Blog Has Been Moved

Hi guys!

I've vamped up this blog and moved it to a new location.

Check it out!

https://eurofrautravels.wordpress.com/

St. Nikolaus

Hey Everyone!!!

I apologize for not writing anything for the past few weeks. I have decided to move to Germany to start a freelance writing business and I've had a lot of work to do. Unfortunately, I've put this blog on the back burner, but I'm back now!

Today's blog post is about a December holiday celebrated in Germany. In case you don't know, I have both German and US citizenship. I grew up in the US, but I am also German. As a result, I've been lucky enough to experience two cultures and their traditions. One German holiday tradition that I never really celebrated though was St. Nikolaus day.

December 6 is St. Nikolaus Tag in Germany. I didn't know about this tradition and had a nice surprise this morning when I found a present outside my door. (Check out my Instagram, @eurofrau , to see what I got!) I was completely confused and thought a relative decided to give me a random gift. When I asked my grandparent about it, they smiled and told me I got a visit from St. Nikolaus. I was excited. Any day I get presents is a great one!!!

St. Nikolaus

I then asked my grandparent what St. Nikolaus day was. They said that on December 6th, St. Nikolaus visits the children who have been good and gives them a gift. Traditionally, children would leave their boots outside their doors for St. Nikolaus to put fruit and nuts in.


There are two characters associated with St. Nikolaus Tag. St. Nikolaus gives gifts to the good children and the Krampus (a devil-like beast) comes by and takes away the bad children. Those are the characters in Bavaria and Austria. St. Nikolaus Tag also involves controversy and racism. In places like the Netherlands, St. Nikolaus was accompanied by a black slave who played the role of Krampus. It's still tradition for people to put on black-face to play the slave role. There have been attempts to change this, but they're not having much effect.

Krampus

St. Nikolaus is a Catholic Saint, and December 6th celebrates Nikolaus's good deeds as a Catholic. St. Nikolaus was a bishop who inherited great wealth and gave that wealth to the poor. He also gave fruit and nuts to the poor every Christmas. He died on December 6 and that is the day we celebrate as St. Nikolaus day in Germany.

Have you ever celebrated St. Nikolaus day? Tell me about your experience in the comment section below!

Happy St. Nikolaus Tag!

The Wonder of Schnitzel!

Hey Guys!

I'm here to tell you guys about the wonder that is schnitzel. Ohmygod, I love schnitzel so much. The first schnitzel I ever had was made by my father. First of all, you have to know that my father is an AMAZING cook. And I'm not just saying that because I'm biased. Everyone who's ever had his cooking is always blown away by his skills. My friends still freak out when they about the barbecue ribs he made us. My dad's cooking isn't the only reason I'm obsessed with Schnitzel. It's a kind of dish that's so simple in taste you can't help but love it.

Schnitzel is pretty simple to make and I've made it multiple times. First, I buy a pork loin. I flatten that the pork with a metal mallet until the meat is flat but not so thing you can see through it. Then I coat the pork in eggs that have been beaten. The egg mixture allows breadcrumbs to cover the pork. I alternate between covering the pork in egg and breadcrumbs until all the pork has been prepared. Then I heat up oil in a pan at a high heat that can be lowered when the pan gets too hot, and cook the schnitzels on both sides until the meat has been cooked through and the outsides are a golden brown. Schnitzel can be served in multiple ways. A Wiener Schnitzel is served simply with lemon juice. A Jaeger Schnitzel is the way most people eat their Schnitzel in Hessen. It's served with a mushroom-cream sauce. I usually eat schnitzel with fried onions (Zwiebeln.) At home I'll eat schnitzel with boiled potatoes. In German restaurants, schnitzel is served with fried potatoes (Bratkartoffeln) or french fries (Pommes.)

My favorite place to get schnitzel in Germany is from Bembelsche. Bembelsche is an awesome restaurant that serves typical Hessich cuisine. (Hessen is a region in Germany where cities like Mains and Frankfurt are located.) Hessen has its own unique culture and dialect within Germany, and at Bembelsche, the menu has items like Schnitzelsche and Bratkadoeffelscher. If you're in Hessen, make sure to check this place out. Make sure to make a reservation in advance. The place fills up quick!

I hope I've piqued your interest and inspired you to try schnitzel if you haven't already!

Hey Everyone!!!!

Although I didn't post something on Thursday, I've been working on a cool project.

Along with traveling Europe and exploring my German culture, I am also obsessed with writing, and my greatest goal is to become an acclaimed writer. I know it's going to be a long and hard process, but I'm up for the task!

I recently wrote a story for a Halloween challenge that I would love for you guys to read! Please click on the link below and READ, LIKE, and REBLOG the story! The more reads I get, the better chance I have to win the writing competition! Thank you so much for your support guys!

https://theprose.com/post/108662/sisters


<3 Euro Frau

EuroFrau goes to Nuernberg (Germany)!

After my awesome week in Austria, I spent a weekend in Nuernberg, Germany.

      My mom has a friend who lives in Nuernberg that she met in college in the USA. They're both German so it's funny that they met and became good friends in the US. We visited the friend and partner and stayed at their house, which is super impressive. It's huge for German standards (in my humble opinion) and has a beautiful garden. We spent the night in the attic which they renovated themselves into a kick-ass guest room with a huge amount of space and beautiful wooden furniture.

View of Nuernberg

     After an amazing breakfast (so much Nutella!) we all drove to Schloss Hohenstein (High Stone Castle.) The castle was bought by local people for about an Euro and they renovated it to look similar to its original form. Hohensteiner was built in the 11th century and was passed on via family as well as bought and resold multiple times. The castle today is pretty much in ruins but there are some rooms that you can walk into to see exhibitions and read information that describes what the castle would have been like in its heyday.

Schloss Hohenstein

     To get to the castle, you have to get a key from a separate place. [The cost for admission per person is two euros.] After you get the key, you walk up a steep hill to the castle. The view from there is great and you can see the city of Nuernberg in the distance. To get into the castle itself, you use the key to open the main door. You have to then lock the door behind you because the owners don't want people going in unless they've paid admission. You can then walk through the castle and see a 360 degree view of Nuernberg. You can also walk up into the highest tower and have an even greater view (warning for people scared of heights. I have a minor case and I was feeling pretty wobbly until back on solid ground. You have to climb a small ladder to get to the top and you are very, very, very high up.) You can also go into a basement. It was pitch black so I used the flashlight function on my phone and then SCREAMED! Behind an iron-bar gate was a sheet draped to look like a ghost. It was a funny trick and left us all in a good mood when we left the castle.

     After the castle tour, we all went to the Hohenstiener Hof cafe. The cafe is famous for its Windbeutels. Windbeutel is a bizarre dessert which is basically a puffed out pastry usually filled with whipped cream. This cafe's Windbeutels are huge concoctions filled with ice cream, syrup, fresh fruit, nuts, alcohol, whipped cream, and pretty much anything else you might desire. I got the larger Windbeutel (there's a small and large size) and I was only able to eat about half of it. 

Windbeutel Cafe

    Although I didn't have a lot of time to spend in Nuernberg, I still had a very fun experience. It's a huge advantage when you have the opportunity to stay with people who live in the place you're visiting because you get an experience you might not know about from travel brochures. If you know people who live in other countries or other cities from you, ask if you can visit! That way you can incorporate a more local experience in your travels. :)

Austria (Klagenfurt)

     I was in Austria for a week and it was awesome.

The beautiful Woerthersee

      Austria in general is a beautiful country. We were in Klagenfurt and could see mountains and were walking distance from the Woerthersee, a huge lake that is a popular tourist spot, particularly in the summer. I was in Klagenfurt eight years ago and it was nice revisiting a place I'd already been. I explored the city even further and integrated myself more in the city's culture.

Breakfast!!!

Our rustic chick hotel room

      Every day started with an AMAZING breakfast buffet in the hotel. The hotel we stayed at was Hotel Roesch, and it was beautiful. Its overall atmosphere is rustic and cozy. It's not in the city so you can relax without feeling like a tourist. It's also walking distance from the Woerthersee and Europark (about 20 minutes) and has a steam room. The buffet options were vast and varied. Lots of fresh fruit, three types of prepared eggs, lemon and mint-infused water, coffee, tea, fresh-baked goods, and so many different sandwich spreads we couldn't taste all of them over the week we were there. Afterwards, it was time to walk off the calories.

Sculpture Garden

       My mom had to work so I was left to find my own adventures. I walked every day (I was so proud of myself. Who would have thought it, I'm active!) in the Europark. Europark is a giant park with huge expanses of grass, lots of trees, a giant spring, multiple flower gardens, a sculpture garden, and a vast variety of playground options for kids. It was beautiful and you can easily spend an hour walking through that park, if not more (if you're lucky, you also get to see couples making out on the rocks, which are smack in the middle of the park.)

Klagenfurt legend says that the city
 used to be home to a dragon.

      The first day I ended up walking to the city from Europark with only my phone and 25 euros on me. I had planned to take a quick look around and then go back to the hotel to take the bus. However, while I was walking around the Europark I kept seeing signs telling me how easy it is to walk to the city and ended up following them. By the time I realized it was a lot farther away than I had thought, I had gone too far to go back. So I ended up walking for about an hour and a half. AND I didn't get lost. Which for me, is a very big deal. (I'm the type of person who will get lost with a GPS.) I took the bus back to the hotel though, and the other days that I went to the city (it cost about 4 euros both ways. Cheap as heck compared to 8 Franken one way in Switzerland.)

    In the city I spent a lot of time window shopping, looking at landmarks like churches and sculptures, and SHOPPING. After being in Switzerland for a few months, my God, everything was so amazingly cheap in Austria. I went a little crazy and H&M was my best friend for a few days. I was also super lucky because one day was some kind of promotion called Women's Day and every clothing store was 20% for women!!!! It was awesome.

Bayerish Goulash

     The food was amazing. The first day I ate a delicious Goulash in a touristy German-Bayern restaurant (that was after I had walked to the city and I was so starved I didn't care where I went.) We also ate a lot in the hotel's restaurant because the food there was FANTASTIC. I had schnitzel with berry jam and scalloped potatoes and cordon bleu. We also had Indian takeout. It was scrumptious even though I had to eat while tears streamed down my face (the restaurant made a distinction between mild, Austrian spicy, and Indian spicy. I got Austrian spicy and vastly overestimated how hot it would be.)

     The trip to Austria also marked the first time I have experienced a season other than summer in Europe. Fall started and I actually saw leaves that had changed color and had to bundle up. (Fall in Florida is still shorts and flip-flop season. And leaves don't change color. They're green until January and then just die.) Every day I wore a long-sleeved shirt, thick sweater, scarf, thick socks, my combat boots, and the jacket I wear to keep warm during a Florida winter. Something tells me I'm into a rude shock for a European winter.

Another View of the Woerthersee

      I hope this post got you guys interested in visiting Klagenfurt or Austria in general. And if you don't have the opportunity to visit, I hope I gave you an intriguing brief glimpse of the awesome country.

Almduddler:
The unofficial soda of Austria
(made from herbs and <<<sugar)

Ride on the Austrian Express

Hey guys! I'm back from my trip to Austria and Germany. It was amazing. The best part was, I got to travel with my mom. She visited me for a weekend in Switzerland and then we took the trip together. It was so good to see her again.
Today's post is about our train ride to Austria. I hope it gives anyone who hasn't traveled via train in Europe a sense of what the experience is like. Enjoy! (I'm back to posting regularly, so look for my posts every Monday and Thursday.) 

THE JOURNEY

-The first step? Buy breakfast! 

My mom and I had to get to the Zurich main train station (Hauptbahnhof) by 8:30 am. Which meant I had to get up at 7. 7-freaking-am. I am not a morning person. Really, really, really not. So I wasn't super conscious for the first few hours of our journey. I do remember that we had no time for breakfast so we bought chocolate croissants at a pastry shop at the train station. (I had to wait outside of the store with our mountain of luggage while my mom bought the food and I tried to avoid eye contact with the homeless man wandering around muttering to himself and approaching random people.) The croissants were amazing!!!!! They were filled with chocolate pudding, something I've never experienced before, and I practically moaned when I ate it.

- Beyond Exhausted
As I said, I was barely conscious during the beginning of the train ride. I wanted to sleep, so badly, but I couldn't because I can never fall asleep when I'm vertical (as I said before on my first blog post about my plane ride to Europe.) After adjusting myself multiple times in my seat, getting up to pee about five times (every single time right as I was getting drowsy), and getting more and more frustrated that I couldn't fall asleep, I somehow knocked off around 9 am and slept for two hours.

-Problems 

Overall, we had great luck with the trip. It's always a tricky business making sure that connections are caught. A lot of times on train trips, I'm waiting for about 40 minutes on a dirty concrete platform trying to avoid anyone who looks a bit dangerous and dying from the weight of my backpack. We were lucky that we caught all of our connections and found our seats with little problem. We did have one crisis. As my mom was working on her laptop, it decided to crash. That was a rough spot, as my mom freaked out that she wouldn't have her laptop for work and we tried to figure out what we could do. (Thankfully, we were able to figure out the problem later that night in the hotel.)


-Overall
The train journey was overall positive. The scenery, traveling from Switzerland to Austria, is beautiful. We always drove past mountains, and I saw snow!!! That's the first time I ever remember seeing snow. There were A LOT of people on the train, but that was fine because we had reserved seats. The ride took all day and we finally arrived at our destination at 6 pm. A colleague of my mom picked us up from the train station and drove us to our hotel. Our room was beautiful. It looked like lumberjack barbie's home, with wood surfaces, pink curtains, cream-colored leather seats, and a giant picture of a lily. We took a quick stroll through a nearby forest and stopped by the grocery store across the street for snacks and quick supplies. We then had dinner at the hotel's restaurant and then went to bed early because we were exhausted.

Tips for Train Travel (German and Austrian): 

1. Get a seat reservation to reduce stress.
2. Try to book a train ticket that has a good amount of time between connections to have sufficient time to get the next train in case there are delays (there will most likely always be a delay.)
3. There is no limit to how much you bring on a train but you have to be able to carry it and stow it away. Try to limit yourself to a backpack and carry-on. For larger cases, you can usually store it in a luggage storage compartment found on IC and ICE trains.
4. ICE is the most comfortable way to travel long distance. The trains are the fastest so you have less travel time, the most space, seats are comfortable, and it's often the cleanest. The bathrooms also look nice and the floors are carpeted.
5. Always have a ticket. The train controller comes by continually and you will be in huge trouble if you don't have one.
6. As a foreigner, you can usually find someone who is willing to help you figure out your connections. If your fellow passenger doesn't know English, the ticket controller or restaurant employees do and are willing to help you.
7. IC and ICE trains have an on-board restaurant where you can buy food and drinks, usually for affordable prices. Just follow the signs on the train to find where it is.
8. The bathrooms either have liquid soap or soap in powdered form. In the latter case, you'll see a star-shaped knob above the sink. Turn it until powder comes out and then run water over it. It will liquidize and become soap.
9. Bring a book, laptop, phone, headphones, whatever. Just bring something for entertainment because a five-hour ride can be super boring if you have nothing to do.
10. Enjoy!