Theresa and My World-Wind Tour: Paris!

So, when I decided that I was going to be an au pair back in June/July, one of my best friends, Theresa, decided that she couldn't live without me for a whole year and that she would just have to come visit! As soon as I got here and had my info about vacation times, she bought a ticket to come at right about the six month mark in February. From there, we planned a trip packing in quite a bit into the little time we had. Our first big thing to do was Paris. If you've never been to Europe before, as Theresa had not, what is always on the list? Obviously Paris! So we did just that.

We stayed in the same hostel that I stayed in and had liked so much in August 2007. Well, this time it left a little more to be desired than last time. Let's just say that it wasn't probably the cleanest place you've ever seen, we were a bit scared to use, well, everything in the kitchen, and there was NO hot water to be had. Yeah. That pretty much sums that up! Haha. Oh, and, being February, it was cold as all get out when we were there....but hey, we got to see Paris together! After three days of walking around by foot for 9 hours a day in the freezing cold and no showers, I'll admit, we were pretty happy to be heading on to our next adventure! Although, when we were there, we saw all the things that I saw last time and even squeeze in some things that I didn't have time for last time. So that was really neat. Some new things for me were Sacré-Cœur Basilica, the Opera house, Moulin Rouge and Montmarte district, and eating at a real French café! Oh, and I got to see some things in the Louvre that I had missed last time too!


The most outrageous thing was the French café...let's just say, we lived through it, but I'm not exactly sure how. Haha. Here's the story: We had decided that we would save money by cooking and eating things like pasta in the hostel for every meal....except one. For one meal, we were going to really splurge and eat at a REAL French café! We had heard that a good part of town for "going out" was the Latin district across the river from Notre Dam. We walked around this very cool area for a while and looked at the different cafés; each of which had a different theme, all of which had exactly the same menu...only at different prices. I guess we should have turned back then, but alas, we didn't. We took a while deciding where to eat until we saw one with Escargot on the menu. That was the deciding factor. We were in Paris, we had to try Escargot right? So we went inside. We ordered one meal selection from the 15€ menu to get the Escargot as appetizer and one from the 10€ menu to save a bit of money. As usual, we were going to share everything. On the 15€ menu there was a choice of something that we had never heard of before and we decided, what the heck, let's go for it. We asked the waiter what it was and he just pointed at a picture of it that was indeed to small to actually see, but we went for it anyway. On the other menu we ordered something safe like steak and fries.

After we ordered, I asked where the bathroom was and follwed the directions down this little staircase. I then passed an open room stacked with chairs, crates, and a very strange assortment of other things, turned the corner and passed what look like part of a kitchen, and got to the bathroom that had a table in the hallway where an apple torte was sitting. When I was leaving the bathroom, which had no toilet seat, our first waiter came out at the same time, zipping up his fly and started talking to me. Creepy. Anyway, I went back upstairs as quickly as possible and said to Theresa: "When we get to choosing the desserts, whatever you do, do NOT choose the apple torte!" Haha. Then we had Escargot! It was actually good. Floating in their shells with melted butter and herbs, they tasted much like seafood. A little chewy, but rather yummy! Once again, we should have stopped there. Then the main course was delivered. Theresa was lucky and had a steak sitting in front of her, I on the other hand, at this point said, "Dear Lord Theresa, dinner is staring at me!" Yes, yes it truly was. Whole shrimp including eyeballs and tiny little feet were laying atop a very interesting rice mixture with, literally, hunks of octopus and God only knows what else. But, being the good sport I am, I started eating it anyway. Shrimp and all! Everything was quite...umm....icky honestly, but what really topped the cake was when I ate what I think might have been a fried rubber band. Luckily enough, there were more of them so I forced Theresa to eat one too! Such a good friend I am! Hahaha. Even the steak and wine were icky! Really sad. Anyway, that was our "night out" and we learned a very important lesson: When in Paris, either eat someplace famous and expensive or eat at McDonalds.

Both of us trying Escargo for the very first bite!:

So here goes....a NEW BLOG!!!

I have a lot to fill you guys all in on, so well let's start out by talking about my job here. Being an au pair hasn't been everything I thought it would be. I mean, I shouldn't complain because I get to live in Germany and learn German.....which was one of the main point I guess, but I don't have enough money to travel very much. I'm not complaining really, I'm just saying that mostly I've felt stuck here because I'm so close to all these cool things and I just don't have enough for a train ticket to see them! It's just a little frusterating! Anyway, the kids have gotten much closer to me since the vacation in February. I didn't see them for about 10 days while I was travelling with one of my best friends, Theresa, and they were skiing in the Austrian Alps.. When I got back, I was sincerely suprised and shocked when they ran to the door and fought over who got to hug me first. I was like "Who are these kids and what did they do with the what I left here?" Ever since then, the kids have been overall good and, I can't believe I'm going to say this, actually kind of cute sometimes! So I guess that's been better. But still, saving away and planning very carefully for all the things I want to do while I'm here.

I save almost half of my pocket money every month to put toward my big trips and I'll tell you that is NOT easy! I worked at one of the local schools in Plieningen for a few weeks in November and then a couple weeks again in March as a native English speaker helper. I helped the older students prepare for their final English exams by doing dialogs, correcting their English speeches, and just talking to them in English in general. Many of them are much better than they give themselves credit for and I actually had a lot of fun doing it. And I earned a little extra money that is helping me pay for my REALLY BIG trip this August. (More info on that in just a little bit...I promise!) It seems like I don't blog for a really long time and then suddenly I get this craving to share everything and I spend a whole day posting many blogs...and that's just what I intend to do today!

And Esslingen Weihnachtsmarkt Pictures.

Esslingen is a very aborable medievel city that hosts a wonderful, cozy regular Weihnachtsmarkt and an interesintg Middle Ages Weihnachtsmarkt. Vincent and I went there together on the Sunday before Christmas. Oh what a wonderful trip.

Here I am in front of a middle ages building. Sooooo neat!

The entrance to the regular market.

Over the top of the regular market.

Inside the Middle Ages market.

Vincent and me inside the Middle Ages area.

More Weihnachtsmarkt Pictures!

One of those Windmill things I talked about...only really big.

See, told you it was really big!

Ludwigsburg Weihnachtsmarkt

Angels above the Ludwigsburg Weihnachtsmarkt.

The whole view of the Ludwigsburg Weihnachtsmarkt.

My Weihnachtsmarkt Tour!

So here in Germany, for those of you who don't know, they have beautiful Christmas markets in almost every big city, little city, village, etc. The size of the market ranges in size depending on the size of the city where it's located. From what I have seen this year, they are all very beautiful and have wooden stand after wooden stand that are decorated for Christmas and filled with everything from wooden toys to Christmas ornaments to hand made Christmas sweets for sale. For those of you who are geeky (like me!) and like to learn about the history of things, they have a wonderful article about them on Wikipedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_market) Everyone who knows me well knows that I LOVE Christmas. I love everything about it; the decorations, the atmosphere, the decorations, the smells, the decorations, the gift-giving, etc. So, I made it my mission to visit as many Christmas markets as I possibly could while I was here. Of course, even if I went to two Christmas markets every day for the four weeks before Christmas when they run, I couldn't visit all of them in Germany in one year....but I was determined to see as many as my pocket-money could afford. One time when we were talking about the markets in my German class, I mentioned all the ones that I was planning on going to and my friend sitting next to me said "It's not a contest Cori!" Haha. Oh yes it was! Anyway, I only got to see a few in the end, but they were all simply lovely. I went to Stuttgart, Esslingen, Nürnberg, Prien, and Ludwigsburg, Germany as well as Salzburg, Austria.

These festivals are where the best places to buy those little, wooden, smoking Santas, snowmen, etc. and the little windwills where the smoke/air from the candles make the blades of the fan turn which then turns the little figures of angels or other things around at the bottom. I bought several little wooden ornaments and a tiny snowman smoker and Vincent bought me a bigger Santa smoker. One of my favorite parts of the markets was the Glühwein they serve in many different stands, with different recipes, around each one. Glühwein is a spiced/mulled red wine that is served steaming, hot in cute little mugs, normally with the name of the market on them. I was always very glad for the taste and most of all the warmth of the Glühwein because it was always freakin' cold. Seeing that you normally go to the markets as it is getting dark so that you can see the lights all lit up and glowing, it's even colder than you can imagine! Standing in the markets at night, drinking Glühwein, still freezing your butt off, looking at all the little wooden ornaments, decorations, and lights is probably one of the best ways that I could imagine to spend a cozy, lovely winter night. If you ever have the chance to get to Germany, go at Christmas and go to the markets. It's worth coming if only just to experience them. Okay, now for some pictures!

This is a picture of some random people looking at all the cool wooden smokers.

This is just the candle area in the Stuttgart Weihnachtsmarkt. You can buy already made fancy ones there or dip your own.

This is the Stuttgart City Hall decorated as a huge Advents calendar above the market.

This is a Lebkuchen house in Salzburg. Sooooo darling!

This is the main street area in Salzburg all decorate with lights for Christmas.

Thanksgiving 2008!!!

Let's just start out by saying, it was perfect! Well, as perfect as a Thanksgiving without your family can be at least. But really, it went very well. We celebrated Thanksgiving here on Saturday, November 22nd which made it much easier because everybody was off from school and work that way. I made my first homemade pumpkin pie on Friday after lunch so that it was ready and out of the way for Saturday's festivities. Vincent came over from Prien on Friday night to visit for our Thanksgiving weekend. That night, Vincent had his very first Root Beer Float and saw Singin' in the Rain for the very first time. Such a Cori-Night! You see, they don't have root beer in Germany and so I bought some at the base when I did my Tday shopping so that he could try it. Both the movie and the dessert drink were smashing successes with Vincent! The evening was very relaxing and cozy as we prepared for the big Tday the next day.

On Saturday morning, Vincent and I got up early to stuff the turkey before breakfast. It was just the two of us who made all the stuffing with bread, apples, onions, raisins, celery, and spices that my mom sent from home. Then we packed the bird impossibly full and set it up to start cooking. Before we could put the bird in the oven though, we had to make breakfast! We made my Grammi's recipe for baked eggs, biscuits, and gravy that my family always cooks for every holiday morning. It was sooo good and really felt like home eating that and smelling the bird and stuffing start to get warm in the oven at the same time. We rested and relaxed the next few hours while the bird cooked and we waited to get all the other things cooking. At home, this would be the time, of course, set aside for football, but alas, in Germany, there is no chance to see football ever. Oh well, there's always the bowl next year. So we relaxed and even took a nap instead. I spent a lovely time decorating the dining room with the decorations that I had been planning and creating for over a month. that Then we started all the side dishes. The mashed potatoes, yams with marshmallows, cranberry sauce, and etc. all went fairly smoothly, a little bit stressful trying to do it all alone for the first time ever, but smoothly nonetheless.

Finally, the bird was golden-brown, the side dishes were done, the candles were lit, and the dining room had the lovely glow of orange, brown, and gold. It was time to eat. Everything tasted just like home! I had successfully recreated my mom's Thanksgiving...in Germany....where I couldn't even get all the right ingredients! That felt really good. Okay, anyway, now for pictures of it all.

Me; stuffing the bird!

The bird all golden-brown...

My beautiful, glowing table...

My pumpkin pie.....with a cute little pumpkin, that I made, in the middle.

Every single person had their very own, unique place card that I designed and drew for them. I tell you what, they looked gorgeous on the table with their own little pumpkins! (:

Back and Blogging!

Okay, I know that it's simply been FOREVER since I have updated my blog, but now I am FINALLY back! I ordered a new power cord from my computer, had it shipped to me from Hong Kong and now everything works perfectly. Actually, it's even better than my old cord because it plugs right into the wall here and I no longer have to use that scary, little, power converter that I bought back home. Hooray! Now I will post all about Thanksgiving, the holidays, and my Silvester vacation to catch-up all you guys at home. So...here goes!!