Giving Thanks in the UK

It was a strange feeling to wake up today and carry out my normal work day on Thanksgiving. I survived working on the US holiday but still abandoned my desk at 3pm so I could finish my day by thinking about all of the things I am thankful for from my couch. The move-out activities have begun and the rental company is taking back my flat screen and DVD player on Saturday morning. It will leave me without a tv for 20 days and a true challenge. I haven't decided yet what I will stare at when I am drinking my wine on the couch. It is not on the top of my list for things I am thankful for.

In honor of the holiday I rounded up all of the ingredients and baked a few pumpkin pies in order to introduce the joys of Thanksgiving tradition to my UK colleagues. The act of finding canned pumpkin was a major victory and the reaction to my baked goodness was a success. I'm not sure I totally convinced them on celebrating turkey day, but I definitely introduced an appreciation for pumpkin.

Dolce far Niente

I finally had an opportunity to have some non work related jet-setting and took a mini trip to Milan to meet up with my dear friend Aimee. She was in Florence for work so it only made sense to cook up a scheme to meet in Italy for a Saturday lunch. So that is exactly what we did. We found each other around noon on Saturday and departed on Sunday at dinner. The perfect amount of time to indulge in too much food and wine, catch up and make friends with Italian bar staff.

I managed to select the perfect guide book for the last minute trip. It came with a map I could actually read and pretty much had the advice to not worry too much about site seeing and just relax and have some good food and wine. So, since we didn’t reserve our tickets a year in advance as most do to see the The Last Supper, we found a few good restaurants, drank our weight in wine and prosecco and focused on chatting and people watching.

We did squeeze in a trip to view Milan’s Duomo and admire a brilliant building that only took 430 years to complete. I stepped into the role of tour guide and did a dramatic reading of some facts from the guide book to Aimee. My favorite of which was the phrase “la fabbrica del Duomo” which is a phrase the Milanese people use to describe anything that seems to take forever to complete. I enjoy that they have a good sense of humor about their famous landmark and the ridiculous amount of time it took to finish. The builders probably read the same guide book I have and spent more time eating and drinking than on construction.

A true miracle was the fact that I managed to leave Milan having only purchased a magnet. We did visit the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle shopping arcade which houses many of the famous designer brands, but we simply admired the store fronts. While there we did take a break from window shopping to participate in a good luck tradition. A mosaic tile image on the floor by the entrance depicts a flag and bull to celebrate the king who the building was named after. According to local tradition stomping on the bull’s testicles as you walk past brings luck. Aimee and I joined the crowd and stomped away as it was our turn to pass through (photo o fmy good luck stomp is above).

The only thing that did not cooperate during our weekend break was the weather. It was cold and rainy and everything in the entire city was a dreary shade of brown or grey. This of course prompted a nasty allergy attack upon arriving. By dinner on Saturday Aimee got tired of having to say god bless you over and over again and we found an Italian pharmacy. The lovely pharmacist took one look at me and produced a box of something called Reactine. The only thing we confirmed with him was whether I could still drink wine if I took it and we received a thumb up and a smile. 12 Euros and two reactine later and I was back in action. So I guess technically I came home with a magnet and the remaining box of miracle allergy pills as souvenirs.

The highlight of our Italian adventure was meeting Marco the bartender at StraRipa bar. He kept our glasses filled with a delicious secret cocktail, protected us from smarmy dudes at the bar and even gave us his favorite recipe on how to make the perfect salmon (Aimee if you are reading this I still need you to send me that from your notebook). Marco and I promised to be pen pals and while I’m still waiting for my letter from him (and aware of the fact that he will never write me) I was certainly left with some fond memories of a fantastic evening in Milan (and the worst hangover ever the next day).

Ein Prosit

Yet another delinquent post for all 14 of my fans. Publishing this meant my big trip was over, my visitor went home and I returned to my daily life. I realized I needed to stop stalling and introduce all of you to the catchiest tune in the world and share my German adventure.

Before reading on I invite you to click on this link for the full Oktoberfest experience...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR8VmCDdt5o

The song that never ends
This is a song that I still hear sometimes when I am walking down the street one month post Oktoberfest. I found myself humming it in the grocery store this evening which I took as a sign to post this blog already. It is played approximately every 15 minutes throughout the fair and the rough translation is “a toast, a toast to the coziness of it all”. There is very little encouragement needed in Munich for drinking, toasting or coziness. It all seems to happen naturally. Jessica and I are proof of this as Munich was the first city since our early twenties that got us both to dance on tables again. Famous German last words "I really don't want to fall on that giant tray of meat".

Welcome to Muenchen
Keeping on trend with my new love of guided walking tours, Jessica and I hooked up with a local to follow around and soak up some culture before we started our agenda of drinking giant beers. The walking tour in this case turned into more of a guided jog since our fearless leader had legs that started in her under arms and the group had difficulty keeping up. Despite the light sprint that was required we managed to cover a good part of the city, learn a few facts and visit some important historical sites. Looking back on my photos, I now realize I should have taken better notes as the afternoon in the beer tents that followed killed off many of the brain cells that were storing all of the important historical information.

It’s a bike and a bar – let’s get a beer
Just as we got tired of sprinting in an attempt to keep up with our leggy tour guide, we happened upon Lenny’s bike tours. Lenny built himself an eight-man bicycle with a bar in the center and a bench in the back. Being the professionals that we are, we managed to join the tour without peddling and got to sit back while the others did the work. Jessica grabbed a spot on the bench while I sat on a crate with the bartender in the center. We traveled about 50 feet in 30 minutes, drank a beer and listened to some fabricated German facts. Best part of the trip – someone lost their shoe, and it wasn’t me.

Bring it on Bavaria
I am still overwhelmed by how large the fairground was , but more so by how many people were there. I did some research when we got back and almost 7 million people visited Oktoberfest this year. It was especially impressive that everyone turned up in their traditional German fashion. Jessica and I composed a drunken plan on a napkin Friday night in the heart of our beer tent tour to wake up early the next day for dirndl shopping, but to the relief of our wallets and already over packed suitcases, that shopping extravaganza never took place.

It took us a little while to adjust to walking in and finding a place with strangers at tables, but once you stand for too long in a beer tent without a beer in your hand you learn the logistics of the operation pretty quickly. We even managed to score some free drinks from someone who told us he was a prince from Switzerland celebrating his birthday. Happy Birthday Prince Swiss my name is Sophie Hardgrove and it’s a pleasure to drink your free beer (my alias is now officially international). The most handy guide we had to navigate the crazy was the beer tent app Jessica downloaded for her iphone. I’m just not sure how people handled the festival back in 1810. Why walk to a tent if you can already know it is closed due to maximum capacity.

L is for Lebkuchenherz
One of the honored traditions of Oktoberfest is to purchase a heart shaped cookie for your lovely to wear as a necklace around the fair. Each gingerbread cookie has a clever saying written in frosting so you must choose carefully to ensure you are communicating the right message to those around you. Jessica chose a cookie for me which said “you are my little sparrow”. I selected a heartwarming slogan for Jessica which translated to “nice ass”. Those few words are not only true but came in handy for us as we were searching for empty seats in crowded tents. We should all wear gingerbread cookies around our necks displaying messages and body part compliments. The Germans know how to roll.

Hold the cheese please
Germany was certainly not short on delicious snacks and foods to keep us fueled during our tourist mission. Any place that serves giant pretzels the size of my head is an okay place in the world. The giant sausages from the street carts and schnitzel were equally delicious. The one item we could not get behind was the mysterious butter/cheese hybrid spread that our German friends like to apply in a thick layer to almost everything. It was everywhere and we could neither escape it nor figure out exactly what it was. Even Lufthansa airlines has a giant tub of it on board with the captain spreading it all over there in flight snacks. I’m still researching what this condiment is and attempting to reach out to its creator and ask them to hold off. I’m thinking of starting with a stern complaint letter to Lufthansa.

Auf Wiedersehen
We left our heart shaped cookies (took a bite and they were not tasty) in Muenchen and ended our trip with a few days in London. We did some reminiscing from our exchange program days at Drexel wandering around our old hood, visited the longest champagne bar in Europe (conveniently located in a train station) and had afternoon tea in South Kensington. We also had to drink a bottle of red wine each just so we could go back to the hotel and sleep since I managed to find the worst hotel in the UK for us to stay at. I will no longer fall for hotels.com or their promises. Luckily I took a break from my angry cheese spread e-mail to provide my feedback on finding the worst accommodation in the universe.


I hope you enjoyed the highlights of our 2010 adventure. It was something I was looking forward to all this year and a trip that I will never forget (especially since I finally got around to posting this so I have it written down :)