Overcoming Inertia...

French menus are dangerous and even more dangerous when you think you recognize the words…

mshock123 — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:31:35 +0000

French menus are dangerous. The first night we arrived we went to dinner at a local bistro. Ben played it safe by getting the regional hit: Boeuf Bourginone. It was delicious and just what he expected. I decided to be a little bit adventurous and get the Crepe Andouillette—I was OK with the word crepe and Andouillette seemed a lot like that wonderfully flavourful and spicy sausage that I have had in New Orleans—which is where the French liked to hang out back in the day—how could I go wrong? Well, the crepe was as advertised—light and delicious…the andouillette—let me just say it was a sausage but it was not at all like Andouille—it was slices of pig innards—or parts as Ben likes to say. It tasted like poopy. I forged ahead, I crossed andouillette off my list of approved French foods. We had been doing well for about a week—no untoward surprises, no glands and no offal—phewww. That is until we got to Chablis—home of that delicious dry wine made from the chardonnay grape (that visit is covered in another blogisode). We found a lovely restaurant and ordered from the “menu du jour” which included one of our favorite salads—poached egg on baby greens with lardons and a mustard dressing—and what I thought was a veal cutlet—veau =veal. Well, this is where I learned that it is helpful to know all of the French words like “longue”. We received a lovely crockery dish steaming hot that was filled with a light colored but beefy smelling broth, potatoes, carrots and …wait for it…TONGUE!!!!!! How did I know it was tongue? BECAUSE I COULD SEE THE TASTE BUDS—medical school anatomy was not wasted on me. Lesson learned: if you don’t know all of the words, ask and don’t guess –because every animal has nasty parts and the French apparently like to cook them all. I hope you don’t mind that there are no pictures included with this blogisode.

Autun: Market Day and Roman Ruins

mshock123 — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:30:02 +0000

May 6: Wednesday is Market Day in Autun. It is a typical midweek market with your basic produce, shoes, clothes, the guy you buy your mattresses from etc. We got some great olives—Ben even ate them and something called tomato caviar—I think this name is for the tourist. This is like a tomato-y tapenade—very delicious. We also bought 6 giant cooked shrimp which were delicious and we had them for dinner that night.
Autun is unique in that it has ancient Roman ruins—I guess that doesn’t make it unique because you can find those all over Italy and even in Germany. Autun lays claim to a Roman amphitheatre where they still hold plays in the summer. They also have the remains of an old Roman temple and 2 of the stone gates.

Wine Tasting in Burgundy—-mmmmm!

mshock123 — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:58:43 +0000

OK so we went on a wine tour with some lovely people from England who now live in Burgundy next to Charrolais cattle (good beef). They run a company called “Discover Burgundy”. We went to 3 vineyards and had a lovely lunch. This is not Napa Valley. These places are family owned and there are actual law on the books about what you can call your wine and the quality–ie village (you can put the name of the village on the wine if the grapes were all grown within the village), vineyard–all the grapes came from the same vineyard, premiere cru–the grapes came from a certain plot of earth in a certain vineyard in a certain town and grand cru–same as premiere cru but more chi-chi. Luckily Ben and I are are more village and vineyard sort of people–we don’t plan to cellar these wines for any period of time–I forgot that “cellar” was a verb as well as a noun. Anyway, on this tour–very personal–we went to a guy’s house–Baptiste Gay–and we went to his basement or in this part of the world, his cellar and low and behold there were wine barrels down there. He popped one open and let us taste his 2008 Burgundy which was quite done lactofermenting yet–out of the barrel–I am not kidding. Anyway, the 2007 Chardonnay that was bottled and came out of the “Belle Filles” vineyard in Pernand-Vergelesses was even better–we bought 3 bottles which is not enough and will go back and get a case later this week. All in all a very successful day!

First 24 hours in Semur-En- Auxois

mshock123 — Sun, 03 May 2009 17:55:13 +0000

Well, Ben and I have completed the first 24 hours of our 2 week trip to the Cote d’Or in Burgundy France. We are staying in a quaint hill town that sports 4 towers. We had dinner in town last night and our waiter recognized us this morning as we were walking through the market. We have had red wine, a delightful cocktail called a ‘kir’, boeuf bourgignogne, some sausage with pig entrails (I wish I had brought my french menu decoder ring!) and walked about 5 miles. Oh yeah, we have sat out on our backporch overlooking the river that runs by our house and fed the ducks. So far so good. Tomorrow is our first wine tasting expedition so hold on to your hats! By the way, Lily quite contentedly made the 4.5 hour drive from Bitburg with us and is lounging on her ottoman in the sun.

: Our Mill House

Overcoming Inertia

mshock123 — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:34:11 +0000

Ben and I have decided that overcoming inertia is the new title for our Blog. We have found, this winter, that the weather here in the Eifel does not inspire one to get out and see new things. It is damp and cold and there is very little sun. We have found through experience, however, that if we drive for about and hour in any direction we can change the weather and see something new. Also, we have gotten out of the house. At some point during the journey we look at each other, as if by some silent signal, and we say “Gee we are glad we did this…it was a great trip”. Most recently we drove with some friends to the Netherlands via Belgium. We left Bitburg and it was sleeting, it started snowing as we went over the border into Belgium but once we got to the Netherlands it was SUNNY!!!! We found a chocolate shop where all of the candies are hand made. We also found a cute little walled town on the way back to Germany called Monshau and had mustard soup for lunch. We never would have done this if we hadn’t overcome inertia! Hence the new title. Keep reading and checking back. Soon Istanbul and Florence!

Edinburgh

mshock123 — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:08:05 +0000

Scotland for my birthday–this is the life. Go to Edinburgh if you get a chance. It is a little more tightly wound than Amsterdam but I think that is the English influence. They have their priorities in the right place-their largest monuments are to literary greats like such as Sir Walter Scott and not war heroes, they hasve a great pride in beer and the food is really, really good. Probably best of all for us, all of the signs were in English so we had almost a week with no guess work–we knew where we were going and we knew what we were eating.

Ben and I spent 5 days and 4 nights at the end of October at a wonderful bed and breakfast (Straven Guesthouse) located in Portobello which is about 15 minutes by bus outside of the city center. It sat right on the ocean which in the middle of July or August may have been more important but when the high is 38 degrees F it is less enticing. We saw castles (Edinburgh and St. Andrew) and palaces (Holyrood) and hiked up Arthur’s seat (where there was ice). We walked on the royal yacht Britannia and took a day trip to the “kingdom” of Fife and saw Robert the Bruce’s grave and the Ancient and Royal golf course at St. Andrew’s.

The people were wonderful, we had sun (if not warmth) everyday and the public bus system was easy to maneuver. We definitely want to go back when the weather is warmer. Click on the pictures for more information.

“Stau” Etiquette

mshock123 — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:36:24 +0000

I left Bitburg to go to friend’s house and was ramping up to a 130 kph on the autobahn when Blammo! I was at the start of a stau. What to do, what to do…well break!!! you idiot. A ”stau” is the German version of a traffic jam. There are “stau” reports on the radio around larger towns, they have electronic signs to announce them if they develop and , as I was about to learn, they have their own etiquette as well.

I have to admit that in the time we have lived in Germany we have not been victimized by a stau and it was not covered in the driver’s ed pamphlet that we read before taking our licensing test. Here in the “boondocks of the boondocks” there is not much traffic hence not many stau (I am not sure how to pluralize this word).

SO as I reached the bottom of my on-ramp I was a little surprised to see a green Polizei van perpendicular across the 2 lanes of the autobahn and 2 polizeifrau walking around outside of it. There was no apparent reason for these ladies to have parked their police van in the middle of the road. I imagine that parking crosswise on an autobahn takes cahones (not sure of the German word for gonads) because people fly down the autobahn in their BMWs/AUDIs/Mercs at 100 mph.

You might imagine that these folks might get a little mad at having their speed freedom interrupted but in the 45 minutes that I sat 3 cars back from the front not one person honked their horn, no one flipped anyone off and nobody drove down the shoulder in an attempt to get past (Bostonians, pay attention). In fact, people turned off their cars and stretched their legs, I saw a diaper change and several men took the opportunity to relieve themselves at the side of the road (blind, I am now blind). One resourceful gentleman kept popping out of his sunroof to check the status of the stau. Another hopped the fence with his camera to the other side of the autobahn to get a better shot at the sunset. This behavior persisted even after the police officers got in their van and drove back down the autobahn in the opposite direction. They must have had a word with the 2 cars in front. They didn’t move. We sat there for another 25 minutes as an ambulance and the German version of AAA drove by on the shoulder. Another 10 minutes the road maintenence folks came by and pretty soon our police van came back and led us past the severe accident (that had been mostly cleaned up) like a pace car at a NASCAR race. There was no “gawker backup” on the other side of the road and no one cut anyone off trying to get ahead.

So remember if you are in a stau–you can get out of your car, pee along the side of the road, pop out of your sunroof, take pictures of the sunset–but no swearing, yelling, gesturing or being rude. It just doesn’t make sense…

Castles? Yes Castles!

mshock123 — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:11:42 +0000

I guess I din’t know how many castles there were in Germany and around this area. I think I believed that Walt Disney or Hollywod invented them-they didn’t. Really smart people who lived a long time ago did and those people lived in Europe. So far we have visited 2 castles in the area. If we wanted to we could probably visit a castle a weekend for the rest of our time here and not see them all.

The first one that we went to is called Burg Eltz. This is Rick Steve’s favorite castle (that is why it was the first on we went to). It is a beautiful drive there and then you park and walk down a really really long hill (which by the way you need towalk up when you are done) and as you walk down around corners there are glimpses of this magnificent fairy tale castle. I thin this is where Walt Disney got the idea for his Cinderella castle. There is a nice place to stop and have a snack and penty of paths to hike on once you get to the bottom.

Last weekend we went to Vianden which is in Luxembourg and viewed the castle there. This is a castle that started out as a medieval fort and was built up over time to be habitable. It has been beautifully restored and has lovely displays of castle life, the renovation and archaeological remains. The castle towers over the town which sits along the river Our. I think that I like this castle better than Burg Eltz because we oculd have lunch in town after the tour and we could take a sky ride to the top (you also have the option of walking up and down a very long hill at this castle as well.

: Vianden Castle from the Town Side

Which one do you like better? Come and visit and decide for yourself. At the end of October we are going to Edinburgh, Scotland and we will check out their castle too.

Amsterdam continued

mshock123 — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:00:17 +0000

Van Gogh

I left off the last post with coffee and chocolate muffins–it is hard to top that. We enjoyed that snack as we made our way to the Vincent Van Gogh museum. A lot of art has come out of this country. Art is not really my thing but when you are in the country where the Artist was born then you really need to visit. It is a really cool museum with originals that even I the under-educated art person recognized. Sunflowers and Field with Crows. He and Gauguin were great buddies. He killed himself–by shooting himself in the chest. Crazy!

Dutch Graffiti

After we walked through the museum we decided to take a canal boat ride. The canals are lovely and the day was sunny with a sky that is the particular blue that almost makes you want to cry it is so beautiful. On warm sunny days, Amsterdammers live on their boats–whatever kind of boat they may have. They load it up with their friends, their dog, some drinks and cruise up and down the canals–just like the 60′s hot rods used to do up and down Main Street. If you don’t have a boat or a friend with a boat then you are pretty lame. We were able to see most of Amsterdam from the water. We also ventured out

into the Harbor where a fire boat was displaying its power.

Too beautifulFire boat with Rainbow

Along with a rainbow for good measure. We ate more good food and only ran into two other Americans. We road the train to Haarlem (remember New York was once New Amsterdam). Have I mentioned that the Dutch have taken biking to a fine art? Whole families travel on 1 bike, dad pedaling, child in seat on handlebars and mom sitting side saddle on the back. They have bike garages bigger than car garages. They even have a version of our mini van that is on 2 wheel.

Dutch minivan--see the 2 kids in front?

All in all we loved Amsterdam and we loved the Dutch people and we will be going back to the Netherlands! You should go there too!

Go to Amsterdam!

mshock123 — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:55:52 +0000

We just got back from Amsterdam about 2 hours ago. We bought no Delftware, we bought no wooden shoes or tulips. We bought no t-shirts or hats or anything. What pray tell did we spend our money on? FOOD!!!! The best kind of souvenir–one that lingers in the memory and is enhanced with time. We also took a lot of pictures.

Amsterdam is beautiful. It is exactly what you would want a European city to be–it is quaint and preserved and is walkable. We parked our car at Schiphol Airport and then took the train in to the Station Centraal. We then took the number 18 bus …There are canals everywhere–more than Venice. We stayed at the Hotel Acacia which offers houseboats as hotel rooms. When in Amsterdam…

Waiting for the Train!

Our Houseboat!

Our Hotel and The Bar we had a beer at

Our room was not large and our bed was nestled into the pointy end of the boat. A real luxury was a TV (we don’t have one at our house in Germany). Breakfast was included (cheese, ham, boiled egg and a basketof bread!) and got us started off on the right foot every day. We arrive late on Friday and had a beer at the bar across the street. Oddly enough, the locals picked us out as foreigners and even more disappointing as English (they didn’t guess we were America) we really thought we could pass for Europeans. Anyway they included us in their conversation and warned us against gypsys and Poles who might pick our pockets. The lady we sat next to actually lived across the street in one of the canal houses–she pointed her balcony out to us. Sadly, the beer and conversation ended but that meant it was time to go to dinner–we had reservations at Fifteen–Jamie Oliver’s (famous British Chef) restaurant.

Molly and Westkerk on the way to dinne

Here I am with the church (Westkerk) that we could see from our houseboat on the way to dinner. The weather was beautiful and sunny every day we were there. Every year the restaurant helps 15 disadvantaged youth learn the restaurant trade. It was very hip, pink and fun. The food was good and the music was loud. We walked home and tried not to get hit by the bikes whizzing by (Amsterdamers and the Dutch have an unnatural relationship with the bike). Lots of people were out enjoying the evening.

Mid Morning Snack

The next morning, after breakfast and a visit to the Tulip museum we did as the Dutch do–we stopped for coffee and a snack. Those are chocolate muffins folks! The coffee was pretty good too. More to come…