I'm back!

We just returned from our Scandinavian vacation. I'll get photos up soon. My observations: Will Smith, McDonald's, and grafitti are everywhere. Toilets flush in all different ways. Showers turn on in all different ways. Every town has a central station where you can get the tram, train, or bus. Ferry boats don't have a lot to do on them. Travel by train is fairly pleasant. Hotels in Stockholm are tricky. More soon!

...and the kitchen sink

So, Rob didn't tell me about this before I arrived. Half of the kitchen sink is above the clotheswasher. This I knew. The middle portion tho has this little pass thru slot straight to the trashcan. Very handy for food prep. This is what it looks like:

And what about the meatballs last night? Well, they turned out pretty good. One of the sauces was very garlic-y, like, with huge chunks of garlic. But it was good. Really. We'll have it again tonight because tonight is leftovers night.

And now for something different. Tomorrow we fly to Copenhagen. Then we go to Arhus, Fredrikhavn, Goteborg, Liseberg, Oslo, Vigeland Park, Trondheim, Bergen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, Stockholm, and finally, Munich. We'll fly, take train, take boat, take bus, walk, take train, take boat (and sleep on boat), walk, fly, ferry (sleep on ferry), walk, ferry (sleep), and fly. We'll be gone until the 25th, but I will try to update with pictures when we are at hotels with internet service. We aren't bringing computers, but we'll have our cell phones with us. By the way. I found Snuggle fabric softener today. Yay! Soft sheets for our return!

Meatballs

So my goal for dinner is meatballs. That means locating ground beef, tomato sauce, breadcrumbs, and various herbs. Ground beef is pretty easy. It's meat that looks ground, and it should have some version of "rind" on it--that means beef. For tomato sauce, well, last time I ended up with tomato puree, so I was more careful this time. I found two boxes. One says, "Tomato al Gusto--Arrabbiata" and the other says, "Tomato al Gusto--Lasagne." Either one should work. Do I want "pikant scharf" or "mit krauten & knoblauch?" Maybe a combination of both. One box has pictures of peppers and tomatoes, the other one has pictures of garlic, something leafy like basil, and a tomato. I'll probably combine the contents and see what I get. The last part. Breadcrumbs. Last week I found some gluten free bread. Good start. But how to make crumbs? It's shaped like a breadstick, so it has a lot of crust. Without a food grinder or blender, these are the steps I've taken.
1. Try a cheese grater. Rub the bread up and down across the grater. Not much result.
2. Use a pair of scissors to cut the bread into smaller pieces. Okay, now what?
3. Try one of those handheld blenders they use to make milkshakes. Lots of noise, breadcrumbs jump out the top no matter how carefully I try to cover the opening. Still big chunks of bread left.
4. Try the scissors again
5. Alternately curse and whimper
6. Maybe a knife now that I have small chunks?
The good news is, Rob's not going to be home for dinner. Whatever I come up with, I'll happily eat. Oh, and no luck with fabric softener. Maybe another store will have it.

Vittel

I don't know what that means. It was on the TV screen when I turned it on. The one channel I watch is Eurosport. They covered all the volleyball olympic trials, cycling, boxing, soccer, and some sort of biathlon performed on long skates. Today I am determined to find some fabric softener. It takes awhile to wear the crispness of line drying out of your jeans, and I really want to wash the sheets from our bed, and have soft sheets rather than sandpaper to put back on. Another thing I'd like to find is baking soda to put in the fridge to absorb odors. Rob bought some smelly cheese awhile back and its smell still lurks.

Oh my goodness! I just hit enter and I got a new paragraph. Woo hoo! So now I want to enter a photo here, and have you guess what it is:

Do you give up? Hint, it says, "Duravit." Actually that's not really a hint because I can't figure out how it relates. It makes me think of long lasting vitamins. I'll post a picture further down of the object of this photo. I've also got some pictures of the things I eat:

So, we have no containers to put things like sugar in, so we close the bags with clothespins. It works. Every breakfast is oatmeal and orange juice. I found some gluten free crackers at the "reformhaus" and a cheese spread at "Herties" so that is lunch. And usually some sort of fresh fruit from a stand. There are fruit and veggie stands everywhere I walk, so that's no problems. The only broccoli I have found is at "aldi" and I have only been there in the car with Rob, so I'm not sure where it is. I'd like to walk there and get some. I haven't made anything with cocoa in it yet, but I am determined to make some brownies soon. And finally, here is what the earlier picture is from:

You never woulda guessed that!

Tomorrow...the kitchen sink

the Zoo

We went to the zoo today. We rode our bikes, because it wasn't very far from our apartment. It was all downhill on the way there, along streets bordered with big trees. We paid our admission ($9) and went in. No one collected the tickets, but you just have to carry them with you in case. The zoo was a lot different from the zoos I've been to. Almost all of the displays had no chain link fences. A person could just climb over the 2 foot high bars or rails, and swim or wade across the moats and go to the animals. But no one did. We saw flamingos, which weren't really pink, more of an orange. We saw bison, and elk, polar bears, penguins, elephants (brown ones and gray ones) wolves, tigers, lions, and all sorts of orangutans and birds. The tiger was the scariest thing, because he was only 3 feet from us, and the only animal behind heavy looking bars. He growled and lunged at people. By the time we were leaving the zoo, we had been walking for 3 hours. It began to thunder, as it does most afternoons. It began raining just as we left, so we had to bike home in the rain. However, the big canopy of trees along the road protected us from most of the moisture. Once home, we rested for awhile. Then we went to dinner. We decided to go for Italian. There is an Italian place right at the end of our street. I got a pizza (I'm planning to stay home tomorrow) and Rob got sambullaca or something like that. We had Bruschetta. wow. That was really good! Just before we left, a man paid his bill and then left, and his wallet was still on the table. We were able to catch him. Also, someone at the zoo dropped a hat, and we yelled "hallo, hallo" at them until they stopped and we could give it to them. And at the bathroom, there was a line of women, and I saw that there were two empty stalls around the corner, so I said "zwei" and pointed, and they got the message. For my limited (very) skills in German, I felt pretty good!

july 5

Today we went to the fabric store. I'm not sure what the name of it is, but we finally found one. Fabric here. My gosh! A meter of plain brown cotton fabric was $12 Euros! That's like, $16 per yard in the US. I also had to buy a rotary cutter and ruler because I apparently didn't send one here. The cutter: $17 Euros. The ruler: $15 Euros. Wow. What else? I haven't driven yet. The car is a stick shift, the streets are narrow, everyone drives fast, and there's nowhere to park anyhow when you get there. I tend to walk to the markets. There are fresh fruit and veggie stands everywhere. They have wonderful cherries, and apricots that actually smell and taste like apricots! There is a store I go to for meat, which costs a lot more than in Oregon, but beef and chicken is good. The milk, I haven't really tried yet. It comes in a box on a shelf, in the unrefrigerated section. I've used it in hot chocolate, but not on cereal yet. Mostly I eat oatmeal every morning. And orange juice. Lunches--I've found some gluten free crackers at "reformhaus" and I found a pimiento cheese spread. I even found some Dr Pepper, but it costs $1.15 Euros per bottle, so it's more of a luxury. Tonight for dinner Rob made his famous orange chicken. Unfortunately, it would have been better if we had realized that vinegar here is 5 times the strength of vinegar there. The chicken tasted a bit pickled. My mouth felt a bit pickled too. Otherwise, it was good! We have taken a bike ride and many U-bahn rides, which is the underground train system. We rode our bikes to a big outdoor market last Saturday. We took the Ubahn to get to the sewing machine store. We didn't know that the shop actually had customer parking so we carried the machine in its big box all the way home on the train, and then had to walk several blocks. Oh! I hear a reminder of something else that is different here. We don't have window screens. We don't have air conditioning. So we have the windows open a lot. We get moths and little bugs, but no birds or bees yet. My mom told me that when her sister lived in Germany years ago, birds used to fly in and take butter off their table. Our butter dish is covered. No worries. Then my dad mentioned bats. I hope we don't have bats. Ok, that's all for this post. I have to figure out how to do paragraphs. It's not just a return. Perhaps Meg can tell me.

House cleaning in Munich

Today I learned how to use a German vacuum. And I cleaned a German toilet. The water is so hard here that when Rob drinks tea his pure white coffee cup turns dark brown.