Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

The EPIC Mac n' Cheese You know that feeling you get when you're traveling and you feel almost overstimulated by the amazing food you've been eating, but there's something a little not right...you realize that what you're really wanting is some "home food." That happened yesterday.  Yannick and I were supposed to run to the market to get stuff for dinner and today, so I offered to make Mac n' cheese--I based it extremely loosely on Mark Bittman's recipe--and what I made was pure magic! Normally I just use Vermont Cheddar, but as they don't have that here I used half Irish Cheddar, half Dutch Gouda. Oh my sweet and gentle Jesus!! WAY BETTER with real European cheeses. Nadine requested it again for dinner tonight. Yannick and I agreed. :)   Today we'll be going out to see a few more things here, but we're going to stay in tonight and get to bed early. We want to have the car packed and be on the road tomorrow by 9a.m.; we'r...

LUSH's array of homemade soaps and more Yesterday Yannick was able to take a break from his paper long enough to spend the afternoon with Nadine and I. I've never been in a foreign country and spent time so leisurely, normally each day is very planned out, making sure to hit all the major sights and toursity things, so this time in Hamburg has been a blessing. I've caught up on mounds of sleep--I know they say you can't catch up, but still!--and have finished all 3 books I brought along, and just feel wonderful. The word leisurely keeps popping into my head. Getting out of the house after a slow and sleepy morning, we took the train to downtown Hamburg, mailing postcards and wandering in and out of boutiques. Nadine introduced me to the amazing homemade soap at LUSH, where I bought two hunks of soap to take home. Can we just say, my suitcase smells amazing! Falafelstern's salads and spreads Then we were off on a culinary journey in what Yannick and Nadi...

Freiburg was unbelievably beautiful and so old; Magdalena goes to the University of Freiburg which was founded in 1457!! That makes her college 500 years older than mine. 500 years old--did you hear that?! Just think of how young the U.S. is in the scheme of things! We spent yesterday morning wandering around Freiburg, taking in the old town, spending our last minutes with Magdalena eating ice cream and taking in the hum of this wonderful city. It was sad to say goodbye to Magdalena, (my backseat-car-mate) and to know that the greatest part of our roadtrip is behind us, but we we were at least happy to know that Magdalena hopes to join us next weekend in Hamburg or Berlin.  We are now in Yannick's (and Beethoven's!!) home town of Bonn, which is also the hometown of Haribou, makers of gummies. We went to the grocery store and they literally have a half an aisle just dedicated to gummy choices in dozens of flavors--I was in heaven! Bonn is also very beautiful, aside ...

We made it to Lausanne, Switzerland Tuesday(?) night and camped in a campground alongside Lake Geneva! LAKE GENEVA! I continue to be amazed at the beautiful things that we keep seeing--this trip is such an enormously wonderful gift and I am absolutely grateful for every minute! We watched the sunset over Lake Geneva before pitching tent and eating our travelers meal (we've had many like this) of baguettes, bread, cheese, wine, and Normandy (hard) cider (cidre!). Deliciously bubbly and slightly drunk me fell asleep under the Swiss stars. *sigh* This morning was a repeat of dinner, though we replaced alcohol with juice. ;) We headed to a local lookout of Lausanne, and then moved on, wanting to spend more time seeing the Swiss countryside, than the city--the drive from France into Switzerland, then Switzerland into Germany was absolutely stunning. We didn't quite make it to the Alps, but saw them from a distance, and instead drove through what I can only assume were ...

I made a promise to my dear Germans , Yannick and Magdalena, during their visit last summer (their second visit to Ohio!), that I would go and visit them in Germany. I asked the Board and was granted the ability to use my vacation time as one huge chunk at the end of the summer. The Germans and I discussed dates via Facebook. And I BOUGHT MY TICKET!! I will be headed to Germany (and who knows where else!!!) for 2.5 weeks in August and September!  I honestly don’t think I’ve been this excited since I was a teenager gearing up for my first foreign travel. Though I’ve done quite a bit of traveling, this is the first time since I went to Jamaica 11 years ago that I will be traveling alone…and there is something exciting in that, no Now can it be August already?!