Yogurt Apricots

Yes, dried apricot pieces covered in vanilla yogurt is what I bought at the grocery store. Not yogurt peanuts like I thought I was getting.

Other "surprise!" moments that I've had with my food since getting here:

- Getting potato taters instead of croquets.

- Oh, so maso IS meat

Although on the bright side, we did buy actual chicken at the grocery store. Gooooodbye pheasant.

Na zdravi!

In Czech, that can mean either cheers or bless you! There are many things the Czech like, and among those is liquor. And beer. But akin to the list "Stuff white people like" (see: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/) I have started to compile my own "Stuff Czech people like". I have not placed these in order of importance, simply the order that comes to mind.

Drinking

Beer here is cheap. REALLY cheap. Like averaging $2 a pint cheap. Like $1 at the grocery store cheap. Alternatively, you can also obtain booze at cafes, chinese food takeout places (I saw a couple walk in, buy 10 bottles of beer and then leave a "Cinske bistro" here), or any other number of locations. To date I have already had: Staropramen, Starobrno, Krusovice, Budweiser Budvar, and Pilsner Urquell.

In addition to beer though, the Czechs have a whole array of their own liquors: absinthe, becherovka, slivovice, and something labelled as "Fernet stock" that I'm still not what it quite is, just that it burns like hell going down.

How I Met Your Mother (and to a lesser extent the Big Bang Theory)

It is quite often when chatting with people you've just met about movies, music, TV shows, etc. and it is also quite often that How I Met Your Mother will inevitably come up. A discussion will then follow about which character you like the most (if you exclaim Barney this will extend this topic of conversation by approximately 3 min. at least), and your foreign friends complaining about the length of time it takes to subtitle the new episodes. They will also lodge a complaint about how lame the best lines are translated. For example, Barney's "Legen...wait for it....wait for it...and I hope you're not lactose intolerant because the last part is .... DARY". That does not translate as such. I have not obtained the exact meaning of the translated phrase, but I do know it is "lame".

Once How I Met Your Mother has been exhausted as a topic of conversation, it will move on to the Big Bang Theory. In lieu of discussing characters and funny lines, the conversation will probably drift in the direction of how many you friends you know who are exactly like the characters in the Big Bang Theory.

Non-stop! (Casinos...bars...etc.)

Here they don't seem to use the phrase "24 hours". Instead they have stumbled upon the phrase of "Non-stop". You will see this plastered all over bars and casinos across the city. I still mentally chuckle a little when I see it.

Hockey

Like Canada, hockey (along with soccer) rank as the most important athletic endeavours here. If you ask any Czech person who follows hockey, they will probably be able to give you 3-5 names of Czech hockey players who were formerly or are currently in the NHL. The only name I have recognized to date is Jaromir Jagr. Although I think I was told that there is currently a Czech Flames player.

Czechoslovak Superstar

All I really know is that this show is the equivalent of the Idol show franchises. I realized this liking for the show after spending time with my buddy and her friends. Needless to say, I only knew it was about the show, not the specifics of the conversation that were occuring.

A terribly tempting but really bad for you diet

They eat a lot of meat here. There doesn't really exist what we would consider salads here, their salads usually consist of pickled cabbage and carrots (it's better than it sounds). They also have fried cheese here. It is essentially a block of cheese, rolled in bread crumbs and fried. SO good, but so bad for you.

Attempting to speak their language

When you use fairly tourist-y lines such as "Djekuji" (thank you), or "Dobry den" (good day), most people smile and seem like they're humoring you. When you move onto more advanced lines such as "prominte" (excuse me, I'm sorry), "mluvite anglicky" (do you speak english) they are fairly amused. When you really start speaking whole phrases in Czech, that's when they get excited. They might proclaim "aww, you're so cute when you try to speak Czech" or "whoa, are you learning Czech?". Mainly because it is kind of an insane Slavic based language and rather difficult to pronounce for native English speakers.

I miss CPang

There will be an epic reunion involving the watching of Blue Planet when I see CPang again. I do not fight the mother image. Some would say it's an asset.

Among other things I miss:

-My rice cooker (the pot I have here just doesn't cut it sometimes)

- Peanut butter

- Reeses pieces

- Pancakes

- Craisins (and dried blueberries too)

- Spinach salad with almonds, strawberries, mushrooms, and a light vinaigrette

- Ribs

- A good bacon cheeseburger

- Fruit smoothies

- An oven

- Regular sized paper

- My Nine West black purse that fits any occasion

- My Crackberry

Yes, I realize they were almost all food related. There really is only so much you can do on a hot plate folks.

I <3 Berlin

I went on an absolutely fantastic walking tour while I was in Berlin and I think our guide described it the best: Berlin isn't one of those visually stunning cities to just look at, but once you know the history and the stories behind everything, that's when you're amazed at what the city has to offer.

If you are ever in Europe the company (Sandeman's) runs free walking tours in Dublin, London, Munich, Berlin, Prague, Madrid, and Amsterdam. http://www.neweuropetours.eu/ The guides only work for tips and I had a former Model UN-er with a wicked sense of Irish humor. That being said, I'm going to do my best to re-create the tour for y'all.

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Brandenburg Gate

Now whoever thinks the Germans don't have a sense of humour should really check out the story of the statue on top of the Brandenburg Gate. The statue was originally called the Quadriga, however when Napoleon invaded Germany he took the statue to Paris. But alas in the early 1800s karma decided to be a biatch and the Prussian General Pfuel invaded Paris and brought the statue back to Berlin. It was then renamed Victoria, the goddess of Victory and now faces the French embassy. Pretty nifty.

Hotel Adlon

Do those balconies look familiar? It should, Michael Jackson infamously dangled his baby out on one of those balconies.

Reichstag

This is the house of the Bundestag, the German parliament. The lineup you see on the lefthand side of the picture is the lineup to go into the dome of the Reichstag building. It overlooks not only Berlin, but the chambers of parliament below as well. It's design was built to symbolize transparency and accountability in government.

Holocaust Memorial

This is also known as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It is comprised of over 2,700 slabs of concrete of varying sizes arranged in a grid. It is not meant to represent any object in particular. Rather, the design is meant to evoke uneasy and confusing emotions that make the viewer unavoidably acknowledge and remember the victims of the Holocaust.

Hitler's former bunker

Below this very plain site lies Hitler's former bunker and where he commited suicide. There was a lot of debate in the German parliament as to whether a memorial sign should even be erected at the site.

The former largest office building in the world

This is the propaganda mural on the outside of the office building, upon its completion it housed the Nazi Air Force. It was replaced as the largest office building in the world a week after completion when the Pentagon was finished. I think it definitely says something about our world that the largest office buildings at the time were both occupied by military personnel.

Although now the building amusingly houses....

The German Finance and Revenue Agency!

Berlin Wall

The area behind this particular section of the Wall used to house the headquarters of the SS and the Gestapo.

Checkpoint Charlie

Where the world almost ended and the cold war almost become HOT.

Gendarmenmarkt

When Louis XIV of France evoked the Edict of Nantes, 5000 Protestants were uprooted to Berlin. The French cathedral was built to honor them. The square was named after the Gens d'Armes regiment that were deployed there until the late 1700s.

Memorial of the Nazi book burning

In May 1933 students burned more than 25,000 books by "un-German" writers, scientists and philosophers such as Kafka and Einstein.

The plaque next to the memorial reads "Where they have burned books, they will in the end burn people: - Henrich Heine

Heine had originally been referring to the burning of the Qu'ran during the Spanish inquisition.

Church across from the old National Parliament

This church amazes me because it wasn't actually built until the 20th century. This is where we also sat on the steps and concluded the tour with the story of how the Berlin Wall fell.

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I hope I did the tour some justice and that you all get to see Berlin at some point. There is a story in every part and place of the city that won't cease to amaze you.

Willkommen in Deutschland

I've come to the conclusion that everything is just cooler in Germany. Here's just the tip of the iceberg...

Their advertising

Their cars

(That's a smart car! Convertible!)

(That's a Bugatti...I'm told it's like one of the sweetest cars around)

EVEN THEIR MANHOLE COVERS

It's really too bad there aren't any German princes left for me to marry into the royal family and escape there.

Women don't get beer bellies right?!?!?!

Czech food consists of 4 categories:

- Meat

- Carbs

- Beer

- Other

And more often than not the other is some sort of cheese. Potentially fried cheese. I need to find the gym, ASAP.

Our meal in, only the pesto pasta is missing. Made of course by my Italian flatmates.

Very good Kozel dark/light beer mix. Akin to a crown float but much better and a bit stronger.

A very traditional Czech dish. It is meat swimming in sauce made from veggies, topped with whipped cream and cranberry sauce. The side is what they call "bread dumpling".

There is a vast amount of Italian food here, and it kind of confuses me.

Those were advertised on the menu as "potato brownies".