Lately, I’ve been annoyingly preoccupied with making sure that our flat is clean and tidy. I get irritated when the dishes aren’t done straight after we have finished eating or when the vacuuming is a couple of days overdue. I’m driven nuts when the couch blanket is left in an untidy pile touching the floor instead of folded neatly at the ends. The dining table is covered in junk and piles of clean / almost-clean / dirty clothes lie around accusingly. Continue reading On Cleaning and Control
It still seems so strange that fireworks are legal here in Germany for New Years’ Eve (aka Silvester). At home in Australia they have been completely illegal for years because of the danger that a spark could ignite a fire in summer. And then to see so many of the usually mild-mannered and law-abiding German citizens blithely letting off crackers and fireworks in the streets and with children running around blindly… it’s so strange!
Last week I was hoping to show some progress on my Lunchtime struggles from a recent post but I never did for various reasons. Those reasons are mostly based on my disorganization and tendency to forget or lose things.
However, I have been improving the process this week and have made some small achievements, I think! On Monday evening I went to the Kaufmarkt across the street from the office and purchased: almonds, salad leaves, mushrooms, shredded carrot, sprouts, olives and goat’s cheese. I also found a tiny bottle of olive oil although I am still looking for a similar-sized balsamic.
I took these back to the hotel and assembled the team.
I’ve decided to ditch the grains as a part of the salad as it’s just too much mess and effort to organize. The sprouts are a good substitute, though.
Last week I was affected by my typical morning forgetfulness and left my salad in the hotel fridge instead of packing it for work. This week I prevented this omission by hanging a colourful tote bag on the fridge doorknob and a bright reminder not to forget again and it seemed to work!
Next week I might keep it all at work if possible which will hopefully prevent forgetful problems entirely. The issue here is that one day a week I am supposed to work in a different building across the river. This could perhaps be solved by making the salad after work and then transporting it to the hotel and then to the second office. I don’t love it, though. Perhaps on these days I should just suck it up and eat in the canteen.
I can see why none of my other consulting colleagues ever bother with this. It’s a pretty big hassle to buy and assemble the ingredients and you certainly aren’t saving any money. I’m going to try to stick with it, though: mostly because the canteen food is simply so dire and depressing.
Like many people I have mixed feelings about holiday period and Christmas especially. I am not and never have been religious so it feels weird to have this holiday that I never asked for while being bombarded with Christian messages. I guess Easter time is similar. I do like having time off work, though. And even more than that I love giving gifts to the people I love.
Last year was the first year that Tom and I spent completely separate from our families and friends back home. Unfortunately, it is also Tom’s birthday so I think he has some resentment for the holiday and generally dislikes it. His normal tradition is to go play golf with his brother all day, which I find a perfect solution.
So, in 2012 we cooked a festive Christmas lasagne with roast vegetables and a festive Christmas chocolate cake. We exchanged a few small gifts and watched movies with the heating on and probably didn’t even leave the house. What would be the point?! Everything is shut!
This year, our friends Ruaridh and Georgia have recently moved to Munich and have invited us as part of a larger group of their friends to their place to celebrate together. Tom and I have booked our train tickets down for Christmas Eve and will head home on the 27th which gives us a few days to spend with our pals and catch up on the latest as the last time we saw them was just before they moved from Berlin to Munich.
Something I have struggled to adapt to since we moved to Germany is the local preference for strong, darkly-roasted coffee beans. Outside of Berlin it is difficult to find locally-roasted fruitier, spicier and lighter-style beans that I prefer to use. This also means that the coffee in cafes and restaurants is almost always also super-dark and not really to my taste.
So, what to do when one is a devoted lover of coffee? When the day that starts with a lovely cup of coffee is a day that starts right? Well, one improvises.
At home, we order beans online from various roasteries around the country with some success. Our favourites at the moment are deliveries from The Barn and Five Elephant in Berlin and Vits in Munich. Hilariously, Vits have beans all the way from Australia and these are actually my favourites (although the most expensive that aren’t ‘novelty’ *ahem*catpoocoffee *ahem* beans). Coffee at home is made using the espresso machine or a Hario syphon, depending on the beans (espresso or filter).
An additional difficulty is that I often work four days of the week in a different city, living in a hotel room and far removed from the beloved Rocket and Hario. So, what to do now? One puts together a CoffeeKit to throw into one’s suitcase every week. After months of refining, my CoffeeKit has been streamlined and improved and currently looks like this: Continue reading Undercaffeinated