My little experiment

Now that we're mortgage holders (aka, Painfully in Debt,) I am becoming a little more, shall we say, frugal, or better yet, Swabian. 
Some of our expenses are unavoidable, I get that.  Even travel to the US, while some would say is a luxury, to me is really a necessity.  But there must be ways that we can cut costs a bit.  My new experiment is with food.
I guess I should explain grocery stores in Germany, because it is a very complex topic here.  German grocery stores fall into levels.  Here is my view on the breakdown:
Gourmet- stores like Finekost Böhm and the Market Hall in Stuttgart.  The Böhm reminds me of Balducci's in Westport, so I enjoy wandering through this store often. 
High end- (most similar to Stop and Shop,) like Edeka and Rewe.   My favorite grocery store is an Edeka, it is an E-Center, meaning that it is quite similar to the Stop and Shop in Fairfield, with very high end items.  I trust in this store, especially the quality of their meats, and this is where I exclusively buy my fish.
Medium price / Big stores- these stores are more like larger Stop & Shops (in CT, ) or Giant in Maryland.  These stores here would be like the Real.  They have normally good quality products and are very tidy. 
Lower price / Big stores- I have no experience with stores like these in the States.  But that might be just my experience.  These stores, like Kaufland and Handelshof, are very big, but boast low prices.  Their stores tend to be lacking in presentation, items are often still on palettes, and it is more messy in general.  Their fruits and veggies are okay, but you have to search to find good stuff.  Of course, they have a very large selection, and occassionally, I find that these stores fit my purposes, but it is only occassionally. 
Discounters- discounters, like Aldi, are opening up at home too.  Discounters offer low prices, because items are mostly all on palettes or in boxes (you have to open up a plastic bag to get a package of paper towels sometimes.) They focus primarily on generic products.

Today, we went to the Market Hall in Stuttgart.  This is definately a gourmet shopping experience.  It has been rated as one of the best indoor markets in Europe, and I do believe it has earned this title. I especially enjoy the many stands featuring food from Asia, Italy, Spain, Greece, and France.  They offer so many otherwise hard to find items, and the food there is of exceptional quality.

We purchased our produce for the first half of the upcoming week from the Market Hall today.  And this leads me to my experiment:  can we save money with produce? 
We purchased the following:
.12 kilos Lamb's lettuce at 12 Euro / kilo.  Total- 1.44 Euro
.756 kilos bell peppers at 8 Euro/ kilo.  Total- 6.05 Euro
.666 kilos of eggplant at 4.9 Euro/ killo.  Total- 3.20 Euro
.504 kilos of zucchini at 4..9 Euro/ kilo.  Total- 2.47 Euro
We also purchased a package of snap peas for (I think,) 2.20 Euro, and 2 portobello mushrooms for 4.00 Euro. 
The total for today:
19.42 Euro

I don't think I can include the portobellos in the experiment, and I need to figure out if the mushrooms or the snap peas were so expensive.  I tend towards the portobellos as they are definately a rare find  here.  But, everything else on the list is available most everywhere else.
My plan for next Saturday is to include these items in our purchase.  I will do one week at the Edeka, which is a high end store, and one week at the Real, which is a big/ medium store.  Since Joern and I don't really have a set place to buy our produce, bouncing between high end, big/ medium stores, and discounters, I am very interested in the results of the experiment.  I guess I can also include a discounter in my experiment, but for me, it isn't realistic that we will ever be shopping for all of our produce from discount grocery stores. 

I am only focusing on produce because, right  now, we are on the South Beach diet.  So, our meals consist mostly of meat and veggies.  We have decided, that we will stick mostly with meat from our local butcher.  By local, I mean about 9 house fronts away from ours, and all the employees are Neckartailfingers.  This is definately not a way to save money, but we know the meat there is very high quality and enjoy supporting local farmers and the local butcher.

Tonight, we enjoyed a delicous salad with the Lamb's lettuce, and some homemade burgers.  I'm looking forward to next week's results!

Dinner with Friends

A few weeks ago, I posted about an old school friend, Amanda, who was here visiting her boyfriend.  Well, last night was her last night here, so we got together for a dinner with both Amanda and her boyfriend.  We went to the Dinkelacker Brauereigästatte, which is a restuarant run by Dinkel Acker brewery.  Joern had been there before, but I hadn't.  Joern said they had good food, but typically a native of this area, was concerned that the restaurant was not "nice" enough to bring visitors there.  My feeling is that a restaurant connected to a brewery is always a good choice :)
It was so enjoyable to meet up with Amanda again.  When we first met her for lunch, her whole trip lay ahead.  It was interesting and enjoyable to hear about the month that she has been here, and her experiences.  Once again, I was reminded of how little time Joern and I spend exploring our area.  It is so easy to run off to France or Italy, but to spend time around here, at first seems wasteful, but in reality, would be a really smart thing to do.  There is so much to do and to see right here!
It was also nice chatting and getting to know Amanda's boyfriend better.  It is so fun to meet up with Americans here, and even more fun when you know them already. 
Of course, we also enjoyed some yummy beer.  The restaurant offers a sampling of 5 of their beers, which is really cool.  Dinner was also really yummy.  The restaurant served traditional Swabian food, and Joern had a steak with onions, served with sauerkraut, maultaschen, and spaetzle.  Yum!

The restaurant also offered a variety of foods cooked with beer.  I remember Joern telling me that this was inacceptable to waste beer in such a way, but I guess a brewery is allowed to cook with beer.  I had turkey in an Apfelweizen (apple wheat beer,) sauce.  It was a little sweet, but also quite delicious!

The restaurant was a fantastic place to enjoy good food and good friends.  I am looking forward to Amanda's return to Stuttgart, and I am looking forward to returning to the restaurant with  new friends!

Brought to you by the lovers of smooth roads

I heard a report on the radio yesterday that one of the topics currently being dealt with by parliament (yup, the Bundestag in Berlin,) is the pot-hole crisis.  Imagine this being a topic of national importance?  And that is listed as a crisis? 
I'm sure pot-holes are discussed on a town, or maybe state level, but only the gigantic tire-shredding pot-holes are fixed at home.
Gosh, what a great country that encourages smooth, pot-hole free roads.  It only adds to my addiction to big engines and fast cars.
I love Germany!

Lotsa cuteness

I realize that I don't post about my job too much, but sometimes, it deserves a mention here.  The kids this year are so gosh-darn cute.  And of course, they do the cutest things and say the cutest things. 
Here are a few ultra-cute examples:

1.  Peanut butter has become a hot commodity among the Junior Kindergarteners this year.  I have no idea why, as most kids don't really know or eat PB.  But whatever, most kids think peanut butter is better than, well peanut butter and jelly :)  So the other day, the teacher in our room had used some peanuts in a shell to decorate the classroom.  I was sitting at the table with one of my little guys (who I happen to adore,) and he picks up the peanut.  Here's our convo:
Me:  "Hey, do you know what this is?"
Kid:  "Of course, it is a shell."
Me:  "Yeah, but do you know what is inside?"
Kid:  "Don't be silly, Ms. Allison.  Of course I know, its a Peanut Butter Nut!"

2.  The other day, we played "Farmer in the Dell."  The music teacher is from Wales, so her acccent is slightly different than say, mine, to which the kids have become quite accustomed.  So, back to "Farmer in the Dell," we get to the part where "the child takes a nurse,"  but you can imagine it came out more like "nas."  One of our kids, who came from Belgium, and is now a very good little English speaker, looks very confused.  I asked her what's wrong, to which she replied, "In Belgium, (points to nose,) this is nas."

And of course, other cuteness abounds.  Last week, one of our kids turned 5.  Normally birthday parties fall into two categories at school: 1) Moms with lots of money and little time buy a cake that no one eats, or 2) Moms who have enough time, but make cupcakes from a mix (yes, I admit often the Americans,) but again, cupcakes that no one eats.  Well, this mom almost borders on one of those moms I read about in blogs.  I feel like her birthday cupcakes could end up on the Hostess with the Mostess blog that I adore.  Mom made garden theme cupcakes, with crumbled cookie crumbs on top, and then on top of that, marzipan vegggies.  When she put them all in a pan, they really resembled veggies growing out of dirt.  She even had edible "signs," on which she signposted the rows of different veggies.  In the front, she had a large label, "Kid's Garden."  As a party favor, she bought each child and us teachers, a little flower.  It was such a creative and fantastic looking idea!
Here's a picture of my cupcake and flowers:

Adventures in Shopping

Yesterday afternoon, we headed out to Geislingen, which just happens to be the home of the German pots and pans company, WMF.  WMF has a factory outlet in Geislingen, but it turns out there is so much more than just WMF products to be found at this store.  It turns out that there is a small outlet mall in Geislingen, and it is pretty much all housewares.  COOL!
The WMF outlet itself does not only have pots and pans, they had a huge selection of beautiful cutlery and a large selection of WMF items.  But the outlet also sells products from Sillit, Kaiser Backform, and Auerhahn cutlery.  But the most amazing of all?  They sell some 220 V Cuisinart products!  Anyone looking for 220 V Cuisinart should head on over to Geislingen!  They had blenders, coffee makers, coffee grinders, food processors, and most exciting of all SLOW COOKERS from Cuisinart!  The slow cooker was beautiful, sadly, we already have one so I couldn't justify buying the Cuisinart one.  But, we did buy this coffee maker:

image from cuisinart.com



We really needed a drip coffee maker, as we have been using our Bosch built in coffee maker for the past few months now, and well, that's prett dumb considering that the built-in is for the house.  Also, we missed just having a pot of coffee around.  The Cuisinart is so very nice, and so far, it has been making great coffee!

After WMF, we decided to check out the other outlets.  There is a Ravensburger outlet, which will be cool when we have kids, because Ravensburger makes beautiful games and puzzles.  There was an outlet that sold really beautiful towels and bedding.  There was also a Lindt outlet, which seems great for gifts.  And, there was a glassware outlet in this center.  They sell Nachtman, Spiegelau and Riedel, and had some good prices.  I especially love Riedel products, and am so excited to head back once I figure out what we need for our house!

It was a pretty fun hour of shopping.  I admit, outlet shopping here is nothing like outlet shopping at home, but that is to be expected.  I will definitely keep the Geislingen outlets in mind though next time we need to make any purchases for our home!

"Its a Small, Small World"

After living abroad for a long time, you start to realize that the very big world is indeed, very small.  A few years ago, I found out my best friend from high school, Erica, was living in England with her husband and adorable daughter. It then became the reason for a few wonderful trips to England.  I work with a teacher at our school who grew up in Trumbull, CT.  I even met a mom of a preschooler at our school, she and her husband are from Texas, but her husband's mom is from Trumbull as well.  See, small world.
I am currently going through my smallest of small world situations though.  A few months ago, a girl I went to middle school and high school contacted me to let me know that her boyfriend was moving to Stuttgart.  Woah, small world!  Well, the world gets smaller because she is here now!  Joern and I met with Amanda yesterday.  It was so weird, so cool, and so fun.  We went to our favorite Greek restaurant in Nuertingen for lunch.  It was so fun to catch up while gently throwing in references from Fairfield.  You truly would have to grow up there to really understand it.  It was so nice to see how life can take two people on such a very different path and yet, you can wind up in the same place, so very far from where you started.
After our lunch, we impressed Amanda with our fantastic life of house building, grocery store and electronics store.  It also highlighted to me how different life in Europe is from what I expected.  When I moved here, I was looking for romance and adventure.  In reality, we have jobs, a house, go to the grocery store, and the electronics store.  Life isn't much different than it would be at home, just in a different language.  It is truly what you make of it.
It was a fantastic afternoon, and I am already looking forward to meeting with Amanda again before she leaves at the end of this month.  It is so strange and so fun to be in this situation.

New Year's Resolutions

I don't normally post my resolutions, because I am not the best at keeping them.  This year, instead of setting some hugely lofty goals that will not be met, you know, like losing 50 pounds, I am keeping it simple this year.  If I do something huge, it is a plus,  if not, then I am just happy to have made simple goals that I can stick with.

1.  Read a book once a month.  I love reading, but tend to read during school breaks.  It is nice, but that leaves me usually bookless in February, May, September, October, and November.  Joern and I are actually on our way to Ikea today, and I am going to search for a solution to a light so that I can do some reading in bed.  I love reading in bed, but Joern has control of our bedside light, so I have to have the light out before Joern is asleep otherwise I'd have to climb over him to wake him up.  Maybe finding a solution with a light would help me to keep up with my reading goal.

2.  Have a date night once a month.  Not like a huge date night, and it doesn't need to be on Saturday.  But, once a month, we should do something a bit out of the ordinary.  And no, picking up Chinese take-out doesn't count, unless it is accompanied by a movie.

3.  Take walks.  I don't want to commit to a five day a week walking schedule, but something want to get outside and get walking. 

4.  Probably the most lofty of all goals- a cleaning schedule.  I currently don't have a cleaning schedule, but it works in our tiny apartment.  I can go a few days without really cleaning, although dishes are a daily thing, and the apartment manages well.  But, we are looking at moving into over 200 sq. ft within the next 6 or so  months.  There is no way I can keep up with that without having some sort of a schedule.  This is my way of forming a habit that we will bring into our new home.

5.  Post more often.  I managed 55 posts on this blog in the past year, which comes out to roughly once a week, but it was not a consistent once a week.  In my perfect 2011, I would post at least once a week.  I need to realize that just because I think my life is rather dull, doesn't mean that it isn't blogable.

Well, there you have it.  With this post, I have already worked towards goal #5, I have a post for this week, and I will have a post at the end of the year, when I review my goals.

If you have resolutions, I wish you all the best in keeping them!