Meat Meat, all we Eat!

I read somewhere the other day that if the whole world ate meat at the same consumption rate as the germans, we would be completely be out of stock in 2-3 months and not be able to recuperate. Honestly, this does not surprise me. 

I am still bewildered when looking at a traditional german restaurant menu, it contains different meat products that are usually accompanied only by sauerkraut or potatoes. Where do they get their vitamins from? Did I miss the memo of how high in Vit C potatoes are?

I have to admit, sometimes there is spinach in cream that you can get (or green sauce as they call it), onions and red cabbage where you might just gain those all important vitamins - but honestly, how many children grew up thinking those were the vegetables that you would rather leave on your plate and forgo having desert/tv/staying up late just so you didn't have to eat them?

To be fair, I did just do my research and found that sauerkraut does have health benefits (http://www.sauerkraut.com/benefits.htm), but that still doesn't sit well with my inner 7 year old sitting at the dinner table refusing to eat that 'stuff'.

Here is a picture of a dinner I recently had in Frankfurt. This is at the END of the meal when we could no longer eat any more meat and this platter was originally piled 3 times higher than is what is seen here. Contained pigs stomach, knuckle, steaks, ribs and shoulder (and some kind of joint we couldn't determine). Yes that is a bowl of sauerkraut in front of it as the accompaniment to the giant meal of meat.

And a few quick snaps of Frankfurt main square as we walked through taken on my crappy phone camera whilst some riot/protest was going behind us on that strangely didn't even touch the news.

Here's the hair dryer, good luck.

Has anyone had to dry their own hair at the hair dressers....? 

After getting my hair dyed, I usually have the option of them blow drying it out into something boofy (at a cost), or they just quickly dry it so I can get home without catching a cold (free). Here, they give you the option of them drying your hair, or you 'DIY'. But here is the weird part, the price didn't change….

First time I took option A, second time I went with option B. I have to admit, felt rather strange standing in front of a giant mirror in a shop front onto the street drying my hair - something usually done alone and in the privacy of your own house. Nothing technically private about it, but strange when people walking past are actually watching you do it! 

Anyone else experienced this in any other countries?

Anyway, here is a pic of us (pre-hair dying!) at our local cocktail place that puts enough garnishes on their drinks it takes about 5 mins to remove/eat the toppings before you even get to drink the drink.

Did I miss the Pizza Hut / KFC merger?

We decided to be bad and have pizza last night - from Pizza Hut. We ordered pizza and for desert a chocolate cookie with ice-cream. We got it to take away. 

I was a little confused when they gave us the packaging. The pizza came in a pizza hut box, but the ice cream tub had a picture of the KFC colonel on it…. Huh???

PS. for those of you who know me well, yes, I had the ice cream for breakfast the next day instead of for desert at night!

Comfort will turn you soft

On a recent trip to Frankfurt to do a little work, I was reminded about how hard the beds are here! When I first moved here I remarked that it was a little like in the traditional houses of thailand (without the heat) where the beds were so hard you might as well just put a pillow on the floor and be just as comfortable there. The hotel I was in had these same type beds and you just can't avoid waking up 16 times through the night with dead arms or legs… getting rid of pins and needles at 3 in the morning is truly not fun.

Thankfully we solved this problem in our home. After some time on trying to get used to a hard bed in Germany, developing a painful back, we invested in a memory foam overlay thing 7 inches thick and heavy as the whole bed itself. The positive side was that I've never felt more comfortable in my own bed (where I'm writing this now, its just so comfy!) but the down side is, I never want to sleep anywhere else, ever again!

Below is the night view of Frankfurt from my room which partially made up for painful sleep, reminded me of times when I lived in the city…. ahhh, I am a city girl at heart.

Fireworks night

In a nutshell, in 1689, 1693 and 1764, Heidelberg had a big fire and the castle caught on fire. These days in summer, they 'celebrate' this event by replicating the castle being on fire (with I think actually 200 real fires lit within the castle that you see in the many windows ) and then set the bridge off with fireworks. This happens 3 times over summer.

Below were some of the shots we took whilst waiting for the fireworks and getting exceptionally toasted on white wine. The castle being prepared to be burned is behind the fiancé in the pictures.

(Note: that classy sports bike water bottle was where we drank said wine out of....)