Sorry I've been quiet for a bit, but I've not been around. I was sent to Germany on a very unglamorous business trip but managed to return unscathed. Actually, it wasn't the location that was unglamorous but more the hotel. The NH Hotel on the Altmarkt in Dresden's old town is supposed to be lovely, but sadly it just wasn't for me. I'm a light sleeper and its location right near a church meant that I was awoken every 15 minutes throughout the night on each of my three nights stay. As a result all of my grand plans for writing blog posts on my quiet evenings were scuppered by extreme tiredness. And lets not go into the noise from drunks outside or...shudder....the pubic hair on my clean towel.
Dresden itself is beautiful, a real mix of the old and the new where striking modern architecture abuts the classical but in a way that somehow just seems right. Unfortunately work commitments kept me busy in the day and so I didn't get to visit the museums, so instead I made a different cultural foray - into the world of German food.
I'm the kind of girl that likes good solid food - meat, potatoes, bread (I'll eat salad but only out of a sense of duty) - and so German cookery is right up my street. During my three nights I managed to gorge myself on as much of it as possible. Also, as should expected I suppose, almost every dish was pork based - casseroles, kebabs, sausages. I had ham with breakfast, sausage for lunch and schnitzel for dinner.
On my last night though, I tried to find something non pork based for a main meal, and luckily the ridiculously posh hotel restaurant was serving duck with crackling kumquats and leek and potato foam. Sounds great huh? Success I thought - but they brought me a free starter to taste. You guessed it, pork. Oh and the crackling kumquats -, fruit covered in popping candy. Yes, popping candy. This was molecular cookery apparently - Heston bloody Blumenthal as a lot to answer for...give me a plain old currywurst any day.
I also spent a good amount of time sniggering to myself about funny words. My two favourites being "kunst" and "fahrt" - my very favourite being "dampfschiffahrt." Teehee.
I have no idea what it means and I don't really want to. It might ruin the magic. I know, childish huh?
Anyway - instead of pictures of the city here are pictures of things I ate:
Pork in kebab form!
Pork in currywurst form!
A (hopefully) non pork based cake!
Omnomnomnomnom...
Unexpected pork based starter
Non pork based main meal - see that round thing? deep fried mashed veg.
See that crispy looking stuff? Popping-fucking-candy.
I did enjoy my time though, and almost all my food. Now I'm back in London a getting ready to lose my new pork belly.
I'll be back on Sunday with the result of the tights giveaway and I have lots of reviews - both film and product based for you all.
Ooh, I forgot the last thing!
The saddest sandwich in the world, courtesy of the kind people at Lufthansa:
Don't cry for him, poor tiny little thing.
Oh my word what on earth happened to that poor sarnie?!
ReplyDeleteI'd had a little row with the air hostess aboutturning off my Kindle as their booklet said you only had to turn off "transmitting devices" and it doesn't transmit. so I think she must have sat on my lunch before bringing it to me. Heh.
ReplyDeleteOhhoho I won't spoil your fun by translating then! We holiday in Germany every year and love it - it's quite refreshing being somewhere with a distinct lack of other British around to spoil things and the "hearty" food and plentifu; beer is right up our street.
ReplyDeleteHey, that is brilliant Schwarzbrot! I miss it so and wish they had more of it in the UK, but realise it is like marmite to non-Germans.
ReplyDeleteDampfschifffahrt translates as Steamboatride btw., and can be entirely magic, depending on the boat :)
Oh, I have no problem with the heavy bread, it was just the smallest, squashedest sad little sandwich wrapped in cheap supermarket cling film. Bless it.
ReplyDeleteI love the place too, I just wish I hadn't forgotten 90% of my schooday German.
Awesome post. It has made me oddly hungry.... *stumbles off to open a pathetic looking packet of ham*
ReplyDeleteI agree about the food thing, why do they have to mess around with perfectly good food and "posh it up",I didn't do German at school so have no idea what the funny words mean! X
ReplyDeleteMmmm, German food, so tasty. I've been trying to persuade my husband to go; he loves the fact that all dutch food seems to contain meat, eggs, cream or be fried, so Germany's the next step.
ReplyDeleteWere the rebuilt bits of Dresden very beautiful?
Ouch, poor sandwich...What about our version of sandwich, the Butterbrot? :-) I think there are a lot more funny german words around. But it´s interesting to hear that to non-germans these words sound funny :-)
ReplyDeleteDresden is by far the best and most beautiful city Germany has to offer. At least in my eyes. I had the chance to live there for one year and would go back any minute if I had the chance to.
ReplyDeleteYour pork in kebap form is a "schaschlik", by the way. And that´s another funny word!
Schaschlik is not a German word though :) it's Russian, but hails from Caucasian mountains. It's another world for kebab. Looks like you enjoyed the trip! Looking forward to movies review.
ReplyDeletehttp://iloveeclair.blogspot.com
Your best blog post yet. Hilarious and mouth watering!
ReplyDeleteThose two words always lit up my German lessons at school. I remember going on an exchange and the German teacher joking 'it's a myth that all we eat is potato and sausages'. Guess what. That was all we ate for a week - then my mum, thinking I would appreciate some British food when I got home, made bangers and mash. I couldn't face it and begged for veg curry!
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