Green Market!

Fürstenfeldbruck, the town we are moving to in less then two weeks, is 3-4 miles away.  On Thursday mornings they have the green market, and since today there was no rain, I decided to take a bike trip and buy fresh veggies!  Soon I will be walking distance from this awesome place, I CANNOT WAIT!!!!

After I did my shopping I decided to check out a local coffee shop/juice bar.  I have been wanting to go in since I first saw it, which is now about 3 months ago.  The shop is very small and cosy, with comfy chairs and a huge couch.  My only complaint is that there is no WiFi :(  I miss you America!

Coffee Shop

Latte, muffin and Pride and Prejudice!

On a random note, Ludwig taught me how to 'steam an egg'.  I do not know how I never did this before, it is so simple.  I am bad at poaching eggs, I always ruin them and there is always a big mess.  This is a great alternative to a poached egg.  Add some water to a skillet, let it get close to boiling, add your egg, cover with a lid and steam away.  You can also flip the egg if you like to cook it faster.  No added fat, fast, and so tasty.  This was part of my lunch today.

Steamed Egg

Perfect Day for Soup

Weather prognoses in Munich is RAIN and 11C/52F.  In my book this is NOT summer, this is fall or winter!!!!  I had to practice driving a manual shift in the rain and I must say I am getting better and better.  My father in law is my teacher and he is a very brave man :)  Hopefully by the time my parents come I can drive our car without someone telling me to shift or to press the clutch or give more gas ;)

These slugs are everywhere after the rain and if you have a garden they are your biggest enemy since
they eat everything!  

So this weather makes me want to eat some warm soup and cuddle in a blanket!  I am in charge of making dinner tonight and red lentil soup is on the menu :)

Main characters of the dish: red lentils and beef bones! 

Ingredients

1lb of beef bones

1lb of red lentils

2 shredded zucchinis

1 carrot

1 small onion

1 glove of garlic

4 small shredded potatoes

2 tbsp of minced parsley

4 bay leaves

salt, pepper and whatever spices you want to add

The most important thing to do is to boil the bones first and then discard the water.  Use new fresh water for the soup.  The first broth will have lots of fat, and other white foamy things that I like to discard to give my soup a more clean and healthier taste.  I slow cooked the lentils first in the 'new water', with the already cooked bones, until they completely dissolved and then added the rest of the chopped or shredded ingredients and cooked for another hour on low heat.  

TA-DA!!!

Everyone liked the soup, so tonight was a success.  Off to watch a movie with the hubster.
Hope everyone is enjoying better weather.

Marathoning

Hello everyone :)
Ludwig and I signed up for a 1/2 marathon in Munich, which is held on October 9th.
I have officially started my training!  I am so excited.  Now I want to find a running group so my motivation levels stay constant!

I cannot get enough of the Caprese salad, but to be honest I would also be happy eating fresh mozzarella by itself ;)

Hope everyone is having a fun Sunday!

It has been a LONG time

Hello friends!  I missed you, did you miss me?  So much has been happening in the past month, I had barely time to breathe.  Because you missed me so much, I wrote you a huge post, hope you enjoy it.

Here are some happenings from the past month!

Ludwig had a soccer tournament!  It was a lot of fun watching him and socializing with the fam.  I think I completely embarrassed him by taking a ridiculous amount of pictures.  Here are some highlights.

Check out Ludwig and his crazy goalie skillz!

Father and son

The biggest fan

I also got to meet another Ludwig's cousin, Andrea.  

It was a fun day for all!  Ludwig was completely dead and damaged; now he is taking a little break from soccer.

I also did some crazy blueberry picking.  I love love love blueberries, I have been eating them almost everyday.

You can eat as much as you want while you pick the blueberries and pay only for what you take home.  Not a bad deal!

My main squeeze ;)

I am kinda obsessed with that little tiny spider in the middle.

At the end we collected 7kg, I think.

Rubber boots were a requirement since it was muddy and cool.

I love you THIS much!

mother and son

Also, I think I am unintentionally training for a triathlon.  I am running, biking and swimming, now I just need to find a race, hahahha.  So Monday and Tuesday, Ursula, Ludwig's mom, had a vacation from her job and we together did a pretty awesome bike tour.

Monday
Destination: Schleissheim Palace wiki
Distance: 77km
Swim: Kuh Lake

On the way to the palace we stopped by a lake and had a 25min swim.  I think Bavaria has the best lakes I have ever swam in.  They are clean, for the most part quite, and free!

Step into the cool and refreshing water!

We were basically the only people there!

Here is an awkward picture of me.

Then we got to the palace, but unfortunately it was closed since it was Monday and they were getting ready for a huge party for all the big wigs in the Bavarian government.

Lots of statues and perfectly groomed gardens.

This is my new background

And this is where we had our picnic, not too shabby right ;)

Monday night I was pretty beat but Ludwig's mom probably could have gone another 77km, she is a pretty tough lady.

Tuesday

Destination: Augsburg

Distance: 90km

Swim: some lake

We had very good luck with both our trips, the weather was great and no rain.  Today it has been raining here ALL DAY LONG.  So I hate the cold and the rain, but I love how everything here is green, not brown and yellow like in Colorado and Texas.  I think I am just more used to no change in the weather for months and when things change you are in a different season.  Here the weather changes all the time, and when making weekend plans, the weather is a hot topic, no pun intended. 

This trip was full of adventure!  During the first 10K Ursula got stung by a bee under her eye.  Thanks to my always prepared husband, I had his first aid kit with us which had a remedy for almost everything, including bug bites.  When I was contemplating on taking the FirstAid with us, I was thinking--'if I take it then we will definitely used it, it happens every time'.  I guess I was right.  In any case, I was glad I had it.  

I've been wanting to go to Augsburg for long time now.  It is a very old city actually founded by Romans, blah blah blah, if you are interested you can wiki it.  The city was very interesting, reminded me a bit of Basel, pretty crowded with tourist and very hot.  We hung around a bit and went to the Town Hall and saw the Golden Room.  Then we walked around for a bit, ate ice-cream and then started our journey back home.  

The golden room 

I did not take a lot of pictures in Augsburg mainly because I was already dead and was not really in the mood for snapping photos.  On the way back, we saw a real snake, bunnies, and a lot of naked people at the lake.  Germans LOVE being naked.  The puritan in me is outraged--'you are not animals, put on some clothes!'  I am sure I will get used to it just like I got used to seeing Americans swim with shorts and T-shirts on top of their bathing suits.  Humans are weird.  In any case the swim was perfect, refreshing and rejuvenating after biking for a few hours.  

The rest of the trip was pretty brutal, lots of hills and wind.  Needles to say I was completely dead!  And  today was my first day in a while where I got to catch up with things, like laundry, cleaning, writing emails, writing this ginormous post....hope you are still reading.  

In all honesty I am a bit tired of the typical vacation: big city, hotel, site seeing, eating fatty and expensive food in restaurants, I am all about combining exercise and travel these days.  It is cheaper, healthier and in my opinion a lot more fun.  

Today I also took a really nice bath, did my nails and shaved my legs, ok I get it, tmi.  Well it was a great day!

I took a nice Lemon Balm bubble bath that my husband got for me from his JOB!
His company makes all types of bio-degradable, ecologically friendly,
cleaning products!  And some of those products are bubble baths :)
Great for me since I LOVE anice relaxing bath!  HWR Chemie

You all have a grea rest of the week!

Basel and Mulhouse

I've been meaning to write a post about my trip to Basel for a month now, my goodness time flies.  Ludwig's sister Hanne lives and Basel and we have been meaning to visit her for a while, but with all the interviews and other random events it took us a while to get to Switzerland.

It took us about 4 hours to get to Basel and it was a complicated route.  We had to avoid going through Austira, even though it is faster, becaus you have to buy a special toll pass ahead of time and the distance itself is not long enough to be worth the purchase of this pass.  I am so used to driving in USA in a straight line, granted I drove mostly in Colorado and Texas, I have no comment about other states, but boy oh boy European driving is insane.
First, lets talk about the 'Autobahn', yeah you can go as fast as you want, but not everywhere, they do have speed limit zones, and lots of construction and you obviously you cannot go fast there with your tuned Benz.  I would say that the roads themselves in Germany are petty nice quality but they cannot support the concentrated flow of daily traffic.  If there is an accident you can be stuck in it for hours, sometimes days, at least it feels that way.  It is fun to see those supper fancy fast cars pass you in the left lane going 155mi/h but at the same time it feels very dangerous since many times there is only two lanes and there is not a lot of space to move away from non defensive drivers.  Okay, I got that off my chest, and maybe Ludwig will have less complaining to hear ;)

Welcome dinner!!!  Hanne is an amazing cook :)

Hanne in front of her apartment.

Switzerland has one of the best public transit systems, so convenient.

The train station!

So sunny!  I really enjoyed Basel, it was amazing to hear sales people go back and forth between English, French and German with such ease.  One day I will speak German....one day.

We bought cheese from an actual Frenchman who made the cheese himself in France.  I really think I made him slightly uncomfortable with my enthusiasm.

Then it was time for a little break.

Espresso and Crepes :)

Then the weather got greyer and greyer and finally it started to rain.   Of course we forgot our umbrellas at home.

The Rhine.

After getting wet and cold nothing could sound better to me then Swiss cheese fondue!

On Sunday we drove to France.  Hanne says that she often crosses the French border when she bikes on her bike.

Mulhouse, France–so deserted and eerie.  I think I prefer biking of hiking on Sundays because smaller cities or towns are just dead since all the stores are closed.

At certain moments, I felt like we were the only people in Mulhouse.

We ended our French visit the proper way, with wine and lots of food!

Thanks to Hanne for being such a great host!  I loved visiting Switzerland and France :)