Care for a carrot?

And the theme today is carrots.

Last week I bought this "soup starter" and turned it into a delicious chicken veggie soup. I always put carrots in that kind of soup, but this is the first time I've used celery root instead of celery stalks. It has a different taste - sweeter I think. These little bundles are available at lots of shops and are the perfect size for a small pot of soup.




And lately I've been drinking this tasty carrot juice that has just a little bit of honey mixed in...




Slightly more unusual was the gourmet carrot / orange sherbet that I had tonight as we strolled around after dinner. (sorry no pic - it was too dark. But here's a picture from this evening on our way home)




And certainly the most surprising of all, is that Justin had carrot soup for lunch today!!
I have to tease him a bit - he likes his veggies, but usually he would never order a pureed soup. Europe must be getting to him...  ;)

and spargel (asparagus) season is just starting...

Potsdam Tulip Festival

On Saturday we took the train out to a nearby town called Potsdam for the annual Tulip Festival held in the historic Dutch district (Holländisches Viertel).

In addition to all the fresh tulips for sale, the festival featured artisans demonstrating traditional Dutch crafts, people in costumes, musicians, and dozens of foodstalls and booths selling trinkets. It was a lovely sunny day and we had fun wandering around.

geese on parade!



Like any fair in the US, food was a main source of entertainment and we essentially ate our way from one side to the other:
- cappuccino and croissants to get us started
- sauted mushrooms with garlic and garlic bread
- skinny sausages on garlic bread with cheese and tomatoes
---- both from the "Knobi Bobby" booth that sells all things garlic (knoblauch)
- several fancy jam tastings + a jar to take home (Orange and Sea-Buckthorn with Armagnac)
- homemade blueberry wine
- fresh belgian waffles with apple sauce
- warm candied walnuts
- more coffee :)

I passed up the crepes, fresh doughnuts, and stroopwaffels, to name a few. So that proves I have some self-control...

There was also this wonderful antique mechanical organ that played music from something like punchcards. It's called a Draaiorgel or Barrel Organ and it was delightful.



Here's my full set of photos on flickr (be sure to turn on the captions):

My kind of theme park

source: Wikipedia

I just ran across a really interesting place to visit in France. It's called Les Machines de L'ile Nantes (The Machines of the Isle of Nantes). It's an art exhibit / theme park that features giant mechanical animals sculpted out of wood and articulated with lots of machinery. Check out the photos and you'll what I mean. I hesitate to use the "sp" word, but it is rather steampunk in a good way, and for a good reason. Jules Verne was born in Nantes.

Many of the exhibits look interactive and one of the main attractions is a 40ft tall elephant that slowly walks around the park. You can ride inside him and enjoy the view or watch the gears working. Plus you can see the workshop where the artists are building new creatures. It all looks very cool, and very French.

Les Machines de l'Ile von ncep

The Daily Motion site has more videos about the making of the park. The official website doesn't have as many good photos as it should, but a quick search on flickr or google will turn up a ton if you're interested.

If I swing high enough...

look it's me... on a swing... in front of the Berlin Wall!! How cool is that :)

This is a remnant of the wall left intact as a memorial. It's obviously a popular place for graffiti (like everywhere else in Berlin.) I don't know whose idea the swings were, but in my opinion they are a great monument to reunification.

This is at a place called Mauer Park (Wall Park) that has a gigantic flea market every Saturday. Here's a pic of it from the hillside - it looks like a tent city. They had everything from old door handles to Kraftwerk LPs.



We went, but we certainly didn't conquer - it's huge and packed full of people. There is also a little outdoor amphitheater in the park where everyone was watching a guy doing juggling and tightrope tricks.



And check out the fashions. We were not cool enough to be here. I'm surprised they let us in ;)

Cheesy what?

So on our very first trip to the grocery store I found these and immediately had to buy a bag. How could I resist that friendly-looking character on the cover? What was he? - er, I didn't think about that. I wanted cheese flavored popcorn and thought that's what this was. Haha - of course I was disappointed to realize later that they're actually big cheese doodles.

And then I looked at the front of the package again and realized how silly I'd been.
These are Mais Würmer which translates to Corn WORMS! mmm... yum. And the happy guy with his coat and hat is obviously a corn-worm himself. Now I didn't need to know german to figure that out.

Well, my vocabulary has increased and I'll console myself by eating the rest of the bag while I write this post. Next time I'll have to try caramel flavor...

(and in case you're wondering, käse geschmack means cheese flavor. Geschmack is a marvelous word isn't it? Perfect sound for it's meaning.)

Hobos in Berlin?

One week ago Justin and I moved to Berlin, Germany, our new home for awhile. yeah!

So it seems like a good time for me to revive this blog in order to chronicle our adventures as we navigate daily life in a foreign culture & language. No grand purpose here – just a way to entertain our friends and family back home and keep a (spotty) record of our lives.

Living permanently in a new country is so much different than backpacking, and so I’m looking forward to posting about the more day-to-day items that have frustrated or amused me, as well as any sight-seeing etc. The subtitle of this blog may well be “Christina masters the ancient art of the Hausfrau.” No kidding. I’ve spent more time this past week googling german appliance instructions than seeing the sights! But once I’ve sorted out my Bugelfeucht from my Schranktrocken I’ll be ready to hit the museums :)

The last post is literally years out-of-date so here’s the lightening summary to fill in the gap. After caravaning/backpacking around the world for about 15 months we landed back in the US and bummed around for a few months before settling down in the Bay Area again. That was in December of 2009 – although it feels like ten years ago now. We had a couple good years in the Berkeley/Oakland area*, but our itch to travel again was strong so Justin started looking for work overseas and landed a good job in Berlin – so here we are in Deutschland.

*during which time I dyed a lot of things blue, but that’s a different blog

Long Lost Update (brought to you by camel)

Beamed up by aliens? Kidnapped by pirates? Adopted by Madonna? What else could explain our bewildering lack of blog posts? Alas, the only excuse we have is being too busy gathering material for the blog with a good dash of general laziness :)
We are currently in Egypt staying with my parents (I could write a book about how wonderful it is to have a temporary "home".) In between taxi rides and foul sandwiches ("foul" is like refried beans) we're having a great time being overwhelmed by the quality and quantity of ancient Egyptian ruins and artifacts. And even though I'm not exactly a dead-ringer for Lara Croft, I'm having fun playing the amateur archaeologist and I just might write the next post in hieroglyphics! Alas we will be back on the road in two weeks for the last leg of our trip in Europe and the UK. For now here are a couple photos (with many more waiting to be uploaded):


here we are at Medinat Habu in Thebes (Luxor) - the memorial temple of Rameses III



and this is in front of the step pyramid of Saqqara with my parents. We can see this pyramid from our balcony!