlier this week:
Yes. She had no difficultly answering my questions about a protector spray and how often to use it.

The bank teller that assisted me in opening my bank account:
No. She didn’t speak any English and Matt had to do all the talking for me.

The various baristas who work at Starbucks and other chain OR locally owned Coffee Shops:
Yes or to some degree. Starbucks employees generally switch to English as soon as they hear my attempt at speaking German and everyone else will switch to English if I’ve not understood the question but generally only a few simple work related phrases such as “something else?” or “for here or to go?”
Side note: “Zum Mitnehmen” which is the German term for “to go” is one that you should commit to memory. After failing to understand the question to many times, and then eventually just pointing at the door, I got Matt to write out the phrase for me. The next time I went to the coffee shop on my way home from work, I was excited to finally be able to tell the barista in German. I ended up butchering really badly and I think I said “zum Mitigehen”. While I remembered the first word, I didn’t pronounce it properly. The barista smiled and stood at the counter with me repeating it slowly and breaking it down until I got it.

The pharmacist at the Apothek who was filling the prescription I was asked to pick up:
Yes. She was easily able to explain how often each medication should be taken and how much.

The pharmacist who served me the next time I went into the same Apothek to pick up some throat lozenges:
No. Luckily they don’t require directions and with a bit of concentration, I was able to understand the price she was saying.

My employers and Matt’s co-workers:
Yes. They all speak English. In fact, Matt’s co-workers are English teachers and the mother of the family I work for is American.

Our landlord: 

No, not a word of English. A teacher at Matt’s school found this apartment for us and brought us here when we first arrived in Nurnberg to do the introductions and ensure we understood the lease. From then on, Matt has been communicating with our landlord but with the speed she speaks at and dialect she speaks in, even Matt has difficulty understanding her sometimes.

The taxi driver in Berlin, the ticket checker on the train, all of the hostel check-in agents, and the customer service rep who sold me my monthly underground railway pass:
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All of the above Germans spoke enough English to assist me along my travels.

A lady who called me about my resume sometime in late October:
No. She didn’t speak any English and I know very little German, needless to say, the conversation was VERY AWKWARD. A few hours later, she sent me an e-mail in German which I used Google to translate. Basically, it said that most German employers need someone who can speak a good degree of German, that she didn’t think she could help me and then the whole thing ended with an exclamation point !

The people who work at the Post Office, selling stamps or helping you send a package:
To some degree. Things like “how many would you like” “sign here” or whatever the price is.

And my favourite encounters are those with the elderly Germans who approach me for directions or when I’m walking with the kids. They generally don’t speak any English and when I tell them that I don’t speak German (which I do say in German), continue to talk to me anyways, repeating their thoughts or questions as if all of a sudden, it will translate itself and I will be able to understand them. Juliet and I caught up with an older woman walking down the street and kept pace for a few minutes. During this time, the woman began talking and asking me the same question over and over. I felt as though she was commenting on the weather and asking if Juliet was my child but I really couldn’t tell and Juliet was too shy to translate. Luckily, we were walking up a hill; she eventually grew tired and stopped to stare at the castle we had been walking around. I sped up a little bit, pulling Juliet with me as I tried to create some distance. It was an awkwardness I didn’t care to repeat.

So don’t expect everyone you come across will be able to communicate with you. You should definitely take at least one beginner course and learn the basic phrases, numbers and pronunciation of letters and words so that you won’t be at a total loss if the person you are trying to communicate with doesn’t speak English. This is especially important if you want to live in some place other than Berlin or Munich, where the English speakers are fewer and far between.

New Years Resolutions

February 6th, 2012. Is that too late to be making resolutions? The optimist’s always say “it’s never too late!” so I am going to stick with them. Besides, I had already decided on this resolution back in January but it has been recently reinforced in my mind. I am not one for making resolutions. I can never think of anything I need or want to do bad enough that I need to make it a resolution. However, I have finally found something that I feel needs to be changed and am determined to make that change.

2012 is going to be the year where I am going to:
Take more pictures along my travels, where Matt and/or myself, are the subjects, or at least part, of the picture.

As I look back at my pictures from Paris, Düsseldorf, Bamberg, Regensburg, and Munich (all taken over the last 4 months), there are maybe 5 good pictures of the two of us and the rest are of buildings, nature, and animals. They get a bit boring to look at after a while and really, if we’re not in at least a few of them as the physical proof, who is to say the pictures are even of our trip?! Not that I would go taking other people’s travel photos and claim I was there, but you get the idea. I want to look back at these photos and remember that we did this year abroad together. I want to watch overtime how long I let my hair grow before I get fed up and let someone who isn’t my normal hairdresser cut it. Finally, I want to remember the fun and “interesting” times we had along the way, not just what we saw, but the experiences we had getting there.

It will help you, the reader; understand the situation a little better as well. If there’s a picture to go along with the story, you too will see how amazing (or awful) it is, instead of imagining what it must have been like. It will make my blogs, that much better.

There are a number of reasons (excuses) I have for not doing this already and include the following:
1. I hate to bother the people walking by me and ask them if they would mind taking a photo. Not that I mind when other people ask me.
2. I am not great at taking self-portraits, at least the ones that include the scenery behind me. That scenery is the key.
3. I don’t like asking Matt to constantly stop, and pose for photos. Not that he complains. I apologize, and he smiles and says it’s okay, but when the fourth self-portrait or night landscape we’ve taken still hasn’t turned out to my liking, and I say “just one more” I know he just wants to move on, especially when it’s been particularly cold.
4. Germany’s humidity levels seem higher than those in Canada, causing my bangs to flip up in some weird unattractive manner and I don’t want a reminder of that.
5. I just, flat out, forget to take a picture.

However, I have purchased a small and inexpensive mini-tripod to help me out with this resolution and am determined you will see evidence of this, right in this very post!

Standing in front of a German restaurant called Der Nassauer Keller,
known as the restaurant with the little door

There I am. Proof of my existence over here in Nürnberg, Germany. Proof that I have not cut my hair since 3 days before departing for my year abroad (4 and a half months ago).Proof that I am able to get along without my straightener, as you may or may not recall, I had to leave it at home (instead, I used a clothes iron and a pot holder). Finally,  in case you were wondering, I am 5'5, that is indeed, a small door, and this photo took 3 attempts to get right.

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.

Searching for Fun: Museum Edition

The majority of cities you go to will have a museum that houses at least two (if not more) of the following: History and/or War, Science and Technology, Art, The life’s work of (insert name of composer, artist, or inventor), or maybe even Archeology or Space. This is great, if that’s YOUR thing. I however, have discovered that I really don’t enjoy spending hours walking around a museum, reading the many facts I read/learned about in High School or staring at paintings that are in all the books or all over the internet. To be honest, I wasn’t even really interested in them back in High School.

I have nothing against the Science and Technology Museums. They generally have interesting things to see and allow you to touch the items and be part of the scene. However, I don’t want to see the same thing over and over in each city. So as I research all of the cities I want to see, I find myself checking out the museum section of the tourism sight, looking for something fun and different. Unfortunately, the internet isn’t always pulling through for me. I Google phrases such as the: “Best Museums in Germany” or “Most Interesting Museums of Germany” and the top 5-10 results are for history and art museums. So, I find myself Googling each individual city I may want to visit and book marking those with interesting museums. I am sad to report that a number of sites, while boasting over 30 museums, having nothing I want to see.

So, what is it that I’m looking for? I haven’t completely ruled out history museums…just the ones about city history, war and fur trading, etc.

Here is a list of some of the museums that caught MY attention and they didn’t disappoint.

1. Chocolate Museum Cologne (Schokoladen Museum), in Cologne, Germany

Learn about the history of chocolate, cocoa farming, and how chocolate’s made. Learn about your favourite products and beauty supplies that contain cocoa and what the old fashion chocolate shops look like. And if you weren’t impressed with that, part of the tour includes touring the Lindt Chocolate Factory where you can get an up close look at how the Chocolate makers make those delicious Bunnies you get in your Easter baskets or those creamy Lindor balls you get for every occasion. The Lindt store is located on your way out and will be sure to satisfy the Chocolate craving
you developed throughout your visit.

2. German Sport and Olympic Museum (Deutsches Sport and Olympia Museum), in Cologne, Germany

Located right beside the Chocolate Museum, you can plan on making this your second stop. A close look at the actual items used in both the Winter and Summer Olympics through the years. These items include, the torches you might have seen in your community, the outfits, clubs, gloves, etc worn by winning or participating athletes, including Shaq O’Neal’s very large running shoe, patches of grass from the stadiums, tickets to the final Canada-U.S hockey game at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, and the list goes on. When I visited, they were in the process of designing the interior of some new rooms…my guess is that it will be for the 2012 London Summer

Olympics. 

3. National Leprechaun Museum in Dublin, Ireland

 While this museum is both quite new and small, it’s the red headed tour guide that made the experience. Learn about Irish mythology and the story of the Leprechaun. Listen, as your tour guide tells you the tales of how he almost caught a leprechaun and feel what it’s like to be a leprechaun as you try to climb into the chairs that tower above your head.

4. Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, Ireland

If you like beer, this tour will not disappoint. Discover how Guinness beer is made and pour your own perfect pint of Guinness at the end of the tour. One beer included in the price of admission ticket.It doesn't stop there, head upstairs to the Gravity Bar where you can take in a 360 degree view of the city. Don't forget to hit-up the Guinness Store on your way out to pick up some Guinness merchandise.

And here is the list of Museums that I might possibly entertain, should I have time to explore the location:

1. The Nordic Museum of Daily Life in Stockholm, Sweden

2. The Museum of Bags and Purses in Amsterdam, Netherlands

3. The Heineken Experience in Amsterdam, Netherlands

4. Madame Tussauds- A collection of Wax Figures in Berlin, Germany

5. ModellPark Berlin- Brandenburg in Berlin, Germany

6. University Museum in Krakow, Poland

7. Budapest Memento Park (Statue Park): Gigantic Reminders of the Past in Budapest, Hungary

8. Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany

My ultimate goal is not to hit a museum in every city; they are just nice to visit on a rainy day or a Sunday, when nothing else is open anyways.If you find yourself looking for something similar to I am, I hope you have found this list useful! I would also love to hear about some of the fascinating European museums that others have hit, and where I can find it!

Children: Learning Their Language

Have you ever watched the interaction between a parent and children under the age of 2?

On a number of occasions, I have been in the presence of young children and watched or listened as they babble away, as if they are having a conversation. In the early stages, their parents often respond with things like “oh really?” or “ya” to indicate to the child that they are listening. When the child reaches the next stage, they start to pick up actual words and put them into their conversations. When they use words such as “yes” or “no” I would find that it was generally very clear, but when they start learning more words, I found it difficult to understand. Actually, it still sounded like babbling to me, but then I would hear the parent respond with something like “Oh you’re hungry” or “Is this the toy you were looking for?” and the child would be satisfied. I would look on feeling both impressed and a bit guilty for being the only one who didn’t understand. I felt particularly bad when the child was speaking directly to ME and the parent would then “translate” the request, making it sound so simple.

I have finally learned that it’s like a whole other language and unless you have already learned that child’s particular language, you are not going to understand. Not the type you will learn in a book, but the kind you learn by immersing yourself into it, aka being that child’s parent or working with them every day. The youngest one I look after was at that stage when I first began working with them. She knew a few words, but I found it difficult to understand. I was told it’s important to talk to them at that age because that’s how to learn new words. It felt a bit strange, talking away to a child who wasn’t really responding. So I would just talk about what I was doing…”okay, let’s put on your sweater, now your shoes...first the left foot…and the now the right foot…” Slowly, she started to add new words by repeating something that her mom or I had just said.  For instance, if I said, “would you like some pancakes?” She would respond with “ya” or “pancake”. When I’ve only said 5 words, it’s pretty easy to understand or guess at what she’s just said. Now, having previously heard her say these words, I understand when she says them to me again later because I am familiar with how it sounds when she says it. And now, she is at the stage where she tries to repeat the majority of the words I say. So in the few short months that I’ve known her, her vocabulary has grown and I am able to understand. So, here we are, I’ve finally learned the “language” and looking after young children isn’t so difficult after all.

Transporting a Canadian Style Christmas into Germany

Matt and I stayed in Germany for Christmas and decided we would make our own Christmas Dinner.
We decided we would get a small chicken instead of a turkey and got all of the ingredients to make stuffing, broccoli salad and mashed potatoes. That was the easy part. Neither of us have ever cooked or prepared a chicken with legs and wings, stuffed one, or really ever watched the process so the end result could either be delicious or a huge disaster.

The Baking I Did

I wrote home for the directions to make the stuffing and broccoli salad and asked the family I’m working with how to go about preparing and cooking the chicken. I’ve watched them make it a few times and it didn’t seem overly complicated. I also acquired the directions on how to make chicken noodle soup with the leftover chicken and carcass. I finally received the measuring spoons and cups from home and made a variety of Christmas squares and cookies in advance.

Christmas Day was now finally here and how did everything pan out?

Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread

I got up and decided I would make a Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread that I found using StumbleUpon for breakfast. I read over the directions for the first time to discover that the dough has to be left to rise for at least an hour and its best done the night before and then left in the fridge over night. FAIL. I guess that’s why you should always read the directions in advance. The initial part 30-40 minutes and then had to sit…so we wouldn’t be having it for breakfast. We decided to have a morning snack instead with our coffee and we opened the presents we had gotten for each other and the ones that our family had shipped over from Canada.

Ernie the Chicken

By this time this was done, the dough had risen and was ready to be rolled out. Overall, It took approximately three hours so we ended up having it around 11:30 with mimosas. It was fantastic and worth the wait.  It seems in Germany instead of giving bottles of wine, people give you bottles of Champagne instead (still a good alternative). Fortunately the three hour bread was the only thing that went wrong all day. That and the fact that the only things we bought at the grocery store were the ingredients to make the big dinner and breakfast. Our European mini fridge would not accommodate another thing. We had pasta the previous night for dinner and no appetizers for Christmas day or too many options for snacks...cookies, squares and some tangerines.

Our Christmas Table

We stuffed and seasoned Ernie the chicken and the rest off the afternoon was spent cutting up and peeling the

rest of the vegetables and skyping with our families.  Everything was ready shortly after six. Ernie exited the oven looking pretty good; upside down and looking as if he might just run right out of the pan, but pretty damn good none the less. The meal was delicious and clean-up afterward wasn’t that difficult. I finished off the evening with my moms family displaying me on their TV screen through skype and having all 10 of them hold their Christmas presents up to the camera to show me their new possessions so I could feel as though I was actually there with them.

Overall, it was a successful first Christmas together and the Canadian traditions lived on!

Matt and I About to Enjoy Christmas Dinner