Back to business as usual

Life on Oederweg returns to normal today with the departure of Ông, Bà, and Cori. Dan rode the train with them to the airport as Gianna and I waved goodbye. Gianna was sure Bố was gone for good, going back to the US on the airplane with the rest of the crew. But alas he returned two hours later and we celebrated with pastries. Now begins the re-education of Gianna Mai to remove the grandparent-instilled ideas that fussing will lead to someone carrying you or giving you gum. As I type, she is throwing an "I-don't-want-to-go-to-sleep" tantrum.

This is another three day weekend in Germany and we are doing nothing except seeing Star Trek tomorrow afternoon, drinking apfelwein and beer, and experimenting with new Vietnamese recipes in the kitchen. All this traveling has us beat. Still, the in-law photos from Switzerland were spectacular and we are thinking we must take a drive down there sometime this summer.

France pt 3: the gardens

Seeing the gardens in France was my absolute favorite part of the trip. For years, I've been keeping a mental rank of my favorite gardens, and Singapore Botanic Gardens had been the top of the list, until now. Here is a run down of the gardens we saw and the highlights.

GIVERNY
Giverny is the garden where Claude Monet created some of his most famous paintings and was his residence until his death in 1926. At the top of a small hill on one side of the road stands his house and a French cottage garden called Clos Normand. This is an overwhelming collection of flowers, planted in clumps, freely growing, nothing formal about it. This was definitely the time of year to see Giverny as the irises (my favorite flower) were in full bloom along with phlox and roses to dazzle the imagination. And oh the fragrance! Even with a stuffy head cold, I was lost in the aroma of the garden. On the other side of the road was his water garden with the famous Japanese bridge. Unfortunately the bridge is just a replica and didn't look like anything special. The brooks that fed into the pond were so serene, even with all the tourists, my stress levels from the previous day in Paris were approaching zero. One thing about visiting Giverny, the bus schedule is unreliable. We ended up walking through the French countryside 4 km back to the train station. I might even recommend paying for an organized trip where someone drives you out there from your hotel to avoid the train/bus hassle altogether.

VERSAILLES










This palace and gardens knocks the socks off anything you will see in Paris. Seeing these gardens was like seeing the ocean for the first time; it was hard to comprehend the magnitude of it all. The most impressive part was the orangery. The orangery gardens consist of formal hedges and the orange trees in their boxes for moving in and out of the orangery. As you walked inside the orangery, cool damp air poured through the doors and you suddenly felt like you were in the land of giants. The proportions were massive; you could have rolled a whole forest of trees in there. We explored up and down the hall and figured this may be a good place to hide during a rainstorm, as the thunderheads drew near. The rest of the gardens consisted of dozens of "rooms" typically with a fountain as the central theme. Yes, it did start to rain, but we took a long lunch under a canopy and were able to see the rest of the gardens when the storms had passed. On the back side of the palace, there was a grand network of fountains, which all turned on at 3:30. Standing up on those palace stairs, it was so amazing how the garden stretched as far as the eye could see. I have never been to a garden built on such a grand scale and for that reason alone, Versailles put Singapore out of the number one spot on my list of best gardens in the world.

VILLANDRY
I remember learning about Villandry in my horticulture classes back at Penn State. Don't forget, I went on to become a chemist, but my first love is horticulture! Villandry's vegetable gardens were featured in one of my vegetable crops textbooks and I remember staring at those photos, longing to see the garden in person. Well, Villandry did not disappoint. The gardens were immaculate, a stark contrast to Giverny. We briefly toured the inside of the chateau, which was nice, but nothing compared to the gardens, in my opinion.

CHENONCEAU
Compared to the other gardens, Chenonceau was hardly worth the €10 entrance fee. There was some significant reconstruction being done on the chateau itself and the grounds near the gardens, so I didn't bother taking many photos of scaffolding and do not enter signs with red and white tape. There was a manicured hedge garden that was nice, but there were no good ariel views of it from the chateau. I thought the 16th century farm and vegetable garden were the main attractions.

AMBOISE
This wasn't really a garden, it was an old town with a big chateau that we stopped at on our drive back to Paris. The chateau rose high above the river and town, but we didn't pay the €10 entrance fee to see the inside. Instead, we walked around the town, looking at the old buildings and city walls. This town was good for what we intended it, a one hour stop for lunch on the way back to Paris.

France pt 2: Paris sightseeing

The photo on the left says it all. This is Jardin du Luxembourg, a park that Rick Steve's travel guide suggested as a place to unwind and let your children run free. Instead, it looked like Belmar beach on Labor Day weekend. The whole city was jam packed with tourists from the Eiffel Tower all the way over to Notre Dame cathedral. Although we stayed in Paris for three nights, we only toured Paris for one day.

Here are the highlights.


Arc de Triomphe (left) was just down the road from our hotel room so we got there around 8am before it was overrun by tourists. You could just see the Eiffel tower peaking out from the horizon. Next we met up with Dan's parents and sister and took the metro over to the Eiffel Tower. People told me "get ready to be impressed, the Eiffel tower is so huge". Well, I think people oversold it. I was expecting a tower the size of the Empire State Building, so it seemed kinda small. Still it was worth the hour wait and the €8 per person to take the elevator up to the second floor and have a look out over the city. Gianna really liked the "big tower" (center), so that made us happy. After the tower, we decided to walk to Luxembourg Garden, and see the Seine River and Notre Dame Cathedral (right) along the way. The walk was much longer than it looked on the map or sounded in Rick Steve's Paris guide, and we never got to the garden until 4pm. Along the way, we stopped at the Musée du Louvre and Tuileries park. The Tuileries were jam packed with people and we did not have any intention of waiting to go inside the Louvre. Instead, we had fun playing in the fountains outside.












In my opinion, if you have one city in Europe to go see, don't pick Paris. It's expensive, touristy, and dirty. Like I said, we slept in Paris for three nights but only toured one day. The other days we got out of the city to see some beautiful gardens, but you will have to wait until I post France pt. 3 to see those photos. The gardens were definitely the highlight of the trip! You can see the Paris album by clicking here.

France pt 1: the food

People say lots of great things about France and the food. "Oh you have to try the pastries/baguettes/crêpes/coffee". I think all of those things taste pretty great in Germany, so I was anxious to see what all the hype is about and how Germany stacks up against France in my book.

PASTRIES











It was my mission to taste as many French pastries as possible to see if they really have a leg up on Germany. The first morning we had chocolate croissants from two different bakeries. They were smaller than German croissants, overly flaky, and they left a fatty film in my mouth like after you eat a bowl of homemade ice cream. We had some great bear-claw shaped pastries filled with applesauce, raisin swirls, and various other pastry creations. Despite my love of the applesauce filled pastries, I have to give this category to the Germans. The French pastries are too buttery for my taste and they make a huge greasy mess in your lap. I much prefer a pastry with more dough, a higher carb to fat ratio.

Germany: 1 France: 0

BREAD
We must have tasted over a dozen different baguettes since they are served with virtually every meal. They are used to make sandwiches including an inventive hot dog creation where they poke a hole in the baguette, fill it with ketchup, and stuff in a hot dog. Gianna ate 3 or 4 of these during the trip (see photo). A no-mess hot dog, great invention! Quality of the baguettes ranged from fresh, "this is awesome", artisan bread to "this tastes like it came from the bakery at Stop-and-Shop back in Jersey". The French are really in love with their baguettes, but they lose points for variety. I can only eat baguettes so many times before I'm longing for something in a whole wheat or ciabatta.

Germany: 2 France: 0

COFFEE

French coffee was outstanding. It was full-flavored, strong, served with just the right portion of milk and sugar cubes. The cappuccinos had a generous amount of "sludge" on top (so called by my father-in-law that has spent his whole career in the sewer business). They were expensive, around €5 per cup, but delicious.

Germany: 2 France: 1

CRÊPES
The crêpes in France were close to the crêpes we have in Germany, but not the same. German crêpes, like their pastry counterparts, have more of a risen flour texture like a super-thin but dense American pancake. French crêpes are perhaps a bit thinner and have an egg texture close to that of a thin omelette. We tried caramel, chocolate with banana, and nutella. This is a toss-up, but I think the point goes to France. They invented the crêpe, so I have to assume the egg texture is more preferred and more traditional than what we get in Frankfurt. Still, I would not turn down any of them!

Germany: 2 France: 2

OTHER DESSERTS
French desserts were pretty awesome. This crème de caramel (above left) was outstanding. French chocolate is bitter and rich, which is just to my liking. I had a so-so tiramisu served in a tall cup and Dan had an apple tart that was above average (above right). Overall, the point goes to the French. They make fancy looking desserts that taste great!

Germany: 2 France: 3

AND THE REST
We tried a variety of foods in France including muscles with linguini, paper-thin pizza, french bread pizza, steak, omelette with salad, many different sandwiches, Asian noodles, and more. Really, there was nothing special about any of these foods worth writing home about. Don't get me wrong, it was all very tasty, just not extraordinary. But here, France loses 2 points for being wildly overpriced. A hamburger would run you €12, an omelette, €9, a can of soda €3. Insanity. Where are the stands where you can get a brat for €1.50 and not be hungry the rest of the afternoon? Even the wine and beer, which you can buy for around €3 a glass in Germany, was over €5. Then tack on a 19% service charge to every meal and you have really blown your vacation budget on food. No wonder we didn't see many Porsches or Ferraris on our trip, the French must spend half their paycheck on food.

Final score Germany: 2 France: 1

Germany wins. Their food is just as tasty and not so overpriced.

Paris prequel

We are in Paris and Gianna is in bed beside me asleep. Dan is reading in the bathroom. The train ride from Frankfurt from Paris Wednesday night had plenty of beautiful scenery once we got outside the cities. Paris is...meh...not that great in my opinion. It's dirty, crowded, and quite honestly the Germans make superior bread and pastries. Today we started the day with some croissants from two different bakeries, saw the Arc de Triomphe, went up in the Eiffel tower (Gianna: more tower!), had lunch at a cafe, walked over to the Louvre where Gianna played in the fountain, saw Notre Dame Cathedral, went to Luxemberg Gardens, and then headed back to the hotel for dinner and sleep. Since the city is so crowded this holiday weekend, we plan to take a train up to Monet's Garden Giverny tomorrow. Hopefully there will at least be a place for Gianna to walk around and for me to feel less stressed. If one more person cuts off the stroller to get off the train ahead of us, I'm going to ram the wheels into their Achilles tendons and let loose some German swearing! Trip pictures are forthcoming...maybe not until we get back to Frankfurt.

Baby rescue

This morning we had some excitement when the BMW repair man had to rescue my neighbor's baby from inside their locked car. Little Brynn (only one year old) managed to lock herself in the car and found a stash of coins to suck on. The BMW guy quickly assessed the situation, taped the rear driver side window, got out his hammer and a big nail, shattered the window, peeled it off, and dove in through the broken window after Brynn. Luckily she was unharmed but the whole ordeal really had all the kids pretty upset, especially when the guy bashed out the window. Niall, Gianna's partner in crime, was quite upset at the man for breaking the car window, even though it resulted in the rescue of his sister. But a switch of the BMW repair man's emergency strobe light lightened the mood and made all the kids happy.

Ông and Bà Schmidt showed up just after the rescue to drop off some suitcases prior to our departure for Paris. After they left Gianna made the following observation:

Bà...hair...[sly smile]...big one.

I couldn't help but laugh, I guess Bà does have rather large hair, but we won't be calling her Bà big hair any time soon ;-)

Ông no-beard

Gianna is excited to have Cori and the grandparents Ông and Bà Schmidt visiting. Yesterday before they arrived we had this conversation:

Gianna: Ông? Bà? Ông tractor? Ông tractor!
Mẹ: Yes, Ông and Bà are coming soon, but this isn't Ông with a tractor, this is tall Ông, the Ông that looks like Bố...with no beard.
Gianna: more beard! more beard!
Mẹ: you like your Ôngs with more beard? Well this one has no beard.
Gianna: more beard!

So now Ông Schmidt is Ông no-beard and Ông Landis is Ông more-beard. From the first time she met Ông Landis, she was fascinated with that beard, making Ông foam beards in the bath tub. But all beards aside, we had a relaxing Sunday, walking around the city, taking in the Frankfurt sites. We watched a boat race on the Main that was pretty exciting with people on the boat wearing costumes and beating drums.