Hauswirtschaftsleiterin

Ha ha ha ha!

Edit: She kinda creeps me out. Large photo for full effect.

The newest batch of sauerkraut is purple! I’ve made purple sauerkraut before. It turned out purple. Purple sauerkraut is a little unsettling, because it’s purple. Sauerkraut should be white. But I made it anyway, because I like excitement in my life.

Batch 3 was a failure. I used “savory” cabbage, which I’ve never tried before. When I finished making it, I realized that my knuckles were swollen. I let it sit for a long time before I harvested, because I was nervous. A few days ago, I scratched my wrists and rubbed the sauerkraut juice in it, but I didn’t have a reaction. So I’m not sure why my knuckles were so messed up.

Batch 3 wasn’t very good though. The leaves were super wrinkled, which made it physically difficult to pack down properly. The result was semi-soft with no redeeming qualities. Maybe I’ll try again later. When you have a sauerkraut addiction, it’s tough to dedicate a full week to an experiment that might leave you without your fix.

We took a trip out to the Black Forest with some friends from New York, and we visited a few interesting places. The first was a waterfall near the ruins of an old monastery.

Old monasteries are really cool.

Side note: I fit into the coffin perfectly.

Perfect fit.

From the monastery, we followed a hiking trail down around a long waterfall. My pictures came out poorly, but the falls were pretty neat. It took about 20 minutes to walk to the bottom.

Along the trail, a plaque mounted to a rock translates to this:

Brother Pauli was a convent chaplain, who did not take his vows so seriously. He melted his silver crucifixes for bullets, which he then used for poaching. Before God’s judgment, he was sentenced to the grounds of the Monastery of All Saints, as a ghost walking around restlessly. Many times he played nasty tricks on coachmen and emptied the baskets of blueberry pickers.

We successfully avoided the antics of Brother Pauli.

When we returned, we went to the nearby restaurant, and I ordered the most German of German meals you can buy: meat on meat loaf with some leberwurst, bread and butter, egg, and some vegetables there for show. And a good southern pils to wash it down.

I ate more than half of this delicious meal. Then I was stuffed.

Alissa ordered Käsespätzle, which I think can be best described as an “epic macaroni and cheese”. The problem with the use of the word “epic” is that the style can vary from place to place. There’s a restaurant near us that serves traditional German cuisine, and their Käsespätzle is absolutely fantastic. We’ve been there 3 times, she always orders the Käsespätzle, and I always try something else. I am always mildly disappointed, and end up eating off her plate. But not this time. This time, mine was amazing.

See that thick piece of semi-raw-looking bacon? We’ve purchased that before, from the grocery stores near us. But we never knew how to eat it. It’s a bit awkward, right? What would you do with a gigantic hunk of semi-raw bacon? Cook it? How would you slice it? You can’t just fry the whole thing, because then it’d be a gigantic hunk of bacon that’s burnt on the outside. And it’s just thin enough that it’s really too hard to slice into regular bacon (or lunch-meat style slices). I ended up slicing it into little annoying pieces, and frying them. Then I realized that the top and bottom parts are really too tough to chew. It was disappointing.

Anyway, today was the day I learned how to eat it. You simply slice super-thin pieces from the side, and eat them. They melt in your mouth. I spent the second half of our meal just slicing off thin pieces. Absolutely delicious.

Then we went to the Rodelbahn in Gutach. This is an invention that should be in the United States. If we don’t have these, someone needs to get on it. Here’s the basic idea: put a little plastic car onto train tracks, and give the rider a brake handle in case they’re going fast enough to die.

You can go very fast.

Seriously, these were awesome. The first time we rode, Alissa rode with me (there’s a seat in the front). Then we went by ourselves. We could have spent hours riding that thing. This was the view on the way up the tracks:

It was a pretty great day.

Just to be safe.

I should preface this by saying we’re still new to Germany, and we are therefore not completely knowledgable about the people or the culture.

But it appears that weekend mid-mornings are the time when massive amounts of older people dress up in bike clothes, and bring their bikes on the train. They come in groups of 2 or 4, and they always wear their helmets. Even while they’re sitting on the train. The bikes themselves are not always “old people bikes”. Some look like they cost a lot, and do not appear to be comfortable at all. These people are hardcore.

I’m not sure where the young people are at this time. Asleep? Do the young people come out to ride bikes in the evenings? It’s a good thing Alissa doesn’t have a bike yet, because we’d probably accidentally go riding Saturday morning, and be all out of place.

Ah, you can see the people in the background are not wearing their helmet on the train. I stand corrected.

The story of our Internet problems has become boring and annoying. So instead of a long description of the phone calls and modem tests and the smelly technician who finally got the line fixed, but who prompted me to open all the windows and doors after he left… just know that we’re back again.

QUICK! POST EVERYTHING!

We brought some board games to a nearby bar and played Connect Four and Go Fish. But before I get into that, I need to explain something.

Ever since I’ve known Alissa, she’s beaten me at Connect Four. Every time. Or maybe I’d manage to squeak out a tie. I’ve beaten her once, a few years later, but then I went promptly back to losing. Was it a fluke? Was she especially tired that day? Nobody knows. But I swear it happened.

This time, I got photographic evidence.

She’s not smiling because she won.

I just realized that there’s no proof I was red. But I swear I was. Also, you can see how she threw in an extra black piece to make it look like I didn’t win with red. Don’t fall for her lies.

Gigantic Chessboard

This is in a nearby park. There are four of these boards, with heavy plastic pieces that come above my knee. It’s a little surreal to walk around the pieces.

Sorry for the awful photo. EDIT: It’s artistic. I apologize for nothing.