Mini-OE to Germany–Day 8

The day started with – breakfast. Yes I know. And yes, I start to get problems with my pants. But lets be honest who could resist this:

This is what we Germans – including Ex-Germans – call a breakfast.

My brother took a day off which was sadly not possible for his wife. We planned another visit to Karlsruhe, then next biggest city.  I needed to visit one more location from the past. I can not leave the area without a visit to this place. And of course it again has to do with  - eating.

When I lived in Karlsruhe we spent a lot of time and money in Eisdiele Capri. This is an Ice Cream parlour in a passage way. It is covered with a glass roof so you can sit “outside” even if the weather is wet. Many of those ice cream parlours were only open during spring and summer and closed over winter. This has changed at other places but not with this one. They still rent out the cafe to shops mainly selling winter coats or winter related goods.

This ice cream parlour has one special sundae I absolutely love. Which is probably a bit of an understatement. I wonder how many of them I have eaten over the time. I probably don’t want to know. When my friends and I visited we only had to sit down and they knew what we wanted.

May I introduce to you the truffle cup - World Famous in Germany:

They take a flat bowl and put down a bed of whipped cream. Then they take a frosted metal bowl and put 3 balls of ice cream into it. The flavours are mainly vanilla, chocolate, any type of nut flavour or mocha etc. Then they roll these ice cream balls around in the bowl so that they eventually form one big ball of ice cream with mixed flavours. At the end they add some brittle. This ball is now set onto the whipped cream bed. They form a hole in the top and fill this with Amaretto an Italian Almond Liqueur. To die for!

The amazing thing was there were still the same people serving the ice cream. The waitress didn’t really remember me but it is 13 years after all. We still had a nice chat and I learned that the ice cream parlour is run by her family for 53 years now. Of course I had to take a picture with her.

 

Other people ordered other sundaes and regretted it when I got my Truffel Cup

While we were siting outside the ice cream parlour my eyes wandered to the opposite windows of another cafe. First I didn’t really recognize it because it just looked normal. But then I realized that I was sitting in Germany

 

The cafe is called Kiwi Bar and they also have a nightclub further down. Where the night club is today I spent many many Saturday nights in a discotheque. This was our stomping ground when I was about  20. And today the place is called Kiwi Nightclub. Talking about omens. Another foto opportunity. I was even wearing a matching shirt for these pictures.

Lilo went on a shopping spree with my mum. I am happy for her. Being a dressmaker and having worked in the fashion industry for many many years she finds it very hard to buy clothes in New Zealand. She never buys anything there. So it is good that she can buy some nice clothes for her. My dad, my brother and I used the opportunity to walk up and down the main street and browsed through shops ourselves.

We then left the city heading towards my parents place. On the way we went into a pet shop because I wanted to buy some things for molly. You can’t get good quality combs and things in New Zealand. All is made from plastic. Lilo said I am buying toys and souvenirs but she is wrong. They were all useful things for my dog Molly. Honestly!

We had a chat in one of the shops about the acceptance or more the non-acceptance of credit cards. I am starting to get a bit worried. We thought it wouldn’t be a problem but find more and more shops which do not accept credit cards. Some even have a minimum purchase limit for EC cards, which is similar to our EFTPOS system. Coming from a country where it is normal too buy a newspaper and pay by credit card it is a bit difficult. We might have to withdraw some cash which will cost quite a lot of fees.

We were invited for dinner at my brothers place. I was looking forward to see how he lives. He has a very nice house at the outskirts of Karlsruhe overlooking a huge area of grass. He sent me pictures in the past showing sheep grazing in that area. Waltraud prepared a delicious dinner serving Salmon in a yummy white wine sauce with rice and vegetables followed by pears with a cream. Yes I know what you think, more eating.

This dinner was a very important one. Without going into details, we had a very hard time in our family, And unfortunately it was exactly at the time we left for New Zealand. One of the things I deeply regretted all these 13 years was that I never really got to know my brothers second wife very well. And this is also valid for Lilo. We are so very happy now that we got the chance to have a nice talk. It has deepened our relationship and I love her a lot. She is good for my brother and they are happy. Which makes me happy. What more could I ask for?