Hey all! I have to start out by apologizing for my lack of posting recently... This week has somehow turned into chaos! I literally have not spent more than 2 hours at the apartment (aside from sleeping) for the past few days... Making it quite difficult to blog, to say the least. :) And don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining... Those of you who know me well, know how much I like to keep busy! :)
Our weekend was actually pretty low-key... I guess that's what they call the lull before the storm! :) On Saturday, Brian and I immersed ourself in the German culture... That's right... We spent most of the day in the kitchen making up some traditional German recipes... Yes, you read that correctly... We spent most of our day in the kitchen or at the grocery store. :) We picked apples from our apple tree in the backyard and made some apple crisp. And, I'm very happy to report, we did a MUCH better job with it this year than we did last year! For those of you who remember our attempt at making apple crisp last year, you'll probably recall that instead of apple crisp we ended up with what we like to call "Apples and Oatmeal"! :) Fortunately this year we were met with success, and I have to admit, the apple crisp turned out to be quite tasty!!
After our success with the apple crisp, we decided that we were in the mood for some "autumn-like" food... namely zweibelkuchen (i.e. onion cake). Zweibelkuchen is a typical early fall specialty here in southern Germany. It's similar to a pizza, but instead of the traditional pizza toppings, you use sauteed onions, cream, egg, and bacon... Yummy! So, Brian and I spent Saturday afternoon grocery shopping, cutting up onions (2 pounds of them... yikes!!), making the dough, and baking our zweibelkuchen... And, of course, I took pictures of the whole process to share with all of you! :) We spent the rest of Saturday evening sitting on the balcony, soaking up the autumn sunshine, and enjoying our homemade dinner and dessert. :)
The apple tree in our backyard... This is where our apples came from! :)
Brian hard at work in the kitchen...
Mixing up the topping... Notice the big bag of onions (zweibeln)? We used them all!
Getting ready to go into the oven...
Our finished product... Zweibelkuchen is delicious! :)
It's apple time in Germany! And, look, it's actually apple crisp... Not "Apples and Oatmeal"! :)
YUM!!
I'm quite happy that we had such a laid back weekend, as it helped to prepare us for the upcoming week... I started my intensive German course bright and early Monday morning. Let's just say that waking up early in the morning to get to class is something that I'm not quite used to anymore... I've gotten quite accustomed to sleeping in and enjoying my leisurely mornings of drinking coffee, emailing, and blogging. :) This getting up at the crack of dawn so that I can get to German class is going to take a little getting used to! :)
The German course is proving to be quite interesting! The whole course is done in German... Yes, that's correct... Not one word of English is spoken during this class... UGH!! The instructor babbles away in German, and if you don't quite get what they're telling you, then you're simply out of luck! Needless to say, my instructor gets ALOT of blank stares from me... Especially when she calls on me to answer a question or to read something aloud, and I have absolutely no idea what she's asking me to do, so I just stare at her blankly while I'm trying to process what she said, deep down hoping that she'll eventually ask me again in English... Which never happens! I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever felt quite this clueless! I'm definitely hoping that it gets easier as time goes on... Otherwise it's going to be a very long 5 weeks!!
On another note, I spent Monday evening shopping for dirndles with Katrina and Eva... We were on a mission to find some to wear at Oktoberfest in Munich this weekend. Dirndles are a traditional dress worn in southern Germany, and they are based on the historical costumes of Alpine peasants. They are hugely popular among the women at Oktoberfest! Last year I vowed that I would have one to wear this year, but in the end, Eva and I didn't have much luck finding one to wear. Oh well... We did have quite a bit of fun trying them on! :)
On that note, it's getting rather late here, and I have to be up early for class... Oh joy! Have a great Wednesday! We miss you much!
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