Berlin- Part Zwei

Friday was once again cold and rainy. We headed to the outdoor exhibit called "Topography of Terror" which stands on the ruins of the Gestapo Headquarters. The exhibit is mostly photos but you can see a long section of the wall and the basements of the buildings, which is where the interrogations took place. It was interesting but very cold. After that we headed inside for some lunch at an American Diner themed place that had football on! After warming up we went to tour some old bomb shelters but when we got there we found out the English tours were done for the day. Then we wandered a bit - we tried to see the Berlin Cathedral but it was closed for some unknown reason. We headed to Alexanderplatz which was the main shopping area in East Berlin. We checked out the Galeria Kaufhof which is a huge department store and I got a cool new watch! We did some other wandering to see various buildings like the city hall etc then we went back to a huge new mall and wandered that for awhile. We really do miss shopping or just wandering a mall since we don't really have them here. We got some Jack Wolfskin items which we discovered is the "it" outdoor outfitter in Germany. Then we headed back to Potzdamer Platz for a quick dinner of leberkäse (yum!) and a movie in English with no subtitles. We saw District 9 and were pretty impressed.

Large section of Berlin Wall still standing at the Topography of Terror exhibit

Berliner Dom (Cathedral)

Jason with a Jeff Koons sculpture - we hate him- he ruined Versailles for us

Saturday we went back to the underground museum for our English tour. It was 90 minutes and very interesting. We toured one of the few remaining bunkers in Berlin as it was left in 1945 (and subsequently looted). The tour included several rooms and lots of information. I think it was one of the most interesting things in Berlin. After that we headed back down to the heart of town and had a nice lunch of the famous "Currywurst". Jason wasn't a huge fan but I thought it was pretty good.

Our lunch appetizers- beer and pretzels

After lunch we braved the line at the Reichstag - which was 90 minutes - to go up to the dome for a great view of the city. The views were nice but it had been raining so the pictures didn't come out very well due to the water on the dome windows. It was interesting for many reasons but the Reichstag is home to the Parliament and over 3 million people tour it every year since it is free to go to the dome. Can you imagine that happening in the US now?

View from the dome of the Reichstag

Later that evening we had a very nice dinner at Oscar & Co. Jason had an amazing potato soup I am going to try to recreate as some point. Then we went to see the Blue Man Group. It was a great end to our week.

Jason with a Blue Man - they even talked to him!

Berlin - Part Eins

The theme for Berlin was COLD. We were cold, it rained and it was windy but we had a very nice time. I think we would have had a better time if the weather was a little warmer or drier. We were interested in how we would like Berlin since we had heard mixed reviews from others. My conclusion was that I liked it but I could see how others might not. It is a big city and very modern – you aren’t going to turn every corner and see some cool old building. Old buildings don’t exist in many parts of Berlin due to WWII. What struck me the most was how much construction has happened in Berlin in my lifetime and really in the last 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down. This is was Potsdamer Platz looked like in 1950 after the war and it belonged to East Berlin.

This is what it looks like now

So back to my recap. We arrived on Wednesday afternoon and made it to our hotel after a few train and subway transfers. We checked in then took the subway into the heart of Berlin – called Mitte. We walked to the Brandenburg Gate and saw the spot where the Berlin Wall once stood. We walked over to the Reichstag but it was too cold to stand in line to go to its dome (plus the dome was closed for cleaning) so we wandered down the street to the Holocaust Memorial. The memorial is interesting and artsy (just 2700 concrete blocks) – under the memorial is the museum about the Jews that were murdered- it was interesting. It was getting late so we wandered to Potsdamer Platz (which is very confusing) and saw some Wall sections and then ate dinner at a great Asian place in the mall – ordering was an adventure but we finally got there!

Brandenburg Gate

Holocaust Memorial

Berlin Wall Marker - it used to run down this street between the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate

Day Two included a late wake up and more rain so we headed to the museum island. We saw the Deuthscher Dom and Frazosischer Dom on the way then ended up at the famous Pergamon Museum. After waiting in the line in the rain we finally made it inside and were in awe. The museum focuses on classic Greek, Roman, Babylonian and Islamic art, which includes some massive pieces. The first being the Pergamon Altar which is HUGE then there is the Market Gate of Miletus which is HUGE and the zenith was the Ishtar Gate which is HUGE and pretty amazing. The rest of the collection is nice as well J After lunch and some leisurely window shopping we headed to Checkpoint Charlie – we toured the museum there, which was super crowded but very informative. We spent quite a while there, it was interesting to learn more about the history of the wall and all the things that people did to escape East Germany. We then headed to dinner in the Scheunenviertel part of town, which was more “hip” and we found a nice place to get a beer and schnitzel, which we were craving! More to come on the rest of our Berlin stay.

Checkpoint Charlie

Dresden

We took a great 2.5 hour train trip to Dresden, which is the capital of Saxony in Germany. We had our own compartment, which was nice, and we got our passports checked by German police - that may be the first time in about a year! Our hotel was right next to the very modern train station. After we checked in we headed into the heart of the city to explore since we are only here for the night. We had a good stand up lunch in the town square that consisted of bratwurst, fries and an unidentified patty.

Dresden is famous for the fact that it was almost completely demolished by the Allies in 1945 - almost 100,000 people were killed. The pictures of the destruction are amazing and the town has done a great job rebuilding; mostly in the last 30 years since it was part of East Germany. The most beautiful building to be rebuilt was the Frauenkirche which reopened in 2005. We wandered for a while until we were caught in a huge hailstorm! We then checked out the “New Green Vault” which is a museum of beautiful yet strange artifacts and art collected by the Germany Empire. It includes lots of ivory and some other interesting things including a cherry pit with 185 faces carved into it! For dinner we had tapas and sangria then went to the local mall to get dessert, which ended up being very fancy and delicious! We walked back to the hotel through the shopping district- I saw a TK Maxx (same as TJ Maxx) and was very excited- same place but not the same type of clothes (sad!). The next morning we had a great breakfast in the train station and headed off to Berlin on a two hour train ride.

Frauenkirche

The storm coming directly for us! This the the rive Elbe.

One of the many pretty views of the architecture - this is the Residenzschloss

Our very fancy dessert! We love Germany!

Prague

We arrived in Prague Saturday morning around 9:30. We got to our hotel, which was in a great location, then we wandered for a while until Kenney and Ou arrived around 1pm. It was so great to see them! After lunch we spent the afternoon wandering the city – unfortunately it was raining (which ended up being the theme of the trip) but we saw a good bit. Our wandering included Old Town Square, Powder Gate, and the Church of St James, which has a 400 year old amputated hand of a thief hanging inside the door. We then walked up the Old Town Bridge Tower for some nice views of the city. Dinner was a traditional meal of goulash and either potato dumplings or pancakes. Ou and I both decided the pancakes where the best since the dumplings were weird.

Old Town Square

View from Tower Bridge

Sunday we saw Prague Castle, which is the largest ancient castle in the world. I think we were all a little disappointed with how expensive the castle was to tour and how relativity uninteresting it was but parts were very pretty. The most impressive part was St Vitus Cathedral, which was started in 1344, but most of the church was finished in 1953 but you would never know that from looking at it. Lunch was a great traditional meal with good beer. The Jasons had potato dumplings stuffed with smoked pork and I had a smoked chicken leg with my favorite potato pancakes. After lunch we wandered in the Mala Strana section of the city, which is near the castle and back over the famous Charles Bridge which was under construction so we couldn’t take in it’s entire beauty. Dinner consisted of delicious fried dough covered in Nutella and later a drink in a café with a crepe.

Our Nutella "dinner"

St. Vitus Cathedral

Monday we went to the “new town” and saw the dancing building and Wenceslas Square, which is where the end of communist rule was announced in 1989. Then we headed back across the river to explore Mala Strana again. We had some sun so we decided to check out the Petrin lookout tower, which looks like a mini Eifel tower. We had lunch at a decent Mexican place then headed to the funicular railway to go up the hill- unfortunately for us the funicular was closed for repairs so we hiked. We had some very nice views over the city but it started raining. We finished by walking back toward the castle – we stopped for some ice cream to escape the rain and ended up talking in that café for at least an hour. We finished up our shopping then headed to dinner in the town square- we had smoked sausage in the rain.J After some rest we headed back out for some dessert and good conversation.

Tuesday we parted ways with Kenney and Ou (sad). They headed to Munich then to Frankfurt and we headed to Dresden then Berlin via train.

Overall Prague was very nice but I think we had very high expectations based on all that we heard so we might have been let down a little there. The city is pretty and well kept- the people were nice and the food was good (at least in comparison to our Norwegian world). The best part for us was seeing good friends and spending time with them! Check back for more about the rest of our trip to Germany…I will add some more photos to our "new photos" album on the right side in a few days as well.

View over Prague

Snow? Really?

We have seen a few snowflakes in the past few days at our house. It even snowed for about 20 minutes the other day but it rained right after so there has not been any snow sticking. We woke up this morning to snow on the ground. It was just a dusting but still - really! It is only early October! Here is what we had today.....

This will be the last post for awhile since we are off to Prague, Dresden and Berlin on Saturday. We are super excited to see our friends Kenney and Ou in Prague and to escape Norway for a week! Luckily we have nice friends who will stay in the house to watch Dopler and Stretch so we don't need to kennel them.

Pumpkin Bread

Well today's cooking didn't go quite as planned. I wanted to make a light version of one of my favorite things- cannolis. The recipe called for phylo dough but to my surprise I couldn't find it - not even at Ultra, the fancy grocery store! So I had to go with a backup that included things I had on hand. Pumpkin bread it is - which I really like and I think it is such a great autumn food but Jason doesn't like pumpkin so he will be out of luck today. I made two loaves one with chocolate chips and one without so maybe he will be able to stomach the one with chocolate chips :) The loaf with chocolate chips may have had a wee bit too many which made it heavy and therefor it stuck to the pan. It didn't come out pretty but it sure tasted good!

Here is the recipe - I made it with less oil and real eggs (since egg substitute doesn't exist here) and I made it without the nut topping. I added about 1/2 - 3/4 cup of chocolate chips to the second half of the batter before adding it to the last pan (but you may want to add less since it didn't come out too well for me). Another good cooking fact- you can only buy canned pumpkin at the fancy grocery store and it costs about $6 a can!

Fresh out of the oven

My not so pretty chocolate chip loaf!

The plain loaf

The test pieces - yummy!

Åre

Saturday we took a road trip with our friends, Craig and Heather, to Åre, Sweden. It is a little ski town about 2.5 hours from us. We thought it would be nice to see all the fall colors on the trees since we think winter is approaching quickly. We had looked at the weather earlier this week and soon realized winter has already come to Åre since it was going to be 20 degrees and snowing today. So on Friday Jason put our snow tires on the car in preparation for the trip and in reality to get ready for winter here too.

Some of the gorgeous fall colors

We had a nice drive out and saw some pretty scenery including a good bit of snow on the ground. We arrived a little before lunch and were surprised that the town was hosting an "Autumn Festival" which had booths of various sorts plus a food festival. The festival wasn't very large but it gave us something to experience. The highlight though was the herd of sheep that were herded from a field through the town like a parade. It was SO CUTE! If you don't believe me check out the video below.

We had a nice lunch at a fancy little pizza joint which had a fabulous waitress who translated the entire menu for us! After lunch it started snowing and we walked the town a little more and did some window shopping. The other highlight of the day was the fresh hot donuts on the street- what a treat in the freezing cold. On the way out of town we hit up the grocery store for Jason's favorite Swedish delicacy - chocolate covered banana chips. We had a great day and saw something new but I think it made us realize we are NOT ready for winter but it is coming quick!

Åre - fall colors and snow

Hot, fresh donuts in the freezing cold!

Sheep!

Cinnamon Rolls and Immigration

This week I had to work on Tuesday so cooking was postponed to Wednesday. I decided on cinnamon rolls. Since they are best served warm we had them for dinner with some scrabbled eggs. These were maybe the most complicated thing I have made yet but they were well worth it! They required 2 rises, being rolled out then rolled up and cut then another rise before they could be baked. Here is the recipe if you are interested but be warned they take quite awhile to make!

After being rolled up with brown sugar and cinnamon inside

After being cut and waiting to rise again

After the last rise

Fresh out of the oven

Frosted and ready to eat!

These were a treat after spending a good part of my day at the immigration office. I have been waiting for my visa renewal to be processed for 5 months. Since my visa has since expired I was told I couldn't leave the country until a new visa was issued. That caused issues since we are traveling to Prague and Berlin in 10 days! Luckily when I showed up at the immigration office and finally talked to someone they told me my visa was now processed and approved. So now I am just waiting for my passport to have the visa placed inside- I pick that up next week. The best part is now my visa is only good until May since that is when Jason's expires and due to the long wait to get visas processed Jason and I really have to apply for both of our renewals in November!