T̶w̶o̶ One p̶e̶r̶p̶e̶t̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶a̶t̶s̶ immigrant settling into home country number five.
You’ll know when you’ve arrived in buffalo mozzarella country by all the roadside signs advertising it. It’s kind of like driving through the American South and seeing all those billboards for fireworks superstores, except the southern Italians are excited about cheese instead of explosives. Just a small cultural difference. The signage starts as soon as … Read more
OK, that title was supposed to say “Greetings from the land of mozzarella!”, but my mouth was full of, well, mozzarella. Mozzarella di bufala, to be precise, freshly made, right off the farm, never refrigerated… the way it’s supposed to be, but alas, rarely ever is, unless you happen to be hanging out in, say, … Read more
I’m off to Italy for a little while. Not sure how much internet access I’ll have while I’m there, but I’ll try to get a little blogging in from the road so you don’t miss me too much. In the meantime, just imagine all the wonderful things I’m eating right about now…
I can’t wrap up my posts about Norway without mentioning Bergen, our favorite city of the trip. It was adorable, charming, vibrant, historic, and fun – everything a European city should be. There’s a small market for extremely fresh fish (and other stuff, like local knitwear and cloudberry jam) downtown. This was a gorgeous sunset … Read more
Sometimes when I get overwhelmed with the current political reality, I like to fall back into this alternate version: Movies I love you, President Gore. (Unfortunately the video seem to only work for those whose IP address is based in the US.)
As soon as I read there was a place called Å, I knew I had to go there. Then I did a little research and found out it would be kind of a pain in the ass to get to, what being all the way out at the end of the Lofoten Islands and all. … Read more
Whew, that was fun! I feel like I’ve been on vacation for the past two weeks. I think I managed to attend Oktoberfest 8 or 9 times – so at least half of the days. Impressive that I’m still standing, no? The major thing I learned from my marathon of festing is this: if you … Read more
Really? This is a team sport? Practiced by men? OK, listen up Germans. I know how much you like to use English words (such as, say, ‘club’). But sometimes, when you only put part of what you are saying in English, and leave part in German, you can end up with a meaning you never … Read more
This Oktoberfest business is seriously exhausting! I’ve spent 6 of the past 11 days at the Wies’n, and I’m planning to go at least one more time. I’m going to need a vacation once this is all over. The other night we had dinner at the Käfer tent, one of the smaller tents at the … Read more
As fun as Oktoberfest is, there are still some dangers lurking, particularly where beer steins are involved. This friend (who will remain somewhat anonymous) demonstrates a couple common Oktoberfest injuries for us. See this vertical welt on her forehead? Here she reenacts how she got it:My advice: don’t do this. Injury number two: blisters from … Read more