Building a Better Bookcase
Currently, I have about 50 unread books in my possession. A handful of those are e-books, but the rest are hard copies. It should come as no surprise that I’m running low on shelf space in my home. This weekend I finally decided to bit the bullet and build 2 IKEA Billy bookcases for my home office. I have the scraped arms and bruised knees to prove it. That little graphic instruction manual doesn’t mention that, you’ll notice. It also doesn’t include a bottle of wine under the needed tools, which is a severe oversight.
You’ll notice Abed and Jeff Winger in the background. They were extremely helpful.
To give the bookcase a little zing, I decided to put my Pinterest account to good use and attempt an “Ikea hack.” I followed the instructions put together by The Nearest Future to attach fabric to the back of the bookcase. I want to point out here that the backing of a Billy bookcase is just cardboard. I thought I might need a staple gun to do this, but your average Swingline desk stapler works just fine. I’m pretty concerned about the longevity of this bookcase given that it is partially cardboard.
For those of you feeling crafty. I found the fabric at Whipstitch, which has by far the cutest and most whimsical fabric selection in Atlanta. Go throw some money at them!
After several hours and a couple of moments I thought would surely lead to Single Girl horror stories in which I would get trapped under heavy furniture for days until someone found me, I ended up with this:
I put a couple of the shelves in backwards on the right hand shelf, and I had to paint the exposed particle board white. I suppose I could have unscrewed the pieces and done it the right way, but when you’re putting together an IKEA bookcase, you hit a point where you’re like, “Eff this, I just want it to be over.”
And with the books:
You’ll notice the Girls Gone Wild hat. It was thrown to me by a That 70s Show cast member during Mardi Gras one year, and I only had to show my smile to get it. Seriously, what kind of girl do you think I am?
Tomorrow: How I chose to organize the books.
The Hi/Lo Book Club
This month, book club read Jen Lancaster’s My Fair Lazy. For the un-jenitiated, JenLan writes humorous memoirs about her various projects. One book follows her quest to lose weight, one follows her self exploration after the dot-com bust, and this one follows her self-assigned directive to get some culture into her reality television saturated life. She goes to the ballet, she eats good food, she attends the theater, she reads classic literature, and so on.
from the author’s website
Group opinion of the book varied: “Liked her at first, liked her less as she got cultured,” “Disliked her at first, liked her once she got cultured,” “Laughed all the way through,” “Stopped after two chapters,” “Barnes & Noble didn’t have it so I’m just here for the food.”
Speaking of the food, nobody debated about that point. Every month we choose a food theme, and this month we challenged ourselves to create dishes combining high and low cuisine elements to honor JenLan and her dichotomous personality.
Feast your eyes on this.
I made bacon and cheese spirals. Hi: Artisan raspberry cheese. Lo: Pastry from a tube and microwave bacon. .
Sandy, our resident healthy person, brought vegan chili mac. Hi: Uh, vegan everything. Lo: Technically chili. And mac. But no cheese.
Sara brought a charcuterie plate. Hi: Fancy cheese and sweet relish pickles. Lo: Slim Jims, pork rinds, and Vienna sausages. (I didn’t see anything like these when I was in Austria, FYI.)
Sandy also made the 90s classic, fruit pizza. Hi: Farmer’s Market fresh fruits. Lo: It is fruit masquerading as pizza.
Madelines went more gourmet with Lemon and Ricotta Spread on toast. Hi: Lemon and Ricotta. Lo: I suppose the honey on top, which was squeezed from a bear, but I think Madeline mostly ignored the directive because she’s baller like that.
Laura brought boxed brownies with fresh raspberries. Hi: Rasberries. Lo: Boxed brownies, though we all agreed that homemade brownies really don’t taste any better, so what’s the point of that?
Not pictured: Heather’s fancy ice cream dessert– your choice of salted caramel gelato or sherbet push pop.
Next month we read Farenheit 451 to honor Ray Bradbury, but we’re eating at a restaurant because we can.
A Mental To Do List for the Zombie Apocalypse
A few years ago, I read World War Z by Max Brooks and it changed my life. At that point I realized the very real possibility of a Zombpocalypse thanks to the author’s documentary story telling. Starting from patient zero and tracing the path of the virus over the oceans and then the government reactions and the military states that arise– it just sounds so possible! It’s one of those books that makes me go all crazy-eyed when I talk about it and try to convince people that they should read it and get on board. Since then, I’ve been working on a mental checklist of how I should prepare… just in case.
from the author’s website
In the wake of the recent rash of cannibalistic attacks in the US, the CDC actually released a statement last week reminding us that zombies aren’t real. I love this so much. This is like JK Rowling having to release a statement to remind us that Harry Potter is a work of fiction because so many people are getting concussions from trying to run through platform walls at King’s Cross Station. (JK Rowling: Please never release this statement. A part of me will die.) My logical adult side says that a zombie outbreak could never happen, but my imaginative more childlike side is shouting, “OH YES IT COULD.” I indulge the childlike side with my list.
Here is an excerpt
– Learn the martial arts. It doesn’t matter which one. Whichever one allows me to kick off someone’s head.
This is my friend and she’s going to survive. I want to be on her team.
– Buy a bike. My car will run out of gas while fleeing the walking dead, but I can power the bike myself.
Anyway, I like cute with a bike.
– Make friends with someone who has a sword. This person should live nearby so I don’t have to go long without access to a sword. No need for actual sword in home as I will definitely hurt myself with it if left to my own devices.
Maybe a light saber would also work?
– Study map for best escape route from city. Figure out most safe rendezvous point and communicate to friends. Possible site: Family farm in south Georgia?
– Subpoint: Convince friends they should meet me. Convince friends will be asset rather than liability.
– Subpoint: I mean, I should leave the city, right? The CDC is here, but it’s not like they’re going to let me in.
– Don’t have children. Children will only slow me down when escaping from city. Second thought: have children and use as buffer when zombies are chasing me. Third thought: I’m a horrible person. Re-frame before spiral into self-loathing… okay, children would be useful at survivor camp to convince them to let me in based on guilt factor. Also, my kids can help re-colonize the US. Still, try not to have kids til we’re sure the outbreak won’t happen.
Her cries will only attract the Undead.
– Learn useful survival skill. Am rubbish at hard labor tasks… consider learning to cook for large numbers for when I hook up with survivor camp. Is it hard to make one’s own bread? Learn edible plants a la Katniss in Hunger Games.
I made this bread once. It was basically edible.
– Train dog to alert of zombie scent in air. Will be difficult as there are no zombies yet to use for practice. Also, dog not very smart.
She looks like she could kill a zombie right?
– Get land phone line for apartment and get a non-cordless phone. If the power goes out, phone will still work if connected to ground-line. Also useful in case of hurricanes, which might be more likely.
You think I’m kidding, but all of these things have legitimately crossed my mind since I read that book. Many of the surviving characters have these advantages when the virus hits, and I don’t plan to mess around when the world goes mad. In fact, Max Brooks has helpfully written The Zombie Survival Guide with these and other tips. He’s really thought this through, you guys. If I knew him in real life, I would make sure to bring him lots of baked goods so that he would choose me for his team after the chaos begins.
But then I stop and take a step back and remind myself that none of it is possible anyway and my over-active imagination is a blessing and a curse.
But I still might buy a bike. Cause I like bikes. No other reason.
Strawberry Fields Forever
My friend N e-mailed me on Friday and proposed that we go strawberry picking and make jelly this weekend. N considers herself domestic when she adds siracha sauce to her mayonnaise and she only bakes things that come in a tube, so the situation seemed ripe for hilarity. I agreed without blinking. My grandfather used to run a farm and worked insane hours so that his children and grandchildren would not have to pick their own food for a living. The irony of picking my own food for recreation is not lost on me.
Saturday morning bloomed spectacularly with the kind of blue skies that you usually only see in crayon boxes, and the temperature never rose above a breezy 73 degrees. In short, it was the Holy Grail of Georgia Summer Days. After a few minutes cruising down some rural roads and a few speculations that N might not be the best navigator, we arrived at Warbington Farms. The staff there advised us it would be the last day of the strawberry season and we might have trouble filling a full gallon pail. We decided to take our chances. We are, after all, special unicorns.
If you’ve never done it, I highly suggest strawberry picking– it’s extraordinarily satisfying. You crouch down among these green plants and push leaves to the side and there’s a magic red strawberry, just laying there bright and happy as if waiting for you to find it and take it home. Every time you swipe aside a tangle of green and find a little splash of red, a little whoosh goes through your heart. It’s like being in sixth grade and seeing your crush from a distance at the mall. In the end, we were champion pickers and easily filled the small plastic containers given to us by the staff. N was named MVP for her overflowing containers until her husband pointed out she was also picking the muchy berries and disqualified her.
N’s husband B ambled down a row and commented he could get a job doing this. I bit my tongue, but it wasn’t that hard to repress my natural inclination to snark. When you’re under a wide blue sky and you’re breathing fresh air and you’re doing something productive that isn’t back-breaking with people that you genuinely like, it’s hard to work up to sarcasm. Like the Grinch, my heart grew three sizes that day.
Pleased with our haul, we started back toward the city, but we stumbled across a roadside produce stand. Still high on sourcing and picking our own fresh food, we threw a bit of business at this nice local guy. I felt like a character in a tv show or a movie– like the kind of person who lives in the world and not in an air-conditioned, fluorescent-lighted, hermetically sealed box.
We returned to the interstate with the sun roof and windows open and 90s music blasting through the stereo. With our cache of Micheal Pollan-approved produce and the glow of accomplishment about us, we flew home in the kind of bubble of happiness that doesn’t come along often in adulthood. I don’t know if they actually spray those strawberry fields with ecstasy, but something calm and light seemed to follow us back to Atlanta.
In the end, N chickened out on the jelly, which is really too bad because I promise everyone would have been really amused by that story. I ended up using my strawberries to make a recipe I found a year ago on Smitten Kitchen for Summer Strawberry Cake. Absolutely delicious- highly suggest it with whipped cream. As I baked it, I fancied myself to be Sarah Michelle Gellar in that otherwise awful movie where she is a chef that bakes her feelings. I wanted this cake to taste happy, and it did.
Before
After
And yes, the strawberries were delicious, which almost seems beside the point, doesn’t it?
Heidi’s Little Emergency
Yeah, this is a post about my dog. I know it’s annoying to some people, but if people I only know as passing acquaintances can post pictures of the insides of their uteruses (uteri?) online, I think this is okay.
In all photos, Heidi appears to be contemplating serious questions of great importance. If not for her lack of opposable thumbs and her inability to speak English, she could be figuring out the cure for cancer. It’s just the schnauzer beard and those gruff little eyebrows because I can assure you she’s kind of a lazy C-student and the camera can’t capture her dopey look.
Heidi at full ear attention.
She can be smart when she wants to be: she learned how to sit and lay down just by viewing hand commands, but she regularly runs into glass doors. I think of her as a doggie version of Phoebe Buffay from Friends: an oblivious free spirit with some flashes of brilliance.
She is a special unicorn.
She’s not particularly motivated to be Lassie because she gets by on her looks 90% of the time. She’s abnormally small for a schnauzer, and she looks like a perpetual puppy. Here’s a picture of her with her best frenemy Bailey for comparison.
Heidi likes to share with Bailey. Bailey likes to destroy Heidi.
So, she’s tiny and therefore cuter, and she has unusual coloring for a schnauzer which makes her even more interesting to strangers. She’s like a more active stuffed animal.
LIke a great stuffed animal, you can dress her up too.
She’s grown accustomed to universal admiration (with the exception of her best frenemy who kind of hates her), and she swans through her doggie life under the assumption that everyone wants to cuddle her or give her treats. Frankly, she’s sort of indifferent to praise at this point.
This is Heidi sleeping through your admiration.
A couple of evenings ago on our nightly constitutional, I noticed she wasn’t actually peeing and that she was instead dribbling blood. I assumed a UTI, but it seemed wise to call the emergency vet and they told me to bring her in. Nobody thinks peeing blood is a good sign. Suddenly dumping the second glass of wine into the sink felt like a prescient choice.
Don’t worry- I think that drink is mostly juice. I think.
We drove to the all night emergency clinic. I watched the digital display of my remaining gas miles dwindle with some discomfort (why didn’t I fill up after the grocery store!?). I imagined running out of gas a mile from the vet and walking down the dirty streets of Sandy Springs at midnight with a lame dog. Heidi yawned at me and blinked her impossibly long eyelashes, totally nonplussed.
See all the Effs she gives?
At the clinic, the staff ushered us to a room where I bit my nails and Heidi started to get a whiff of something unpleasant happening to her. She doesn’t fear the vet like other dogs, but she’s not a fan of discomfort in any variety. She usually ends our walks by sitting primly in the grass and refusing to budge once she decides the heat is not to her liking. The staff fussed and fawned over her and the word “cute” was tossed around multiple times while I waited forever for the vet to return with a diagnosis.
Luckily, the vet pronounced her to be UTI positive. Heidi stood on the exam table with her ears thoughtfully perked and her nose quivering, but she was entirely unfazed by the large needles they poked in her leg for pain meds and antibiotics. They could have been giving her acupuncture for all the concern she showed.
Isn’t that the cutest bandage you’ve ever seen?
We made it home where I read the vet’s directions word for word and Heidi leaped on to my cream duvet and smeared some drops of blood on it. When I gasped and hissed, “Heidi!”, she froze mid-circle turn and looked up at me with enormous deep eyes and quirked ears. She flicked her ears like little antennae trying to read my mood, and then she flattened them and wagged her tail a little.
Sigh, I’m an easy mark for her.
That little manipulator. She really does get by on her looks.
Summer Reading List
Hopping a plane or a cruise boat or an interstate this summer? Want to be entertained without resorting to the “I Like” game? (Rules: Take turns saying things that you like. That’s it.) Make like LeVar Burton and read a book.
from the new home of Reading Rainbow’s official website: RRKidz
In the summer, I prefer books that are completely frothy or completely absorbing. Also, they must be paperback. I know everyone has e-readers now, but you can’t bring your Kindle on the beach without risking a sand invasion. Here are some suggestions for Summer 2012.
If you want to snort laugh on the airplane and cause your seat-mates to give you strange looks:
Go for something by Jen Lancaster. I just finished My Fair Lazy, her attempt to exercise her reality tv atrophied brain with some high culture. Pretty in Plaid is another safe bet if you like coming of age stories. JenLan is like your loudest and most ridiculous friend from high school except she’s more articulate. You can freak out with her over the new season of The Bachelor, but you can also rub elbows with her high society pals who take her to the opera to Eliza Doolittle her.
(image from the author’s website)
If you want to get really absorbed in an epic that will take you all summer to read:
Try to get through George R.R. Martins’ Song of Ice and Fire series. This seems obvious, right? Like, we’re all watching Game of Thrones on HBO anyway and we all want to know when Joffrey the Jerkwad gets what’s coming to him. I’ll admit that I tried to read this before and gave up midway through the third book because I got bored with all the war, war, war. The first book was pretty easy to get through thanks to the visuals in my mind from the TV series, and I have a feeling that will help the rest of the series for me too. I’m planning to try again this summer. You should too!
(image from the author’s website)
If you don’t care if you ever the touch the beach again:
You’re not going to want to spend much time on the sand after reading Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races. Every fall, the beach on this Irish island is overrun with vicious flesh eating horses that emerge from the sea. The wacky locals catch the horses, try to tame them, and then they ride them in a deadly race down the shore. Don’t let the YA designation fool you; it’s a lyrical book with evocative descriptions that bring the salty air right to your nose.
If you have a short attention span:
Depending on your literary tastes, crack open Jennifer Weiner’s The Guy Not Taken or Neil Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors. Very different but satisfying experiences. Each book collects many of the respective authors’ best short stories. Truthfully, Weiner’s tales skew more feminine, but that doesn’t make them less worthy or engrossing. Smoke and Mirrors includes one of my favorite Gaiman stories: “Snow, Glass, Apples.” Makes these new Snow White movies look like child’s play.
(images from Weiner’s and Gaiman’s websites.)
If you want to screw it all and just watch a fun girl meet cute with a handsome dude:
Zoey Dean’s How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls has everything I look for in a rom com: smart girl who likes to write, handsome but nice boy who happens to have money, bad boyfriends who get comeuppance, rich people, budding socialites, and a cover that has metallic accents. You already know exactly what you are getting with this one, but it’s still pretty fun to watch Megan stumble through her own personal love story.
If you want to feel intellectually superior to everyone else on the cruise ship:
Just pick up whatever Toni Morrison just released. I promise it will be well written and heart wrenching and it’s like carrying a sign with you that says, “I’m smarter than you.” It will not be frothy though. You’re on your own there. Read Rebecca or something if you’re looking for some literary fluff.
If you want to embrace the YA side:
Read Spoiled by the Fug Girls. I think of this as a gateway drug because the Fug Girls are widely read on their celeb fashion snarkfest website. If you’re not already a YA fan, you can just say that you think they’re funny and wanted to read their book. And it is funny! It pokes fun at Hollywood and celebutantes, but there is some heart underneath. The cover looks like your average beach read too, so it doesn’t scream “YA” so much as it screams, “I am on vacation and I don’t care if I get smarter here.”
(image from the publisher’s website)
If you want to spout annoying facts for weeks after your trip:
I’ll admit that I haven’t finished The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean yet, but I did read the introduction and part of the first chapter and it is a readable science book. It’s about the periodic table of elements and the author collected all kinds of interesting factoids about each element and put it in narrative form. If high school chemistry had more storytelling, I would have done better.
(image from author’s website)
For my own summer reading, I’m trying to finish all of the 53 books that I’ve bought without reading in the last couple of years. 53 books in three months… I must be mad.
Cookie Dough Cake Balls
You like cake balls. If you’ve never had them, you probably don’t know this yet, but you do. They’re basically boxed cakes crumbled up and mixed with canned frosting and then molded into little balls and dipped in candy coating. Cake…good. Frosting… good. Candy coating… good. My friend Marcie introduced them to me a couple of years ago, and I could probably divide my life between “Before Cake Balls” and “After Cake Balls.”
From Marcie’s photography website. She is ridiculously creative.
If you want more thorough instructions, you can check out the blogger Bakerella. She’s basically made a career out of constructing “cake pops,” and she does all kinds of fancy shapes like The Muppets. Good for her, but I just want to eat them as fast as possible so I don’t mess with the elaborate part.
I’m meeting some college friends for Memorial Day this weekend, and I want to bring some baked goods for the group. While brainstorming things they might like, I started to think about my friend Chris of the Fat Picture. He has a well documented love of cookie dough, and I thought I might incorporate that. And then the skies parted and God said, “Let there be Cookie Dough Cake Balls.” And the experiment began.
First, you bake a cake from a box mix and let it cool. I used plain old yellow cake and a box of fancy pink lemonade cake. I probably didn’t need to make that much cake, but I wanted to try both with cookie dough.
Next: Clean your hands! The cake balls will not go back in the over and your eating audience relies on you not to spread your gross germs.
Non-toxic so if residue gets in your cake you won’t die.
Crumble up the cooled cake with half a can of your chosen frosting. Some people use more frosting, but I think the cake balls get too gooey and sweet. Pretend you are in preschool and mix it together with your hands. If you lick dough off your hands, wash your hands again, Disgusto.
Then get some cookie dough and roll little marble sized balls. I used the pre-fab Nestle Toll House stuff and I let it soften on my counter for half an hour or so. Don’t bother making your own cookie dough- this works just fine and you can eat it raw. You might really want to make your own cookie dough because you’re one of those Pinteresty Do-It-Yourself types, but I say: Don’t be a hero.
Try to resist the urge to just eat the cookie dough. This will be hard.
The next part is trickier: actually stuffing the cookie dough inside the cake balls. After trial and error, I figured out the easiest way for me. Your mileage may vary. Get a ball of cake dough and flatten it. Put the cookie dough in the middle and then kind of smush up the sides to surround the dough. Then add another little disc to the top to cover the bald spot. If it looks uneven, don’t worry; the candy coating will cover it. But if you’re worried about that, you can roll it out to smooth the cracks.
This part is tedious. I advise drinking wine and watching trashy TV while you do this.
Once you have the balls made (ha… balls), pop them in the freezer so they will be firm when you dunk them in chocolate. You don’t have to wait that long. The times it takes for me to clean my kitchen is about right. You can also take this opportunity to advise your pet that they will absolutely not be trying any cake balls but they are welcome to clean the floor for you.
My little monster and my monster feet.
And now, we dunk! Melt your preferred chocolate or candy bits for this. I found these neat microwave safe cups at Target with the chocolate bits already cut up. I also used some meltable candy discs I found in my pantry. Note: Melt slowly. Put your microwave on 50% power for a minute, stir, and then repeat in 30 second intervals until it’s basically melted. If there are tiny chunks still unmelted, just stir it up and they will probably melt without further microwaving.
Honestly? It’s not my favorite chocolate coating ever but it melts pretty gorgeously.
Dunking is the part where I get messy. Bakerella and Marcie manage to create nice smooth cake balls that look store-ready. Mine are more like the disheveled step-cousins to that. Whatever, they taste the same. Here’s how I do it: put a cake ball on a fork, gently drop it in the melted coating, and then use the fork to roll it around until it’s coated. Then I let the ball sit on the fork over the bowl while the excess coating drips off.
You will want to dip your fingers in the chocolate. Don’t. Then you will have to disinfect the chocolate and you will ruin it when you put in the soap.
This is what it looks like when I’m rolling it around.
I set mine on a tray with wax paper as I go and then put the whole thing in the fridge to let the coating set. This takes the same amount of time as cleaning your kitchen again.
See what I mean about being messy? They look… windblown.
And here’s the cross-section of the finished product.
This would be a great science project. The coating is the Earth’s crust, the cake ball is the mantle, and the cookie dough is the core.
Verdict: They were pretty good. I think the ones dunked in chocolate might be too sweet, but the ones with a candy shell are about what I wanted. I slightly favor the pink lemonade and cookie dough versions, but the yellow cake ones were perfectly edible. I also made some plain cake balls for those un-interested in cookie dough (fools!), and the pink lemonade ones are the right level of sweetness. They are citrusy without being overpowering, so look for that summer-only cake mix at your grocery store.
I want to frame this and put it on my desk at work and show it to people when they ask about my children.
Ingredient list:
Boxed cake mix and the required ingredients to make it (eggs, butter, milk, whatever it says)
Raw Cookie Dough
Meltable Chocolate or Meltable Candy Discs
Can of frosting- cream cheese or vanilla or whatever
German Fun Facts
Here are some things that I learned in Germany that don’t quite fit into my travel diary. Fun facts interspersed with pictures that didn’t fit some where else.
– Germans say, “Prost,” when toasting. Allegedly, you must look into the eyes of the person with whom you are toasting or you will be plagued by 7 years of bad sex.
This high chair beats all the other high chairs.
– You may not realize this, but Germany wasn’t even an official country until the late 1800s. Munich was part of Bavaria. Bavarians have considerable regional pride and many of them fly the Bavarian flag instead of the German flag. Kind of like Texas.
Jenny should really angle for a Game of Thrones bit part.
– The German trains run on an honor system. They only spot check for tickets, so you could go months riding for free before you get busted. Jenny told me the fine is actually less than the amount for a month-long pass, so that sounds like a great plan to me.
Who needs hair on top when you’ve got a stache like that?
– Schnauzers are an iconic dog in the country. On all the “No Dogs Allowed” or “Keep Dogs on Leash” signs, the schnauzer silhouette is the one used instead of a Labrador. I didn’t actually see a single live schnauzer until I got home to the US.
I like these statues because they look like they’re high fiving. Or trying to.
– While shopping, I noticed several high end store selling “American Mashmallows.” These stores are equivalent to West Elm or Crate & Barrel. These were not the Jet-Puffed Kraft marshmallows that most of us use; they were actually bags labeled “American Marshmallows.” My German friend Anne explained that advertisers in Europe really push marshmallows as something Americans constantly eat. They get wine and cheese, we get marshmallows. This doesn’t seem fair.
This made me think of my dog, and I’m just a sucker for that.
– I talked to some Australian girls on a four month world tour who told me enthusiastically that they did the “American tour” a few years ago. This is evidently going to New York and then flying cross country to LA. Because this is the best representation of the average American.
Smurf gelato!
– Germans eat with both hands: one hand holds the fork and the other the knife. You keep both utensils in your hands as you eat. They can spot Americans because we cut a piece of food, put down the knife, change fork hands, and then put our free hands in our laps. Pay attention next time you eat dinner and you’ll see what I mean.
Books! In any language, I just love those books.
– In one of the underground train stations after dark, Jenny pointed out the classical music playing through overhead speakers. Evidently, Munich had a problem a few years back with hoodlums hanging out in train stations at night and rabble rousing. They figured out that if they piped in classical music, shenanigans decreased and people behaved.
Jenny is so excited, she’s telling everyone.
– They seem unaware of the 50 Shades of Grey controversy over there. I envy them.
– Next time: business as usual back in the US and candy experimentation.
Last Call in Germany
Note: If you’re here everyday, you’re probably tired of me saying this. I’m not actually in Germany any more, but I’m writing on delay thanks to some connectivity issues while I was there. Just be cool.
The last day of vacation is always bittersweet. You’re still there, but you can already see this trip getting smaller, further away.
I’ll be honest with you, that last insight is paraphrased slightly from a line in Dawson’s Creek. That doesn’t make it less true, though. I mostly remember my last day in Germany in impressions and flashes.
I’m thinking of a dark-paneled biergarten with actual foliage hanging from the ceiling, and I’m thinking of the two much older men sharing our table there who commented that I eat my food like an American because I eat with a hand in my lap. It sounds dirty when I re-tell it now, which is probably how they meant it at the time but I was too excited about my food to care.
The plants look kind of like alien life forms here, no?
And what food was that? Spaetzle. This is like mac and cheese on steroids. They put some anemic cucumbers and tomatoes on the side of the plate as if that might some how balance a bowl of cheese and noodles bigger than my face.
Oh, and there are fried onions on top, just in case you thought this wasn’t going to really sit like a brick in your stomach.
I’m also thinking of European breakfasts, which always feel like an event. Bread, eggs, jelly, cold meats, cheeses, yogurt, sugary black coffee… breakfast feels more like a leisurely stroll through all the best foods. You can’t leave Europe without having Nutella for breakfast. Unless you are having off-brand organic Nutella. That will also work in a pinch.
It’s worth noting that I have more pictures of my food from this trip than of myself.
And you always think about the things you didn’t do and you think, “oh, next time,” even though you know there probably won’t be a next time because there are so many other place to visit. Like, I didn’t go to this famously huge biergarten called Hofbrauhaus, which is really touristy but well known. I don’t feel particularly bereft, but it’s still an unturned stone.
I saw it, but I didn’t drink a Radler there. What a waste.
I spent much of my last day shopping for souvenirs with my friend Anne (not pictured, which is a shame because you would like her). Anne towed me around the Old City and enthusiastically pointed at things that I should embrace as quintessentially German. Naturally, the thing that really excited me was German editions of The Hunger Games.
Look! The title has “Panem” in it!
We looked for suitable gifts for my three year old nephew. Anne encouraged sweet children’s books and wooden toys. I found the perfect thing but I couldn’t fit in my suitcase. When in doubt, always go with sharks.
Also, this picture is really not flattering. I’m growling, but I look like I’m smiling for the dentist.
I also snuck in one last tourist thing: I watched the glockenspiel. I informed Anne we would need to watch this at 5 PM in the square and she was bemused. She was kind of like, “You mean you don’t have medieval clocks with mechanical dancers that move in time with chiming bells thanks to meticulous clockwork?” And I was like, “Amerian, remember?”
Schpielin’ like a glocken.
Then I met Jenny for dinner at the kind of Italian restaurant where the wait staff just recites the nightly specials for you rather than giving you a menu. It’s like paying someone to eat in their kitchen with a few other strangers. Also, they had an enviable refrigerator.
I WANT ONE.
It seems like one should drink beer in one’s last night in Germany, but I’m really just a wino at heart. Prost, Deutschland. It was fun.
It’s not a plastic cup. It only looks like one.
Even though this is the end of my travel diary, this isn’t the end of my German inspired posts. We haven’t even scratched the surface with Mad King Ludwig II, and there’s an overflowing bag of candy just begging to be taste tested for blog purposes only. In the meantime, I’m still slightly jetlagged and would like some sleep. Excuse me while I curl up with my furry little German dog.
You know, I didn’t see a single German schnauzer while I was there.
Nuns Having Fun
Note: I’m technically home. Due to some connectivity issues while in Germany, Im behind in posting. Still catching up.
Near the island that houses Ludwig II’s tribute to Versailles, there is another island that is home to a Benedictine abbey founded in 772. The nuns there have had many years to determine the most important things in life. You’ll be pleased to know that one of those things seems to be beer and liquor because they make their own. We actually spotted a nun in the wild, habit and all, and I acted like a two year old spotting on a dog on a sidewalk. “Nun!” I squealed as I pointed. Jenny proposed we split up to explore after that. Weird.
See the storm clouds in the background? This will become a problem very soon.
I’d like to say that after a day spent ogling the finery of a king obsessed with his own wealth that we then spent the afternoon on the nun’s island quietly contemplating the deeper truths of life. This is a lie. We made an effort to peruse the pretty walking trails, but all roads lead back to biergartens. At least this biergarten is holy. I think?
This is actually a Radler, which is technically lemon soda and beer, but it’s the best thing Germany has given us. Including BMWs.
(Not pictured: An elderly woman sitting at the table behind us by herself, sipping coffee and happily noshing on a big slice of cake. She’s my hero.)
Since I’m a good Catholic girl, I felt it was my duty to support the nuns in the best way I knew how. No, I don’t mean that I got blitzed in the biergarten. Give me some credit. I bought some of their liquers in their giftshop, of course. Spoiler alert, Dad, you’re getting a few of these for your liquor cabinet. And attention to my college friends coming to the beach for Memorial Day: you are going to be submitted to a test taste for the scientific purposes of this blog. Bring your taste buds and sense of adventure!
I can’t read any of these labels, but one of them appears to say wild berries are involved.
To prove I didn’t just spend the whole afternoon turning water into wine (which Jesus is totally cool with, by the way, Mom), here’s a gallery of the beautiful flowers cultivated on the island.
Tomorrow: My last few German memories. Sadface.
M. Dabski 