Half an hour later...

I said you'd hear from me soon... I didn't actually mean this soon, but I have a lot of pent up stories, and now that I've done my washing up and had some hot chocolate, I don't have anything else to do, so here I am.

Some general observations on Germany:

Today, I bought a packet of 'Vegetable Meatballs'. I later read the packet, to find they contain '25% pork-mince'. Luckily I'm not actually veggie, and they were delicious, but only in Germany can you buy vegetarian products made of meat. (Though having thought about it, probably in France too.)

On the subject of shopping, it is ridiculously hard to find hot chocolate powder here. It's cold and miserable outside, especially in the evenings, so I just wanted some hot chocolate... The shops all sell coffee in every variety you can imagine, in every format and every flavour, and this includes 'Schoko-cappucino' and so on, but I don't really want to get hooked on coffee here, and it's probably not the best idea for just before bed. I have eventually found some, but still... I miss Cadburys, and I even miss Asda Smart Price hot chocolate powder...

Other foods I am missing include Marmite *sigh* and cheddar cheese... It's weird that whenever I toast the bread I have at the moment, I know it would make perfect cheese on toast. But there is no cheddar, or even anything cheddar-like for me to put on it. I'm experimenting at the moment, and hopefully I'll find something that works.. either that or I'll have to track down a specialist cheese supplier and hope they deliver to Germany! Obviously the other thing is teaaaaa, it's just not the same here, and it's depressing having to buy it as a speciality drink, as that means it's small packets, one of the packets I bought actually had individually wrapped tea bags... It's also sad that whenever anyone else mentions tea, they are either making fun of my Englishness 'Oh, it's tea tiiiime' or when they are suggesting it seriously they mean herb tea, or fruit tea, which are all very nice, and there's a lot more variety here, but stopping for a herbal tea is NOT what having a tea break means! I've started drinking some herbal tea made of anise and fennel though, and that's pretty tasty.

However, there are good foods here. The afore mentioned Veggie Meatballs, with 25% meat, were yum. I've been buying by bread from a bakery mostly, and that makes me feel like I'm here on some kind of holiday, or that I'm being very European/villager-y, which I like. I'm slowly making my way around the bakeries, trying out certain types of bread and everything else they offer. They have things called 'Hörnchen' which are a cross between brioche, white bread and croissants, and are basically a more practical croissant- it tastes nice and it doesn't flake all over the place- which are tasty. The cereal here is pretty good too, Ian you would love it, they sell it in boxes as tall as at home, but as deep as they are wide, so the top of the box is a square (I hope I've explained that well enough, I basically mean they are BIG boxes.) They also sell it in massive bags, but the only thing I can think to compare that too is the big bags of cat litter, which doesn't make it sound that appealing. I also go to the market on Fridays, and pride myself that I'm buying fresh cheese and locally grown vegetables. It's slightly worrying that they sell vegetables I've never even seen before but who knows, maybe I'll learn all about them.

Food is one of those ongoing topics- I'm still working out the best places to shop and the best varieties of things to buy, no doubt I will find some firm favourites (and some things I definitely won't bt buying again-the packet of biscuits I bought were such a let down!), and I'm sure I will be commenting, should I find anything amazing!

I'm leaving it there for now, it is well past my bedtime (I'm writing this at 10:20) and I have school and college tomorrow.

Bis Bald =)