Berlin! Ice Cream and Wiener Time

Taste Of Berlin: Wiener Time! Wonderful Berlin, Germany. Packed with sordid history, high fashion, excellent Turkish food, major art, gorgeously green in Spring and Summer, 70 cent beer at the corner store, delightful cheeses and the best hearty, grainy bread... While in Berlin on our recent trip to Europe, we stood in a large line of eager tourists and Germans alike, under a bridge in the middle of the city amongst speeding cars, graffiti and tons of fat pigeons... to get a taste of a "famous German national dish"... CURRYWURST!! While we inched closer to the front of the line, I saw people poking their little wooden two pronged forks into sliced fried white sausage slathered in blobs of ketchup, mayonnaise and curry powder, with a side of fries of course!

Line of people under the bridge. "Under the bridge downtown... "

Don't even DREAM that Konnopkes Imbiss doesn't have their own awesome website!!!

These ladies take serious pride in providing some serious wiener time. They have this doo-hickey (let's call it a "wiener chopper") that you stick the fried wiener in, pull down a lever, and CLOMP!! Perfect wiener slices every time. See those little slices in the pic above? Then one woman blasts the mayo on and the other the ketchup, smiling and chuckling away with speed and efficiency. They have probably worked there for 23 years and will work there forever, likely. And they're stoked. I love that. All you need in a job is friends, pay, free wiener snacks and a sense of pride in your work.

The finished product: Currywurst mit Pommes!

RT and I with our fried national treasures.

The marzipan version of Currywurst, at KaDeWe department store!!!

The cutest little ice cream shop across the street from the apartment. Fraulein Frost!

My delicious and delightfully fresh ice cream cone: vanilla bean, and fieldberry. So good. RIch had coffee, and hazelnut; Sandra had strawberry basil. I tried them all, and all were great!

The menu at Fraulein Frost. A simple, sweet little shop, totally inspiring for a young cupcaker like myself.

Do you know the joy of Frühstück? German breakfast? So wonderful, wonderful. A platter of delights, it should really translate into. Slices of meat folded or laid out just so, a few types of good cheese, often some yogurt, a hard boiled egg and the chocolate and hazelnut spread Nutella, accompanied with a basket of fresh breads. You can mix and match your meal! Mini open faced sandwiches! Roll a slice of meat and eat it! Dig into your egg! Spread some Nutella onto your bread! Spread some of your egg onto a slice of bread, add some cheese and meat and your thinly sliced cucumber! What a great, great thing! Enjoy with a coffee, and basically your day is set.

Berlin was a real blast. And to buy an apartment there is ridiculously cheap. So I am hoping we will be back many, many times.

xo

REMEMBERANCE CEREMONY AT FORT DUNREE

See the Face of Dunree.....

CHARITY WALK AND CYCLE

Fundraising fun at St Mura's school in Buncrana....

WISDOM OF THE WORLD - WEEK 63

Concentration

After winning several archery contests, the young and rather boastful champion challenged a master who was renowned for his skill as an archer. The young man demonstrated remarkable technical proficiency when he hit a distant bull's eye on his first try, and then split that arrow with his second shot.

"There," he said to the old man, "see if you can match that!" Undisturbed, the master did not draw his bow, but rather motioned for the young archer to follow him up the mountain. Curious about the old fellow's intentions, the champion followed him high into the mountain until they reached a deep chasm spanned by a rather flimsy and shaky log. Calmly stepping out onto the middle of the unsteady and certainly perilous bridge, the old master picked a far away tree as a target, drew his bow, and fired a clean, direct hit.

"Now it is your turn," he said as he gracefully stepped back onto the safe ground. Staring with terror into the seemingly bottomless and beckoning abyss, the young man could not force himself to step out onto the log, no less shoot at a target. "You have much skill with your bow," the master said, sensing his challenger's predicament, "but you have little skill with the mind that lets loose the shot."

Sangria Good-bye

I had a good-bye potluck with a few nice ladies from my office. We ate a mix of Korean and Cuban foods. The Korean foods included gimbap and bulgogi. I made my "famous" berry crisp. The best part of the meal (other than juicy work gossip) was the homemade sangria! I'll miss nights like these. I'm sure I won't make as many friends in Kansas. Not to mention the dearth of Korean products!

Now I'm Thinking About It...

I had forgotten about the melamine scare until I purchased these crackers in Hong Kong. Great way to ruin my appetite!

Chinese Dinner - Hong Kong

Before the yoga conference started, we took the Star Ferry to Kowloon:We ate at a dim sum restaurant. We shared sweet-and-sour breaded fish: Vegetable and rice wraps:

Crispy fried dough:

Tangy cucumber skins:

Hot tea served in water glasses:

My friend's sister, a prominent yoga instructor in Korea, ordered seconds of everything! For petite Korean women, they ate a lot!

I was surprised by people's eating habits at the conference. Many people skipped breakfast, believing that the food would impair their yoga practices. (We practiced strenuous yoga four hours in the morning.) Others merely ate salads or nibbled on carrots for lunch.

I brought my own food and ate hearty oatmeal, protein powder, deli sandwiches, Chinese buns, and Odwalla bars. One day I followed my teacher's advice and skipped breakfast. What a mistake! I felt extremely hungry and ultimately ate more food than usual. I guess my friends ate such a huge Chinese dinner because of their daytime eating habits!