Part 2: Germany

After England, we flew to Munich. Luckily we were able to change our tickets last minute to extend our stay to 2 days. I couldn't wait to try traditional German food so for dinner, I ordered the roasted pork loin in a beer sauce, potato dumplings with a side of apple cabbage. It was the best meal I had during my entire trip. Even though I was stuffed and could barely sit straight, I just had to finish my meal because it was so good! The pork had amazing flavour and moistness, the potato dumpling had a really nice chewy and springy texture and the apple cabbage tasted almost candy-like. Normally, I'm the kind of eater that eats each part separately, which can be annoying for the waiter and waitress with all my 'on the side' dishes. This time, I actually mixed everything up in one bite and it was great.


In Munich, we took a 6 hour bus tour to see the famous castles built for King Ludwig II, the Linderhof and Neuschwanstein. The Linderhof was much smaller, but it was beautiful inside. Considering the types of tools available to these people at the time, the craftmanships and detailing is incredible. Somehow on our way back to the bus, I actually got lost. It was so embarassing because the tour guide was yelling at my family for losing me.. haha.. a 21 year old.


Neuschwanstein on the other hand was huge! We had to hike up an upward trail to reach the castle, which was apparently supposed to take 25 minutes. For us, I'm pretty sure it took double that time. Our group actually started without us and we had to ask the woman working at admissions to let us through. I can't imagine if we had to wait for the next time slot to enter.. our tour guide would kill us for being late!


Next, we left for Nuremburg and stayed with some friends, Barbara and Karl. It was really nice because we had our first homecooked meal in 1.5 weeks. Prior to staying with them, I never noticed how quickly I eat my meals. I think over the years, I stopped chewing my food properly and was just swallowing it partially whole. It is so much more pleasurable when you're not scarfing down your food in front of the TV, but actually enjoying it. Even though we didn't visit that many attractions in Germany, we had a great time with friends at beer gardens. The lifestyle in Europe is definitely different than North America and the cost of living is a lot higher. They are definitely more conservative when it comes to food, water and electricity. I was suprised at how small the quantity of food that is sold at grocery stores, especially flour, eggs and sugar... definitely no supersized costco style products.

By the way, I didn't get completely away from making desserts during my trip. When I told Karl how much I love to bake, he offered to make a simple cake with me. It didn't involve the oven, but it was still a lot of fun. I was a little freaked out with the amount of solid palm fat it called for, but I'm on vacation and it tasted great. The rum and coffee pair well together along with the butter cookies in between to give it a nice crunch. When I get the English translation of the recipe, I will post it.


As I mentioned in my England post, our flight was delayed until the evening so we were able to make one last run to the stores. Despite already buying a whole 1/4 suitcase load of Milka chocolates, I couldn't help going back to Karstadt for some more.


I actually bought more than this, but these are just the different flavours I got. Too bad we were so rushed because there are so many different varieties of kitchen gadgets and brands in Germany it is hard to decide what to get. I'm so glad I finally bought a good balloon and twirl whisk. These items are so difficult to find in Toronto and Amazon does not ship to Canada. It was so sad and a little emotional when we had to leave because we had such a great time. I'm really going to miss the nice breakfasts and dinners Barbara and Karl prepared for us, the amazing food (especially sausages, pretzels, bread) and all our memorable conversations.