On a bike ride the other day, we discovered this cafe named Nachtisch (Desserts) and resolved to make a visit sooner rather than later. Mother's Day was a perfect excuse to have sweets for lunch. We didn't hold back and each ordered what we wished. Claudia in her chocolate, chocolate and chocolate glory. Eloise picked the simplest looking dessert, which ended up being the fan favourite. It was a white chocolate torte with berries and jam on top. So freaking good. How fancy is THIS? Vanilla bean panna cotta with chocolate brownie and brulèed sugar crisps. Dollops of white chocolate ganache and sour cherries dusted with pistachios. Gelato on the side and oh, of course gold. This was over the top and quite yummy, but looks were definitely its most defining attribute. We spent the better part of an hour there, just enjoying the sunshine while the girls played with puzzles. If you're ever out Münster way, I definitely recommend a visit. They serve my favourite Roestbar coffee and have a gorgeous patio, abundant with potted herbs. They also sell homemade preserves, which was a perfect little gift to pick up for Mother's Day.
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Getting Claudia ready for school this morning. Doing her hair in front of the mirror. Pull it back into a ponytail.
Claudia: "I look like a boy." Me: "Oh, you do not." Claudia: "Okay, I look like a fancy boy, but only cause I'm wearing a skirt." While I was busy doing this: And a little bit of this: Aaron and the kids were busy making this for me. I'm feeling pretty special. Please ignore the various references to violence; "poking eyes" is not as common an activity as Eloise would like to suggest. The area of Germany that we live in is castle central. I can go 30 km in any direction and find one. The palace in Münster is beautiful, but it's also the administrative offices for the university. So, if you want to register for German lessons, you go to a palace to do so. So it didn't strike me as odd that when I was talking to the BFF the other day about how my day was when I blurted out near the end of our conversation "Oh yeah, we went to a castle today." How obnoxious is that? Quite a bit, as I couldn't help but be embarrassed for myself when she replied, "Oh yeah? I went to Walmart today." What I wouldn't give to have rock bottom priced laundry detergent right about now! Living in Europe is so different from living at home. History surrounds us at all turns and it's best that I try to remember that this little life of ours will not last forever. p.s. This castle is also now home to the School of Finance. So, as romantic as it looks, there were also plenty of students hanging out of windows and eating pizza. They seemed completely unfazed about their surroundings. I'm not the only one taking this stuff for granted.
My father in law is all about cultural experiences. Exploring bike trails, eating local cuisine and apparently clicking in at 200 km/h on the Autobahn. He also isn't the greatest at accepting criticism, so we all just sat back, silent as could be, as he hurled a minivan towards the coast. A two hour drive magically became a one hour drive and we all took turns patting Peter on the back for getting us to the sea in such great time. We settled on a place called Dangast, a small cove town on the Jade Breast Bay. I don't remember the German name, but it does actually translate to Jade Breast, because of it's shape and the colour of the water. The weather was chilly, with the threat of rain looming, but we made the most of it. The girls and I rolled up our jeans and headed into the muddy water. My tiny girls were able to stay above ground while their not so tiny mother sank into the mud with each step. I convinced myself that I was at the spa getting some kind of clay treatment. My mother in law was just convinced that I was nuts. Eloise took no time in getting soaked in muddy water. I had no choice but to take off her sopping jeans and fashion a makeshift sarong out of my scarf for her. We thought this was a pretty good improvisation until a stranger came up to Aaron and gave him a new pair of pants for Eloise to put on. I may or may not still have clay imbedded under my toenails.
I'm hoping that posting a lot of pictures all at once will make up for the fact that I've had no inclination to attend to this blog of mine. This spring chicken is in a funk. Funk, funk, fuck, funk. I hid a secret message. I'm clever that way. I felt a certain affinity with this bird. He kind of has this WTF look about him, that I've also been sporting lately. Castle & Woods. Sunshine-y. I decided to go the ambitious route for Easter eggs this year. The girls and I went to the market to pick up ingredients to make natural dyes. Our home smelled of cabbage and beets. If you ask Aaron, this is not a good thing. My favourite was the cabbage. I was not expecting that kind of blue. Claudia went to school on her birthday with carrot cake for the class. They lit birthday candles for her and sang her happy birthday "in two languages!". But the best was seeing her face when Granddad and Grandma came and picked her up after school. I think Peter may have had his breathing compromised from the ferocious bear hug he received. It was a really great visit, and so much fun to show them around Münster at this time of year. I think the girls loved their two worlds colliding. I liked having a spotless kitchen for five days. Thanks Donna! xoxo
On our way to and from Austria, we made stops into the cities of Rothenburg and Bamberg, both in Bavaria. Rothenburg is a strictly maintained city from the middle ages and is flocked to by more tourists than you can shake a stick at. The main town attraction is a pastry called Schneeballen, which is essentially leftover pastry crust rolled into a ball and dusted with sugar, chocolate, you name it. It was disgusting. Aside from tourist shops, a medieval torture museum (that didn't accept human donations, the nerve!) and a toy museum, the only thing left to do was to find a quiet place for the kids to run around and play hide and seek. This was our favourite part of town, with pretty views and a desire to steal candy coloured houses to call my own. I'm not a fan of posting pictures of myself unless I resemble my 23 year old self, or it has inherit comedic value. This one has the latter. Aaron, bless his heart, is a full foot taller than me. His remedy for this is to bend his neck so that it level with mine. This results in near dislocation of my own head, but at least we're in the same frame, right? Walk with me a little. We leave Rothenburg, go to Austria, sing DoReMi, turn around and land in Bamberg. Destination chosen because of its halfway to home location and its Rauchbier. This beer is brewed with smoked hops, and essentially tastes like Polish sausage. We attempt to find a legit place that both brews and serves its beer with hearty Bavarian fare. Tada! We find it. All hustle and bustle, suspenders and pretzels. We find our seats, order our beer and are handed our menus. Oh, mother of God. We hardly understand a thing on this menu. We know, by now, that Schwein means pig, but all those extra words surrounding it could mean boiled testicle on a bed of raw onion. We had to ask for help. Worst decision ever. Our waitress was, excuse my language, the nastiest bitch we have encountered to date. Holier than thou German bar wench. "Umm, can you please tell us what - schweintesticleonion - means?" For which we received a glare that turned the children to stone and the reply of "Don't you have your guide book with you?" HUH?!?
So we quickly grabbed our beers, asked for the bill, waited for the 5 cents change, which was Aaron's idea as he didn't want her to think we were tipping her five whole cents, and ran into the courtyard. From there we spotted a second dining room and came up with a plan. We would go in there, hope that our wench didn't see us and try to order again. Enter scarier looking wench than the first. Start to sweat as she approaches the bar man and whispers in German. He stares our way, and starts moving towards us. "We just want a pretzel!" I blurt out. He asks where we got the beer from. I'm not above crying at this point, but decide that tattling might prove to be more useful. "The waitress on the other side doesn't want to serve us! She asked us where our guide book was!" Tattling totally works. He handed us an English menu, gave the girls "sweeties" and waited on us himself. The meal was delicious, the beer even more so. We're never going back. I have an immense dislike, teetering on repulsion, of old school muppets. Their flat mouths and droopy eyes, have me shoving my face into a pillow whenever one appears. So when Eloise came in the room saying "Mommy, I have new eyes!" I was really hoping that she was wearing my glasses or some experimental make up job. Instead, to my horror, I got this. Claudia cried as her sticker book went up in flames. That'll teach 'em.
I love the Sound of Music. I still have the recorded from tv VHS movie my Mom made me when I was a child. I sing My Favourite Things to Claudia. I was Sister Sophia in our Grade 8 production of the play. I had to remember the line "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned" while holding Nazi auto parts. Anyway, I wanted to go to Salzburg. Aaron picked us up in Frankfurt and off we went. After a few stops along the way, (more about those later), we had the Alps (I think?) in our line of site and soon enough we were finding our way to our hotel. Except, by hotel, I mean Pension. I still don't quite know what that is, but it's somewhere between a hostel and a low run hotel. We got out of our car in the pouring rain, stepped over some broken beer bottles and found ourselves across the street from a porn store. My open mind was not to be deterred, so we unloaded our bags and went out for dinner. It was so much fun taking the kids outside every ten minutes so they could scream, whine and complain in the great outdoors. Alas. We walked back to the hotel/Pension and waited for sunrise. Turns out, you want to spend the money for a hotel in the old town. The difference was quite literally night and day. I swear the hills were fucking alive with the sound of music. We strolled, we picnicked in a valley, we weren't all yelling at once. It was a strange sort of happiness. We didn't do any Sound of Music tours or anything like that, but we did run into a few of the places where scenes were filmed and learned a lot along the way about the real Von Trapp family. The obstacles they had to overcome are truly awe inspiring. I mean, they somehow managed to get a five year old to cross the Alps? I can hardly get Claudia to walk to school. These parents had balls of steel. I have confidence? Crisp Apple Strudel doremidoremidoremidoremidoremi This is Edelweiss until a botanist tells me different. Easter Market goodies. If my Deutsch is correct, these horses make 160 euros an hour. Fancy.
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