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!

Happy Birthday Christina!

Happy birthday, sweetheart. You seem as young as ever. Just don't forget to smile.

It's been a crazy year on the road. I think that if we can survive living side by side out of vans, landcruisers, and backpacks, we can take on anything! It's been my fortune to spend it with you, and - even if the day to day has driven us crazy sometimes - I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Here's to another year of new sights and old friends, new crafts to experiment with and old crafts to grow expert in, new foods to try and familiar foods to remind us of home. May your next birthday find you further along the path to your - and our - dreams.

Love,

Justin


(learning songket weaving)


(with my wonderful instructor, Komang)

weaving photoset

Selamat Pagi!

Selamat pagi from Indonesia! We have finally made it to Asia :) We flew into Denpasar, Bali on the 19th and will be in Indonesia for 4 weeks. We'd already like to stay longer but our visa is only for 1 month and we still have Malaysia and Thailand to see after this. For now we plan to spend a couple weeks on the island of Bali and then, who knows - maybe Sulawesi to see the Tana Toraja area, or across to Java. Arranging transportation here is pretty easy and cheap so we don't have to plan too far ahead. Although we just heard that east Java is experiencing bad floods, so we might have to avoid those areas.

20Feb:
So far we've been really enjoying Bali. We spent our first day on the southern coast in Sanur, where we mainly ate lots of tasty food and walked along the beach (tough life!) The food here is great - I'm proud to say that for our very first meal, breakfast no less, we had mysterious fish head soup, fried fish and rice at a little street warung - and it was enak sekali (delicious!) I've been practicing Indonesian but I still can't say much :)

21Feb:
The next day we took a bus north to Ubud - another touristy area but more focused on Balinese arts and culture than just fun in the sun. We spent the rest of the day walking around town and I have arranged to take weaving lessons from a place called Threads of Life - an organization that promotes the use of traditional dying and weaving practices throughout Indonesia. Next week I'm going to get three days of personal training on how to use a backstrap loom - this is how they make ikat. If I have extra time I will also get to start learning how to tie ikat. For those of you who don't know, ikat is a special kind of weaving where the warp threads (the threads on the loom) are essentially tie-dyed with a pattern before the actually weaving.

22Feb:
Today we took a beautiful walk through rice paddies on a ridge along the Campuan river just west of Ubud. It was a hot and steamy day (of course) and we used our umbrellas as parasols :) it may look silly but it works!








We made our way north to a little village called Bentuyung where we were fortunate enough to find a food stand selling gado-gado (cold cooked veggies in peanut sauce). The woman running the stall was very friendly and we chatted a bit while we sat under her roof and ate in the rain. She also insisted that we try her lak lak (like a small crumpet with palm sugar and coconut) and pisang goreng (battered and fried banana pieces.) Delicious! Afterwards we got lost trying to find the right path home and after getting chased by a dog we had to backtrack and take the road home. There is so much to see here that just walking around is a treat. We passed a group of school boys using big leaves like umbrellas (straight out of Totoro!)

That night we went to a wayang kulit show, which is the balinese shadow puppets. This we really enjoyed - in particular we were amused by the "clown" characters.

next up, monkeys in the forest and a wacky spainard...

Birds Koalas Turtles and Goats

One of the benefits of the antipodean Christmas is that it's early summer and all the trees are full of chicks and nests, and the fields are full of frollicking baby animals - it somehow fits the festive season very nicely. We've been lucky enough to witness some special animal babies these last few weeks and so I thought I would write up a nice post about all of them.

Firstly, the birds. We've seen trees literally full of nests- with busy parents, fledgling chicks, and juveniles as big as mama but still begging to be fed. North of Townsville I watched a pair of figbirds dutifully feeding their two chicks, and in the Bundaberg botanical garden we saw trees chock full of baby herons - all flapping their wings and jostling about. I never realized that herons roosted in trees or were so social!

On a hike on Magnetic Island, just off the coast of Townsville, we were lucky enough to see a koala mother and juvenile plus another mother with a much smaller baby. Cute beyond words! The juvenile was the most active - lazily reaching around for a few leaves to nibble. The second set let us get quite close so I managed to get some good pictures.



As you can see they are enjoying their favorite pasttime, sleeping! Koalas sleep around 18 hours per day to conserve energy due to their nutritionally poor diet.

A few days later near Bundaberg we visited the Mon Repos Turtle Rookery Conservation Area. This is the time of year when the giant sea turtles crawl up on the beach to lay their eggs and for a few dollars you can go on a tour along the beach at night to watch the egg-laying. It was a beautiful night for a long walk on the beach. Through the night we saw four loggerhead turtles - the first three turned back to the ocean before laying but the fourth succesfully dug her nest and laid her eggs while we watched. When she was finished they let us take photos:



and after she crawled back to the water's edge and swam away we got to help the conservationists relocate her 127 eggs to a new nest higher up on the beach - apparently it's quite common for these endangered turtles to lay their eggs too low and so the researchers always move them higher up.
We really enjoyed seeing the turtles but I have to say that we were both shocked by how rude, noisy and obnoxious the general crowd was! They let as many as 300 people go on these guided walks each night and we find it really hard to believe that it wasn't the cause of so many turtles turning back before laying eggs.

And now for the piece de resistance... baby goats!
While housesitting and wwoofing in southern Queensland I've gotten to tend to 4 pregnant goats and subsequently 8 newborn kids :) Big excitement for an animal person like me. The babies are absolutely adorable and are growing amazingly fast. Goat birthing is very quick so I've only witnessed 3 of the 8 actually being born - tending to my midwife duties with great aplomb. The goat mamas and the billy have all been very tolerant of me pestering them continuously and the kids are extremely friendly, leaping around and trying to climb on me.

















Justin just rolls his eyes but I am determined to have some goats someday for milk, wool and companionship (just don't ask if I'll ever have the heart to butcher any of them.)

just a note: I've started linking to the detailed summary page for each photoset. This should make it easier to see all the pics and captions for those of you using slow connections :)

koala photoset
turtle photoset
goat photoset

Happy Holidays from Down Under

In lieu of a real Christmas card...



I hope at least a *few* of you print this out and put it on your fridge! (click through for a bigger version)


Current update:

We've finally driven far enough south in Queensland that we aren't sweating buckets day and night. Despite the relative chill, it still doesn't feel quite like Christmas to us, being so far away from family and friends.

We've been to a lot of amazing places in the last few months - Uluru and the Olgas, the MacDonald ranges, Kakadu, Darwin, Singapore, the Atherton Tablelands, Daintree, the Great Barrier Reef - the list goes on and on. It's a lot of fun, even if Christina's pictures fail to convey the heat or the insect density.

The Queensland coast is spectacular, and we'd love to share a bit of the warmth and a vision of the bright blue skies and clear waters with everyone back home who is shivering with the midwinter doldrums. So hope you enjoy the Great Barrier pics in the post below :)

We'll be spending Christmas and New Year's housesitting and wwoofing on a farm outside of Brisbane - should be great fun.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year's!

Justin and Christina

Our Early Christmas Present

The Early Christmas Present - Snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef

We decided to spend some of our Christmas gift money from Kathrine on a snorkeling trip out on the Great Barrier Reef. It's something we both always wanted to do, and now that we were over here on the Queensland coast, we were eager to go. We picked a snorkel trip which stopped at 2 places - Michaelmas Cay, where you can both snorkel and observe seabirds nesting, and Hastings Reef, which is an outer reef and has no island but much more varied and larger sea life.

We went with "SnorkelStar", who advertised a small boat with a maximum of 30 passengers. It was actually pretty nice. The passengers were mostly couples and families with grown children, and no one staggered on looking like he or she'd spent last night getting plastered.



The day was spectacularly clear with the kind of vibrant blue skies you see in advertising brochures for the reef. The boat itself was a catamaran, and the sea was fairly calm, so our ride out to Michaelmas Cay was quite smooth. The trip out to the cay took about 45 minutes, during which we had a snack, got fitted for snorkel and flippers, and learned a bit about the reef.

We got to Michaelmas Cay before any other tour boats - another advertised feature we liked - and then opted to walk on the cay and observe the birds. A small inflatable launch took us on a loop around the island and then landed us on the narrow strip of sand on which visitors are allowed to walk. The island is an important seabird nesting site and too much disturbance would probably chase them away.



Some bird shots:










After getting scorched for an hour or so looking at birds, we took the launch back to the boat, slipped on our snorkel gear and stinger suits, then clumsily lurched off the boat into the water. This time of year the tropical waters off Northern Queensland harbor poisonous jellyfish - the box jellies and the irukandji - neither of which is particularly pleasant to encounter. The stinger suits weren't too bad, though after watching everyone struggle in and out of theirs, I'm not sure all the other passengers would agree.

The water was fairly clear, and we immediately began to see fish. If you've never snorkeled, it's not quite what you expect. Without the need to constantly keep raising your head out of the water to breathe, it's easy to get lost in looking around at all the underwater life. We saw quite a few different fish.



The hour in the water went by all too quickly, and we climbed back onboard for lunch. The included lunch was quite nice - cold deli meats, prawns, fruits, and salads. Swimming does wonders for the appetite.



After another short boat ride, we anchored off Hastings Reef. One of the guides put on a short fish identification talk, then we jumped back in the water. Here, much nearer the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef, the fish were more varied and larger. The coral varieties were also astounding. It's hard to imagine just how diverse the forms the corals take without actually seeing them first-hand.

Here are a few photos:









After 2 1/2 hours here, it was time to head home. We climbed back on the boat, stripped off our stinger suits for the last time, then settled back with coffee and tea to watch the waves roll by. The ride back to Cairns in the late afternoon was quick but not rough. We talked a little more to one of the crew, who, it turns out, was a girl from NZ. She was working her way around the world on boats, working as a member of yacht crews and as a dive instructor. We compared travel notes and talked about NZ.

All too soon, we arrived back in Cairns. It was a long day but a whole lot of fun.

Above Water set
Below Water set

Birthday Boy

It's Justin's birthday today (Dec 6th) so let's all wish him a big...


Happy "good on you mate" Birthday!!


Here's a couple pics Laura sent us to celebrate Justin's humble beginnings - isn't he cute? (I know he'll get me back for this on my birthday!)


(Laura wondering just what exactly is so cute about baby brothers)



(Justin practicing for a future of 4wd tracks in the outback!)

Thanks Laura :)

Singapore was Great!

Hi all,

We're back in Australia after a week in Singapore, where we really enjoyed ourselves! Everything was decorated for Christmas and very festive. Also Singapore is truly a food paradise - we indulged in a different cuisine for every meal: Malaysian, various Chinese styles, North and South Indian, Thai, Japanese, and even Egyptian! Yum. Plus lots of snacks - avocado milkshakes, pork buns, bubble tea, kaya toast, fried bananas and lots and lots of iced coffee.

When we weren't busy eating, we went to three animal parks where I got to hold a vulture, feed lorikeets and elephants (not at the same time!) The rest of the time we just walked all over taking in the sights and local colors. We stayed in the Little India neighborhood which was a lot of fun and very lively. We had a great time and hope to get back there again.





In other news, we've decided at the last minute to bail on Western Australia and to instead drive to Queensland to reduce our driving. We really want to see WA someday, but it's just going to have to be on another trip.

We've been too busy (and too hot!) to write any more posts yet, but I'll get some current ones up soon. What did you think of the last three posts? I can't believe I haven't gotten any comments on the "Arf burger" yet?!! haha.

A few more old posts

Hi all - here are a couple more posts from our time before Ayer's Rock. I'm still working on the backlog :)

We're in Darwin right now (where it's very hot, humid and buggy.) We'll be going to Singapore for week next Monday to renew our visas - it only costs a little more to leave the country and come back than to stay here and pay for a visa extension. Singapore should be really fun!

-Christina

A Day on the Oodnadatta Track

Muloorina to William Creek
09Oct08

Today we drove a long section of the famous Oodnadatta track which follows the old abandoned train line and telegraph line that were historically very significant. Everyone used this particular route through the harsh desert because it follows a string of natural springs.

First stop was in the town of Marree to see some old train tracks and an engine.



Next up was the not-so-historical Sculpture Garden full of various sculptures cobbled together from random junk. This airplane sculpture was inhabited by cockatoos (who were not happy with us!)



My other favorite was this robot-like statue of a film maker :)



And here's Justin playing the gongs...



The land in this area is extremely arid, harsh and flat - very surreal. At one point we were driving along listening to my favorite Dead album - Live Dead - and I realized that the song "Feedback" is the perfect compliment for this bizarre landscape.

Later on we stopped at the Wabmu Mound Springs National Park to see, you guessed it, mound springs. These are salty hot springs bubbling up from the giant underground aquifer that have built up large hill-like mounds from all the minerals in the water. The springs are pretty but unfortunately inhabited by biting flies that quickly chased us back to the car! This was our first encounter with the friendly biting fly... as though the bush flies constantly dive-bombing into our eyes, nose and mouth weren't bad enough!



Our last stop for the day was a ghosttown called Strangeways (how could we pass up a place with a name like that?)It was a town built around one of the telegraph repeater stations.



The telegraph line across the center of Australia was so extremely important because it linked the populated area of SE Australia with the rest of the world via an underwater cable from Darwin to Indonesia. Strangeways was an interesting place with many half-crumbled buildings and some good information about the town's history, but again there were clouds of bush flies following us around so we could only stand it for so long before running back to the car.

That night we stayed at the holiday park at the William Creek roadhouse - the only settlement within at least a 100 mile radius. This is a proper outback roadhouse - a tin roofed rambling building with a bar/restaurant/gas station decorated with everything from rusty lanterns and faded photos, to foreign paper bills and ladies underwear stapled to the walls! We were hoping to eat a real meal there so we hurried to shower before the kitchen closed at 8pm. But alas when we returned at 7:30 clean and hungry, the rather acerbic young women at the counter informed us that it was too late - the kitchen had closed. I started to argue about the time and she just snapped, "you're in the wrong time zone!" So frustrated and hungry we trudged back to the truck to scrounge up something to eat (more canned soup) and tried to figure out how we had crossed time zones! We didn't figure it out til about a week later in Uluru when someone clued us in that South Australia had switched to daylight savings time while we were camping in the Flinders - and by then we were completely confused because NT (Northern Territory) doesn't follow DST! So it seems that we now can't keep track of the date, day of the week or even the time of day :)

Oodnadatta track photoset