Becca Jane St Clair

Yesterday, I was looking at my blog statistics, and this website popped up as being a referring website. I always like to check my referrers just to see what they are, and if it’s another blog that’s linked to me, I like to read a few posts and consider adding a link back.

Well. Not this website. Apparently, they not only were hot linking my image of banoffee pie I made several weeks back, they also copied word-for-word my entire post* about making banoffee pie…and the website appears to have no contact information listed, and they’ve conveniently disabled the ability to leave comments on posts. Right clicking on other images and clicking “view image” showed me all sorts of images that had been pulled from other websites, blogs, even livejournal. This leads me to believe that the entire food.tasteonline.info website just copy/pastes in other people’s blog posts….especially after they copied a post from the Guardian and the bottom of the post says:

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

I managed to disable the hotlinking of the image. That was pretty simple and involved editing the .htaccess file (you can google for instructions if you’ve had this problem, too, or even add a WordPress plug-in. Just search the plug-ins for “disable hotlink”). The images (So far) still copy over to the RSS feed and the Facebook feed, but will not show up on any other website.

But what can I do about the copied words? Nothing, really. It would be possible to track down the website owners, but often that doesn’t even give you the proper information. For example, if you check who “owns” my domain, it will list Dreamhost, my hosting company because they protect their client’s identities.

I had another problem recently where a camping website had pulled my post about what you need to drive on the continent. On their site, they claimed it was “edited from” and at least included the link back to my article. The edit was pretty bad though. They changed random words and it wound up not making sense, but again, not much I could really do about it, other than leaving a comment on the article and asking them to remove it.

But since the people that run the sites seem to copy in every last word of a post, so from now on the bottom of every post of mine is going to include a copyright notice similar to the one I use under the photos.

I also looked into disabling right clicking, but then that would also disable the “open in new tab” option if someone wanted to click on a link. I suppose I could also start watermarking all the photos I put on the blog, but that would take ages to do, as all of the “batch watermark” programs I tried in the past were horrible.

*I looked at the banoffee pie recipe again. It appears to be lifted straight off the LJ cooking community, and not my actual blog.

Hmm. I’m going to test posting an image here just to make sure it posts over to the RSS and Facebook feed.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

For the second leg of our trip, we really only knew we wanted to be close enough to both Salzburg and Vienna to go on day trips. The railways Tim wanted to visit would have taken us too far away from the cities, so we looked on a map to pick an area within reasonable driving distance of railways and the cities and picked the Salzkammergut lakes. We spotted many tent symbols on the map, so we were confident we could find a place just by showing up. We started by circling the Attersee. The first town we came upon was called, I kid you not, Attersee am Attersee. I spotted a tourist information centre, so we decided to stop. Unfortunately, the centre was closed, but outside the building there was a tourist information computer and brochures for the region. The internet terminal pointed directly at the area’s tourism website, and we were able view several campsites and printed out several locations that looked good.

We headed around the lake. Some of the campsites were hard to find, but we finally spotted the sign for Camping Gruber in the town of Nußdorf*. Unlike Camping Hofer, Camping Gruber had controlled access, making it a little safer at night – which was a good thing, as the campsite was nearly deserted!

Camping Gruber has a lot of static caravans – people who park their caravan there year-round and come up on weekends and holidays. We saw a few people around on Sunday while we were setting up, but after the weekend, most people had left. Out of the sites that were still occupied, we were once again the only tent.

Camping Gruber has sanitation buildings at both ends, though the ones closer to the lake were nicer and newer. According to their website, they are remodelling their sanitation building for the 2011 season, and I can only assume they will be upgrading the older building. The older ones were dark and operated with automatic lights. Fine when the camp is busy, but not so great when you need the loo in the middle of the night. Twice I had the light go out on me while I was using it, and we never showered in the older facility. Both buildings had washing machines and dryers, though I did not check on the price. Both also had sinks for washing your dishes. The new building even had hobs (US: stove tops) you could use at the rate of 1 Euro for 20 minutes. We didn’t use it since we had a gas stove, but it’s nice to know if you run out of gas, you could still cook!

The newer building is also located on the waterfront, and at the pool and there is a small snack shop/cafe attached, too.

Both buildings have keyed access. When you check-in, you are given a waterproof wrist band that has a chip in it to operate the bathroom doors and the main gate. We nearly had a panic on our hands when we thought we had lost one, and then again a day later when we asked to extend our stay but hadn’t gotten our wrist bands updated. We had to park outside the campsite and walk in, and fortunately, the older bathrooms weren’t locked!

Like I said above, we were one of the few occupied pitches while we were there. It was a bit odd for it to be so quiet, but I suppose with it being near to the end of September, it made sense. The campsite was gorgeous though, and they even had their own boat launching dock right on the Attersee, as well as a diving board partway out into the lake. I was daring and waded into the water up to my ankles, but the water was quite cold and definitely not warm enough to swim in! Apparently the Attersee is so large that even with freezing temperatures, the lake hasn’t frozen over since the 1940s!

Our first day saw us getting settled in and setting up the tent. It was gaining on sunset time when we decided to walk down to the waterfront to take some photos and video.

[If you click on the photo once, it will take you to that photo’s page. If you click on the photo again, you will be able to view it full size. I have no idea why WordPress made it so complicated!]

[Photos taken by either myself or my husband, Tim and are all © Tim and Rebecca Lockley]

Day seven is our trip to the Styrtalbahn, but I might have to get Tim to help me with my post…all the railways start to blend together for me from this point on. Not because they weren’t interesting, I just get the four remaining lines we visited confused with each other for some reason.

*In German, a ß is used for a double S, so the town of Nußdorf is pronounced “Nussdorf”.

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I had a problem. Tim and I have stainless steel flasks we use for carrying around tea when we are out and about. And of course, we have milk in our tea in the flasks. You can imagine where this is going, I’m sure.

Yes, I forgot about emptying the flasks the time before last. I dumped them outside and discovered we had made tea-flavoured cottage cheese (no, I was not about to eat it!), and left a film on the inside and bottom of the flasks. I thought I had cleaned them out, but the next time I made tea in them, my husband complained that it tasted funny.

I searched google to find a way to clean out my flask, and after wading through many sites about how to clean your hip flask, I was getting no where. I changed my search term to “clean steel Thermos”, even though ours aren’t Thermos brand flasks, and found several e-how articles. I tried the following:

-bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and hot water
-fill it halfway with white vinegar and top off with hot water
-mix hydrogen peroxide with bicarbonate of soda
-soak with regular dish soap

And nothing worked, so I went to a favourite LJ community of mine, Hip Domestic. I got lots of solutions that either didn’t make sense to me or that I didn’t have the supplies for, and then jackmaybenimble came forward with a great soloution – Steradent.

She instructed me to put the Steradent into the flasks (with water) and then to use pebbles. She suggested glass pebbles like the kind you can get to put in vases, but I just grabbed a handful of pea shingle from outside and washed them off. Seal up the flask and then shake. The combination of the fizzy Steradent tablet and the rocks act like an agitator to help scrape off the inside.

And you know what? Both flasks look brand new. I’m going to give them a re-wash to make sure all the Steradent is out, but there isn’t even a stain on the bottom! All the filmy stuff that was clinging to the sides of the flasks is gone, and we’re confident we will have tasty tea tomorrow!

Why isn’t this stuff listed on a cleaning website?

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[Finally blogging about our trip to Germany and Austria we took in September 2010!]

We learned something on this trip. Trying to break up the camping into two different sites is not a good idea – we lost nearly three days of our holiday just from setting up and tearing down our campsites. Next time, we will probably pick a location that’s not so much near some of the things we want to do, but within a reasonable driving/railing distance from everything we want to do, although I would go back to both campsites we were at in September in a heartbeat!

The first site, where we spent the first 4 nights of our trip was at Camping Hofer in Zell am Ziller. I picked this campsite based on it’s location to the Zillertalbahn, and based on the photos on the website. I emailed them, and the woman who runs the campsite wrote back promptly and let me make a preliminary reservation the day before we left!

When we arrived, it was still fairly light out. We were given a map of the site with circles around the available pitches. Tim and I took a mini tour looking at the different spots, and finally picked one that was located close enough to the sanitation building for late-night bathroom trips, but far enough away that the noise of people going in and out of the building wouldn’t bother us.

Our set-up took us a lot longer than we thought, hindered slightly by the rocky ground. It seemed that everywhere Tim tried to peg in a tent stake he would hit rock, but we finally managed to get ourselves set up.

We did not use many of the available facilities, and I honestly couldn’t have even told you where the pool was located, though there was one on property. As it was late September, I really wasn’t interested in swimming, anyway! We weren’t really there to just camp, as we had plans for nearly every day. If we had just been there on a camping holiday, we might have taken advantage of some of the facilities. They also have a restaurant and bar, but we glanced at the menu and though the prices were a bit steep for campers. The facility also has a gasthaus and is open throughout the Winter season for skiiers, though I wouldn’t fancy staying in a tent in the middle of Winter!

The sanitation building looked fairly new. It had washrooms and shower rooms for both genders – the toilets were in a separate WC room with just a single sink to wash your hands in, and then the room next door had a long row of sinks at a mirror, about 6 individual stalls with sinks and stools for washing, and 4 shower cubicles. The showers operated on an on-demand type system. Instead of just turning on the shower, you had to push to get water. The shower stream lasted for about 10 seconds, and you could press it as many times as you wanted (showering was free). While it was a slight inconvenience, it did mean you could lather up your hair without the water turned on, and I’m sure that helps the site to conserve water. The water was nice and hot, but you did have to usually duck out of the way the first time you turned it on to avoid the spray of cold as it warmed up. Each shower stall had an outer area to change in as well as the common area, so if you didn’t feel comfortable getting undressed in front of other people, you didn’t have to.

The sanitation building also housed 2 rooms for washing dishes. Each room had long counters along each side and 2 sinks on each side (4 in each room/8 sinks total). Not all of the sinks had hot water, however, so you always had to check first. The sinks were standard, industrial size sinks. You needed to provide the soap and sponge. We packed along our dishpan, too, but I wound up using it more for carrying the dishes back and forth than washing.

The facility also had a laundry room with only 2 washers and 2 dryers, as well as a hanging rack to drip dry clothing. I found the room to be very crowded and wound up taking my line-dry items back to the tent to hang outside. The laundry services wasn’t cheap, either. 7 Euros per load, so a wash and dry cycle cost 14 Euros. Crazy, but I suppose they have you by the nose. Next time we go camping, I’m going to try to pack enough underwear to last the whole trip, and hope our clothing doesn’t get too stinky, because I do not want to pay that much for laundry again!

Tim and I appeared to be the only people with a tent – everyone around us had caravans. Even funnier, a lot of the caravans had little satellite dishes outside! Can’t go on holiday without your telly, I guess.

The site had loads of international visitors, too. Lots of license plates from Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Fortunately, the family that runs the campsite speak English.

As for the camping itself – we both had a great time. The only time we didn’t like camping was the night it poured down rain – the sound of rain on the tent really makes you have to go! Since it was pouring, neither one of us wanted to make the walk to the sanitation building, especially as we left our waterproof jackets in the car. I wound up sacrificing one of my cooking pots to turn it into a chamber pot. Yeah, I know. That’s kind of gross. Sorry. But I promise I never intend on cooking in that vessel EVER again.

Camping also tends to get boring late at night. The light would finally fade around 10PM, and then Tim and I would try to read by the light of our torches, lanterns, and candles, but it never was enough light. The lack of light, paired with it getting cold without the sun meant we had a lot of early evenings….which meant that most mornings I was awake by 5 or 6!

All too soon our time at Camping Hofer was ending, and we had to take down the tent and pack everything back in the car to drive up to the Salzkammergut region. It took us several hours to get everything packed and into the car – mostly because we forgot how we had packed the car! Next time, we’ll be taking a photo of the car.

I only have one other picture to share from Camping Hofer – the telephone booth:

How funny to see a red phone booth in Austria!

Next up – either driving in Austria or setting up camp. I haven’t decided yet!

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I thought I’d take a short break from recapping Austria, and show you my latest taste of home creation.

The funny thing is, I rarely ordered meatball subs if we had subs, because I usually went for a chicken cheesesteak hoagie, but I really wanted them after reading a post on a food blog about them. I suppose I could have gone to Subway and ordered one (I assume UK subway has them), but this was more fun.

I bought a pack of bake at home Petit Pans so the bread would be warm and crusty, but obviously, you could use pre-baked rolls. I also used Cheddar cheese because we always have a big block of cheddar in the fridge, but Mozzarella would make it more “authentic”. Finally, I also used turkey mince for the meatballs, but a traditional meatball sub is most likely made of beef and pork.

You will need:

500g turkey mince
1 egg
50g breadcrumbs
4TBS basil
Tomato Passata (plain tomato sauce)
Grated Cheddar cheese, about 75g
4 petit pan rolls, or other rolls

Preheat the oven to 200C.
Combine mince, breadcrumbs, egg, and 2TBS of basil and form into small balls (about an inch to two inches). Line a baking sheet or casserole dish with parchment paper or spray with cooking oil and arrange meatballs in rows. It’s OK if they touch each other, you can cut them apart later. Cook at 200C for 15-20 minutes, or until meatballs are no longer pink and are brown on top. The larger the ball, the longer they will take to cook.
Combine passata and 2TBS basil and heat through. You can do this in the microwave or on the stovetop, whichever is easier.
Slice open rolls and hollow out one side of the roll. Place meatballs inside the hollow you just made, cover with sauce, and sprinkle with cheese.

One word: Yum.

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[Finally blogging about our trip to Germany and Austria we took in September 2010!]

When Tim and I were discussing all of our options for our trip, Tim mentioned the Achenseebahn, and told me about a cruise we could take around the Achensee on the Achenseeschifffahrt. And very conveniently, you can take the Achenseebahn from Jenbach to the Achensee (at Seespitz) and you could even ride the Zillertalbahn up to Jenbach from the valley, too.

I love riding on boats, so I asked Tim if we could go on the Achenseeschifffahrt…of course, this also meant riding on the Achenseebahn, so Tim wasn’t going to complain!

The Achensee is the largest late within Tyrol, spanning 9.4km and 133 metres deep at it’s deepest point. The Achensee has Trinkwasserqualität, which means you could dip a cup in the lake and drink it without any filtering. The Achensee is an alpine lake, bordered by the Karwendel mountains and the Brandenburg Alps (notice we’re out of the Zillertal alps), and the water temperature rarely reaches above 20°C. Despite the cold temperatures, the Achensee is suitable for surfing, but we did not see any surfers in late-September! The water itself was a beautiful shade of green. Tim calls it “toothpaste green”, but it just reminds me of pine trees. I’m surprised the water is potable given it’s shade of green!

The cruise originates at Seespitz, right next to where the Achenseebahn stop is. By the time the train had gone halfway up the mountain, we had collected a few more people, so there were about a dozen people boarding the boat at Seespitz. This by no means meant we had a quiet cruise! The Achenseeschifffahrt is used by tourists as a sea cruise, but is also used as transportation between the small towns bordering the Achensee. At one point, a bus worth of tourists boarded, only to debark at the very next port. Tim and I had purchased a complete trip around the lake.

We packed our flasks and some snacks, but were highly disappointed to see signs informing us not to eat/drink food brought onto the boat. Checking the prices of a cup of tea or coffee on the boat, and we could see why! The prices were quite steep, but they had a captive audience and if we wanted to drink a cup of tea without getting in trouble for drinking from our flasks, we had no choice. Later on in the cruise, after the top deck had filled up with lots of people, we did see several passengers pulling cans of coke out of coolers, but Tim and I still felt uncomfortable bending the rules.

We met several people while on our journey, too. I was attempting to take a photo of Tim and I by extending my arms out and hoping I could get us both in the picture, when an Italian gentleman sitting near us offered to take our photo for us. As the boat started to fill up, Tim and I had to share our bench with other people, and we wound up sharing with a German gentleman who had a very large, professional looking Nikon camera. He attempted to talk to us, but I don’t know many technical terms in German, Tim only knows railway technical terms in German, and the gentleman spoke little English, but between our strange mix of German, English, and just pointing at things, we did manage to “converse” with him….though Tim thinks the only thing the man was trying to point out was that his camera was bigger than ours!

Our cruise was cold, despite the beautiful day. Then again, we were high up in the Alps, so what did we expect? At one point I was bundled up in 2 jumpers, a fleece, scarf, gloves, and hat. I was very glad I had thought to stick scarves, hats, and gloves in the car while we were packing!

We had a great time on the lake, and once we got back to Seespitz, it was a short wait for the next dampfzug to take us back down the mountain.

[If you click on the photo once, it will take you to that photos page. If you click on the photo again, you will be able to view it full size. I have no idea why WordPress made it so complicated!]

[Photos taken by either myself or my husband, Tim and are all © Tim and Rebecca Lockley]

Next post – campsite tear down and set-up, complete with reviews of both campsites we stayed at.

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[Finally blogging about our trip to Germany and Austria we took in September 2010!]

[the above vlog appeared on my blog months ago, I’m just re-posting it as it’s relevant to today’s post!]

I’m blogging about both railway trips in the same blog post because these two railways are very different, and yet related to each other. Both railways originate in Jenbach. Jenbach is very special, in that it is the ONLY railway station in Austria to have three different lines meet of three different gauges. First, there is the standard gauge OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen) line. OBB runs both passenger and freight trains, and from Jenbach you can get anywhere in Europe by travelling on OBB. Your trip might involve several transfers, but you can still originate in Jenbach! One of the best things I saw while watching trains in Jenbach was the train full of lorries (US: 16-wheelers), complete with cabs! Apparently moving them by train is the best way to get things over the mountains. Unfortunately, we were never fast enough with our cameras to catch photos or video of this.

The second line to meet in Jenbach is the Achenseebahn. The Achenseebahn is a meter-gauge (meaning the distance between the rails is measured in metric as opposed to imperial) partial cog railway between Jenbach and Seespitz. The Achenseebahn is Europe’s oldest cog railway, and about four miles long. The Achenseebahn takes you up the mountain to Seespitz and the Achensee. As this entry will be very photo heavy due to it being about two railways, I will blog about our trip around the Achensee in a separate post.

The third line that meets in Jenbach, and my personal favourite of all the Austrian lines we rode on, is the Zillertalbahn. Unfortunately, their website as it is currently down. The Zillertalbahn is a narrow-gauge railway line at only two feet, five and seven-eighths inches. The Zillertalbahn runs the opposite direction of the Achenseebahn, and takes you into the valley of the Zillertal mountains between Jenbach and Mayrhofen. The Zillertalbahn runs regular commuter-type passenger service, daily special steam (dampfzug) service, as well as freight movement for the logging industry. The Zillertalbahn also happens to run through the village we were camping in, Zell am Ziller.

We knew we wanted to ride the dampfzug the entire length of the line, but instead of driving down to Jenbach, we decided to get on one of the commuter trains from Zell am Ziller to Jenbach. We purchased day tickets, which would allow us unlimited rides along the Zillertalbahn for the day, but did not include travel on the dampfzug. We had to purchase those tickets separately at Jenbach.

The Zillertalbahn certainly is special. The dampfzug trips are special trips for tourists, so they pull out all the stops, including a passenger car entirely made from Swarovski Crystal (called the krystallwagen and a brake van (US: caboose) decked out to look like a giant beer barrel for the local brew – Zillertal Bier.

And the coaches looked rather familiar to me, too. The Zillertalbahn had donated some of their surplus to the Welshpool and Llanfair Railway, and I had a ride in one of their donated coaches when I visited Wales in August. This was not to be the only connection back to the Wales trip on this trip, either!

Tim and I both enjoyed the ride. Previously, we had seen the valley through the car windows as we drove back and forth between Zell am Ziller and Innsbruck the day before (the day we arrived it was too dark to see). The Zillertalbahn line runs parallel to the road for quite a bit of it’s run, perfect for gricing later, but it also runs through the valley and into some of the smaller villages you wouldn’t even notice from the road. We also got a closer look at the freight industry as the train ran directly parallel to the logging yards. I’m completely not technical, so if you want more technical information about this, you’ll have to ask Tim, but basically, they load standard gauge freight wagons onto narrow gauge chassis and take the freight up to Jenbach, where it gets loaded back onto a standard gauge train. I hope I got that right! Tim’s at work right now and I can’t ask him, but I’m sure he’ll correct me in the comments if I got something wrong!

We split up once we got to Mayrhofen – Tim to go take some more pictures, and me to find a loo! One thing I learned in my travels in Austria is that public toilets charge a fee. Anywhere from 20 cents to as high as 75 cents and even a full Euro in some cases. You just insert the coins into the vending slot on the door, and then the door will unlock for you. I had somehow wandered into the middle of a tourist group from Yorkshire who had also been riding the dampfzug, and the ladies all decided they would save their money by holding shut the stall door for each other, letting several people use the loo from one single coin. As I spoke English, the ladies in the group just assumed I was with them and let me join them in sharing the coin.

I found Tim, and we decided to get something to eat in the small pub (if you could call it that!) in the station. We had the classic German dish – frankfurters. This was not the first time nor was it the last time we had frankfurters on our trip – they seem to be everywhere and it reminded me a lot of finding hot dog stands on every corner in Philadelphia. This time, I urged Tim to try the mustard (Estragon Senf). He’s not a big mustard fan, but he decided he liked the Estragon Senf enough to ask what it was and where we could get some to take home. The barmaid showed us the bottle and we were able to find it on our trip to Billa that afternoon.

We boarded the train for our trip back to Jenbach, and as it was still fairly early, we decided to hang around Jenbach and took some photos. Then, we decided to find the railway bridge that crosses the Inn River. We were in luck, and not only caught several service (commuter) trains, but also managed to catch the second dampfzug of the day going across it!

The following morning, we returned to Jenbach, this time by car, to ride the Achenseebahn. We discovered an “early bird special” if we took the first train of the day. The Zillertalbahn wouldn’t have gotten us to Jenbach in time, so we drove instead, and just narrowly made it onto the train to discover that we would be the only passengers for the majority of the trip! It was like having our very own chartered train ride that we didn’t have to pay charter prices for! The Achenseebahn is very steep at parts as it takes you up a mountain, so the train uses a cog wheel or rack to get up the steeper parts. A cog wheel is a wheel in the middle of the train that has teeth on it and it uses it’s teeth to grab onto the middle rail to help pull the train up the mountain. The Achenseebahn also has to push the train for half of the trip as it is too steep to pull it. Tim told me this also acts as a braking system to prevent the coach from sliding down the mountain. Yikes! If you watch the video above, you can see the middle cog “track”.

When we got to the top, we took a boat trip around the Achensee. Like I said, I will blog the video and photos of the Achensee later to not clog up this entry with more video and pics!

Since we got up so early, we had plenty of daylight left once we returned to Jenbach. The boat ride was a few hours long, and the train ride not so long, either, so we wound up returning to Jenbach around lunchtime. We needed something to do for the rest of the afternoon, so after getting some lunch (I really think it might have been frankfurters again), Tim had an idea. He wanted to grice the Zillertalbahn’s dampfzug. He asked me if I would be willing to take the video while he took photos, and a new hobby for me was born. I absolutely LOVED chasing after the train and stopping to film it. If you watch the first video posted in this entry, it’s mostly all footage I took while we were chasing the Zillertalbahn. We even made some “friends”, too. There were two little girls who started to recognize us each time the train passed where we were, so they would start waving at us. Absolutely adorable. We followed the train all the way from Jenbach to Mayrhofen, though we didn’t catch it at every stop as we had to contend with other drivers and small country lanes! Once in Mayrhofen, we took our last photos of the Zillertalbahn and headed back to our campsite.

[If you click on the photo once, it will take you to that photos page. If you click on the photo again, you will be able to view it full size. I have no idea why WordPress made it so complicated!]

[Photos taken by either myself or my husband, Tim and are all © Tim and Rebecca Lockley]

Sorry about all the photos, but we have so many good photos and everything in Austria is so beautiful, I can’t help it! Hopefully, by putting them in gallery format with thumbnails it cuts down on loading time for you!

Next up, a spin around the Achensee!

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[Finally blogging about our trip to Germany and Austria we took in September 2010!]

Tim and I decided to split our trip evenly – for every railway we visited, I got a day to pick something I wanted to see. Sometimes, things overlapped and we did both a railway and something I wanted to do because we needed the railway for transportation, but for the most part, we stuck to our plan.

Today’s trip was actually Tim’s idea for me, so kudos to him for knowing me so well! Swarovski, as many of you know, is a synthetic crystal made in Austria. They use it in all sorts of things from crystal figurines to dinnerware to jewellery…and I use Swarovski a lot in my jewellery creations. Tim spotted a brochure for Kristallwelten, and we headed out.

Kristallwelten was nothing like I had expected, but I still loved it. Kristallwelten is located directly next to Swarovski’s factory, but it is not a factory tour. Kristallwelten is more of an art museum with a twist – everything in the museum is made from Swarovski crystal or features the crystals in some way.

When you walk in, one of the first things you will get to see is the Kristalldom. You walk inside, and it’s like being in the interior of a giant Swarovski crystal. The panels reflect the room back at you, and it can get very confusing! One time I thought I was heading towards Tim, but it turned out I was walking towards one of his reflections!

Kristallwelten is based around a “giant” and his possessions – The outside of Kristallwelten is a giant head with a waterfall, complete with Swarovski crystals for eyes, and you enter the attraction through his ear. Inside, you can view his possessions, including a giant accordion, walking stick, and gloves. Outside the attraction, the grounds are an impressive garden culminating in a hedge maze in the shape of a hand. And even though it was a fairly “small” maze as far as hedge mazes go, it still freaked me out when I was in it and didn’t know where I was!

Kristallwelten is located in Wattens and is the second highest visited Austrian attraction, second to Schloss Schönbrunn in Vienna (we didn’t go there on this visit, as I was there in 1997). Kristallwelten caries a hefty admission fee. Adult admission is 9,50 Euros, but children up until the age of 12 are free, so that’s a break for parents. I’m not sure Kristallwelten is very child-appropriate, though. Some of the sections are quite dark and scary, and we witnessed children running around, not paying attention to where they were going or what they were looking at, and then getting separated from their parents.

Attached to Kristallwelten is of course, a Swarovski shop. I was really looking forward to our shop visit, because I thought I might be able to get some beads to make a bracelet as a souvenir. Unfortunately, the prices directly at Swarovski were just as expensive as ordering online from Swarovski, and my online supply company came in as less expensive even with factoring in shipping to the UK!

Kristallwelten took up our morning. We packed sandwiches and sat in the gardens to eat and took a stroll through the gardens, where we explored the hedge maze and climbed up to a lookout point where you could see the entire maze.

We headed back to the car and decided to go to Innsbruck, where we learned an important lesson: Don’t drive into a city without a map! We had our big Austrian road map, but nothing for the cities and we got lost several times trying to follow the directional signs. But we did get a spectacular view of the Bergiselschanze (ski jump) used at the Innsbruck Olympics! We planned to go to Schloss Ambras, but by the time we found it I wasn’t feeling too well and didn’t want to climb up all the steps, so we just took pictures of the castle and the gardens. Tim asked if we could instead take a ride on the trams up into the hills.

I thought this would be great fun and a great way to see some more scenery, but I was to be disappointed on the trip up. The tram was crowded and we wound up standing for most of the journey, which did not help my feeling ill. We also had to spend part of the time standing directly on the bendy part of the bendy-tram (like a bendy bus, only it was a tram), which really started to give me motion sickness.

But, the trip to the top was worth it, and we found a small cafe to get a drink and a bite to eat at. As we were the only patrons other than family at the cafe, we were treated very well and even were offered biscuits (cookies) out of their personal stash.

Fortunately, we were able to get good seats for the trip back down and were able to look out the window. Below you’ll find an edited video of our hour-long trip back!

[If you click on the photo once, it will take you to that photos page. If you click on the photo again, you will be able to view it full size. I have no idea why WordPress made it so complicated!]

[Photos taken by either myself or my husband, Tim and are all © Tim and Rebecca Lockley]

Next Up: Zillertalbahn!

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Has it really been two weeks? Oh, dear. I’m so sorry to have kept all of you waiting for the rest of the Austria trip. I got sick sometime around Valentine’s Day, and I’m still not 100% better, even though we went to Brighton last weekend for ModelWorld. Sadly, my visit this week to see my friend Jessy is currently on hold due to me still having symptoms and not wanting to pass things on to her or her children. I’m hopeful that I’ll make it down later in the week, though.

We also are getting new to us bedroom furniture at the end of March, and need to put up lining paper in the bedroom, re-paint the walls and trim, and get new carpeting installed…plus make it so we can put the new furniture in the bedroom. I don’t know how much I’ll be around until after we get all that done. Working on the bedroom will be taking top priority, as we must move the furniture on the 28th.

To add to all this — it’s competition season for my chorus! We’ve got a competition in a few weeks time and then our regional convention/competition in May….with loads of extra rehearsals on weekends to prepare! If you think that’s all we have going on right now…no. It’s also model railway show season! It’s absolutely crazy around here!!

But rest assured, the rest of the posts are coming. I don’t think I’ll get one out tonight (I’m feeling tired!), but I’ll try to get something up tomorrow. If I don’t get to Jessy’s, I’ll try to post every other day this week.

Oh, and we have a bit of good news – Tim found out his new MOM position will start on the 3rd of May. The only downside is his weeks away at training will overlap my chorus convention…and the weekends will be the only time we’ll see each other while he’s away on his course, so that won’t be fun, but at least we now know when he’ll start!

We also re-arranged our kitchen yesterday and finally got rid of the in-laws picnic table we had been using as a kitchen table. We bought Leksvik from IKEA – it’s a small table with two drop leaves. Perfect for two, and expandable for six. Plus, it fits a lot better in our kitchen! Photos will be posted once I get things back in order. Right now the kitchen is still a bit of a mess!

Hope everyone is doing well!!

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Tim and I spent this weekend with our friends Nicky, Dave R, and Pete. The five of us have decided to get together at least once a month – they provide the pizza, we bring along a pudding (US: dessert). Last time we got together, I took an apple and blackberry crumble along. This time, I wanted to do something different.

I made a black forest cake (Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, see? It is related to the Austria/Germany trip!) back at the beginning of August for our friend Dave B’s birthday. It was delicious – we didn’t even have a single piece left of it! Nicky and I were going through my food pics over IM and I said I thought I might make that for this weekend. To make a long story short, her brother (Dave R) made a joke about how I needed to make 5 cakes – one for each of us. Originally I had said that I thought a cupcake version of this would be too messy….but then I had to rise to the challenge, especially after someone on one of the cooking/baking communities I read posted a link to Bake it in a Cake. If that person can bake loads of things into cupcakes….I could do a black forest version. I even modelled my recipe off of their cherry chocolate cheesecake recipe.

The first attempt I made was a half-failure, I’ll be honest. I knew I wanted to take 10 cupcakes with me this weekend (2 cupcakes per person), which meant that would leave two “extra” – just enough for Tim and I to taste test them. The first batch tasted GOOD, but they were too gooey. The cupcakes were spilling out over the top of the liners, the paper stuck to the cakes, and there was just no way that the cupcakes could be eaten without a fork. The filling leaked through the bottom of the paper liner (AFAIK, they don’t sell aluminium liners in the UK) making the liner soggy. I looked back at the cheesecake recipe, and noticed that they gave their cupcakes a crust. Black Forest Gateau sometimes has a biscuit base, so I thought “why not?” and since I had plenty of batter left, attempt number two was made. I am pleased to say that the addition of the bicsuit layer helped to keep it less of a mess!

So, here’s how to make them! This recipe will make 24 Black Forest Cupcakes. I didn’t half the recipe because of the possibility of making a mistake, but when I make these again, I will probably cut the recipe in half and only make 12.

You will need:

200g biscuits (I used 100g plain digestives and 100g chocolate biscuits) (US: cookies)
150g butter, melted

125g plain chocolate (US: baking chocolate), melted*
225g butter, softened
295g sugar
3 eggs (mine were medium sized)
2 tsp vanilla extract
300g flour (I happened to have self-rising, but plain will probably work, too)
4 TBS unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 tsp bicarbonate of soda (US: if using baking soda, only use 2tsp**)
1/4 tsp sea salt (regular salt will do fine)
320ml milk
2 tsp cherry brandy (optional)

1 can cherry pie filling
1 jar maraschino cherries
1 packet dream topping/whipped topping (US: Dream Whip or Cool Whip) or cream for whipping if you’re good at that
good quality chocolate, about 25g (for garnish)

cupcake tin
cupcake liners

hint: To melt your chocolate without worrying about it overcooking if you don’t have a double boiler (I don’t!), place a bowl filled with the chocolate in a larger bowl filled with boiling water. Be careful the water doesn’t get in the chocolate.

hint: If you have cookies/biscuits the same size as the bottom of the cupcake tin, don’t worry about the butter. Just place the cookie directly in the bottom of the paper case. An Oreo (with the filling scraped off) might work well!

hint: to make the whipped topping whip better, chill the bowl and the beaters for at least an hour before you make it.

Preheat oven to 175C and put the liners in the tin.
Melt 125g chocolate.

Make the biscuit layer by crushing the biscuits until they are a fine powder. Combine biscuits with 150g melted butter and spoon into cupcake liners. You’ll need about a teaspoonfull per each cupcake. Use your fingers to make sure the biscuit mix covers the bottom of the cupcake liner. This does not need to be super thick.

Cream together sugar, 225g butter, vanilla, and eggs. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, cocoa powder, baking powder, and bicarb. If you don’t have a sifter (I don’t), either mix it together really good or push the ingredients through a strainer. Add melted chocolate to the butter mixture. Alternate adding milk and flour mixture, beating until smooth. If you have cherry brandy, add it at this time. Your batter should look light and fluffy.

(Please note, that picture is from the first batch. DO NOT fill your cupcakes that full!) Spoon 1-2 teaspoon’s worth of batter in each liner and spread the mixture so it covers the biscuit base. Then, spoon a teaspoonfull of the cherry pie topping into each liner (make sure you have at least one cherry in each cupcake). Cover the cherry filling with another teaspoon or two of batter. You shouldn’t be able to see any cherry filling.
Bake 30 minutes and allow to cool completely.

Drain maraschino cherries and make dream topping. Take your 25g of good quality chocolate and use a vegetable peeler to shave it into curls.
Put one spoonful of dream topping on each cupcake – just enough to go nearly to the edge. Top with 1-2 maraschino cherries and sprinkle with the chocolate shavings. There will be plenty of topping left. Just freeze the extra for another treat!

*I used a combination of plain chocolate, 85% cacao “good quality” chocolate, and 5 Cherry Cordial Hershey Kisses
**For unknown (and un-googleable) reasons, UK bicarbonate of soda is not as powerful as US baking soda. I’ve noticed I have to add 50% – 100% more in most of my recipes to get them to rise the same as they would have in the US.

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Every year after a holiday involving turkey, my aunt would make Turkey Tetrazzini and she would always invite my mom and I over for dinner because it “made a lot”. Each time, we’d go and I’d eat it, but I never really enjoyed it. It just never appealed to me, and I can only speculate on why. It had nothing to do with my aunt’s cooking – she’s a fabulous cook, and many of my recipes come from her. The recipe called for tinned mushrooms, and I’m just not a huge fan of mushrooms. Maybe it was the mushrooms that turned me off, I don’t know.

I was flipping through my Betty Crocker Cookbook and I came across the Chicken Tetrazzini recipe, which as far as I can tell is the same recipe my aunt always uses. A lot of my family recipes as it turns out have come straight out of Betty. That’s not a bad thing, it just shows to me that Betty’s recipes really are good. I decided there had to be a way to make this taste good to me, so I set about changing a few things to make it taste better and to make it healthier. The first thing I did was swap out those mushrooms for peas!

So here’s my take on this Betty Crocker classic.

You will need:

200g whole wheat spaghetti, broken into quarters
2 TBS butter
30g whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
230ml chicken broth or stock
230ml milk
3 TBS red wine
225g cooked cut-up chicken
110g frozen peas
50g Parmesan cheese
50g bread crumbs

Dutch oven

Preheat oven to 175C. Cook pasta according to directions on packet.
In the Dutch oven, melt butter over low heat (if you don’t have a dutch oven, you will need a regular sauce pan and a casserole dish).
Stir in flour, salt, and pepper and cook until smooth.
Add broth and milk, bring to a boil and boil for one minute. Sauce will be creamy and thick.
Drain pasta and add to dutch oven along with chicken, peas, and red wine. Stir until coated in sauce. If you don’t have a dutch oven, transfer the mixture to a casserole dish.
Combine bread crumbs and parmesan cheese and sprinkle over top of dish.
Place uncovered in oven and bake 30-45 minutes until hot and bubbly. Check your dish after about 20 minutes. If the cheese on top is starting to burn, put the lid on.

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[Finally blogging about our trip to Germany and Austria we took in September 2010!]

Today was THE day. I was finally going to see what we affectionately dubbed “my castle”. I blogged about this all the way back in December 2009 when we started planning our trip, though at that time we had been planning on staying in Germany and not Austria. In between December 2009 and going on our trip in September 2010, our plans changed A LOT…but the one constant was always going to be visiting Neuschwanstein.

Neuschwanstein has been the inspiration behind many artists, poets, writers, and….animators. Cinderella’s Castle at Walt Disney World is partially based on Neuschwanstein. It’s no surprise…the castle is gorgeous. Even without going inside, I would have been completely satisfied with my visit having finally gotten the chance to gaze upon “my castle”.

I printed directions before we left the UK to get us from the hotel to the castle, and they seemed to work pretty well. At one point, we were driving on a tree-lined narrow road and I could catch glimpses of the castle through the trees. We pulled over and discovered a path through the bushes (obviously well-travelled by other visitors!) and I got my first in-person look at Neuschwanstein. It took my breath away and nearly had me in tears. We got back in the car, drove about 100 feet, and stopped again, this time to take a photo of the OTHER castle near Schwangau, Hohenschwangau. These two castles are within yodelling distance of each other. We did not tour Hohenschwangau that day, as my main focus was getting to Neuschwanstein, but we will go back and explore it on another trip. There’s so much to do right in that small area I could see us easily planning a week just staying right in that area.

We finally reached the castle grounds. You need to purchase your tickets before you get up to the castle at a special ticket booth (located next to one of the many souvenir shops!). This is also where you would purchase tickets for Hohenschwangau, as well as a combination ticket for both castles. After you have your ticket, you can opt to walk up the mountain, take a bus, or ride behind a horse-drawn carriage. As much fun as the carriage sounded, we opted for the bus ride up and the walk back down, figuring down would be lots easier than up! Tickets are for timed entries depending on what language you want the tour in (tours are offered in German, French, English, and then a multilingual tour where you walk around with a device similar to a mobile phone that translates into something like 30 languages), so you really need to watch how you get up to the castle and make sure there aren’t long queues! In fact, we nearly didn’t make it on time as the first bus to come down filled up with everyone ahead of us, leaving us standing about 5 people back from the front.

The bus drops off right near Marienbrücke (Mary’s Bridge), a very rickety wood and iron bridge that goes over the gorge giving you a perfect view of Neuschwanstein. Tim braved the bridge despite his dislike of heights to take a few photos for me. The bridge is still a decent uphill walk to the castle gates, so we had to get on our way quickly so we wouldn’t miss our booked slot.

Tours start from the courtyard. You can’t take large bags into the castle, so they offer lockers you can rent. Tim and I knew this ahead of time and left our knapsacks in the car, stuffing water bottles into the camera bag and my handbag. Each tour has a number attached to it and a barcode on your ticket. When your number is called, you have to go to the barrier, insert your ticket, and go in. When our tour was called, there was a mad (rude) dash to the barriers and I nearly got knocked over twice by people who seemed to think they had to be first.

Before I tell you about our visit, let’s talk about Neuschwanstein. The castle was built in the 19th century by a man who is better known as Mad Ludwig. It was intended to be his personal refuge, however he died while the castle was still being constructed. Ludwig wanted his castle to be a fairy tale castle and to pay tribute to Richard Wagner, and so all of the rooms are decorated to represent his musical works. Ludwig also had a slight obsession with swans, and there are multiple swans in every single room – carved into furniture, worked into the paintings, and even carved into the crown moulding. In fact, one of the first things you see when you walk in is a life-sized swan sculpture. Neuschwanstein means “new stone swan” in German.

Photography is not permitted inside the castle, but I did find a website with some interior photos.

The other people in our tour group continued to be rude. It’s really a shame, but some people just didn’t have the patience to wait their turn and were pushing and shoving at us. At one point, Tim and I even got separated by a crowd of people because they managed to push by me. It’s a castle, for crying out loud! It’s not going anywhere! Despite (or in spite of, take your pick) the rude tourists, we still had a great time. I was in awe. At one point we were looking out some windows at the scenery below, and I asked our tour guide if it was all right to take some photos looking out the (open) window. She gave me permission, so guess what happened? Yep. About a dozen people in our group all went over to the window and started taking photos and I had to wait until they were done before I could go take mine. Not that the guide wouldn’t have given the others permission, but it just really rubbed me the wrong way to have that happen when I was the one to ask about a picture!

At the end of the tour, you can take a self-guided tour of the kitchens on your way to the gift shop and cafe. The kitchen was amazing, and I couldn’t help but dream of the kinds of meals I’d cook if I had that large of an oven and hob at my fingertips! Once again, we ran into an issue when we tried to use the cafe. Tim and I didn’t know what was going on and there weren’t any signs, so we stood there by the counter waiting to place our order while one of the workers did something away from the counter (but saw us). Tim and I both assumed that since she saw us, she would come over to serve us as soon as she was done. Not so. Three ladies walked in behind us, got in front of us, and started calling for the woman’s attention. We thought we’d get served before these ladies because the woman had seen us waiting, but no. She goes and gets the food those ladies ordered, and then goes back to her other work, completely ignoring Tim and I. Not ones to hang around where we’re not wanted, we left and decided to grab food at the food and drink stands dotting the perimeter of the castle.

We started walking down the footpath taking photos and Tim was trying to find a spot to set up his camera for a self-timed shot. Ironically, a British couple heard Tim and I talking and asked us to take their photo in exchange for them taking ours. Worked out perfectly! We started hiking down the mountain and found a footpath to follow that went through the woods. It was dotted with benches, so we had someplace to stop and rest if we needed to.

By the time we got to the bottom, we decided it was time to head towards Austria. We had booked a few nights at Camping Hofer in Zell am Ziller, and we had about a two-and-a-half hour drive to get there. Since we’d be setting up camp, we wanted to make sure we arrived while it was still daylight, and the office at the campsite closed at 7PM. If we arrived later, we’d have been forced to find a B&B for the night. Arriving in daylight also gave us the chance to see what shops were available near the campsite. Fortunately, we passed a Billa supermarket on our way.

We arrived while it was still daylight. One of the very odd things about where we were was the complete lack of a sunset. I think it was because we were in a valley completely surrounded by mountains on all sides. The sun must have been behind a mountain. Tim and I just barely managed to get everything set up and Tim was blowing up the mattress as it started to get dark. I fished out a torch (US: flashlight) and managed to make us cups of tea and instead of going back out to Billa, we decided to eat whatever we happened to still have in the cooler that night. A review of the campsite will be made in a separate post.

We had an amazing day! Tim really spoiled me on this trip, and day three was to be another day of my choice – Swarovski’s Kristallwelten

And the photos…oh, you know you want to look!

If you click on the photo once, it will take you to that photos page. If you click on the photo again, you will be able to view it full size. I have no idea why WordPress made it so complicated!

I read a lot of food blogs because I love to try new ideas in the kitchen, and one of the best foodie blogs out there is probably Serious Eats. Some of the posts aren’t relevant to me when they review restaurants across the US, but I still always find it interesting. SE has several recurring serials, including one called “French in a Flash“, a series of easy French recipes.

About a week or so before the super bowl, an entry appeared for Hot Dog Vol-au-Vent. The creator of the recipe describes the dish as similar to Saucisson en Croûte, which is similar to a UK sausage roll. You know what I call it? Posh (American) Pigs in a Blanket.

The reason I add the “American” marker is because UK Pigs in a Blanket are different from US ones. In the UK, most people when they describe making Pigs in a Blanket are referring to sausages wrapped in bacon. I myself made these at Christmas when I had my “rescued Christmas” dinner as they are a staple on the UK Christmas table. In the US, however, Pigs in a Blanket are usually made from hot dogs or “little smokies” and involve a tube of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls.

When I spotted the Vol-au-Vent recipe, I was curious and thought I would give it a go, but the recipe calls for onion (which I’m allergic to) and something called fleur de sel. A quick google search revealed that fleur de sel is French sea salt. I did not have any French sea salt, but I did have a canister of Saxa sea salt, so that would just have to do. As for the hot dog part – please don’t buy hot dogs in a can. At least go for the ones sold in the cooked meats aisle, like Hessey’s.

Here’s how you make my version of Posh Pigs in a Blanket.

You will need:

One sheet of puff pastry, thawed and unrolled (I bought a “light” version from Tesco)
16 pieces of hot dogs (you can cut 8 in half, or cut 5 into thirds and only make 15 – I did this and wrapped up the spare bit of pastry with just some mustard. Yum.)
Your favourite mustard (ours is Estragon Senf we brought back from Austria)
1 egg
poppy seeds
sea salt

Preheat the oven to 200C.
Take your sheet of puff pastry, and cut it in half horizontally (I used my pizza cutter), then cut each half into 8 strips.
Give each strip a dot of mustard (however much you’d like), and then roll each strip around a piece of hot dog. Place the wrapped hot dogs seam side down on a baking sheet.
Give the egg a whisk and use a pastry brush to give the tops an egg wash.
Sprinkle with poppy seeds (I used about 2 teaspoons) and sea salt.
Bake for 25-30 minutes until pastry is golden brown.

My husband enjoyed these so much he informed me that I had to make them again!

Post about Neuschwanstein tomorrow!

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[Finally blogging about our trip to Germany and Austria we took in September 2010!]

Or I should say, Day .5 and Day One.

On the Sunday before we left, Tim had to work a 12-hour day shift. So, we packed the car up on Saturday afternoon – I dragged everything outside while Tim was at work, and then when he got home we spent a few hours stuffing it…and boy, do I wish I had thought to take pictures of the packed car! My friend Lou lives down near Dover, and she offered to let us spend the night at her place on Sunday so we wouldn’t lose a half day driving through England. What a lifesaver! We didn’t actually get to her house until past 10PM, and didn’t get to sleep (too busy chatting!) until around 12, but it was well worth it to get on a Ferry around 8AM. Thanks again, Lou (Lou is currently cruising in the Caribbean with our favourite band, Barenaked Ladies)!

Our plans for Monday were to drive across France, through Belgium and Luxembourg, and finally into Germany. The drive was LONG. I think when we do this again (plans are for 2012 or 2013!), we’ll be breaking the journey sooner, as Tim was really tired. Unless by then I’m driving, in which case we would be able to switch off. But we had important plans and a sort-of itinerary to follow. Plus, I booked us a room for the night in Oy-am-Mittelberg.

We took an early morning ferry, around 8AM BST. Unfortunately, we crossed into a new time zone and we actually lost an hour. I think next time, we’ll aim for a 7AM sailing, as well. I also discovered that P&O sail continuously through the night, so we could have driven down after Tim got off work, gotten on the ferry and stayed at a hotel in France and given us a jump start. Oh well. We know for the next trip. The ferry was also cold. We went outside on the open deck while the ship was leaving port in Dover and while it was docking in Calais, but then we went inside and ordered breakfast. Food on the ferry was expensive, but it was worth it – They had a breakfast deal where you got something like 6 or 7 items for a flat rate. I took a picture of Tim’s plate!

We reached Calais around 9:30AM local time, and started in on the long drive. We made a bathroom stop somewhere in France, and stopped in Belgium for Lunch. I packed things into our cigarette lighter socked powered cooler so we could have a picnic lunch and we took a decent break. Original plans were to get to our Gasthaus in plenty of time for Abendbrot (evening meal), but that wasn’t going to happen. We finally gave in and stopped around 8PM at a service plaza. Our options were an expensive authentic German meal, or Burger King. Needless to say, we opted for Burger King. No reason to break the bank on a dinner break! This also is where we learned about Frauenparkplatz.

A Frauenparkplatz is a parking space, or series of spaces, reserved for women. The spaces are a little wider than traditional spaces, which lead you to think the Germans perhaps don’t think women can park. However, these spaces were actually created for women’s safety and are located close to doors and well-lit. Personally, I think it’s a great idea…it just also has the potential for jokes!

Around this time, we also discovered one of the perks of the Germany Autobahn — Many sections have raised speed limits or even NO speed limit. At first I was afraid for Tim to be driving at 100, but then I soon realized that if he didn’t, we’d get squashed by all the other passing cars! The sections aren’t very long, or at least, driving along at 100 they don’t feel very long. It helped us to make up some time, too. Our Gasthaus had a check-in time of by 10PM and if we didn’t get there, we’d lose 80% of the room rate plus not have a place to sleep. Fortunately, I was able to call the Gasthaus from my mobile and they were willing to “wait up” for us until 11. As luck would have it, we managed to arrive right at 10PM!

We stayed at the Ratskeller. A Gasthaus I picked completely by random based on it’s location and price. I just looked at a map of where we planned to be the following day, and picked out a few towns to check that looked like they were within an hours driving distance. I picked the Ratskeller completely blind, but it turned out to be an excellent choice.

Our room was basic, but it had all the basic commodities you expect from a hotel – comfortable, clean beds, a clean WC with shower stall, a telephone, television, and as luck would have it- free WiFi. Our hosts even offered to cook a meal for us when we arrived at 10! We declined, since we had made a stop already for food. We did make the mistake of assuming there would be a kettle or coffee maker in our room though and wished we had asked for some tea. We were really tired, so we set our alarms for 8 the following morning, plugged in some of our electronics to get them charged up, pushed the beds together (we booked a double room, but it consisted of two single beds), and collapsed.

The following morning we pulled back the curtains to absolute beauty. We missed it the night before since we arrived in the dark, but Oy-am-Mittelberg is in a valley of the Bavarian Alps. It’s stunning. Most of their tourism comes from skiing in the Winter, so in the off-season it is fairly quiet. When we went down for breakfast, there was only a handful of people present.

Breakfast (Frühstück) in Bavaria consists of a continental breakfast of meats and cheeses, and then there is usually a second breakfast called Brotzeit (“Bread Time”). The Gasthaus gave us a nice spread of breads, meat, cheeses, cereal, and hard-cooked eggs. The meal also included tea, coffee, milk, and apple juice. Surprisingly, the tea wasn’t bad! Tim and I adopted the continental style breakfast for the duration of our trip, as it made Frühstück a lot easier to prepare before we headed out for the day!

We were soon on the road and on the way to our first tourist stop of the trip – Neuschwanstein Castle. We stopped a few places along the way to take some photos. I’ll try not to overwhelm you with photos, but it’s going to be hard to pick my favourites!

If you click on the photo once, it will take you to that photos page. If you click on the photo again, you will be able to view it full size. I have no idea why WordPress made it so complicated!

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I know that’s a funny title…arrived where? And I’m sure I’ll get even more funny looks when I respond with “England”, but there you have it. Last week, I realised that I am embracing the United Kingdom and even though I’ve been calling this place my home for the past year, I finally feel like I mean it.

It’s for a really stupid reason, though. No one asks me where I’m from any more. I don’t get “Are you [Canadian/American/Irish*]?” , “Where are you from?”, or “Are you enjoying your visit?” when I go out or travel. Possibly because I walk with purpose. I can navigate myself through King’s Cross, down into the tube, and across town to catch another train out of Paddington or Waterloo with little fanfare. I know where to find the pricey high street goods for less. I know which pubs are poor quality chain restaurants and which ones are genuinely good. My go-to fast food is fish and chips. I drink tea, and actually now prefer tea over coffee. My kitchen radio is set to Radio 2, except between 12 and 2 when I switch over to Radio 4 or BBC Lincs. People stop me in Lincoln, Derby, London, Leicester, etc. and ask me for directions. I walk everywhere and only consider asking Tim to drive me a mile to the co-op if it’s raining or dark.

I’m sure I’ll always have an American accent, but what sets me apart from visitors is the language I use. Yes, America and England are two countries separated by a common language** But it’s those linguistic differences that make me feel like I have arrived (Tim also says that my tone of voice is quieter and the only times he can tell I’m a Jersey Girl are if I’m on the phone with Jessy or Erin).

I remember my first trip to the UK in 1997. We were all fresh-faced high schoolers ready to visit a foreign country….and half of the group trekked to McDonald’s for Lunch. We thought the signs that said “To Let” were misspelled signs for “toilet”, and we didn’t understand the funny looks we got when we asked for the bathroom. Few of us would have been able to tell you that pants are worn under your trousers, suspenders hold up your stockings, and braces are what hold up your trousers.

We went home from that trip, full of memories and British words. Oh, we thought we were so cool if we asked a teacher if we could go to the loo. But now? I actually cringed when an American friend who has never left the country used words like loo and lorry. Tim laughed at me and told me that that was me 5, 10, 15 years ago…and he’s right. But living here, actually living here…it is what it is. It’s not always glamorous, it’s certainly not easy, but it’s my life. And I love it.

*Yes, Irish. Don’t ask me WHY, but I apparently sound Irish to some people…
**Thank you, George Bernard Shaw

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Like many Britons, our idea of a holiday abroad is packing up the car and going across the channel (via ferry, rail, or tunnel) to mainland Europe (called “the continent”). One of the first things you notice as you drive off the boat is the cars are driving on the opposite side of the road from the UK and the drivers sit on the opposite side of the car (so American drivers, it’s the same side of road and car that we’re used to). This can make for some very interesting driving on small country back roads as the passenger tells the driver “you’re too far over!”, and even more fun on the motorways – particularly if you get passed by a driver who looks over and sees the person in the “drivers seat” (left side of the car) napping or reading a book!

Europe has some regulations for driving that you must follow, including carrying appropriate safety equipment with you. You can even purchase the required items on the ferry if you have forgotten them, but most auto supply shops (like Halfords) should stock everything you need.

*The first thing you need to do is pick up a pair of headlamp beam converters. These are round stickers you stick on your headlights so that the beam of light coming from them doesn’t blind other drivers, since UK headlights point in a different direction from European cars. These stickers are removable, and you should try to remember to remove them as soon as you return from Europe. I think our car might still have the stickers on it. Ooops!

*The second requirement is to display a GB sticker on the back of your car. Most post 2001 tags include the GB symbol on them, however this does not exempt you from needing the sticker in all countries. You can purchase this as a magnet if you do not wish to have a sticker permanently on the back of your car.

*Most European countries also require a reflective vest if you will need to get out of your car on the motorway. Some countries require this only for the driver, some require it also for passengers. A good idea is to make sure you have enough vests to cover everyone in your car. There are no requirements on the colour or style of vest, only that you must have one. If you work in a profession where you need a vest, you can use that one or you can even pack along the vests you wear while cycling if you already own some.

*Another item MOST European countries require is a warning triangle if you are stopped on the motorway.

*Lastly, you also should carry a first aid kit. Not only is it a requirement, it could come in handy. If you already have a first aid kit in your car, now is the time to check it and make sure it has plenty of supplies and that the adhesive hasn’t gone off on the plasters (US: band-aids). Your first aid kit does not need to come from an auto supply shop or be specially marked for Europe. Just like the vests, you can use a first aid kit you already own.

There are also some regulations that are country-specific. For example, if we had been going to Austria between November and April, we would have needed to fit snow tyres to the car. A great website for checking the requirements for the countries you plan on visiting is The AA’s Driving Requirements by Country page.

So…we’re ready to drive our UK car in Europe, right? Wrong. You also need to call your insurance company to make sure you have European coverage. It’s best to do this at least a month before your trip to make sure you have copies of the require paperwork, but some companies can email you the documents you need to print. Make sure you carry these papers with you.

It also is a good idea (but not necessary for European travel) to contact your emergency breakdown provider (AA, RAC, etc.) and enquire about services while in Europe. Tim and I were able to get coverage for Western Europe for 14 days for about £65 from the RAC. Pricey, yes, but better than getting stuck somewhere with a broken car. The RAC services we signed up for even included a hotel stay if we needed to wait for the car to be repaired, and would pay for getting our broken car plus ourselves back to the UK if it came to that.

In addition to getting your car ready for European travel, it’s a good idea to make sure you have valid travel insurance and if you are a European resident, a valid EHIC card. An EHIC card is not a substitute for travel insurance, so it is wise to carry both. The EHIC card is free to European residents, including those of us here on spousal visas. The website states that you need to apply via post, however if your UK spouse has an EHIC card, they just need to call 0845 606 2030 and request a card for their spouse.

Oh, and don’t forget to take along your paper counterpart to your driver’s license. You probably won’t need it, but I always like to be prepared.

You also might want to pick up a road map for the countries you plan on visiting. We purchased a Michelin map from Amazon that covered Germany, Austria, BeNeLux, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic. Tim already owned a map book for France, and then we also picked up a large-scale Austria map while we were in Austria, since it had on it the Austrian names for places and had some of the off the beaten path places we wanted to go.

So, we’re ready to go to the continent. Keep reading this week as I start to (finally!) write about our trip in September.

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When I first visited the UK and heard the phrase “Banoffee”, I thought it meant Banana Coffee, and was immediately turned off by the idea. Then, I found out that the -offee in the name comes from toffee. Again, I wasn’t impressed, as I do not like English Toffee. Over a year later, I discovered that what the US food industry call English Toffee is not what toffee is like in the UK. Most toffee in the UK is more closely related to caramel – I’ve even seen the words used interchangeably. This, I could get behind. I’m not a super huge fan of caramel, but I like it a lot better than English Toffee!

With Tim’s promotion, I promised him any treat he wanted. We don’t do sweet treats often unless we have guests over or on special occasions. Tim picked his all-time favourite pudding (US: desert), Banoffee Pie.

I scoured the internet and my cookbooks and came up with a recipe that is Tim-approved. Ironically, this recipe also has coffee in it!

You will need:

3-4 bananas (depends on the size. I’d start with three, but have an extra just in case)
375ml can condensed milk (or caramel)
150g digestive biscuits (about half a pack)
300ml cream (or a pack of dream topping)
75g butter (melted)
1tsp coffee (instant)
1tsp sugar (I used Splenda)
1 bar good quality chocolate
water

pie plate
vegetable peeler
zipper top bag
rolling pin
electric mixer

Time saving tips:
When you’re doing your shopping, look in the condensed milk aisle. You might see a product called Carnation Caramel Dulce de Leche. Buy this instead of a can of regular condensed milk and save a step.

Pick up a pack of Bird’s Dream Topping (they even have a no added sugar version) instead of fresh cream to save on calories and for faster whipped cream (especially if you have problems with whipping cream like I do).

Directions:

Put your mixing bowl for the whipped cream in the fridge along with your beaters (this will help your whipped cream whip better).

If you haven’t found a can of caramel, you need to make it. Boil a pot of water and put the unopened can of condensed milk in the pan. boil for 3 hours, then let the can cool before you open it.

While that’s boiling, make your crust.

Put the biscuits into a zipper top bag and go over it with a rolling pin until the biscuits are a fine powder. Pour crumbs into the bottom of your pie plate and pour over the melted butter. CAREFULLY (it will be hot!) stir until the crumbs are moist and spread over the bottom and sides of your pie dish. If it looks a little dry, add some more melted butter.

After your can is cooled (or if you bought a can of caramel), open the can carefully and spread the caramel on top of the crust mixture. If you used the boil method, put the pie in the fridge for an hour or so to let it cool before the rest of the steps. You don’t need this step if you bought a can of caramel.

Slice the bananas and layer them on top of the caramel. Add as many bananas as you’d like, saving some to garnish the top.

Next, make your whipped cream or dream topping. Once it’s fully whipped, add in the instant coffee and sugar and mix until blended. Spoon this on top of the bananas.

You can make chocolate shavings to garnish by taking your bar of chocolate and running a vegetable peeler over it or by using a cheese grater. Top with some extra banana slices.

Put the pie in the fridge for at least an hour to get it to firm up.

I made mine with a can of caramel and a packet of Bird’s Dream Topping and put the whole thing together in less than an hour.

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Testing posting using the wordpress iPod app.

In a few weeks, Tim and I will be travelling down to Brighton to stay with his friend Nick, and to help Nick and his dad out at a model engineering show. We’ll be staying at Nick’s house for 4-5 days. Without going into personal details, Nick is on some serious pain killers that leave him with no appetite. And I mean, no appetite. Tim told me that one time Nick prepared a trip itinerary and neglected to put in lunch and dinner breaks! So…we’re on our own if we want to be fed at all that weekend.

We don’t want to eat out for the entire weekend because a) that’s expensive and b) that would be unhealthy. Plus with my onion and garlic allergy it can make eating out “interesting”. This goes double for trying to buy ready meals or tinned soup!

We also have one other issue to deal with — Nick doesn’t have a stove. No oven, no hob, no grill. Just a toaster, a kettle, and a microwave. I only use our microwave for 5 things – defrosting meat at the last minute, cooking vegetables, heating up cups of cold tea, making rice, and making a quickie “baked” potato.

Lunch should be pretty easy – we’ll be at the show all day and I can make us some sandwiches in the morning to pack along. Breakfast also is pretty easy – cereal and toast. It’s making sure we have a good dinner that’s proving to be a problem for me!

We DID decide to take the car down. Originally, we were going to rail it the whole way, but then we remembered that we probably need to bring along some additional bedding, as we discovered the last time we were there that the small duvet doesn’t quite cover the both of us. This means, I could bring along the crock pot or the George Foreman grill…or even both. I might just do that, since I know I can cook with both of those, even if it’s just using the GF as a panini press.

So, with no stove…what can I cook? I don’t want to rely on tinned stuff or ready meals, but obviously I won’t be able to cook meat or anything like that. I could buy pre-cooked meat products to then heat up, or I could pre-cook some things at home and take them down in the cooler.

If I DO pre-cook meals and pack them into plastic…what meals re-heat better than others? I suppose I could pre-make pasta sauce and then do “baked” potatoes. Or do a roast and cut it up to be reheated along with some veggies? Should I do lots of pre-cooking and package things into individual homemade ready meals like I do for Tim’s Lunches? (well, he always gets leftovers)

I feel like this is worse than camp-cooking, because at least camping I had the gas camping stove.

Ideas/suggestions….please?

(for those of you who are here for things OTHER than food related posts, real posts are coming! I promise!!)

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