München Trip

Last weekend was a German holiday on Thursday and Friday so we headed to Munich by train. The ride was beautiful, as you would expect. Fields, villages, horses, sheep, old men wearing Lederhosen because it's just how they dress. Always something lovely.

Four hours to Munich station

As usual, we booked a little apartment on Airbnb. The owners had so many knick knacks from their travels all over the place, it was anyone's guess when Doren would break something. Miraculously nothing was damaged!

In the cute apartment

The Glockenspiel. At 11am some little wooden clock characters do a dance at the mid level. We thought it would cool for the boys but ended up being a bust. When's lunch?

The hats give us away. Definitely not German.

I know, I know...it's the most touristy Munich thing ever, but we had to. Hofbrauhaus! We've been here two or three times before in past years so we had to take the boys.

That time Jonah was in a good mood.

This is Bavaria!

Big Baby Head

I don't even like beer

But he does!

Ruh-roh. Suddenly in a bad mood for absolutely no reason. Only a multi-times-a-day occurrence with Jonah Brandon.

MOM! Stop looking at me! UH!

(snort, giggle, snort)

BAHAHAHAHA! This is so Jonah!
We're having lunch in a fun place in a beautiful city. And yet.

Just happy not to be in a stroller, carrier or high chair!

On Saturday I woke up with what felt like a flu with a giant scoop of allergies on top. I'm allergic to every tree so there must have been something in the Munich air that didn't agree with me. I've tried to avoid this by consuming lots and lots of local honey for the entire year we've been here...but I guess it wasn't local to Munich. Anyway, I felt awful and had to blow my nose every thirty seconds but we still went out that day.

The boys strolled the grounds while I sat and blew my nose with this really bold duck or goose.

Trees hate me!

Then on to a huge urban park called English Garden

We came across this sweet old man playing his guitar for no audience but himself and singing what sounded like Hawaiian songs with German words. It was so cute we had to sit on a bench to listen. 

Having fun climbing hills and holding sticks.
The hills are alive!

At one end of the park is a really great Biergarten with pretzels as big as your head!

There's an oompah band playing on the second level.

On our way back to the apartment after a beautiful day.

On Sunday I woke up feeling like a block of marble. All I wanted was my neti pot and to stay in bed all day, but we had to catch the train back home. There is never a good time to be sick, but it's even worse when traveling. I looked so miserable and went through so many tissues I had to assure the other passengers I didn't have swine flu, just suffering from severe allergies. All in all, it was a nice trip, the boys were only slightly annoying, and we had some beautiful weather. I love Bavaria!

Wolfstein Culinary Hike

Two weekends ago was the first Culinary Hike of the year. This is an event in which a village maps out a walking course of a few miles through the village and out into the fields. Along the way are five or six stops, each with a different type of food to try and of course wine, secco and beer. One stop might have skewers and warm scalloped potatoes and the next has cakes and coffee. We did a couple of these last year and I've been really excited for them to start again. Its the "sport" I've been looking for all my life. It's exactly like a 5K except no running and lots of food.

Our landlords from the first house we stayed in came out to do it with us.The forecast said rain but that morning we laughed in its face because the sun was clearly shining. No clouds were going to ruin the hike that I've been "training" for ALL WINTER!

When you check in you can purchase a drink pass card that allows you to get a refill at each station for less money. They give you your own wine glass and a wine glass caddy that goes around your neck. It looks really weird like a feed bag attached to a horse. I wish I had a picture! I didn't get one because I wasn't planning on drinking that much and I'm sure mine would knock a kid in the face, or, more importantly, spill with all the bending over, picking up, diaper changing, etc.

First, a little stretching before we hit the trail...

The first stop for a yogurt parfait.
Feeling good. Setting the pace.

Still able to talk and breathe at the same time.

A forest-fairy land.

Doing my best "Grandma Dori" with a mojito-flavored secco. 

Look out for cow pies!

Clouds comin' in. Looks like rain.
We will not be moved!

Then it was sunny again.

See? It's just like a marathon with arrows and everything.

Now its hailing! 

And he's refusing to put on his hood.

And we're making the best of it cuz we're not quitters!

At this point the hail and wind was so bad that we had to stop walking and huddle under our umbrellas that were almost inverting. I've never experienced this variety of weather in such a short time. It was five minutes of sun, then five of rain, five of hail, then more sun, then more rain. It was pretty crazy, but come hell or high water we were going to finish this race! Er, food hike. Does it really matter?!

The line for the smoked salmon. It was intense.

Sunny again!

Taking a breather.
And now more rain, but, oh, that view.

Beverage 2 of 2. Don't mind if I do.
Must...stay...hydrated.

The little punks with their beers. Or at least they like to pretend the sparkling apple juice is beer.

Doren was very suspicious of this shoulder ride.

The last lap. I...think...we...can (crawling to mirage of wine bottle and currywurst)

We finished strong and celebrated with ice cream and a jumpy castle for the kids. I could've almost broke a sweat if it weren't for the hail.

There is another hike tomorrow with sun and blue skies on the menu!

The Ways

Here are a couple of the ways we're doing things differently since living in Germany.

1) Airing the house and linens.

I remember seeing this years ago when I traveled to Europe. I wondered why on earth people were hanging their blankets out the window! 

See?

See?

See?

I think it's two reasons. 1) Air out the house. Every morning, no matter how cold, windows are opened to refresh the house from all the nighttime heat. It's actually in our rental agreement to air out the house for thirty minutes every day. 2) Exposing your bed sheets to sun and air kills the dust mites and bed bugs. Making your bed immediately just seals them into a sweaty, dark, environment to feed on the dead skin cells you shed at night. Super gross, which is why this is super smart. I open a bunch of windows in the morning, even in winter, but my window sills, erm, aren't clean enough to be hanging my sheets out (Who cleans their window sills??)...so I just let in a lot of light and maybe get around to pulling the covers up sometime in the afternoon. I don't.

2) We hang our laundry (usually).

Germans don't have dryers. Just a washer in the kitchen or basement. Its not that they can't afford them, its just not the norm, because...why? Why pay for something the sun and wind will do for free? Most people have sturdy permanent lines set up in their yard. We just have this portable one right now. We have a dryer but I think line drying is a good idea and that I should always do it. Can you cut yourself on our rock-hard towels? Absolutely! But who couldn't use a little extra exfoliation? No HOA is going to tell them to take down the line immediately because it's "ruining" the neighborhood. Its totally normal and I really like that. Sometimes we do use the dryer like when it's raining, but if I wanted to really be hardcore I would just hang the clothes inside. I should do that...



3) I bought Birkenstocks.

I know. Hideous.

But they are sooooo comfortable. Germans wear house shoes indoors. Maybe its a soft slipper but its more likely a hard-soled shoe that is only worn inside. I've always thought Birkenstocks were so ugly, rivaled only by the Croc, which (cough) I own (cough) as well. (Except when we lived in Amsterdam that one summer all the trendy 20-somethings were wearing a certain style of Birkenstock. So there.) I need serious arch support so I figured I should try the official shoe of Germany and these babies provided. They're the first things I put on and the last things I take off and I can no longer walk anywhere in my house without them. And it never hurts when I stub my toe, which seems to happen a lot. Hippies, naturalists, the cool Dutch kids, and the Germans were right all along.



4) We don't refrigerate our eggs.

Just sitting there out in the open.

Ok, I admit I just recently started doing this because it felt weird to me and still does a little. But I buy them off the shelf at our little vegetable market so what difference does it make to refrigerate them if I go back and buy more of the same eggs two days later? They don't need to be refrigerated because they come straight from the chicken rather than being processed. In the US eggs must be chilled because they are shampooed, removing the natural protective coating that keeps bacteria out. No shampoo, no need to chill. I just rinse them off before we use them and we go through a lot so they don't sit there long even though the shelf life is many, many weeks.



5) German Dinner

I blogged about this here a few weeks ago. We don't have this every night but probably three or four nights a week. It's my fave.



All of that said, these things are definitely not unique to Germans or anything really extraordinary. They're just not the norm in America which is why they're unique to me. Eggs are not refrigerated in Korea or most countries for that matter. And most of the world doesn't use dryers. I like these ways and I hope to discover more to adopt. Among other things, one of the benefits of a multi-culturally influenced life is taking a little of this and a little of that from the rest of the world.