Crazy Adventures in the Kitchen!

I hinted about it on facebook, but now I'll let you in on the full scoop--my entire adventure making biscuits and gravy! Why biscuits and gravy? Well, to please my host sister, Selina, I decided on a recipe with no veggies and no fruit. Also, it seemed like such a simple and straightforward recipe--what could go wrong?

Task #1: Shopping. Well, ingredients such as flour, sugar, and milk couldn't have been easier...but then we got to shortening. After explaining it as best I could, my host mom was convinced she knew what it was and took me to the refrigerated section....hmmm, refrigerated shorting? I wasn't convinced until I'd scoured the entire baking section and gone into great detail describing shortening to my host mom. Finally I gave in and purchased this refrigerated item, crossing my fingers that is was shortening...and--SUCCESS! It wasn't Crisco but it worked :-)



My biscuit mess with my e-mail from mom as a guide :-)



Then we can to sausage--because gravy is nothing without sausage! Well, arriving at the meat section I saw no Jimmy Dean or the like. So, what did I do? Yep, great detail explaining sausage--"No, its only pig"....."you know, for breakfast?" "No, its not mixed with all those spices..." After a few minutes we had some sort of ground meat in a bag and made our way home. Only a few minutes after the meat began to cook I knew it wasn't right. Well, lets just say that I now know what ground hamburger is in German. I was ready to laugh it off but Mama insisted that we get it right and took the meat off the stove. I again explained, this time focusing on the breakfast aspect of sausage. "Ohh, now I know" she said, and off she went to the store. Minutes later she returned with three different kinds of meat--none of which in the least resembled ground sausage. Becoming desperate we called an American friend who has lived in Germany for years. I explained to her my dilemma and as it turns out, there is no such thing as ground sausage in Germany. :-D She told me that there was a wurst that had the taste I was looking for so we bought that.

So, five meats later I'm actually beginning what will become lunch. We took the little wursts (similar to sausage links) and rather than chop them until they resembled ground meat.....we minced them. But The milk was 3.8% fat and thickened beautifully and soon the gravy was smelling wonderful and ready to be piled onto a plate of biscuits....

Well, the biscuits were another adventure. Everything looked right going into the oven...but 10 minutes later as the tops turned golden brown....they were as flat as pancakes and my host mom asked if I'd put in anything to make them "grow taller". I told her that's what the baking powder was for....if only it had been baking powder. Turns out my biscuits had cornflower and although they tasted okay...they were midget biscuits. Baking powder was added to the second batch but that caused the dough to be overworked and while everything tasted great....they weren't the light and fluffy biscuits I'm used to.

 However, nearly two hours after I first began to brown the hamburger meat, a wonderful lunch of biscuits and gravy was served and received a stamp of approval from all and a request from little Sammi to make it again sometime. :-)

Aside from my great adventure, I've been helping Mama in the kitchen fairly often and she's created some incredibly delicious meals--and desserts!

Afternoon coffee and cake with the extended family

 Sunday, we had a friend over and Mama made the most delicious chicken dinner...mmmm :-) Basil wrapped in thin slices of pork (similar to bacon) then placed in a chicken breast and cooked. Once finished, a delicious tomato sauce poured over the top made it not only beautiful, but oh so yummy!

Schweiz!

Translation? SWITZERLAND! That's right :-) At the end of our amazing week at Bodenseehof, my family decided to celebrate Christian's 10th birthday with Mama's mother--across the lake in Switzerland!



 We packed up and were pulling out of the Bodenseehof parking lot by 10:00am and after a short drive, reached the ferry that took us across the water to the beautiful sky scraping mountains of Switzerland. The ferry ride was short but absolutely gorgeous! Looking back at Germany all I could see was hillsides covered in vineyards and in front of us was the magnificent Alps. Sadly, pictures just don't do the beauty justice :-(

Once we reached Switzerland, the hour car ride to "Grossy's" began. Although I felt like I child, I just couldn't stop looking out the window--it was so beautiful! I've come to the conclusion that Switzerland has a shade of green that cannot be found anywhere else--how else could a regular old hillside scattered with houses be so incredible? we passed some of the most European looking homes I've ever seen and Samuel sent up the cry "Kuhe!" each time we passed a field full of cows...and that had to have been at least a dozen times :-)

 

Grossy was waiting for us with Christians birthday lunch (and dessert) all ready and prepared and we had a wonderful time. After lunch I faced a very difficult task that I really didn't enjoy but it turned out okay....I had to choose.......

Swiss chocolate and more of it than I have ever seen in one place! I ended up with two bars. The first was milk chocolate with what I thought was a yogurt filling but turned out to be a sour cream (a sour cream--not sour cream) but it was delicious anyway! The second was white chocolate with what I think was toffee and hazelnuts--also quite yummy :-)

Once we left, I expected we would go spend the afternoon at Grossy's--well, was I ever wrong! After 30 minutes of driving we pulled up at the base of a beautiful mountain. Not 30 minutes later we were in a gondola making our way to the 7200 ft peak of that beautiful mountain. The view was incredible and I could see for miles and miles on end. Need I say more?



After approximately a million pictures of the exact same scenery, we rode the gondola back down, had dinner at Grossy's, and hit the road around 8:00. By 11:00 I was snug and cozy in my bed at home and finally--this time for real--DONE living out of a suitcase!!

Bodenseehof!

As many of you know, only two days after arriving at my new home, I packed up, yet again, and headed to Lake Constance for a week of family camp at Bodenseehof! Bodenseehof is a small Bible school that runs family camps over the summer and it was so much fun!!

The schedule was pretty simple with a breakfast buffet from 8:15-9:00 each morning followed by a session at 10:15 that lasted for about an hour. After lunch families had the afternoon to themselves to explore the area, go swimming at the beach, sailing on the lake, or another of the many activities in the area. Dinner was at 6:30 and at 8:15 there was an evening session.

And yes, for all who are wondering--it was ALL in German! Thankfully the two main speakers were from the U.S. so because of their accents they were a bit easier for me to understand and were more than willing to translate for me....but three weeks of German could only get me so far. At the beginning of the week I just sat there nodding my head with a blank stare on my face but by the time Friday rolled around I could understand the main points, just not all little details:-) At one point I was so proud of myself because the speaker was telling a story and I could follow it.....well, then came the punch line and I still have no idea what exactly it was. *sigh*

I will always remember my week at Bodenseehof as a wonderful beginning to what I'm anticipating will be a wonderful year! It was such a relaxed setting to get to know my host family in and the many English conversations I had with the Americans helped me ease into the German language instead of being dropped into complete immersion! One of my favorite parts of the camp was each morning at 7 a.m. when my mom and I would drag ourselves out of bed and walk down to the lake for a morning swim. waiting for us on the beautiful lake were usually over 50 swans enjoying their morning swim. Cold? Yes! Refreshing? Extremely! Fun? Absolutely! And Beautiful? Well, looking across the lake, the Swiss Alps stretched as far as the eye could see and far off in the distance to the left were the peaks of the Austrian Alps--that's a YES! :-)

 

We spent many of our afternoons at the lake canoeing, swimming, or in my case, just laying in the wonderful warm sun! But we had two afternoon outings that were particularly fun :-) Tuesday, my family spend the afternoon playing a very relaxed but fun game of mini golf...definitely not one of my talents but I enjoyed it anyway. Thursday afternoon flew by as we went to "adventure park" and spent four solid hours making our way through a series of high ropes courses. Oh, sooo fun!!! It was only my second time on a high ropes course but I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm pretty sure I was fairly entertaining to watch too!

I am so grateful to my family for taking me with them on this awesome week of family vacation! It was certainly a wonderful ending to my summer and amazing start to my year with the Weihing family :-)

Apples, Apples, Apples!!!

Okay, so maybe it's very touristy of me to consider apple picking something other than the daily grind but is that so wrong? :-)

My first official morning at "home"--not even fully unpacked, Mama, Selina, Jonathon, Sami, and I loaded up headed out for a morning of apple gathering. Opa joined us with his riding lawn mower and trailor to haul tbhe apples back to the house. Now, I use the word gathering because unlike what I'd been picturing in my head, we never picked a single apple from a single tree but instead, sorted through those that had already fallen and gathered the good ones.

 This first adventure of mine lasted only about two hours although after only an hour the sun decided to appear and made the second hour a little less enjoyable. However, Selina and I worked together..mostly in the shade...and before long it was time to go.

It may not seem like the most exciting first morning, however, I enjoyed it and am looking forward to baking a real American Apple Pie with Mama.....because I have no idea what on earth we, or Oma and Opa (who we gathered  the apples for), will ever do with so many apples! I've been told/warned that I will become more used to apple picking in the next few weeks so I'm expecting a second excursion sometime this week. :-)

A New Family & a New Home

I made it! I'm actually here. To me, it still seems unreal that I'm now in the home of the family I've been emailing for six months. But I couldn't be happier to be here.....soooo, let me tell you about them and my first days and impressions!

My train ride was only a few hours and with a "layover" and beautifully scenic route, it felt much shorter. When the announcement came on over the loudspeaker that the train was approaching the Stuttgart train station I felt my heart jump into my throat and between my overwhelming excitement and nervousness, all I wanted to do was get off that train!

Once off, I realized that I'd been riding an extremely long train and as I scanned up and down the platform, I saw no family with four little children (I would soon come to learn that when looking for a family with four little children, ears are more helpful than eyes). After a minute or two I saw my host father (Papa) walking towards me, followed by my oldest brother, Christian (10). The next few minutes were a blur as I exchanged hugs with my new siblings and parents...and as they realized my German wasn't as good as in the emails they'd been receiving from me. (In my defense, I gave them fair warning)

In the last week, I've come to know them a little bit better, and come to love them even more. I've enjoyed even talks with Mama...as well as early morning swims! I've played approximately 73 games of Uno with Samuel. With pronunciation help from my 7 year old brother, Jonathon, I read a book to Samuel (4). The family is amazing. They are warm, caring, understanding, and just plain fun. I will admit that I was a bit nervous about having four little siblings but so far I'm enjoying it far more than I'd anticipated.

The Weihing family has welcomed me with open arms and made me feel quite at home in the hustle and bustle of a family of six and went above and beyond in preparing my room. I first walked in to find flowers on my table, a notebook, scissors, and other supplies on my desk, a colorful pack of pens that I'll no doubt put to good use,and a bulletin board with thumbtacks (in the shape of a heart, of course) Christian even informed me that he and Papa had just built a new desk for me. So, all I can say is that I love my room, love my family, and love all the little things that make life so wonderful.

 I'm very excited to see what the next ten months have in store and will be posting more soon to give you an idea of just what I've been up to in the last few days:-)

The End of the Beginning

Maybe I'm the only one...but I feel like the last three weeks have flown by exceptionally fast..and the big day is almost here! That's right, in just under 10 hours --9 hours and 44 minutes to be exact--I'll board my first train and head down south! (Just a refresher--for the past three weeks I've been attending language camp and staying with a temp family. Tomorrow, I move to my permanent.)

Throughout the day I've just been one big mess of emotions...super excited when I woke up, sad to leave Dusseldorf, nervous as the day progressed, and anxious for tomorrow to come. I'm so happy that I was able to have such a wonderful family for these three weeks and hope to keep in touch with them throughout my year...but after six months of emailing and waiting, I feel that my excitement for meeting Denise, Ulrich, and their four kids is strong enough to trump any other emotion!

So, let me give you an idea of what tomorrow looks like:

I'll probably wake up around 8:00-8:15, pack the last of my things, get ready and eat breakfast. I'll leave for the train station about 9:20 and catch my first train at quarter to ten. After two stops, I'll be on my final train that will take me to Stuttgart. I'll arrive around 2:30 and then finally be home...it really doesn't feel real to me. However, I can honestly say I'm ready to have my suitcases out of sight and out of mind for a while!

I'll keep my blog updated with stories, experiences, and pictures as often as I can but right now, I'm going to see if I can get at least a few hours of sleep before the big day begins:-)

Running Around Germany

So, how many of you thought this post was going to be about all the sightseeing I've been doing? Well, you're wrong! ;-) It's actually quite literal and since I still haven't gotten over the beautiful terrain I'm running every day...or every other day...I thought I should share it with you. Thursday I went out to take pictures of my route (no, I don't run with my camera) but I got caught in a storm. I went out again this morning and so now you have an idea of why I keep saying it's so beautiful :-)

I'll start with the storm pictures. I guess I decided to test my luck because as the picture above makes obvious, it was undoubtedly going to storm, it was just a matter of when. But it was warm out and I wanted to take pictures so off I went on my little adventure.....the storm started strong but with no rain. It was amazing to stand out in the wind and not be cold at all. Then this monster rain drop hit me and you can guess what happened from there. All I have to say is that I have never in my life seen such big rain drops! I made it home fairly dry and the storm continued through the night :-)))

There are more horses in the fields behind my house than I'm used to seeing in Coquille--and that's saying something!

One horse imparticular is quite friendly and comes to the fence every time I run by.

 Horses, however, are not the only animals I encounter regularly :-) 

And of course, German windmills. The view from my house is three windmills and a large field. A few out of the ordinary things I've seen have included an evening when hot air balloons filled the sky, two labs who ran past me casually, and a smart car or...ten.