Frankfurt Apfelwein Festival

Apfelwein, or essentially a hard cider, is a pretty big deal in Frankfurt. Matt and I met up with some friends on Saturday to go enjoy some, along with some food (of course).

 I started out with the rose apfelwein which was totally ymmy.

 I also got to eat one of my favorite sandwiches ever - this is a ham sandwich where the ham has been simmering in apfelwein, along with sauerkraut and a little mustard. The roll is soft and squishy and oh gosh it's practically perfect.

 We quickly realized that it would be cheaper to just get a Bemble, which is this jug. You have to pay a deposit for it, too (this one was 30 Euro! I guess they want them returned!)

 Also served? Delicious flammkuchen. Nutella crepes were also enjoyed later in the evening.

 Yay!

 After a fun evening of partying hard, we headed back on the train. These doggies didn't seem to mind the wait.

Hooray for apfelwein!

Grad school update

This class feels like it's only crawling along. By Labor Day I'll be done with it, along with half of my classes for this degree. It's my last core class before I move on to my specialization courses (for my concentration in Strategic Innovation and Change Management), followed by my last two classes for the Capstone.

I have some mixed feelings about my Business Writing and Communications class. On one hand, it's something everyone should take, because it's stuff everyone should know. It's covered things like thinking of the audience when communicating, consider the communication channel (call, email, face to face) you are using, and there is a big concentration on tightening up writing skills. I can think of a ton of people that would benefit from the book.

On the other hand... I've been displeased by two things: 1) The professor is a super hard grader. I still have an A average (so far, anyway), but he doesn't seem the type to give out any perfect grades, no matter how hard I work on an assignment - there's always a comment that it could be better. While that doesn't sound so bad, it's actually really frustrating considering the content I am working with. 2) Some of the content I am reading, stuff that is required reading, is incredibly basic. At times I can't believe I'm paying this school to read paragraphs that cover suggestions on how to take notes (if you take electronic notes, apparently you should save them to a flash drive! who knew?), and schedule appointments in Outlook.

Thanks... I think I got those lessons well before I stepped on campus for undergrad, let alone started my graduate program some ten years later.

I was pretty surprised since the rest of my classes have had much better content that was grad-school level and challenging.

Sigh. I'm almost done with it.

On the plus side, the weather, though rainy, has been cool. I'm posting this around 10:15am here, and it's a sweet 60 degrees outside. I even wore a sweatshirt to the gym this morning. I'm totally digging this for August.

Anyway, back to the homework action (and a cup of tea!).

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

My fancy French weekend.

Matt and I, along with our friends Chris and Joyce decided to head over to France for the weekend. The goal? Versailles, where they were having an evening fountain and fireworks show!

Yay! This was a last-minute trip as we had been watching the weather forecast change from all rain to only partly cloudy for the better part of last week.

We headed out early on Saturday and arrived to check-in at the Waldorf Astoria. Matt and I have stayed here before, way back in May 2013 on our honeymoon trip, but only for one night. (It was also raining pretty heavily that day, so we were excited to go check out Versailles in the sunshine).

Matt and I snagged a sweet corner room with views of the gardens (the property is actually on the Versailles garden grounds), and it's hard to see, but those are goats beyond the fence!

And our room had a fireplace! Wacky.

These beds are exceptionally comfy.

After grabbing a quick bite to eat, Matt and I spent the entire afternoon walking around the canal on the grounds. The weather was perfect and we definitely stretched our legs from the car.

Of course, we snuck in a short nap before heading out to meet up with Chris and Joyce.

After some dinner (beef tartare for me! Mmm) the four of us had to walk around to the front entrance to get access for the show. It was totally packed inside the gates, but once we got past the entry it started to spread out better.

There were two "tracks" - the A side and B side. We decided to check out B before A (and when we finally got to the A side we realized they were totally better, but B was still great). The maps had each of the fountains labeled so we could follow a path to see them all.

 Here's Matt walking through the mist

Everything was so pretty lit up and sparkling - back when the palace was actually used, there was never enough water to run all the fountains at once, so they'd have to run around and turn them on depending on where the King Louis and Queen Marie walked throughout the gardens, to create the illusion they were all on.

Not so now - there was plenty of water to keep everything on!

 The MOON!

 Here's Matt's "through the trees" series of the grotto.

 Uh, for some of the "fountains" there were just some weird rock sculpture things.

Once the sun went down, Matt and I stopped taking pictures (Chris and Joyce had a better camera so we'll snag some of what they captured with their fancy lense).

Some of the fountains were set to music and lights, and the canal in the middle of the gardens had flames coming up out of the freaking water, also set to music! The fireworks at the end were the same, and also incorporated some more of the flames. The music piped throughout the gardens were especially nice because it really made you feel you were back in time, walking alongside of King Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette.

I'm usually not a big firework person, but these were really well done. We're definitely glad we got to do this - Matt and I have been talking about going back since we had been there the first time, and if anyone out there is wondering if it's something to do - the answer is yes, go! It's so great.

In fact, here's their promotional video of the action.

When we got back to the hotel, we all went to the bar for a glass of champagne (since the Waldorf is a Hilton property, we all get extra perks like a welcome drink, so we wanted to make sure we continued our fancy activities).

While Chris and Joyce stood in line to see inside the Chateau the next morning, Matt and I got to sleep in on our luxurious king-sized bed and then go to breakfast. The breakfast was way better than we expected. Not only did they have the standard scrambled eggs, croissants, bacon, cheeses and meats, but also had crepes, omelettes, and plenty of delicious coffee. Just excellent.

Long story short: stay at the Waldorf when you go. It's gorgeous.

Before leaving town, Matt and I found an open bakery and got some macarons:

Since we were driving right past the Champagne region, we decided to stop in Epernay to break up the trip and do some looking around and tasting...

The first stop was Moet to look around.

...and then we got down to business with a triple tasting at Collard-Picard.

Before we got back in the car we had dinner in town (and of course the walk to dinner was the exact moment a freak rain storm popped up so we got totally soaked, despite the umbrellas we were carrying).

Since I was now cold, I elected to get the carbonara.

For dessert, a cafe gourmand is our go-to meal-ender: a smattering of mini desserts and an espresso.

Then it was back in the car and off toward home. Although it rained, we lucked out and did everything we set out to do in the periods of sunshine. A great weekend all around.

Quick post & sorry for being anti-social

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, it's been busy. No matter how much work I got done last week in Berlin, there's always more to do. I have a big project due at the end of the month and I have to get it done ahead of time since I'll be away on a trip.

I think I'll take off next week from blogging to concentrate on it all. Maybe that way I can get a bit ahead. But don't worry - I promise not to do anything terribly fun. Unless you consider homework fun, in which case, would you like to do my homework, please??

Anyway, we made it back from Berlin, this time with our cash and cards, so take that, Berlin! The only snafu was that our train leaving the city was late, which meant we didn't end up getting back home until 1am Monday morning. Bleh.

Berlin is a great city - I think that if you have limited time in Europe, Berlin should make the cut. Not only is it more reasonably priced compared to other cities, the history is so freaking fresh. I mean, we can walk along where the Berlin wall was, because the lines are on the ground all over the city, and pieces of the wall are still up.

They've got good museums, tasty food (props to that falafel guy on Sunday for giving me the spiciest sandwich I've ever had), and excellent shopping. Having the food area at Galerie Lafayette is like being able to go anywhere in Europe for the best snacks, all available in one place.

I'll miss the free cokes.....

And view....

But we hauled home plenty of chocolate to keep us company.

See you all back here bright and early on August 11th! I'll do my best to have a super awesome and amazing post then.