Eurolife: Day 196

Tonight, Micheal and I began a new tradition--though it will probably be a short-lived one. I'm due on July 9th, which is in about 11 weeks and coming fast. While walking around town the other day, I saw a restaurant that I've been meaning to try for months now, and I realized that we'd better get around to trying it one of these days while we can! So, from now on, we have a weekly night out (a "date night," if you will :) and the plan is to check out the city while we can.

Today's selection was the Kartoffelhaus No.1. (It's the only Kartoffelhaus that I know of, but seeing as they designate it "no.1" I thought it worth mentioning.) This "potato house" is a restaurant in a nice open square downtown, and I had read good reviews online. Then some friends were talking about it after church on Sunday, so we figured we'd give it a shot. True to me genes, I love potatoes, so a potato house sounded pretty good to me.

The weather was fantastic today, and it doesn't get dark until sometime after 9pm these days so we were able to eat outside. I just love eating outside--that's a practice that was deeply ingrained in my by my mother--and as I said, the location of this place is quite nice. So, it was a lovely dinner!

Since I've not been posting very many pictures recently, and almost no uniquely German pictures, I decided to take pictures of our meals :)




Michael ordered what was basically a plate of 3 kinds of meat with potatoes. Among the meats was a small rack of ribs which looked just delicious, and which tasted pretty good. (The sauce on them was a strange German barbecue-like concoction.) The potatoes, however, were really delicious. It was very hard for me not to just eat all of Michael's potatoes once I tried them.



I got a big old baked potato filled with mushrooms, something that we think was probably chicken, and a cream sauce. It was actually very good, apart from the texture of the stuff that we think was probably chicken. Still, on the whole I really enjoyed my meal (and a few bites of Michael's.)

Ooh, and I decided to branch out and try a beverage that I'd seen advertised at all sorts of bars and restaurants but not yet tried, called a Zitrone (or "Lemon.") I had tried the "bitter lemon" recently, and I'm really determined to just keep ordering new things in the hopes of discovering something delicious. So, I got my Zitrone and it looked just like bubbly water...and it was basically a Sprite :) It was not quite as sweet, and it was apparently made on the premises, but it was not exactly the exotic endeavor that I thought it would be!

And true to German fashion, it cost (a) significantly more than Michael's beer and (b) about half the price of my meal.

After dinner, we walked around town and got some delicious Italian ice cream. Tonight was definitely one of those nights when I just love living in a little European city. Occasionally it will just hit me that we live in Germany--you'd think I'd have figured this out by now--and sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes it's a bad thing. Today it was, and is, a very good thing!

One more thing: Michael and I are now eminently more reachable than we have been. Instead of calling a number here in Germany, you can now call us through a US number! You call a regular US number, and our laptop here in Jena rings through Skype. Even better, when we're offline, the calls are forwarded to our home phone here! The number is just like any other number, so you can call it from a cell phone or landline at no extra charge. Skype is really very cool, and I am very impressed with the state of technology these days. Anyway, if you would like the number, shoot me an email. I accidentally deleted quite a few of my email contacts recently while cleaning out my mailbox!