Hello, Germany!

I am going to tell the tales of our European 'holiday' (as the natives call it). All of these posts will be back dated, so pay attention to to dates I am writing, not the date of the post!

While in Germany, I emailed myself this entry:

7/22/09

So, to recount our German adventures yesterday. After we woke up and got ready for the day (around 12:30), Ben gave Scott and I the tour of the neighborhood. They live in the cutest, most quaint little area... it looks like something from a postcard! It feels a lot like NYC, in that you walk to do everything, and there are shops/restaurants on every block. Despite the abundance of people and businesses in the area, it still feels very safe. There are parks all around the area with little ponds filled with ducks and swans. There are so many people walking and riding bikes, it doesn't make you feel vulnerable to be on the street instead of in a car, like it does at home.

We walked through the park to this area called "Old Town". It is this very quaint district that is completely filled with restaurants and pubs. It is like a suped-up Bardstown Road.. tons of shops and restaurants, pubs, people EVERYWHERE... but instead of having to choose between 2 or 3 good restaurants like we do at home, the selection here is endless. It is amazing! So we of course walked around and looked at various menus, trying to select "the best place" to eat. Well, being that we don't speak the language, and that Ben and Megan don't go out to eat that much, we were all out of our element. So Scott chose this place (of course I can't remember the name of it) to eat. We sat outside at the tables on the sidewalk and watched all the Germans walking around. The server brought the 3 of us out little (tiny, actually) glasses of Sherry, for an aperitif (a drink to prepare you for a meal). The waiter spoke a little English, and brought us an English menu. Being as it was almost 2:00 and we didn't want to eat too much and ruin our appetites for dinner with Megan later, we decided to all 3 split a plate. We ordered lamb with fries and green beans. The lamb was smothered in this delicious brown sauce with mushrooms. The fries (pommes frites) were delicious, so fresh and potatoey.. nothing like the fries here. The green beans were laced with ham (ew!) so we gave all those to Ben. The meal was delicious, and we were excited to have experienced our first authentic German meal. (Later on that day, we looked up the place we ate in our tour book and discovered that the restaurant was actually Argentinean, not German! Shows what we know! lol). After that, we continued to walk around and explore the town. We went to the grocery (Aldi's- ha! We have those at home and never realized it was German) and got water and some chocolate and wine. The wine was only 2 euros, which is like, $3 bucks! So we bought 3 bottles, of course! Afterwards, we took the groceries home, and by that time it was time to meet Megan at her tram stop.

After Megan got home and changed out of her work clothes, we walked back down to Old Town for dinner. Megan took us to this actual authentic German place (she knows stuff!). It was fabulous! Scott and Megan both had the Sourbraten, which was 'sour' beef with brown sauce and a bowl of cooked red cabbage. This description does not do it justice, (and actually sounds kind of gross)- I can't describe how fresh and delicious it was. Here is the picture of it, but the picture actually looks kind of gross too! But it wasn't, it was amazing! I had boiled beef with an apple-horseradish sauce, and pommes (potatoes) on the side. It was very good. Ben had the pork knuckle (he would!) lol!

We left our restaurant feeling very satisfied and happy with our authentic German meal. Megan wanted then to show us the night life at Old Town. We walked through the streets and looked at all the people milling about, just hanging out on the streets. It was packed! All the pubs were open, and had tables lining the sidewalks. It was definitely the hot spot, as all the hip young crowd was out socializing. We then walked a few blocks to the edge of town to look the Rhine River. There was a fair on the other side of the river, so we sat on the steps and watched lights of the rides. It was very pretty, with the glowing lights glistening off the water. We walked home after that, having had a full first day. What a great start to our vacation!

7/23

Well, Scott and I finally woke up today. And it's uh, 1:30 pm. Oops. This time change is hard to get used to! We only slept a few hours Tuesday night on the plane, then when we got here on Wednesday morning, we took a 2 or 3 hour nap. Then last night we all stayed up till midnight (which was only 6 pm KY time). So that means Scott and I got 13 hours sleep, and are still basically on U.S. time. dang! Tomorrow we will just have to get up with Megan when she goes to work so we can force ourselves to get acclimated.

Today was another fun filled day. Ben took Scott and I to his favorite lunch spot, a place right down the street where they sell Doners (pronounced Derners). It is a delicious sandwich that is filled with either lamb or chicken, and 4 different kinds of fresh salad, which is green cabbage, red cabbage, lettuce, and then a cucumber, tomato, lettuce, purple cabbage mix. Then it is topped with feta cheese, a yogurt sauce, and a spicy dijon mustard sauce. The whole thing is wrapped up in a warm flatbread, and served in a foil wrapper. Ben got a chicken doner, and Scott and I split a lamb pizza doner, which had everything I just listed, but the flatbread was covered in italian seasonings and tasted like pizza. Oh, my gosh, was it ever delicious! I took several pictures...mmm mmm mmm!

After lunch, we walked back to the apartment, and looked through the tour books for things to do. We decided that now we needed ice cream, so we walked down to this Gelato place a few blocks away. We all got a cone with 2 scoops of ice cream; Ben had strawberry-yogurt and banana, Scott got peppermint and coconut, and I had cinnamon and truffle. I know those all sound like weird combinations, but it is all so good, it doesn't matter how you combine them, they are cold little scoops of heaven! We then walked back to the apartment, eating our cones, and waited for Megan to get home from work.

When Megan got home, we waited just long enough for her to change clothes and we ran out the door to catch the Tram. We still missed it, but luckily there was another one that came 8 minutes later. We took the tram to the train station, where we then got on a train to Koln (pronounced cologne). It was a scenic ride, and we enjoyed the windy tracks through the country. When we arrived in Koln, the train station deposited us practically right on the doorstep of the ancient Dom Cathedral. Talk about a majestic site! Again, pictures are worth a thousand words, so I will let the pictures do the talking. Words cannot do justice the amazing beauty of this breathtaking landmark that is literally thousands of years old. After we toured the cathedral and took a ton of pictures, we left for dinner. We went to this place that Scott had looked up in his Michelin tour book. It was called Heising und Adlmann (I have no idea what that translates to). The ambiance was picture perfect... the waiter took us to an outdoor terrace in the back that was lined with canopies, colored lights, and dotted with overhanging trees. It looked like a place out of a movie, it was so quaint and so peaceful. There was even a barrel sitting by the door filled with blankets, so that if you got cold you could get a blanket and drape it over you! Now that is a great idea! Why don't we have a restaurant like that in the States? Anyway, the ambiance of the place was already enough to ensure that the experience was going to be fabulous, despite what the menu held. But, it did not disappoint, and even only had 1 dish that contained pork! That in itself was an amazing feat as pork is the German meat of choice. The waiter had to translate the menu for us as Megan could only decipher some of the words. In the end, Scott ended up getting the Sea Bass with an Olive Risotto, and I got the duck breast with gnocchi. Megan got lasagna, and Ben got a pasta dish with shrimp. We all loved our meals, and each rated the dishes from 8-10 on the deliciousness scale.

We had a fantastic day, and are excited and ready for another one tomorrow!