Kitchen Adventures

So, a few weeks ago I finally started to cook. I'm giving myself a generous learning curve, and although I might spare myself some embarrassment by leaving any and all cooking entries out of my blog, I still wanted to include this one, at the very least for my future entertainment.

I started off with scrambled eggs. Easy enough, right? Well, it's funny how after how many cooking shows I've watched just how quickly I forget the basics. I forgot to put butter in the pan before cracking my egg into it. Oops. No major crisis there...  Later on in the week I attempted to make a panini, which ended up being a sandwich with bread made soggy by olive oil. Times like this I really miss the mini George Foreman grills in the caf! And, finally on Thursday night I made myself dinner. Well, the roasted veggies came out good. As for the rice, I'm not even going to include a picture (although if requested by popular demand, I may be willing to change my mind). Let's just say this is the reaction I got when I showed people the picture I took: "I thought that was mashed potatoes." and "Is that cottage cheese?" Well, I'll just chalk it all up to a learning experience (and way too many parts water to rice)!

9/16: Baby potatoes and button mushrooms roasted with grilled seasoning

I made this combination quite a few times, and quickly learned about parboiling the potatoes first. My next recipe to try out? Pasta and sauce.

 9/27: Whole wheat pasta with Neopolitan sauce, ground chicken, roasted red peppers, and mozzarella cheese

9/28: Quesadillas with edaim cheese, roasted red peppers, and ground chicken

10/5: Chinese style fried rice with mixed vegetables and scrambled eggs

PS: I have been super, incredibly busy for the past few days, so I have not yet had time to put up entries about my birthday weekend. They are coming shortly, so stay tuned for those!

Wenceslas Day: Long Weekend Day 2

Today, I finally went to the Praha Zoo. The zoo is 111 acres and has about 4,600 animals that cover 630 species. I was pretty impressed with the size of the zoo, and particularly surprised by the openness of the layout. In fact, the zoo has been named by Forces as the 7th best zoo in the world. (#1 is Animal Kingdom is Orlando, Fl., and #5 is the Bronx Zoo in NY.) Not too many cages or glass enclosements here... a lot of the animal exhibits were instead very open. Think open enough for bats to come flying into your hair...

Orangutan and monkeys

Polar bear!

Kangaroos

Zebras

Lion

Penguins

Seals - it's feeding time!

I planned on going to Petrin Hill in the evening to go up to the observatory, but it's another rainy and cloudy day in Prague, so there won't be too much luck seeing the stars tonight. I'll go another time during the day when I can enjoy the ride up more as well as the rose garden at the bottom.

And after a 5 day weekend, it's back to classes tomorrow!

Wenceslas Day: Long Weekend Day 1

I didn't have class this Monday, 9/27, or Tuesday, 9/28, because of Wenceslas Day or Czech Statehood Day. This commemorates St. Wenceslas, the patron saint of the Czech people and the Czech Republic, who was killed in September of 929 or 935.

It was nice to have some recovery time after the weekend in Munich, and also to explore a little more of Prague. In the afternoon, I met up with Laura and we shopped around Wenceslas Square and the local Palladium Mall. I had never been to this mall, even though it was surprisingly close by.

Afterward, I met up with Brandy and some others at a jazz club called Ungelt. The band that night was the Luboš Andršt Blues Band. The band was composed of 4 members who were on the electric guitar, vocal + hammond organ, bass guitar, and drums, respectively. They put on a good show. This country sure does love their jazz!

 The set at Ungelt

München, Deutschland: Day 3

On Sunday, 9/26, it was our last day in Munich. We had made plans with our new friends, Jon and Elissa, to go to the Sleeping Beauty castle in Schwangau, Germany, a 2 hour car ride from Munich. We had to catch a train at 5 pm, so we began the journey around 9 am. Driving there we took the autobahn! The advised speed is 130 kmh or 80 mph, but there is no actual speed limit. On the way we stopped at a McDonld's for breakfast, and if you ever wondered about the interesting items served at a Germany McDonald's, check out the picture below.

 Sausages on a bun... yum

Formally called the Neuschwanstein Castle, it is the inspiration for the castle at the Disneyland Park and also for the castle in the Disney logo. Built in the 19th-century, it is a Romanesque Revival palace on a hill above the village of Hohenschwangau. Across the road is the Hohenschwangau Castle. We unfortunately didn't have enough time to take a tour of both castles, because of the staggering schedule set up and limited English subtitle tours, but we took plenty of pictures of the Hohenschwangau Castle before beginning the tour of the Neuschwanstein Castle. I couldn't take any pictures of the inside, because of copyright laws. You'll have to take my word for it that the interior was very pretty.

Hohenschwangau Castle

The lake

Neuschwanstein Castle

View from the Neuschwanstein Castle

Exterior of the Neuschwanstein Castle

In case you don't recognize the similarity with the Disney logo... this is a picture of the Neuschwanstein Castle on a postcard

Neuschwanstein Castle from a distance

Afterward, they dropped us off at the Munich train station, and Laura and I waited for our train to arrive. We were able to get seats next to each other this time, and the 6 hour train ride back began. We had some interesting conversations with the Boston-ians and Bolivians in our compartment, and the ride went by. And 
by 11 pm we were back in home sweet Praha!

Interior of our cabin in the train

Goodbye München...

München, Deutschland: Day 2

On Saturday, 9/25, we had woken up early so we could make it into the Oktoberfest tents while there was still room. So, what exactly is Oktoberfest? It's an18-day festival held each year in Munich, and is the world's largest fair, with about six million people in attendance every year. Oktoberfest started on October 12, 1810 for the public commemoration of the marriage between Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen (namesake of the Theresienwiese festival grounds) in which they organized a great horse race. And, the tradition began. Oktoberfest is now one huge fair of tents, games, and rides. (Thank you, Wikipedia, for the information!)

We made it into the (already very crowded) Fischer Vroni Tent around 9 am. I really had incredibly different expectations walking into the tent, and it's nice to say that what I saw completely blew away anything I had in mind. I was picturing a white canvas tent with crowds of people standing around. Instead, the tent was more like an actual building with rows upon rows of wooden tables and benches. And the tents were huge.

The inside of the Fischer Vroni Tent

A huge pretzel (Riesenbreze) that Laura and I shared for breakfast

We hadn't gone into the English tent, and coincidentally enough, in a tent full of Germans, we stumbled upon a table that had probably one of the only other English speakers in the building. There were 3 others, Jürgen, Jon and Elissa. Jon and Elissa graduated from college last May and have been married for a year. They are a month into a four month car trip all over Europe. They have been "couch surfing" this entire time and haven't stayed in one hotel or hostel! Their host in Munich was Jürgen, who has spent tons of time traveling himself. He is native to Germany and has spent months in South America and India. All 3 had such interesting stories to tell and we had such a great time in a festive atmosphere. Meeting our new friends was especially nice since we were absolutely sick and tired of Ben. (Alex, I don't know how you put up with him in Poland, but we found out that Ben is incredibly annoying, the way he speaks English is very confusing, and acts like a 5 year old). We managed to get rid of Ben when he found some of his friends, and we spent the rest of the day with our new friends.

Time for the band to start!

A roast chicken (hendl) for lunch - we ate this with our hands in true Bavarian style

With a side of potato dumplings (knödel)

The grounds is comparable to one huge carnival. There were at least 30 different rides and plenty of stalls selling snacks and German food. Other stalls housed "board walk" like arcade style games. I couldn't leave without trying out at least one ride, and we chose Cyber Space. The ride rose you 50 meters in the air and went as fast as 100 meters per hour. The ride also cost 7 euros... so after taking some more time walking around the grounds, we didn't go on any more rides.

Bavaria statue above the Theresienwiese

Cyber Space ride!

That night we joined our new friends for a home cooked meal of spaghetti and tomato sauce that they were nice enough to invite us to.

Just another day in Munich!