Easter weekend

Today is Easter Monday, another holiday in Germany where businesses are closed. The Palmgarten was open, and advertised an appearance by the Easter Bunny and an egg hunt for kids. Turns out it wasn't The Easter Bunny, rather three live bunnies in a pen. Just as well, the bunnies were quite cute. They had a sub-par orchid show and an average showing of spring blooms. Sorry Germans, your gardening skills are not superior to the rest of the world.

Yesterday at 7am I awoke to the sound of Frankfurt church bells ringing. Some churches had sunrise bonfires, but we didn't go to any of those. Instead, we opted for an 11am service at the local Lutheran church followed by a lunch that I prepared for friends. I encountered a few difficulties preparing a typical American Easter lunch. First, they don't sell the same kind of pre-cooked ham in Germany like they do in the US. They have uncooked Schwarzwälder Schäufele, which actually turned out delicious with a pseudo-brown sugar glaze (they also don't sell brown sugar here). Second, Germans don't eat pies. I've never seen a single pie around town and finding a pie plate or pie dough to make fresh strawberry pie proved impossible. Instead, I bought a similarly sized spring-form pan and ready made streusel dough. It wasn't quite the same, but still delicious. After lunch, we took Gianna across the street for a little "egg" hunt. Since Germans don't sell those plastic eggs to fill with candy, she had to settle for hunting little Easter themed bags of candy.


Pics from the weekend and other spring events can be found in my Picasa album.