Thanks to the way holidays and weekends were scheduled this year, and also thanks to Germany’s rigid operating hours laws, today was our only chance to do some shopping in the center of Munich. Us and 3 billion other people it appeared.
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We started off at the Viktualien Markt, where I finally found some fresh veggie juice, then towards the main pedestrian area and the super crowded city hall piazza. For lunch we enjoyed seafood at Nordsee, which was equally super crowded and we resolved to eat standing outside .. not as cozy, but still nice seafood.
We woke up to a very rainy day and headed over to my mom for breakfast. Then we hopped on the highway to visit nearby Augsburg, a very nice city where I lived over 10 years ago before I left Germany for good. It was a fun trip down memory lane, but the muddy weather and the fact that still in Germany on sundays everything is closed (besides some coffee shops) made us keep the trip rather short.
For dinner we researched the options on Turkish food .. having seen so many Döner places in Augsburg before. Sure enough, when you look for them, they are hard to find. Even the concierge of our hotel had no idea about one in the vicinity, so we took the car again and went close to the Müncher Freiheit to visit Mama’s Kebab Haus, for some really nice spicy-meat-in-bread and Julius had fun trying his first lahmacun (Turkish pizza, basically)
While parking had been a bit of a hassle and the place looked crowded when we had passed by, in the end we got lucky with the seats … and considering that we had a big amount of food, the total of 25€ was very reasonable for dinner.
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Our week in Kärnten came to its end and after we stopped by the Ankogel Köfle Alm (to have their yummy outside in the snow seating plus one of the best hamburgers I had in a while) we took the 3 hour drive to Munich to visit my mom.
We had a strong Sushi craving after all the meaty – cheesy mountain food and found a nearby place (Ohayou) which turned out to be quite nice, the sashimi platter was very good in quality and at 22.50€ surprisingly cheap.
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The little devil elf is always very interested in helping me preparing our breakfast rolls …
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One really nice thing about having our own vacation house is that we can have a very cozy breakfast by a crackling fire, in pajamas, any time we want.
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What would be an xmas vacation without the kid getting sick?
Julius had been coughing a lot and we have tried all kinds of remedies, but the last 2 nights he also had a bit of fever (only to wake up totally peachy the next morning), but now it was time to go see a doctor.
Gladly there was one close by, very friendly and prescribed a bunch of things (gladly we dodged the antibiotic bullet again), but he also said that Julius should stay indoors as much as possible for a week. Which shattered all plans of having him join a ski kids club we had checked out the day before.
But we went out briefly for a little get-together of all guests of the hof we are staying at (at their little chapel) and Julius served drinks he made from snow.
And warming hands by the fire:
Good thing that we have such a nice house (instead of some small hotel room) so we can enjoy the fireplace and a very nice christmas eve dinner together.
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Ah, the fun of staying at a farm. Rising early, boots on and go meet the resident animals:
Later in the afternoon we visited the near by xmas market and warmed our hands on hot beverages, roasted chestnuts and open fires:
And just before it was time for bed, Julius posed in his new PJ and his tiger shoes.
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After a long day of driving and just one hour before we would meet our final destination, we stopped for grocery shopping.
Julius had a blast zooming up and down the aisles with his own shopping cart. He even found a little play / racing buddy.
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Of course we had to keep reminding him of the potential dangers and had to call his name many times … And amazingly, his little friend was reacting, too. As it turns out, this little 2 year old boy is also called Julius.
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We are leaving for our holiday vacation and wanted to send best wishes to all our readers. Please enjoy this year’s e-card with snow and music (Sorry Tammy, no singing this year. Don’t want anyone’s ear start to bleed) by clicking here.
Not sure about the online connection in the days to come … so updates might be sporadic .. but in the end I will fill all the gaps with stories, pictures and video clips.
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Recently I have discovered that a new eatery had opened at the Lingotto mall. Promising classic American and tex-mex food, we took the bait and combined some late xmas shopping with soothing our burger cravings.
It is a nicely themed setting (with a bit too much of native American brick-a-brack hanging around) inside and ‘outside’ and we were promptly shown to our table and Julius even got a kid’s place mat, pencils and later a little toy (with his kid’s menu). We ordered a small portion of chicken wings, 2 different burgers, kid’s burger for Julius … and this is when the fun stopped …
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The wings: Very obviously from frozen and kinda boring in flavor (while pretty greasy), not spicy at all and served with the ‘original old wild west sauce’ .. which is basically a cocktail sauce.
The burgers: Oh my … who ever created the menu should be shot, old west style. Why the heck does only the hamburger come with tomatoes, onion and pickle? Order a cheeseburger and you get none of those burger essentials (same for all other burgers) … the patty is loveless and obviously sawed out from a frozen brick of tasteless meat. If you ask for extra ketchup and mustard, you get little single serve packages and a face full of attitude. I later also noticed that they charge extra for that, 50 cents a bag. The fries were nothing to write home about and came with, instead of ketchup, the aforementioned ‘original’ sauce. |
Another thing that bugged me is that ONLY in the burger section it says ’50 cents service fee’ … not sure if they still charge that when you order a steak, but I have no intention of finding that out … ever.
The last bit of fun I had when I paid the bill: 31.30€ for 2.5 people, one small beer and one water .. that is a bit much. I returned 2 of the sauce packs which were unused, and again got a load of attitude … and was amazed that the lady, who I was told was the manager, had no basic math skills. When I had asked for a bit of mustard and ketchup, she brought 2 bags of each (4x50cents = 2€) .. when I returned 2 of the bags, she initially gave me 50 cents (?), I then told her that this is wrong .. which caused another big sigh on her behalf (very professional in front of the customer) and she gave me another Euro (??) .. I returned to her telling her that it is still wrong and that she now overpaid me 50 cents … but no, she insisted I keep those extra 50 cents … (???)
What have we learned from this? McDonalds is still the better source for burgers in Torino.
[One hour later: Ritsu is telling me how heavy the burger still feels in her tummy...]
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… to be merry!
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The friendship to big sister / girlfriend Lucy is growing every time we go to our favorite Asian restaurant (which is pretty much once a weekend when we are in town) and this time Lucy kidnapped Julius right away to share her lunch with him.
So, while we were still waiting for our food, he was sitting in the next room enjoying some yummy fried potatoes.
| Sorry, not the best shot, but somehow the only picture I took today… |  |
| I have been very much into raw veggies recently, turning pretty much anything I can get my hands on into juice .
I start the day with 1 – 2 pints of veggie juice, which might be the reason why I am the only one in the family currently without running nose or cough. The greener the better, I hardly use carrots (too much sugar in them) .. I rather do celery, cucumber, swiss chard, cabbage, fennel, a clove of garlic, red leaf salad (not sure about the name, looks like a bigger endive in red and quite bitter), daikon and everything else that looks juicable. |
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Today I found those guys pictured above. (click to embiggen) They are called ‘erbette’ and so far I have only drawn blanks when it comes to finding the English name. Some English recipes call a dish ‘something al erbette’, but they use swiss chard or spinach (which it is not) .. it looks like a lovechild of spinach and celery, the firm stalks make it easy to juice. I wish it was kale, but that looks very different on the wiki page .. i keep wondering if it is collard green, but I could not find pictures to confirm this.
Anyone?
Update Thanks to everyone who chimed in .. I am still puzzled though. I do not think it is mangold (aka swiss chard). See the 2 pics below. This is called here ‘Biete Coste’ and the dictionary says that THIS is mangold / swiss chard … and the second comparison photo shows they are quite different. (The picture on wikipedia also looks different) .. so .. the question remains .. what is that green that they sell here as ‘erbette’ ?
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(Thanks to Adwoa for leaving her juicer with me and thanks to Aaron for the ongoing raw veggie inspiration)
… zzzz …
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It does not happen often anymore that I hop in the tub with Julius (he has just gotten too big), but tonight he specifically asked for it .. and I wonder if he had already devised his evil plan of pouring water over my head again and again ..
At least I got my revenge |
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You can see it in his eyes .. something is going on in that evil brain of his 
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With Ritsu being sick and taking a nap, I whisked Julius right off the school bus and we went to the playground.
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The weather is really nice these days (for fall) .. cold, but dry .. sun hanging very low casting her light through the naked trees … very beautiful.
We have not visited this playground in a while, so it was time to re-discover. It was fairly empty, but some people with dogs were there and Julius had a fun time.
Afterwards he specifically (and politely) asked for icecream (since when did he drop the word ‘gelato’?) and so we went.
There is plenty more to see in the gallery.
For dinner I had shoved a red wine marinated chicken (Coque au vin) in the oven and it turned out quite nice.
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