Apfelwein – A Perfect Drink for the Season

On October 5, 2016 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Germany, Recipes6 Comments

As we toured through the old city, called Altstadt in German, we came across a wonderful little festival that is going on through next weekend. Besides the food vendors and vendors selling art, clothing, and souvenirs, there were also booths for wine and even better, Apfelwein, or apple wine. It isn’t actually a wine, but is actually a hard cider fermented from pressed apples. Unlike hard ciders that you find in the United States, this wasn’t as fruity, but rather more like a mild beer and quite delicious. It is always served in a lattice-patterned glass called a Gerippte and for larger groups you can get blue and gray pitchers called Bembels.

Although we have already had our fair share of local beers already, trying the Apfelwein was truly enjoyable, especially with the cool brisk autumn air and the leaves changing on the trees around us. Nothing seems to bring out the taste of autumn like apple and what better way to get that than an outstanding adult beverage. Not that we aren’t going to get our fill of apple strudel as well. Sitting in the old pubs, like the one in the town square called Alten Limpburg, is a great way to people watch, chat with the locals, and enjoy a nice pint of beer or refreshing glass of wine.

We have learned a lot about the local Riesling wines as well as beers like Hefeweizen, which actually comes in more varieties that just light wheat, but we’ll share more about those another post. For now, sit back and imagine yourself enjoying a refreshing, fizzly, cider that will make you feel relaxed and ready for the upcoming winter. We have had a long day today as we went back to work for this first time since we moved to Frankfurt, so the vacation is over, but the explorations are not. We will enjoy the free time that we have, but for now we don’t have to imagine a glass of Apfelwien, we will go and relax with one to end our day and recuperate for tomorrow. 😀

Frankfurt am Main

On October 3, 2016 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Germany3 Comments

After a couple of rainy days, we were finally able to get out and get our first real look at Frankfurt’s old city. We have started our search for an apartment, but have not found anything yet, but we think we know which area in the city we would like to live. There is a festival going on through next weekend, so things were rather busy, but we are definitely still adjusting to the local time as all of the shops were closed since it was Sunday. It was definitely the taste of Germany that we were expecting.

We will definitely be learning more about the history of Frankfurt over the next several weeks, so we simply enjoyed seeing the beautiful architecture and eating and drinking at the local restaurants. Oddly enough, we ended up eating at French restaurants for both lunch and dinner as the German restaurant that we tried to go to for dinner was booked for a private party. Today is a holiday in Germany, so we are expecting it to be a slow day, but that will give us the chance to do some more exploring and getting acquainted with the city until we have to go to work later this week. It is very strange to be moving here as opposed to just visiting on vacation, so we are still getting adjusted and learning a little German.

We are already planning our first trip out of the city and will be getting our rail passes and local transit passes tomorrow. Everyone has been extremely friendly as well as helpful, so it won’t take us long to feel at home in this wonderful mid-size city. Most places that we want to visit seem to be within walking distance, but when we need to take a taxi, the prices have been very reasonable. We are only three days into our adventure, but the excitement just continues to build. We should be able to settle into a normal routine over the next couple of days and will be able to share our adventures much more regularly now that we are in country.

The Taste of Colorado

On September 6, 2016 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Colorado9 Comments

We went to Denver over the weekend to enjoy the Taste of Colorado, which is an annual event with a variety of vendors. It wasn’t exactly what we were expecting, but it was still a lot of fun. We expected it to be mostly restaurants as well as local breweries and wineries, but it was actually a lot of vendors selling crafts as well as a small carnival. There were restaurants and food trucks, just not as many as we had expected and some of them were chain restaurants. We were able to get beer and wine, but the only brewery was Coors, so there wasn’t a selection of craft beers, which was more of what we were expecting.

The event itself is free, but you need to buy tickets in order to get food and drinks. It isn’t exactly cheap, but it is typical of these types of events. There was also plenty of free music with different bands playing throughout the four days and each evening there were some fairly big names playing. It was pretty warm over the weekend, so it was nice to sit in the shade and listen to some music at times. We enjoyed hearing the Confluence Music Group, The Afters, Hypnotic Vibes, and Boys II Men.

Obviously we weren’t there with kids, but we did enjoy seeing all of the children riding on the various carnival rides. There was a wide variety of rides for the children to enjoy, including some things for the older kids such as a zip-line and a mechanical bull. The floating hamster wheels looked like they would be a lot of fun. We’re not sure if we can handle all of the spinning and whirling, but the children were definitely enjoying it.

We didn’t buy anything while we were there, but there were definitely a lot of interesting crafts available. There was everything from African masks to various types of artwork. If you were looking for interesting trinkets to put in your home, there were plenty of choices. It was great to see all of the different and unique items for sale, but it wasn’t what we were expecting as we thought that the event was going to be all about the food from Colorado.

We really had a great time, but it was definitely a busy place to be and it was very crowded. In addition to everyone being there for the Taste of Colorado, there was also an anime convention going on, so there were people dressed as their favorite character on every street corner. Living in Colorado Springs, we had never heard of the event before this year, but we will definitely keep it in mind for the future as it was a lot of fun and now we know more of what to expect.