A Day in Frankfurt

We started the very long journey to Amman on Thanksgiving Monday. The Air Canada flight was surprisingly great. I was able to move over to the middle seats to have three seats to myself which was really awesome because I still was not feeling better and being sleep deprived and in an airplane with more "illness" was pretty much guarantee I would I was not to get better any time soon. I didn't sleep overly well because the trip had a lot of turbulence... wouldn't you know it, the one time I get three seats to lay down you need to wear your seat belt tight not get be thrown around the aircraft. But all is all it was a great flight.

We past EU customs where they only questioned us a bit about why we were leaving the international gate area. My customs guy even told me how I most definitely must go in see Frankfurt with my time because 12 hours in the airport is too long!


After some interesting and questionable advice from the "tourist" office in the airport, we checked our baggage (keeping our purses) and headed down to the trains to go downtown. On the way we saw a "pop-up" tourist group promoting Frankfurt. We asked them about our plans and she the pulled our a much better map than the one we got from the "tourist" office and wrote down which train to take both there and back as well as which platforms to wait at. She then gave us detailed instructions on the best place for breakfast how to get to the museum we wanted to visit and then suggested another museum that had far more famous works and a new exhibit.

We then head out to the town square - Frankfurter Roemer which had beautiful old front to shops (and perhaps homes above). It was quite beautiful and this is where we stopped for a quick cafe latte and breakfast. Sue had a delicious chocolate croissant and I had a sandwich. We sat in the park under the trees and enjoyed our drink.

We then head down to the River Main and crossed one of the many pedestrian bridges. The bridge had many locks of those just married that come here to lock their love to the bridge. Very Parisian! We then walked along the river to the Stätel Museum at the suggestion of the guide. This museum spans over seven centuries of European art over three floors. We first ventured to the "basement" area where they keep the Contemporary Art and we both knew right away this was going to be a great museum. Although not large, it has a ridiculous level of variety! From Andy Warhol to a tiny indoor Alexander Calder.

They has a special exhibit on the second floor called Schwarzk Romantik which I believe means Dark Romanticism and had all sorts of dark painting. From the museum website it describes the collection as "focused on the dark aspect of Romanticism and its legacy, mainly evident in Symbolism and Surrealism." We found the exhibit really interesting, it had some truly disturbing pieces. I very much love Goya's work from the Prado so it was great to see some more of his work here. They also had a great painting of the ocean that when you look closely you could see dead-looking people looking to grab you. I saw photos at the gift store and the people are far more obvious but in person it was eerily disturbing. We also briefly viewed the Modern art area which had a Picasso (love it!) and some Renoir and Monet.

After the art museum, the fatigue was catching up with us and we decided to head back to the airport. On the way back we saw the Main Tower and decided to check it out. This super fast elevator that reaches speeds over 15km/h took us to the 56th floor, the 4th highest skyscraper in Frankfurt. You can see all around and we got some great shots... although it was chilly up there.

On the walk back to the train station, Sue mentioned that she was hungry and that perhaps we should eat before we go to the airport. I spotted a running sushi place and suggested we try it. So we chowed down on yummy sushi plates as they zoomed by (Anna, not as good as Copenhagen but very tasty!) We had this very interesting salad that (to us) obviously had some sort of seafood in it. We asked on the the servers and she couldn't think of the english word so she started to describe it. Turns out it's Octopus! It was very tasty.

We then headed back to the airport to wait out the rest of the time before our flight.

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Amman here we come!

It's going to be a very long journey to Amman. 

We leave today at 8pm but we don't get to Amman until 1:30 am on Wednesday!  Part of the challenge will be the 12 hour layover in Frankfurt.  Hopefully we can break out of the airport for a couple of hours.  Apparently downtown Frankfurt is only 9K from the airport and there are suppose to be some great museums and a tower where you can see all of Frankfurt.

Below is the Itinerary for the trip... keep your fingers crossed that there will be access to Wi-Fi (or at least internet cafe close to the hotels!)

Very much looking forward to the 30+ degree weather (and getting rid of this darn cold!!) 

Hoping to Return to Vienna Someday Soon!

My last day was a busy day! There was so much to do and so very little time left... I guess that means I will be returning to Vienna. Vienna is definitely on my list of places that I would go back to over and over.

My day started out early with me returning to the Stephansdom cathedral. I took the tiny elevator up the north tower to see the city and the beautiful tiled room. The cathedral while beautiful was by far the most expensive church of cathedral I've visited so I skipped on the tour of the cathedral, the catacombs, the south tower, and the treasury (which would have cost €24!)

One thing I realized on this trip as I climbed outside stairs to the spire of Our Saviour Church, rode in a wobbly cabin at the Prater ferris wheel, climbed scaffolding to the top of the dome at Karlskirche, and walked grate pathways on top the north tower at Stephensdome, I am certainly not afraid of heights!

Just outside Stephansdom is one of the main shopping areas in Vienna. So, I was shoe shopping once again. I swear this is the land of sensible shoes... I'm not sure if I was just looking in the wrong places but seriously it's shoe upon shoe of low heel black pumps! But I found a rebel store... Well a store that and a section at the back of great shoes so I got a great pair of beige, brown and gold wonder shoes! They are from England but they will still be my Austria shoes. I also got Smith some super cute outfits; he is going to be Euro styling for sure!

After a quick stop back at my hotel to drop off my packages I was off to Naschmarkt for lunch. I thought it would be far more "market" but sadly it turned out to be more restaurants than anything... At the very end there were some market stalls which were quite neat. One thing I noticed is that there are a lot of different cuisines in Vienna so I've been trying a bit of each and at the market I decided to try a Shwarma. So first off they don't use the pita we know they use a focaccia like bread that is cut in half and then filled with Shwarama items. But no garlic! I know, I made the same face! Instead of garlic they put yogurt and chili flakes, still very good but I missed the garlic! Should be interesting to compare the Shwarma in Jordan when I go next month.

I ate and walked to MUMOK, the modern art museums in the museum quarter. Unfortunately the permanent exhibits were closed as they were changing them. So for a reduced price I was able to see the lower floors which were... well... Interesting. I'm not a huge fan of video art (and there was a lot) overall I would love to go back and see it all. I think the most interesting was a video of an artist that repainted a room everyday going through the colours of the rainbow.

I then jumped on the subway, then a bus and headed to outskirts of the city where grapes for wine are grown. I visited this great Heurigen (wine tavern) where I had a great glass of red wine (Blauburgunder 2009) and fabulous autumn pumpkin soup. Not bad selections for someone who couldn't read the German menu!

I hurried back to get ready for the opera! I saw Elektra at the Staatsoper; it was amazing! And most interesting one of my fellow box viewers was not 30+ years my senior. We got to talking and he's from Toronto. Overlooking the fact that he's a TML fan, we went for a slice of Sachetorte and some delicious Austrian dessert wine. The cake was very good (but not as good as my mom's!)

Then it was back to my hotel to pack and sleep. I've now waiting at the airport for my journey home to begin. This vacation went by way too fast!

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Klimt and a Ferris Wheel

I slept in this morning; it was great! After a surprisingly great breakfast at my hotel I headed off to see the Karlskirche and got off at the Karlsplatz station. The station is two Otto Wagner designed pavilions. On the tour yesterday we drove by several of Otto Wagner At Nouveau buildings, very beautiful. I can't imagine getting off at an Wagner designed "stop" everyday!

I then headed to the Karlskirche which is baroque church which was commissioned after Vienna has been hit by the plague twice in 20 years. I was disappointed to see that after I paid my entry fee, that the dome was under major restoration. But I soon learned that although there was serious scaffolding up, they had also installed a elevator and were allowing visitors to take the elevator up and see the frescos up close! I went all the all the way up into the top of the doom where I was able to see some truly breath taking views of the city.

After the church, I walked to the Belvedere. I skipped on the Lower Belvedere and headed right to the Belvedere Gardens. Just like the gardens yesterday, the gardens were stunning but the Belvedere gardens have several intricate fountains which made for a great walk. In the Upper Belvedere there is an entire section devoted to Gustav Klimt. While The Kiss was breathtaking, I think my favourite was Judith I. The rest of the three-story museum that has some great pieces and was well worth the visit.

I was going to continue to another museum (seriously, they are endless here!) but I hit the museum wall. So forget it all, and I headed for Wiener Prater which is the world's oldest amusement park. It was really quiet, well it was 2:30 on a Tuesday! I didn't go on any of the rides but it was fun to look around. Well, that's not entirely true as I went on the Riesenrad which is Vienna's ferris wheel. It was slow moving but has some great views of the city and the rest of the amusement park.

I then headed to Stephansdom, the iconic Viennese cathedral but I arrived a bit too early (or late) as they were about to serve mass. Looks like I will have to go back tomorrow.

I think did some shopping but sadly, no shoes. I'm not sure what's with this place but Vienna must be know for its sensible shoes because I can't seem to find any awesome shoes... But tomorrow is a new day ;)

Dinner was great, I went to a place close to my hotel called Oswald and Kalb. I had wiener schnitzel with the traditional warm potato and butter lettuce salad and a glass of grüner veltliner wine. Very tasty!

 

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Sleepy in Vienna

Yesterday was a crazy morning... I don't know why I do it but I decided to take a 6am flight from Copenhagen to Vienna. So I woke up at 3:45 headed to the airport, and even with the delays, arrived in Vienna at 8:30. While I was hoping to crash right away once I got home, my room was not yet available so I dropped my luggage and headed out. I decided the best thing to do was to go on a bus tour so I could just relax and not worry about where I am and how to get someplace. It was a really great introduction to the city.

At the end of the second tour one-hour tour I got off at the Schönbrunn Palace, the summer palace for the Habsburg family. It was very cool. I very much loved the yellow it's painted (apparently it's called Schönbrunn Yellow). Also very cool was the way the palace was heated. It's large stoves but because they were royalty, e stoves were fed wood (the coal) from inside the walls so there would be very little soot in the rooms and the royals would not be disturbed when it was time to add more fuel. The gardens around the palace are very beautiful.

After the palace I headed back to my hotel for some rest but it was soon time to head out for the opera. I decided to try a traditional sausage from one of the street vendors near my hotel. It wasn't bad but I think it was because the one I picked from the window had cheese.

The opera was good but I have to admit the opera house is not in the ideal locations as surfing quieter points in the opera you could hear the subway going by. I think it was a great start but I really can't wait for the the one at the in Staatsoper tomorrow.

 

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Two Days Behind in my Blog!

So I'm about two days behind in my blog so this post will cover the last to days. So Saturday was my birthday! Anna prepared this awesome traditional Danish breakfast including Danish flags, candles, and chocolate snails (think flaky cinnamon buns cooked on a cross between a sugar cookie and pie crust and drizzled with the chocolate for chocolate dipped donuts.

So due to the rainy and cold day and a email warning from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to avoid downtown due to a planned strike, we set off for the Louisiana Modern Art Museum. The grounds are beautiful, you can even see Sweden from the garden. We went to see one exhibit which was an exhibit of self portraits from a large number of famous artists. I had so many favourites but I really liked Picasso and Basquiat. They also had some neat photos which is usually not my thing.

We then risked it and took the train a little further to Helsingør where the Hamlet castle is located. I should probably mention at this point it's FREEZING and the wind is whipping and it's raining. On the way we came across a little mermaid but it was a man and it was crazy shiny... Very interesting. So we grabbed some coffees to warm our hands and set off along the path to the castle. It was deserted so we got some great photos but we realized only after getting all the way to the outside moat of the castle that it was closed. So we didn't see inside but we got some great pics from outside.

We grabbed the train back ordered some Thai food and watched a movie.

Yesterday we woke up and had breakfast out (so we could get the Noma photos off my phone using Wi-Fi!) we were then off to the Church of Our Saviour which is really neat as you can climb to the top of the spire and the last third you climb on the outside! It's very beautiful with its gold leaf.

Last time I was in Copenhagen I wanted to visit Tivoli but it was closed; but yesterday was the last day it was open! So we walked around checking out the bands and ride. In the end we only went on one ride, Demonen a very large very fast steel roller coaster. It was super fun! We had a fruit and chocolate kabob before we left.

We the stopped at Israels Plads Market for a very late lunch. We decided to split the sandwich voted the best sandwich on Copenhagen - a Duck Confit Sandwich. We both decided that it wasn't the best particularly because I found a few bones! We then had some Spanish tapas, in fact the same type of peppers, in honour of our trip to Spain.

We came home and hung out and had a late dinner of pizza and salad. We then headed off to a awesome Mike Anderson concert. Awesome jazz singer! Have no idea what he was saying between songs but the songs were awesome! I even got a cd... Not sure when the last time I bought a cd was!

Before bed we decided to try the chocolates we bought at Israels Plads Market. So we split each one to taste them. The crazy flavours included Tomato Basil, Tomato and Bacon, Goat cheese and thyme, pineapple and Roquefort cheese, and raspberry and fois gras. The best was the pineapple and Roquefort hands down, very tasty! The tomato ones tasted artificial, the goat cheese one was okay but thyme really should not be in chocolate and I'm pretty sure they forgot to put the flavouring in the fois gras and raspberry one because it didn't taste at all.

 

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I don't think anything can beat this... but we are still young (Noma, Part 2)

So for the rest of courses... these were slower coming courses.  First up was the cooked fava beans with beach herbs.  It had warm buttermilk like sauce and heart shaped herbs.  In Anna’s words “I didn’t know I like lima beans!”  Neither did I!  This came with a very nice wine a 2011 Nature Domaine Jilien Meyer Nothalten-Alace.  The “Bread Trap” also came out with the course.  The bread was baked fresh in house and included virgin sour butter and pork fat solidified with bacon and potato crumb. Ridiculous!  Best bread trap I’ve ever fell into!

Next course was locally picked berries (in fact the chef who brought us this meal told us he was leaving in 45 minutes to pick the mulberries near by) and burnt baby cucumbers.  It has a chamomile “sauce” that was quite thin.  The cucumbers were so “young” that they didn’t even have seeds yet.  It was unbelievably good (okay, I’m going on record, because I’m honesty sounding like a broken record, everything was unbelievably good... even the stuff we weren’t fans of was unbelievably good!!!)

With the next course came a new wine, 2008 Riesling “Buntsandstien” Weingut Odinstal Wachenheim-Pfalz.  The arrived with a Brown crab with tea soaked egg yolk and herbs (including beach plants) with a Norwegian ice-filtered seaweed broth.  In my opinion easily the most beautiful dish all night and with was very tasty too!

The 16^th course was scallops sliced remarkably thin and dehydrated over night.  Between two they made little grain and watercress sandwiches with squid ink sauce.  The scallops where very thin and crispy but still very much tasted of scallops.  The grains chewy and the squid ink was both beautiful and added a little something. 

The next course was another one of our very favourites.  I was caramelized cauliflower infused with pine.  They were nice enough to let us know the pine was only for decoration and not to be eaten!  They included cream made of whey that was infused with horseradish.  Seriously Boom goes the dynamite awesome!  Truly outstanding!

Next course came with a new wine which I honestly believe tasted like licking a school house... so not a fan!  Of course I’ve mixed up the wines and I would hate to bash one of the good wines so I will list them at the end and then sort it out later.

This came with a new course Pike Perch with is a fresh water fish and it came wrapped in cabbage with elderberries.  The first of the “actual” proteins, it was cooked PERFECTLY.  Anna asked about how they get their fish and they had this great story about a local supplier.

Next was a new wine a sparkling wine (awesome) and it came with the most interactive course!  So they brought you a hot skillet on a bed of hay so by the time it gets to your table is starts to smell like roasting hay (awesome!) and then they put oil in your skillet and you crack the egg in the dish!  They set a timer for 1 min 20 seconds and then you met some pepper butter in the top of the skillet and sauté some greens.  They give you salt to add and then they come by with a parsley sauce.  There is a deep-fried potato chip swirl in the hay that you eat with it.  Best egg I ever cooked!

Next course was another new wine.  This one more fruity, with it came the Sweetbreads course.  They were cooked sous-vide and then grilled hard on one side (the best side!) and with it came a mushroom broth, bitter greens, and celeriac.  It also has elderberry, leeks young pine, and hazelnuts.  SO YUMMY!

So let the dessert course begin! The first one was a blueberry “ice cream sandwich” and greens that had crushed ants in them.  They we were very tasty and we later leaned that the greens on their own are very peppery.  The ants really mellowed the flavour (now, that is a sentence I never thought I would ever say!)

The last course was “The Pear Tree” (that also came with a new wine) which had a Danish baby pear that had been prepared with aquavit and included lemon and thyme.  It also came with a pine parfait (which was like a mouse only lighter and really cold) and has a pear puree.  It was the perfect ending!

BUT THERE WAS MORE!  They then brought us treats!  Three little packages of crazy awesome.  The first present was a set of bones that had been hollowed our and then filled with caramel.  The caramel had a camp-fire smoky taste with a side of burn marshmallow.   The second package was chocolate covered potato chips.  They had a licorice like flavour.  Very very good!  The last package were two perfect Flødebollers (one of my favourite Danish treats) but instead of marzipan they had put a savoury cookie and the usual marshmallow like topping was this heavenly light fluffy (we later learned made from whey) and covered with milk chocolate.

BUT THERE WAS MORE!  Because we were some of the last diners they invited us to see the kitchen!!! The pastry chef took us through the hot and cold passes and into the prep area (where they store the bones), out back where they keep a lot of the vegetables when it’s cooler, the grills/smokers (they have two green eggs!) and dehydrators.  She then took upstairs to the experimental kitchen!  They had a whole white board of ideas!  They also have a very large area for all their herbs growing under the lights.

There is so much more (plus two full days of activities but I have to leave on a plane to Vienna in three hours so you are just going to have to wait :)

Before I forget the rest of the wines where:

• 2008 Saint Péray Blanc, Domaine de la Grande Colline, Saint Péray-Rhone-Nord
• 2006 Ex vero II, Weingut Werlitsch, Glanz-Sudsteiermark
• SA "Phil ' en bulle", Philippe Tessier, Cheverny-Loire
• 2008 "Le Ginglet", Philippe Bornard, Pupillin-Arbois
• 2001 "a ' Siassa" Franz Strohmeier, St. Stephan-Weststeiermark
• 2001 Riesling Spatlese Madonna, Rita & Rufolf Trossen, Kinheim-Kindel-Mosel