Okay, time for a bit of rambly-ness. As I learned from a friend of mine, structuring a letter and or blog post would probably assist flow of ramblyness. So:
Food:
Food in three countries (Germany, France, and Holland) can be pretty easily defined. France is opulent wonderfulness, better than you can have imagined, with a price to match. French cuisine is possibly some of the best out there, hands down. And the crème brulee! Oh god, the crème brulee… *sighs in happiness* Especially in Paris, where they have a big tourist crowd- different people like different styles, and whatever you’re looking for is there somewhere! Even the croissants were works of art- beautiful crescents of flaky pastry, balanced with just the right amount of butter… Gaaah! I want to go baaaack… When we were in the French countryside, we had breakfast in the B&B where we were staying, and let me tell you, that was a royal spread- croissants, different flaky pastries (some chocolate filled, some studded with raisins or other stuff), slices of ham, hot chocolate (which you can actually drink here! It’s chilly enough in the morning to warrant a glass of hot chocolate!), rolls, yoghurt, jams and jellies, and more. It was the best thing ever!
Anyhow, on to Dutch food. Dutch food, to put it simply, is overpriced and isn’t much to talk about. For all the weeks I’ve been here, there hasn’t been a single memorable dish to speak of. And they’re all expensive- not really worth your time or money. Dutch food also tends to have curry somewhere in the menu, and more often then not you’ll find curry in your food, even though it didn’t say so on the menu. I mean, come on. Once you find curry in Chinese noodles one day and then Italian pasta the next, you know something’s up. Truth is, curry’s one of the “traditional” seasonings, if you will, of Dutch food. Because the Netherlands colonized Indonesia, plenty of Dutch people have Indonesian ancestors and like East Indies-style food and seasonings. So there you go. Dutch=generally overpriced and not too defining.
German food- I’ve been to Germany just about once before, so this is technically my second venture into Germany. But what I’ve seen is excellent. Not quite the same as French cuisine, German food is down-to-earth but very filling, with excellent flavors and a fairly largeish menu. I actually have not yet even tried a true German bratwurst yet, but I tell you, that shall be remedied soon. This morning’s hotel breakfast was a spread second only to the French breakfast. Three different large baskets of rolls, several types of cereals, different flavored cheese spreads, several platters of sliced meat (ham, turkey, fresh cut stuff like that), fruit (they had watermelon! Admittedly their watermelon wasn’t quite as sun-ripened as the ones in AZ, but ah well…), coffee, hot chocolate, cereals, hot sausages, scrambled egg, yogurt, and a bajillion different spreads, ranging from spreadable cheese, chocolate spread (in white, dark, and milk chocolate, to go on your bread), jellies, marmalade, butter, cream cheese, etcetera. It was excellent. I just miss the French croissants…
That’s my quick summary of German, Dutch, and French food! Next weekend we intend to go to Belgium, so we’ll see if their waffles are really as good as they say they are. XD
Countryside:
I mentioned in my last blog entry that the French countryside is rolling and beautiful. It is. It is beautiful in the way that an illuminated manuscript is, beautiful in the way that a woman is when she’s found the perfect mix of makeup and herself, beautiful in the way a medieval princess is. Its beauty lies in its neatness, in its organization- organization to perfection. French countryside is low rolling hills and well-maintained forest paths, paved roads, and views you can see kilometers of. It seems to be saturated with history- monuments to the World Wars dot the landscape. You can see, as you look out and drive, schoolgirls walking- schoolgirls wearing uniforms of the 40’s, threading carefully past the German soldiers streaming in. You can see a young soldier jumping into his Jeep with his squad, off for adventure and ultimately the War. France is a country where history lives.
The German countryside is wild beauty. It is unexpected and dangerous and mysterious- Germany’s countryside is Morgana le Fay incarnate. Its beauty is the thunder of horse hooves to the sound of a hunting horn, wild and hunted with the baying of the hounds. No low hills here- the German hills are Hills, said with a capital H and a slight inflection that betrays the uncultivated roughness of the trees. These forests here are rough and dark- they are the forests where, if you glance ever so quickly to your left as your car speeds through, you may catch a glimpse of a centaur galloping to match your pace, his hair shaggy, legs leaping effortlessly through the brush and fallen branches. And just as you focus your eyes, he is gone, leaping away into the dark, and you are out of the trees again, careening down the hillside with all your windows open, the wind streaming in and tossing everything about. But you don’t care, because this is too much to see, to feel right now, and to close yourself off into a tiny plastic and metal bullet of a car would be an unspeakable crime. Germany is in your bones, in your ears, under your feet and hands. Even the farmland is part of nature, enhancing filling it. Fields lie like a green patchwork quilt over the hills as the sun streams down through the clouds and falls in bright lines to the red-roofed houses. There is something so very elemental, so very basic in the German countryside, that you can’t just close it out. You have to let it in.
The Dutch countryside is… wet. Holland seems to be permanently gray. Consciously I know that there are plenty of sunny, bright, blue-sky days, but I have a feeling that whenever I remember Holland I’m going to remember Gray (yes, capitalized. The Dutch sky Gray incarnate). The views around the scenic roads consist, mainly, of plenty of windmill views as well as canals. The Netherlands are carefully thought out, with wide dikes the only things holding back the rushing force of the Atlantic (or would it be the North Sea?). As I drive through, I can’t help but make several bad d%ke/dike jokes to myself. Driving through the Netherlands leaves you, well, slightly bored and with plenty of time to think to yourself. Occasionally you’ll drive past or over a canal. The Dutch countryside is decidedly, well, uninteresting for the most part. The windmills add a quaint tourist touch, though. When you don’t take scenic roads and take the major highways, you notice several things. The Dutch architects try and make their buildings works of art- each building being constructed out of some different material, the windows in different patterns or shapes, with oddly jutting out rooms and bits of building material. Some try and become part of the landscape, but most like to stick out as obnoxiously as possible, looking like bad pieces of contemporary sculpture translated into building-code-talk. Frankly, the word I’d use for Dutch architecture is, well, kind of embarrassing. And when there are industrialized cities on the rivers/canals, I think I can honestly say they’re some of the ugliest sights I’ve seen. Cranes and badly-styled concrete warehouses sprawl out over the riverbanks, plumes of smoke and grit rising from the smokestacks of the factories. They are Industrial. ‘nough said.
Yeah, Dutch countryside=not really my thing.
Languages:
French: French is, surprisingly, not as musical or unique as I thought it would be. Hm, wait, I retract that statement. In America, French is unique and stands out. In Europe, when you’ve got the mix of most every language in your ears, French tends to lose a little of its luster. But that doesn’t make it any less beautiful! French is still one of the most beautiful languages I’ve heard. When listening to a pair of fluent natives, it’s kind of hard to catch the musicality of it, but that may have been due to accent/regional dialect.
German: Wonderful, beautiful German! Not half as hack-y or cough-y as thought, natively spoken German is a blessing and wonder to behold. It makes me majorly happy just to listen to it. There’s the added bonus of understanding bits and pieces, and eavesdropping!
Dutch: Gargly and slurred if you go too fast. There’s a certain charm, but not quite my thing.
You can kind of see where I’m going with this…
Anywhoo, that’s the end of my rambly bit. Today we went to Rothenburg, which is Germany’s “most medieval” city. It certainly was medieval- it looked like something out of a book! It was much fun, and we just shopped in the stores and walked around the walls surrounding the city. Of course, everything was green, and so many of the buildings and fountains and statues of stuff were hundreds of years old! Of course, a recent plaster job always helps business. But a lot of the thrill in my day went into the drive through the German countryside.
Anywhoo, in Rothenburg we had REAL GERMAN BRATWURSTS!!! OHEMGEEZ! Okay, they were excellent. ^___^ And afterwards we had these little things called “Schneeballen/s”, which were little balls of egg pastry coated in either chocolate, sugar, or other sweet things. They were yummeh. I bought a Rothenburg patch for my bag, and my bag is going to look pretty sweet when I’m done with it! I can’t wait! Anyhow, that was the day- perhaps I’ll go into Rothenburg a bit later, but my da’s calling me off the comp for now.
Love you all!
Gabbages-Lea
No comments:
Post a Comment