String Of Butterflies: November 2013

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Französischer Markt und Euromarché

Yesterday there were 2 cool things going on in the city center: Französischer Markt und Euromarché. Both happening quite independently, but were made better by being on the same day. I snuck out of my flat before the rain started again to go check it out. At the Französischer Markt, which apparently happens several times a year in the Marktplatz in front of the old city hall, all things French come out, and there were about 6 stands. There were several fromage (cheese), with lots of Roquefort varieties, bread, and dry sausage stands. Some of the other stands had the following: soaps (Provencial- the best, gentlest ever), jewelry, fish, sweets (including macarons), and jams/marmelades. There was only one place with limited macarons, but I was excited to get macarons! I ended up getting a year's supply of soap for my sister and I, a dozen macarons which are sitting in the freezer waiting for my sister to visit later in the month, and a few jams. Soap scents: coconut, olive, strawberry, cinnamon, peach, violet, mimosa, and jasmine. Macarons flavors (that I remember)- raspberry, pistacio, strawberry (there are another 3 I can't remember). Jams/marmelade flavors: Milk with orange liquor, carrots with whiskey, apricots with lavender; all are from a place called La Boîte à Biscuits (40 Rue Nationale, 67160 Wissembourg, France). A blog with cool pictures showing it is at http://kitchenlioness.blogspot.de/2012/05/french-market-bonn.html.

Food stall in Marktplazt

Standard Marketplatz food market

Französischer Markt

French desserts!

Some of the French stalls

Stall with olives and meats

Fountain in Marktplatz

Old City Hall

Next up was the Euromarché (http://www.euromarche.eu/)- "the edible experience combines many different traders, who come from different regions of Europe. These dealers have a long way to buying to present their range. When you visit this market, then you will feel enchanted in the various holiday destinations that you have previously visited once or always wanted to visit. At each level, the language is spoken, a challenge for the customer and the dealer, that's something special." Yeah, there weren't kidding about the language being a challenge. I can switch between German, Spanish, and English fairly decently (to get a grasp of the conversation), but French, Italian, and Dutch threw me off completely. Even the Haribo bear was visiting, promoting the new Bonn store. So without further adieu the stands that I saw: The French led with their presence- one stand had all thing lavender, with lavender pillows, soap, argan oil, another had many varieties of onions, shallots, and garlic, a crepe stand, a cookie stand (I got an almond cookie, a pistacio cookie, and another one with ginger), and a flammekucken stand. I voted for having a flammekucken for lunch, which had Chevre goat cheese (not my favorite, but whichever), dried tomatoes, rocket, and onions, paired with a glass of sparkling water (just a little too early for wine). Other stands- Norwegian, with clothing goods and things like that, Italian, with parmesan cheese and hams, several fish stands (eeeeeewwww)- ok people were liking the sandwiches etc they were making with herring and raw fish, but not me....., a dried fruit stand, a Netherland stand with cheese (mostly Gouda) and stroopwafel which is a waffle cookie, and a Polish beer stand. I almost forgot to mention the Belgian chocolate stand (I know, how could I forget this one, especially with the chocolates 10 feet from me :) ). I've so far indulged in a pistachio and espresso chocolates... these will not make it until the end of the month.

Haribo bear

Belgian chocolates

More chocolates

Dried meats from France

Fish

Polish beer

Flammkuchen options

View of Muensterplatz church

Flammkuchen stand

My Flammkuchen

mmmmmmm

Beethoven!

My Belgian chocolates

Yummmmmmmm......

Pistachio

After being loaded up with heavy good stuff, I wandered into the Galleries Lafayette, and made the mistake to going to the lower level. Dangerous territory, Belgian chocolates, gourmet wine, spices galore, big cheese market, imported foods, etc. I finally found dried cilantro, Europe really doesn't know what it's missing with cilantro. I also wandered around and got myself a small bouquet of spider mums. The underside is yellow and the top of the petals are red, so very fall colors. Speaking of fall, by the time I returned from my Phoenix trip, two-thirds of the leaves have fallen to the ground, there are a few hold-outs that are probably waiting for the first hard freeze before hitting the ground. The sky is almost a perpetual gray, yesterday had a really high high temp of 60F degrees, and only because of the cloud cover. On average the current temperature tends to be 50-55F and a low of about 40F. It's gotten cold enough that my ears and nose are cold when I walk to work, so the scarf has come out and I might have to add a hat to that too. The umbrella is perpetually parked in my backpack or purse. On another separate note, it looks like my team came in 2nd place for the walking challenge, darn it. Oh well, I got a lot of exercise from it.

Friday, November 1, 2013

October and Business Class

Welcome to November! The past month has been slow and busy at the same time. Mostly I've been saving money by not traveling Europe, and been on a walking challenge all month. With today as the final day of the work walking challenge, I have walked 433 miles since the beginning of the month, I had the Europe advantage of walking virtually everywhere. Since this is a 2 person team challenge and we are competing across the entire company, we are currently in the lead with over 1.7 million steps between the two of us (this number will probably greatly change by the end of the day) with a current total of 860 miles. Cheers to walking between 4 floors of lab space, dancing in the flat, and all the other things I did (including hitting the gym when in Phoenix to compensate for not having the European advantage then) to try to move as much as possible. I only had 2-3 really lazy days while visiting family. The rest of the time I moved- even walking up and down Heathrow airport to get more steps in.

When I wasn't in Bonn, I was traveling back to Phoenix (and working all week) or making a quick visit to San Diego to see the family. It was crazy busy, but lots of fun seeing friends and family before the holiday craziness begins. Just 24 days of work left this year :) How awesome is that? On top of that, my time out here was extended for another year... wooooohoooo!

One of the questions I've had is what is it like flying business class. 1) I have no idea how I'll go back to flying coach for long-hauls after this international work. 2) Even though the plane is an older Boeing 747-400 model, the space in business class is still something I'm grateful for, lie flat seats? Not being squished in like a sushi roll, yeah I won't complain about being booked into business class (especially when I was expecting to be flown in coach). 3) I've now become a mileage whore, in the best possible way that is (hey, if I'm flying for business, you bet I'm collecting those miles for a 'free' flight somewhere). Some unexpected tidbits from flying this British Airways route: Phoenix's business class lounge is oooookkkkk, but it is nothing like what Heathrow has. The vegetarian options on the standard business class menu are 20x better than requesting a special vegetarian meal (not to mention the desserts alone are 50x better- special request vegetarian=fruit, not the delicious other options). One of my early trips, they accidentally put me on the upper deck and they were so apologetic about it, but they did me a favor! Flying the upper deck of the 747 is so much quieter than the main deck, so much so when on this last flight when I didn't have a reservation for the upper deck, I went out of my way to check daily for when a seat opened up on that deck (and I scored one!). Melatonin helps a ton trying to sleep on a long-haul, I'd been using it all week, so by the time the flight came around, I was on a good schedule to help knock me out. This was only the 2nd time I've ever been able to sleep any little bit on a long-haul of the 10+ that I've taken. So much so this time with the melatonin, that I slept through take off (I remember taxiing to the runway, but was out by take off), and had to struggle to stay awake through meal service. Flight attendants on the upper deck tend to be less stressed than their downstairs partners, probably because they have less people to attend to. I could go on and on about the upper deck, but there's more space, it's a 2/2 split, the aisle is huge, there are 2 lavatories for 20 seats (the ratio is worse for the main deck). You can sleep and not be bumped by others, my favorite seat is 64A (bulkhead, no climbing over anyone to get out when I need to walk around), you have room to walk around, and you're more likely to get the meal option you want. The movies and other entertainment options are no better in business class, in fact BA has some of the worst that I've come across and I've flown Delta, Air New Zealand, and US Airways long haul, and they've all had better in-flight entertainment (except for the one Delta one that only had the aisle monitor- stupid move Delta!). Air New Zealand will always take the cake when it comes to safety briefing videos. I also just started flying on the way back into Dusseldorf from London, and the food service was delicious, warm scones with clotted cream? Yes, please! One last tip- just keep hydrated on flights, I can't emphasize that enough, even if it means you have to make a few trips later.....Now, onto the badly taken pictures: