RT Europe Trip

Product Manager

LOO-BLAH-NA

Have not had internet access lately.  Backlog of posts (and pics) to come next week (when I am back in the US).

Ljubljana is beautiful! So is Dalmatia. So is all the ice cream we have eaten.

PS. Samo says Ljubljana is much cooler than the name suggests. (Very true! they have a dragon city motif and ballet in the main square on summer nights)

PPS. Dragon! RAAAAAWWWRRRRR

Rijeka

Writing fm a cafe in Rijeka. Enjoying the free WiFi fm the 14th
century castle next door

Been drinking Scheppes bitter lemon and cappuccinos, eating cold cuts
and cheese for breakfast.

Rijeka is like Marseille, a gritty, worn port city with modern cafes
and crumbling fin-de-siecle facades.

Heading down south tomorrow.

Wien, ein teaser

real posts TK (that means TO COME in cool magazine language). 

BF says: Sorry, Emmy. No words, just pics. 

But, nevertheless a few words:
Grand
Palace
Dancing
Jaeger
Family
Campari w/orange
Sacher torte
Empire
Genteel
Meat and potatoes
Soccer Hooligans

TK: Vienna, the wedding, the bride (lovely), the groom (cool), the seven (7!) jordanian sisters, the food.  

Spaetzle Making

Drove to Vienna on Thursday with bf's aunt and uncle. His aunt calls me “Reechee” and his uncle calls me “Elisabet” (after my middle name) since they didn't understand how Samo was pronouncing “Rachel.” Samo has been having long conversations with them in Croatian, and I've been allowed to play ludicrous amounts of Word Mole (it's like Boggle?) during that time.


We made spaetzle the other day.

  1. Beat eggs, add flour until it is spaetzle-consistency batter (no measurements, prob 2/3 c. spaetzle flour per egg)

  2. Load spaetzle press with batter, squeeze briskly into boiling water

  3. Let spaetzle cook for 30-40 seconds, then use strainer to transfer to bowl of cold water

  4. Reheat spaetzle in microwave or pour hot gravy over it when ready to serve.



Bf's recipe (for me)

  1. Come to Europe, stay with bf's family

  2. Whine loudly for spaetzle

  3. Put flour and eggs in bowl

  4. Get strong man (bf) to whisk contents of bowl

  5. Get said man to make spaetzle

  6. Purposefully drop small amount of spaetzle batter on floor, so you can get sent out of kitchen

  7. Play 2 rounds of Word Mole

  8. Eat spaetzle when bf serves it to you.



Vienna is great-- post to come. After that, not sure how much wifi access I'll enjoy in Croatia.  

Guest Post #2

Rachel is trying to single-handedly deplete Germany's brezel and spätzle reserves (rhyme unintentional). She claims she could eat spätzle for the rest of her life so I give her until next week to get tired of it. That being said, spätzle are quite tasty. The eggy, spongey texture is great and they go well with heavy sauces and meat. If we can find some spätzle flour, I will make it for her when we get back.

Today, we visited Porsche museum[1]. I am not a huge car guy[2], but it was fun. I now have a new favorite car (Porsche 356, Number 1) and the awareness there are a few ugly Porsches. We also noticed how the audio guide (unsurprisingly) made every one of the displayed cars sound like a (hint of German accent) “marvel of modern technology – the greatest, fastest, lightest, most efficient auto made at the time.” The tour guide, however, explained that engineers/owner/public hated some of the models. There were also a few ugly (or as Rachel calls it, “fugly”) cars. They looked like a Mumbai spice peasant designed a vehicle he thought would be modern in Peru.

In conclusion, I am now ready to accept a Porsche gift[4], particularly once not designed by Indian farmers.

  • MGB

[1] Porsche and Mercedes Benz are made in Stuttgart, Germany's Detroit (except that STR makes good cars).

[2] I never understood the obsession with the car's ability to go from 0 to 60 in 5.1 seconds versus another car's 5.3 seconds. It's just a bunch of finely tuned metal[3].

[3]This comment is bound to make some of you angry. Please send all complaints to the blog's owner. I encourage you, in fact.

[4] Only drivable versions please. 1:43 models are great but not quite the real thing.

More Stuttgart

Relaxing in Stuttgart. It's been a couple of lazy days because the weather is cold, gray, and drizzly. We went to the Porsche museum yesterday. The audio guide was unabashedly exalting of every single bit of Porsche history. Innovation! Excellence! Design! Speed! Porsche police cars! It was pretty cool, though, to see all those cars... that I can't afford. There was even a Porsche tractor. The most amazing, magical, perfect tractor ever made, I think is what the audio guide said. 

We went to a pan-Asian restaurant with Elvis. A typical story he tells will begin something like, "We were hanging around in the shipping container, talking, drinking, eating horsemeat."

I had high doubts that the restaurant would be good, but it was really excellent, one of the best pan-Asian places I've ever been to. Much nicer than Rock Sugar in Culver City. They had a seriously playful, long list of cocktails. I had one with strawberry, basil and green pepper. Stuttgart is a monied city because of the industrial wealth from Mercedes and Porsche. I think Stuttgart people have had money to travel, so they know good food, and therefore, the restaurants are better done than the post-war bland architecture.  (You can't judge an Italian bistro by the drab office building above it.)

We also went to a bar called "Fou Fou," ("crazy crazy" in French) that also had excellent cocktails. Elvis introduced me to Ramatzoti, which is a coca-cola-like sweet, medicinal liquor. Fou Fou was in Stuttgart's 2-block red light district (A bunch of chic restaurants and bars are around there). There was a brothel/bar/stripclub place with a flashing neon sign saying:
Girl's
Girl's
Girl's

The Girl's.... what? What does she have or own? I hope it's effective contraception. I wanted to take a picture, (ESL grammar! So funny!) but I was terrified of the prostitutes milling about. They looked mean! (Prostitution is legal in Germany, and all Stuttgart had to show for it was a handful of sleazy bars and kepab-eating, angry-looking Soviet-bloc madames.)

ps. At the end of the night, the small children I had posted about earlier were puking in fountains, falling down escalators, and looking miserably happy drunk. (And leaving all their empty bottles and empty cigarette packets on park benches.)

small children

I have to run to fusion-restaurant dinner w/Elivis et al., but I went to Iyengar yoga in German, and it was pretty good despite the fact that I got no Iyengar-ness out of it. (Iyengar is all about the small adjustments in your body and mind as you achieve the poses, so it's generally really important to understand exactly what the teacher is telling you to do.)

On the way back, there were HORDES of small children on the streets. Well, not so much small children as pubescent Germans, with Zac Efron hair or tottering heels and short skirts. I think it's some grad night? They were drinking and smoking on street corners, pre-partying before going into the several lounges that were taking them in, having their ID's (must be born after 1995?) checked by razored, muscled bouncers, looking-- well, looking how bouncers look. Whether you're 15 or 25, I think bouncers are always unhappy to see you.

Like a Satellite

BF and I played house, watching over the hotel while his aunt and uncle went to Vienna overnight for their daughter's civil ceremony. (Church wedding and all-night dance party are happening next week.) The restaurant was closed, but BF wants to make sure you all know I unjustly wouldn't let him fire up the grill for a few randoms who missed the GERSCHLOSSEN ("closed") sign. I never let him have any fun!

Stuttgart also has a farmers' market hall! But it was mostly filled with Italian, Spanish and some French specialty stands. London was the same; French and Italian markets are pretty nationalistic, if not regionalist, and consider only the rare European specialty stand. At the Markthalle There was more local produce than in London. 

Germans love any little bit of sun that comes their way. The straßes and platzes were filled with people, and we sat outside at a cafe with Samo's family friend who is honestly named Elvis. I had a piece of pastry with apricots I thought would be a custard, but it was German version of cheesecake. It was nice, but I really wanted a "flan" cake. 

Oh! Someone was getting married in town, and the bride and groom had to, like, saw some piece of wood with a two-man saw with ribbons on it. You can see a bit of it in the picture. Then these hare krishnas came dancing down the pedestrian street, and people from the wedding started taking their picture instead of the newlyweds'.

We went to watch Eurovision "ironically" at Elvis's girlfriend's house. Eurovision is an international live song contest, like, Olympics of shitty pop songs. Germany's candidate, Lena, singing "Satellite" in a fake Cockney accent ("I even painted my toenails for yeh, oy did it just the other dai") was the front runner, and the Germans were unironically ecstatic when she won. It's a good song, actually.  

The theme of the party was 70's food, and someone's deviled eggs had a toadstool-egg centerpiece. Too cute!

Stuttgart So Far

In Stuttgart with the BF. His family is really nice, and they run a small hotel and restaurant. His uncle made me some delicious soup and fish when I got in. The pretzels here are so good-- I'm going to eat at least 100 a day. Right after I eat 100 almond-paste crepes. Maybe. Samo's uncle is really nice, and talkative. I think Samo's outgoing, story-telling personality is genetic. (Hmm, where does my big mouth and smart aleck-ness come from? Mom? Dad?)

It's good to get to hang out in one place for a while. Going to Vienna next week for the wedding, wondering how I can cover-up this bruise effectively.

london, I love you

Went to Borough Market on Thursday, my last day in London. It was an AMAZING market, I ached with desire to eat every single porchetta sandwich, fraise tartelette, roast sausage, squash ravioli, paella, thai bamboo curry, strawberry smoothie, gelato, brownie and lamb burger that the market had. In the end, I went with haddock and chips, which were delicious and crisp. I think the sights and smells of the market sealed my desire to move to London. (Aoibh, Sam, Elle, I love you, but I can't live without fresh butter, olives, and patisserie from a market stall.) 

It seems like England is having the same food renaissance as LA-- lots of signs indicating sustainable, fresh, healthy or organic ingredients/philosophy/marketing. London is a great lunch city-- lots of pubs, noodle or curry houses, bistros and cafés for all those London business people to eat at. (I think everyone who lives in London is either a business person, in suits or heels, or an artist, in leather jackets and converse sneakers.) I don't think London has a lot of opportunity for eating local, though. At the market, a few meats and cheeses were advertised as local, but most produce and sundries I noticed were French, Italian or Iberian. When I come back to London in the future, my main goal will be to eat my way through Borough market. 

I walked along the Thames, saw a galleon ship thing, modeled after Sir Walter Raleigh's ship/boat thing. I crossed the Millenium bridge, and thank God no Deatheaters showed up to wreak havoc. By the way, when I took a double decker bus to Aoibh's place, I rode in the front row on the top. Good Lord, it was one of the craziest roller coaster rides ever. Maybe it just seems that way from the top, but the bus went super fast, and then would swerve in and out of bus stop lanes, seeming to miss parked cars by millimeters or magic. It was like being on the Knight Bus from Harry Potter. (The above are really the only connections to Harry Potter. I think the upcoming mayorial election should focus on how to make London more Harry Potter-like.)

I went to the Tate Modern, which was pretty great.  I did the audio tour, which had some cool features, like Devandra Barnheart talking ardently about a Miró painting, and the jazz piece Pollock listened to while dripping/throwing/painting "No. 12."

Then, I realized that the day before, I had been to the National Gallery, not the National PORTRAIT Gallery. I mean, I noticed the signs the day before, but my brain rationalized it was some expansive and specific English notion to drop the "Portrait." So, I went to the actual National Portrait Gallery (literally, around the corner, attached to the same building as the National Gallery) and I'm really glad I did. I did the audio tour, and seeing the actual portraits and hearing the commentary, it organized the loose and messy comprehension I have of Tudor/Stuart English history. (By the way-- entry to these museums is all FREE, and I came at the right time-- the new government is making noises about ending the free-entry program.)

I also saw portraits of Princess Diana, Wallis Simpson, Jane Austen, the Queen Mother, and the new one of Princes William and Harry together, looking, frankly, sort of gay. (Gay as in homosexual, not uncool. I'm sure they're very cool.)

Had a last dinner with Aoibh and Sam, who really were very excellent (and entertaining hosts). We went to the pub, had some drinks and stayed up late talking on the couch. There are very few people I will stay up late for, and Aoibhéann is one of them. (Sadly, I don't think even the BF makes that cut.) Aoibhéann at last sang "She Moved Through the Fair," and it was so beautiful to hear your own best friend to make something so delicate and wondrous. I cried. Those Irish! With their beautiful songs, sung in key. 

My London trip was way too short, and I have so many reasons to go back. Can't wait!