Prague

The Central College program took my group to Prague on April 18-20. It rained until about two hours before we had to leave, but it was it was nice to see the city nonetheless.

This is the oldest gate to the Old Town.

The Fruit Market

Don Giovanni was first performed in this theater.

A Glockenspiel! The skeleton rings a bell, the saints rotate a bit, and then we know it's time for lunch.

The first Czech filmhouse

The first Czech Coffeehouse

This guy used to be the tallest man in the country; and was only about 5'2" tall.

Charles' Bridge

Supposedly, it's good luck to rub the statue of this martyr, who was killed because he wouldn't share the king's wife's confessions.

A wall, which mostly seems dedicated to John Lennon, where the Czech people have held most of their demonstrations and protests. It was repainted several years ago, but the citizens reclaimed it.

Mozart's Requiem was first played in this Baroque church.

I guess invalid stamps have been an issue...perhaps.

Feeble Attempts in Viennese Cooking: Part 2

Semmelknoedel come from Bavaria and Austra and are on most traditional Austrian restaurant menus. Basically, they are dumplings made from stale pieces of bread, which is not hard to find since bakery and grocery store bread gets stale here very quickly if not purchased in the morning and immediately placed in a better package than it was purchased in. So as long staples like eggs and milk are available, this is a good money-saving recipe. The original recipe I started with (and have only changed a couple directions on for this blog) can be found here: AllRecipes.com "Semmelknoedel"

The ingredients (for four people--the pictures show a half-recipe):

• 1 loaf (about one pound) of stale bread, preferably a moderately dense variety, like French bread; I haven't seen Wonderbread Semmelknoedel, but perhaps they're good.
• 1 cup of milk
• small amount of butter or oil for cooking onions
• 1 onion, finely chopped
  
• chopped parsely--The original recipe I found says 1 Tbsp, but I think you can add more if you're afraid of your fresh parsley going bad in the fridge. The extra parsley makes the Semmelknoedel look more colorful anyways.
  
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tbsp salt...or just guess
• pinch of black pepper
• a container with cold water to get the mixture off of your hands when you're forming the knoedel
  

Use as much parsley as you'd like! (Well, not enough to make the mixture not stick to itself..)

1. Cut the bread into 1-inch cubes. Feel smart for not wasting stale bread.

2. Heat milk until it starts to bubble on the edges. My milk bubble to the top of the pot, cause I wasn't paying attention; my Semmelknoedel still turned out alright anyways.

3. Pour the milk over the bread, stir the mixture a bit, and let the bread soak for 15 minutes. I covered it; I'm not sure if that's necessary.

4. Instead of staring at this bread, you could be chopping and cooking the onions in a pan with a bit of butter.

5. Mix the eggs, cooked onions, salt, pepper and chopped parsley together. Once the bread's 15 minutes have passed, pour everything into the bread bowl. Mix everything with your hands until the mixture is "smooth and sticky," as the original recipe says.

6. Form the mixture into large (somewhere between baseball and softball-sized) balls. This is when you'll need the cold water; otherwise, half of the mixture will stay on your hands. Drop all 4 or 5 knoedel into lightly-salted boiling water, cover and lower the heat to a simmer for 20 minutes.

Don't remove they cover--they're okay in there. :)

7. Remove the knoedel with a slotted spoon, or, if you're like me and only have a spatula, try not to drop them on the floor, which, thankfully, I did not do. Wait a couple minutes for them to cool down and dry off a little.

8. Serve with lentils and bacon or whatever you come up with. (It would be healthier to make your own and add your own low-fat turkey bacon. For the sake of time, I had some Linzen "mit Speck" from the can.)

A lot of people serve Semmelknoedel with gravy or creamy mushroom sauce, as the cook in the YouTube video below:



(Warning: Overly dramatic music to follow...)


If you'd prefer a quicker video of someone with fancier kitchen equipment (and a marvelous Austrian accent), here it is:

Rathaus & Steirmarkt

Feeble Attempts in Viennese Cooking: Part 1

I'm going to try to make Kaiserschmarrn (Emporer's MishMash) tonight. This recipe is basically complicating the pancake. The main difference is that the pancake is cut up, there are raisins in it (which I don't plan to add; I'm not a big enough fan of raisins to spend money on them), and sugar is carmelized a bit over the pancake pieces at the end. And of course, maple syrup is not used; people top Kaiserschmarrn with powdered sugar, fruit and jam. Plenty of people eat this as a main dish for dinner or lunch (I've seen several students in my Wohnheim do this), but I'd consider it more of a large dessert or a sweet breakfast. Anyways, when in Rome... I guess this is what I'll be having for dinner. :)

The story/legend I've heard about Kaiserschmarrn is that Kaiser Franz Josef and his wife Elisabeth (Sisi) were having frequent disagreements about their meals. Sisi was obsessed with remaining thin and always wanted lighter meals and desserts. Franz Josef probably just wanted something tasty.

One day, Sisi was complaining about the rich meals again. Franz Josef said impatiently, "Lets just see what kind of "Schmarrn" the cook has whipped us up today. The cook brought out the now infamous dish. Franz Josef ate his portion and finished off Sisi's mostly-full plate as well.

I'll try to get some pictures of this while I'm making it. (That is, if I don't end up making the kitchen look like flour factory in Kansas during tornado season.)

*****Update******

The Kaiserschmarrn turned out very well. The recipe I used called for a lot of eggs, so they turned out more like thick crepes. I used whole wheat flour too, so I guess there was some nutrition in that sugar explosion.

These pictures are from my second time making Kaiserscharrn (I remembered the camera this time):

Things I've grown to appreciate about America:

It's easy to find things that are not going well in America these days, so I've decided to make a list of things I like about America--some big and some small. Some of the cultural differences are simply big city changes, and some things I miss are Minnesota (or Duluth)-specific. I will continue to add things to this list when I think of more.

1. Immediate Friendliness and the Casual Atmosphere

2. Honey Mustard

3. Thomas Payne

4. Blues, Jazz & Folk Music

5. Non-sweet Mexican food

6. Saunas

7. Personal Space

Things the Viennese Enjoy:

1. Scarves: Everyone--I mean everyone--wears a scarf. Men, women, children, cats... If you want to blend in, wear a scarf. You could be wearing a clown costume, and if you have one of the latest patterned scarves, you may just blend in. It's a good way to look fancy, which leads me to:

2. Looking Fancy: People usually have a scarf and a nice coat on. The women wear tall boots, and the mean have nice shoes and briefcases. I'm not sure where all of these guys with briefcases are going, and I'm not sure if I've actually seen a Viennese person working (besides the ones who sell me food), but they're going somewhere. (Think Go, Dogs, Go!...perhaps there's a big party somewhere I'm missing...) I discovered there's a big banking and business district, so I think that's where the Viennese do a lot of their work.

3. Coffee and Pastries: I've noticed that I always find Vienna much more enjoyable when I'm at least mildly caffeinated. (This is where Red Bull was invented.) There are a lot of kinds of coffee and they all have their specific Viennese names (see #4); most of the names aren't difficult to figure out--a large black (ein grosser Schwarz) is self-explanitory.

The Viennese have a pretty good selection of bread available, but not as much as in Germany; however, they seem to have incredibly decadent and often over-decorated cakes and pastries everywhere. There are a lot of bakeries in the U-Bahn stations where it's easy to get an apple strudel for breakfast.

I once got a desert in the Mensa (University cafeteria) that looked like the top of a dipped ice cream cone and was about four inches high. I assumed it was a chocolate-covered piece of cake with a little cream or marmalade inside. When I broke it with my fork, it was pure whipped cream inside--nothing else. I could only eat a few bites before feeling like I was eating the most ridiculous dessert in my life. Needless to say, that's as far I got.

4. Making up their own names for things: Now I understand that a lot of the German developed independently here; the Austrians aren't just trying to be different, but people who are fluent in German still have trouble with the new names for basic foods. A potato is no longer a Kartoffel; it's an Erdapfel. Some people hope to taste something exotic when they order Paradiessalat, which seems like "Paradise Salad" but they find out it's just tomato salad.

My literature professor interrupted a presentation I was making (to other American students) to correct one of my words. It wasn't bad German; it's just that the Austrians had their own word; I guess I wasn't prepared with an Austrian translation. I had lost my train of thought, so I could only protest that the novella I was speaking about takes place in Germany. I don't think he was correcting me to fix my presentation, but I think there is some pride among Austrians in their version of German, and he just wanted to teach some more words.

5. Taking the Elevator: People in my Wohnheim take the elevator to avoid climbing two flights of stairs. I know this happens in America, but I guess spending two years in a 13-story dorm where anyone who took the elevator up to anything below 4 or 5 would get the Look of Death has changed my relationship with stairs.

6. Not standing in line: The Viennese will absolutely mob a coat check booth before a concert, so if you don't push your way to the front, you will wait until everyone else has checked their coats to get your chance. This same rule goes with waiting to get on an escalator in an U-Bahn station; if there's room at the entrance of the escalator, people will take it. It's perfectly acceptable to give people gentle (not forceful, like in Paris) pushes when they're standing to the left or blocking your way.

7. Painting anarchy signs everywhere: ...yet everyone seems so content here....

8. Overemphasizing their long "i"s: If you want to say a long i like a Viennese, first, you have to hear how hilarious it is. Then, take a word like "zwei"...put a strong accent on the first part of the "ei"; drop your jaw, then continue like you're smiling and let the sound end in your nose. Finally, practice this by reciting the long list of numbers along with the automated voice on the U-Bahn. The Viennese are used to seeing people do this.

Update: I'm still alive!/Here's Some Finnish Pictures

Hello everyone, I disappeared for a bit there. I'm just getting back into the school routine (once again) and I just got over a rather bizarre stomach virus that has been going around Vienna. Thankfully, it did not last a long time.

Despite this virus, I read a short books (long stories/short books?) for my lit class. They're both a bit hard to understand, but I just have to keep reading and eventually I get the main point. I did a presentation on one of them, Annette Droste-Huelshoff's "Die Judenbuche," this evening. I don't usually volunteer to do those kinds of things before other people in the class, but I thought I could manage it, and I'm glad it's done. Then, of course, I found out that I didn't need to have had "Bahnwaehrter Thiel" read for today, even though I was rushing to get that done in addition to my presentation. I guess I'm just ready for next week now.

I (finally) got to the Naschmarkt this weekend. It was pretty crowded, since it was Saturday, but it's a good place to get vegetables and spices. The produce prices are actually similar to those in the discount grocery stores, but the selection is better. The spices, however, are much cheaper, and this was the first place I found ground cumin in Austria. I was surprised how many people were selling olives or stuffed jalepenos. While I definitely enjoy olives, as anyone in my family can tell you, I wasn't sure how all of Vienna could begin to consume all of those olives. I plan to bring my camera the next time I go to there.

On Sunday night my friends from my student home and I went to the Nordic Film Festival, so I got to see a Norwegian film (in Norwegian) called The Art of Negative Thinking. It had German subtitles, and since that's all dialogue, I was able to understand it all pretty easily. I just noticed it took a lot more time for me to read than English subtitles, which isn't really a surprise. I think it's a lot easier than trying to understand German through spoken dialects.

This is a week overdue or so, but here are some pictures from the second half of my spring break in Finland and Estonia:

Helsinki

People stick-walking (sauvakaevelle), which is popular in Finland and Sweden

President Tarja Halonen's house

Cruise Ships on the Baltic

A statue for a czarina who visited quite a long time ago...

The central train station in Helsinki

The EU--with a Finnish language twist

The Baltic Sea

The ferry we took to Estonia

Inside the ferry

Goodbye, Finland.

Hello, Estonia (Tallinn).

Paernu by day

Paernu by night

A beach in Paernu-in March-on the Gulf of Riga

Estonian is very close to Finnish; "Rannas" would be "Ranta" in Finnish, which means "beach." "Puhtust" means "clean" but I'm not exactly sure how it would be written in Finnish. "Puhtain" in Finnish means "the cleanest," so that's as close as I can get.

Estonians enjoying the park

Susanna, Juuli, Niina, and Verneri at Pappa Pizza

It was almost always snowing in Paernu. That didn't stop us from making use of the playground.

Verneri trying to figure out what to do with Estonian coins the Finnish exchange wouldn't exchange on the ferry.


We decided to glue the money to a postcard.

The University in Pori

Yet another stick-walker... They weren't kidding at Salolampi when they told us it was popular in Finland.

This is Pori's equivalent of Duluth's Bayfront music festival area. They have a big Jazz festival in the summer.

A beach on the Baltic Sea, outside of Pomarkku, which is close to Pori

University cafeteria food in Pori, which, thanks to government subsidies, only cost two or three euros. They still bring it to you at your table, like in a restaurant.

"Eeen Feeenland, Vee play ice hockey."

Downtown Pori

Verneri and Turkka

At a heavy metal karoake bar--something you can (thankfully) only find in Finland...

The kesamoekki, where we went to have a real Finnish sauna

Keppa checking out the ice-hole situation

Verneri and Turkka measured the water depth to see if it was deep enough for the ladder.

The pages from this Sudoku book are used to get the fire started. I guess if you can solve the puzzles, you can at least use them to get warm.