Work - Work - Work

I have been seeing the inside of planes a lot this month, working the dreaded early shift. I think I kind of missed out on fall this year! The pictures of this hike were taken over 2 weeks ago! :(

Germany's Second Most Beautiful Hiking Trail 2011

Wanna see the hiking trail that took second place in the contest of "Germany's Most Beautiful Hiking Trail 2011"?

Snowball

She went from yelling, "Look at me! Look at me!"...

to "Help! Help!"...

... within seconds...

...but I was laughing way too hard to give her a hand...

3 Days In Switzerland

"When am I going to go to Switzerland?", husband would say whenever the kids and I told him about the gigantic mountains, the beautiful scenery and the delicious food at the "Schweizerhof". 

It took us a while, but finally we managed to show him the mountains and the tiny villages. Have him try Engandiner Nusstorte and eat as much Raclette as possible.

And we did find out that winter there is so much more beautiful than in the city.

October

Today was my first day of work after weeks of being off. Nothing special, except that I had to get up at 3am and I knew I would be missing out on a beautiful, sunny October day.

 The first flight was very short. Actually, it wasn't more than a little hop and being the weekend, we were not even half full.

We were about to get ready for our second flight when the captain walked into the galley, waving a piece of paper in his hand.  "We will get to enjoy the beautiful weather after all!" he said with a big grin on his face. "Our next two flights will be operated with a different crew and aircraft. And the only thing we have to do is fly back home!"

I love workdays when they end at 8:15 am.

New England Apple Maple Crumble

Come September, without fail, I will start missing New England. Nowhere in the world is fall as beautiful as in the New England States and I will dream of pumpkin fields, hot cider, leaves in the most stunning colors and maple syrup bought from local farmers. You will not find a house there that isn't decorated for the Indian Summer.

All I can do, miles and miles away, is burn pumpkin spice candles and feed my family apples in huge amounts.

New England Apple Maple Crumble

Ingredients:
 5 medium sized apples, peeled, cored and sliced,
2/3 cup good quality maple syrup,
1/2 cup butter,
1/2 cup brown sugar,
3/4 cup all purpose flour,
3/4 cup rolled oats,
1 pinch salt,
a bit of cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (or around 190 degrees C.)
Place the apples in an 8x8 inch baking dish. Pour the maple syrup over the apples and sprinkle them with a bit of cinnamon. In a bowl, whisk together the butter and brown sugar. Add the flour, salt and oats. Sprinkle mixture over the apples.
Bake in preheated oven for around 35 minutes until golden brown and bubbly.

Very, very delicious and won't take longer than 10 minutes preparation time.

The Fuggerei

A few months ago son had to give a report about "The Fuggers" in his history class. Besides the Fuggers being very clever, a bit ruthless and very successful merchants from Augsburg, Germany, (similar to the Medicis from Florence, Italy), I couldn't remember anything about them. Apparently I wasn't paying too much attention during my history class.

After looking through the books I had bought for son and doing some online reading, I found one thing that did fascinate me about the Fuggers: The Fuggerei in Augsburg.

Jacob Fugger, the Rich, founded the Fuggerei in 1521 as a social settlement for the poor. The annual rent was and still is 1 Gulden (ca. 0, 88 cents) and three prayers a day for the Fugger family. There are still 67 buildings that are being used. The people inhabiting the apartments nowadays live there for a few cents and daily prayers. Not much has changed there since 1521.

The Fuggerei is the oldest social settlement in the world... 

...and I really wanted to see it with my own eyes. 

It has a church, a little shop, eight lanes and seven gates with a wall surrounding the city within a city. 

There is a gate guard, dressed in old fashioned clothes, guarding the main gate which is still being closed at 10pm every night. If you need to get in or out the Fuggerei later than that the inhabitants have to pay him a little fee.

At one point Franz Mozart, the Grand-, Grandfather of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived here.

Two apartments are open for visitors. One is furnished like the apartments people live in today, the  other one looks like on the day the first inhabitants moved in...

...and yes, with that little handle you can open the outside door, scaring the wits out of somebody standing outside...