Tag Archives: Germany

Travel

Gluten Free Munich

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Munich was definitely not the easiest place to eat gluten free. I did research before and it seemed like there were not really specific restaurants you could go to with gluten free menus, but suggestions of places or things to eat which would be celiac-friendly… and well, I don’t necessarily need a list of places to eat if I have to wing it like that.

The first night we got there we wanted to go to something like the Hofbräuhaus, but going to this typical German-style restaurant with beer and wurst is really hard for me. We ended up at Augustiner-Keller which was all right, but nothing special.

The waiter was a little abrasive. When I asked about a gluten free menu or gluten free possibilities, he reacted like, “What? You can’t eat bread or flour? What can you eat? Can you eat anything??”… kind of like, well… you’re going to be a difficult customer, what are you doing in my section of the restaurant?

We noticed later on that he seemed to be the roughest of all the servers. He really just wanted to take our orders and serve us our food quickly and make a tip and I can’t really fault him for that, but I always appreciate when waiters and cooks are sensitive and understanding about my diet. I can’t help it and yes, it sucks, but please don’t make it worse for me!

I couldn’t order from most of the menu, but I ended up with good old potatoes (celiac classic), lamb without sauce and some fresh horse radish, which was honestly the most flavourful part of my dish. I also had some mediocre wine because gluten free beer is not to be found in any Keller in Munich.

Breakfast at our hotel was better. I picked the NH Hotel Group which we first stayed at in Madrid. I had booked this hotel before Madrid, hoping that it is a nice chain and it does not disappoint.

The German version of the hotel offers even more gluten free options, including packaged bread, gluten free muesli, fresh veggies, deli options, etc.

On the last day at the Deutsches Museum, I wanted to go to a restaurant early before our bus at 6pm, but even after we scrambled to get there on time, it was not open yet at 4:30. We ended up running back to the train station where I was almost crazy hangry. I ended up breaking down and ordering my very first döner box. I have been really afraid to eat döner since going gluten free, but I just ordered it in a box and I didn’t seem to react, so I think it was OK without the bread and watching out for the base. Kay asked if I wanted couscous or rice, and of course couscous has gluten so that’s a no!

I  felt a lot better after the döner. We picked up a few more snacks for our 4 hour ride back to Zurich and were on our way.

Travel

Munich

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We knew that the weather in Munich over Easter weekend was not supposed to be as nice as Oslo. The forecast called for rain or snow, which it did both of, but luckily we enjoyed a little bit of cloudy blue skies and sun on the first day.

Knowing that it would be colder than Oslo (that’s global warming for you…) we headed first to the BMW museum for Kay.

I was a little museum-ed out after Oslo, so mostly, I was super tired and a little bored going through here. This was all for Kay, who pretty well enjoyed himself here in car paradise.

It was a little hard to get excited about the BMW museum after visiting Geneva’s Motor Show twice already, where they have a sick display of incredible cars. In comparison, the BMW museum was a little lackluster.

Around Munich, it definitely was colder than Oslo! It actually snowed while we were at the BMW museum. After the warm weather the week before in Zurich, I was actually SO surprised about the weird white stuff coming out of the sky, which really looked like styrofoam, I kept asking Kay, “What is this stuff??” Apparently it was more of an industrial snow, hence the weird texture.

We still managed to find a little bit of sun at the English Garden.

We ventured in a little before heading to the Cathedral for Easter evening mass.

In the church, we were actually surprised that the service was only like 30 minutes and did not include communion, so it did not “count” as a church service. Oops. But thank goodness, because I almost fell asleep in church!

Some evening sun.

I was pretty happy with the weather we enjoyed. We were lucky because it could have poured and rained the whole day!

The weather wasn’t so nice on Easter Monday, but we had a long brunch at then spent the whole day in the Deutsches Museum for Kay, which I also struggled to stay awake through. 🙂 It was just a little too technical for me, but Kay was in heaven!

View from our hotel over the train station. We are making it a thing to stay by train stations. I also stay at the main station in Berlin and it is so convenient to get to and from the airport! If only Munich actually had a train to their airport and not a 45 minute bus ride. But we were leaving from the train station home via bus, so it was still convenient in the end.

Only when we finally made it to our IC bus and were sat in the front row of the upper deck did it start to drizzle and rain.

I guess it’s hard to be super impressed by German cities when it’s a little cold and rainy, or maybe I have just seen one too many German town by now. We did visit in early April, so maybe it is better during the summer? Berlin for one was a lot better in June rather than December!

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Mattresses from Germany

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I looked all over auction sites and listing places online to try and find another 90X200cm mattress and frame for Kay so that he could stop sleeping on our old mattress on the floor and “rejoin” me up on a frame. Luckily I was able to find another motorized frame for less than the price of a non-motorized frame but I was having trouble finding a mattress of the same height and type from Tempur, until I turned my sights to Germany.

On eBay Kleinanzeigen in Germany I was able to find a mattress selling used for €250 with €80 shipping to a town just over the border from Switzerland. I also bought a tempur butterfly pillow for myself from Ebay.de and had it shipped there as well.

Kay and I went to pick up the goods during the week, but we stopped at Obi on the way home and decided to buy a huge sun umbrella, while I totally forgot that we’d have to fit both the umbrella and the mattress in the car at the same time!

Using my handy Swiss army knife, we were able to open the mattress from its odd curled up box and stuff it in on top of the sun umbrella, but the ride home was not particularly fun… I had the mattress pushing me into my seat belt, which was cutting into my neck.

Back at home, the lift in the lobby is still covered up in protective wood until all the tenants have moved in. I think it was a smart idea from the contractor, but I’m also curious to see what kind of interior they are covering up below.

For some reason, every time we are in the lift I read this as “glory hole” and wonder what exactly a glory hole is for, because I can only think of one dirty thing…

Our bed saga will continue as we search for a frame. We’ve realized that since I found frames with motors, we cannot put them in beds from IKEA or so because they need room to extend and function and cross bars found on IKEA beds don’t work for that. So for now we have ugly Tempur frames that I won’t share with you yet. 😉

Did anyone else buy their bed in pieces or is it just me? Would you ever buy a mattress used? Normally I think it’s gross… but the savings were just too good to pass up.

Travel

2013 Travel Destinations

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I feel like a really lazy expat in Europe.

When I first came to Switzerland for a study abroad experience, all my other friends were traveling all over Europe for around one month before their terms started in Germany. I was the only one in my class heading to Switzerland so I chose not to join my friends traveling.

I had a paid internship in Ohio and while my parents were generously paying my school tuition, I had to foot the study abroad bill myself. I refused to go into credit card debt or take out a loan for study abroad, so I limited my travel to what I could afford and headed to Switzerland after a long summer working.

For three months on my visitors visa, I spent almost every weekend within Switzerland traveling to different towns, large and small, so I could feel like I really got to know Switzerland itself. After my stay was up and I needed to exit the country, I planned a train trip through Germany to visit all of my friends in their respective German locations. During my entire stay, I never needed to pay for a hostel or hotel!

It worked out well. My budget was happy and I felt like I got to see a fair amount of Switzerland and Germany during my stay, but I missed out on a lot of European biggies. France, Italy, England… I didn’t see any of them and when I returned to the States I really felt like I would have to come do a big European backpacking trip to make up for it.

Now I’ve been living here for four years and shamefully, I haven’t gotten around to doing a lot. In fact, it took me FOUR years to take a 4 hour train ride down to Italy. Blasphemy.

It seems that “There’s always next month…” has derailed my travel excitement. Between Kay’s flighty schedule and my laziness, I just haven’t gotten around to traveling around Europe that much. Since those university days I’ve been to Paris, Stockholm, Dublin, Madrid, Vienna (thanks to Kay this summer!), a few more German cities and finally Milan after I told Kay that I refused to travel to Germany again before we went to Italy.

Here are the top European cities I would really like to visit on a long weekend in 2013:

1. London

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Oh my God… I haven’t been to England yet. This is also blasphemous. I cured my Italy-visit status, but if I am to be a real member of European society, I must, must visit London this year and soak up all the English breakfast and tea I can get.

2. Venice

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Although I’ve been to Italy once now, it wasn’t nearly enough and I know there is still much more to explore. I’m really meaning to visit Venice before it sinks so that I can enjoy a coffee on the waterside.

3. Rome

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Yes, another biggie. I’ve been planning to go to Rome for a few years now, but it’s always a question of when and how as it can be very hot in the summer and uncomfortably cold in the winter. Autumn seems to fly by with Kay’s military time and spring is expensive with Easter. There’s never a good time!

I have a bunch of other cities and countries around Europe that I would like to visit, but I’m keeping this list short so that it remains somewhat realistic. We haven’t started planning our 2013 holidays yet, so there’s no telling where we’ll wind up.

Where would you travel in Europe?