New shoes!

German kids are giant kids. How do I know? Because I bought myself some new runners that are actually for kids. 

But I really like the berry accents

Also, much cheaper than adult women's shoes!

Green thumbs at last?!

Good news! The lavender isn't dead yet! But even better news is this:

I saw these little pots for sale with different seeds for flowers. If I manage to keep this alive, I should get some daisies from it!

Spring?

I was warned that although temperatures tend to be higher up north than down south, I was warned that the seasonal changes occur much more slowly than in Munich. Unfortunately, I have to agree. Having said that...

Clear blue sky...

Blossoms on trees...

I THINK SPRING MIGHT FINALLY BE HERE!!!

A visit from Carlinho

ERMAGHERD!!! MEH FEHRST VESEHTEHR!!!

Carlinho was heading from Berlin to Frankfurt in order to fly home to Brazil for vacation and decided to swing by and see me on the way. What a sweetiepie. And like all great guests, he made me food! To be more precise, he made me coxinhas, a brazilian snackie whereby chicken is re-shaped into ...er...chicken.

Making them is both complicated and easy. Boiled pieces of shredded chicken breast is mixed with milk, cream cheese and chicken stock to make a paste and then enclosed in a mixture of mashed potato and flour, before being crumbed and cooked. It was just easier to let him do it.


Ready for baking! (No deep frying in my open-plan kitchen, kthnxbai


Also, coxinhas make great post-party food. *just saying*


They also held up well for breakfast!

Hmmm

Hahahahaha

PAH!!! (aka, pie)

Lack of pies has been one of my greatest challenges while living in Germs. I've managed to vaguely overcome it, either by buying pies, bringing them in my luggage, or just flat out flying to places where pies are more plentiful. But I never tried to make a pie.

Until now.

BEHOLD!!!

I mostly used Jamie Oliver's Aussie humble pie recipe but made modifications depending on whether I cbf getting the ingredients (e.g. make the pastry myself? Whatever)

Egg wash

Oh yeah!

It didn't just look good, it also tasted good! Except I think that next time I won't use Weissbier to make the sauce - I sometimes got that residual Weissbier/banana flavour kekeke.

And because I had leftover pastry and egg, I also made mini-quiches!

Prima Taste Laksa Noodles

Now, I love laksa and it's a pretty hard to come by in Germany. To overcome my lack of laksa over the last few years, I've been trying to make it myself using various paste mixes. But then in 2014 on one of my trips to London, Pooey introduced me to Prima Taste Laksa Noodles. Yes, laksa flavoured instant noodles. 

THEY ARE THE BOMB. 

Like, they actually really taste like laksa! I'm just writing about them now because I had a bowl for lunch today and they made me really happy. The soup is thick and aromatic with the right mix of spice and coconut, and so long as you cook them following the directions, the hokkien-style noodles are chewy. Sometimes I also boil rice vemicelli noodles to add to my experience but instead I limited myself today to just a boiled egg, prawns, tofu cake, mint and coriander. It was worth it. 

But the best bit is I've found an asian grocery in Bremen sells them. I DON'T HAVE TO LOAD UP ON THEM IN LONDON ANYMORE!!! 

#almostwinning!

So I have already made a couple of friends in Bremen, two of which are a couple from Sydney! They've already been here a few months and had sussed out a regular trivia night that's in English. They invited me along, not knowing who I am. 

As a team of three people, we came third. We each got these tubs of Haribo gummis s our prize.

Coming third isn't the same as first or even second, but I guess I can still say - THE QUEEN HAS RETURNED!!!

Wonderful discovery at work!

As everyone who's ever started work in a new place, there are lots of things to figure out when you get there, and one spends the first couple of weeks trying things out. Well. I made a great discovery.

The coffee machine is also a hot chocolate machine!

I don't drink coffee so I never really paid much attention to the coffee machine other than to make sure it gave hot water. But there were so many other buttons - one of which said *Kakao* and another that said *Schokomilch*. Imagine my joy when a colleague confirmed that they delivered!

Now how to make sure I don't get diabetes...

Epic Journey Home - NGV and Royal Croquet Club

There was a general sense of excitement with the news that I would be coming back. Time to do some of my favourite things - meet up with friends, eat food, and see what's new in the city! And preferably all three at the same time!

On my first day back, me and Pooey caught up with Rachie-Poo and her little fella at Hinoki!

Mmmmmm, love sushi and sashimi...
Also, this was the right size for the three of us :D

Then we went to Gelato Messina. I can't remember what I ordered but it was pretty delicious and look at this guy trying to grab it!

Next stop - NGV to see the Andy Warhol/Ai Wei Wei exhibit

The Waterwall was nice and cooling on this hot day

Ai's Chandelier with Restored Han Dynasty Lamps for the Emperor (2015)

I spent a lot of time running around Ai's and Warhol's interactive balloon exhibits. Pooey spent a lot of time documenting it.

The interactive "Studio Cats" is supposed to be for children but it's pretty damn awesome for adults as well! (Or we are just two big children).

Pooey and I were both really impressed with the exhibit. Or course, going into the exhibit I was more familiar with Warhol, but I walked out with a greater appreciation for Ai's works particularly the sense of playfulness masking serious commentary, or sometimes when the commentary wasn't masked. Anyway, go see it while you can - it's on at NGV International until April 24. 

After the gallery, Pooey and I crossed over the river to enjoy the Royal Croquet Club. 

Like a lady!

Enjoying watching the play

And the view

Taking part of the play!

Epic Journey Home - Leg 4, Sydney

Why was I going to Sydney instead of Melbs, you ask? Because Mademoiselle Amandine was becoming Madame Amandine! Yes, she and Mr J were finally tying the knot!

The gloriously happy couple!

The wedding also allowed me to catch up with old friends like Lydia

And make new friends, like Lydia's latest project, Harry!

Duckface sistas

Ahhh Sydney, you so purdy. And a great view for the two to start their lives together!

But it wasn't a case of me just going to Sydney alone - Pooey and Ma actually flew up and we met with each other at the airport before going to the fish market together. Apparently I didn't document this and the glorious sushi we had, probably because I was jetlagged - Pooey actually said I looked like shit and I'll admit after seeing myself in a mirror, I agreed that I'd looked better. The point is, apart from all the wedding hullaballoo, I spent some quality Mama-Daughter time as well as catching up with various Sydney frens!

Allianz crew reunion! Sad noises all round that another person is heading to Munich this year but I won't be there to be their friend. Not pictured is Johannes who went to the loo and was then badly sunburned :/

Optom reunion! All of us stylishly protecting our vision!


We met at Opera bar and had these lovely cheese and charcuterie platters and fries and a few jugs of punch.


Rachi demonstrates how to take a food blogger-quality photo! 94 instagram lives and counting!

After lunch, me, Pooey and Rachi did a nice touristy walk to Potts Point. 

The view here is okay. 

The view here from the Botanical Gardens is also not bad.

And this of the McElhone stairs isn't too shabby either.

But next stop, home to Melbs!!!

Epic Journey Home - Leg 1, Berlin

So now that I'm not living in Munich anymore, getting back to Australia is a leeeeetle bit more complicated than before. While Bremen has an airport, it doesn't fly out to Australia, so I was booked to fly out from Heathrow...where you can't fly to from Bremen. And so I ended up taking a train to Hamburg and on to Berlin where I would fly to London. But first, Berlin!

I can't believe it had been 4.5 years since I was here! Time to be a tourist again!  

Ahhhhh, clear blue skies...

Wandering around the city and heading instinctively to Checkpoint Charlie, I saw something that piqued my interest - the Currywurst Museum!

A map showing the location of different currywurst stalls in the Berlin

I seriously loved this museum. Look at this sausage sofa!!! LOOK AT IT!!!!


A quiz about different places where you could buy currywurst in the world. Apparently there are no currywurst stalls in Australia. Maybe I should do something about that...

The museum actually had a bonafide currywurst stall with the whole setup.
(Note the giant squishy fries in the background!) 

Me having the experience of what it's like to work in a currywurst stall!

The museum admission price also included a sample of currywurst. This isn't it - I chose to pay a little bit extra to have a tasting plate with different examples of currywurst that I learned about in the museum. Left is the currywurst with skin (from the West!), currywurst without skin (from the East - harder to get edible sausage skin on that side), and currywurst with special sauce that included extra herbs and vegetables - a it more like a salsa.

And then I came here.

Next stop - London!

I'M BACK!!!!

Good and bad news people!!!
Bad news first - I'm no longer living in Munich :( After five fantastic years, things I don't want to get into happened and I decided it was time to leave.
Now here's the good news - I'm now living in Bremen and finally have an internet connection! And with this internet connection, I can write a bit about what's been happening in the last month!

(But seriously, living without internet was like torture)

Yeah!

Spotted at Rosenheimerplatz S-bahn

Migrant crisis in Australia? Germany is predicted to accept up to 800,000 people in 2105. For some perspective, that's more than the population of Frankfurt.  

Random food on my desk.

So I've been having a bit of a difficult time at work lately and to cheer me up, one of my colleagues left food on my desk with this sweet note. There was a bit of confusion as to who actually did it - I'm not really used to randomly receiving unsolicited food - but we figured out who the champion/culprit  was and I was thrilled!

Thanks Everyone's Sunshine! It was delicious!