Happy New Year.

Guys, I know, I'm terrible. I won't repeat how sorry I am for not checking in for so long. That's life and usually I never finish what I st.... (I'm hilarious, in case you didn't know)
Anyways - It is 2016. And I bet you've heard a lot about this "new year, new me" bullshit.
Well, I'm not any different. I have some resolutions or goals I wanna achieve in 2016. Not sure if I'll be able to stick to it but I can try for a while, at least.
One of these resolutions was to eat better. I think I said this before: Eating better in my case doesn't necessarily mean healthy. I just wanna experiment a little more, try new recipes and not eat the same lame thing every day.

This week I bought a cookbook. The best I've seen so far. It is absolutely amazing and I already tried some things which came out pretty well. Let me show you:

First of all let's start with the drag that is grocerie shopping. This was the result this week. I don't think I have ever bought so much stuff at once. My back still hurts from the weight of the bags. But even with the 1 hour struggle I can say it was totally worth it.

Just look at this amazing breakfast.

So this is what I made: I got some bacon and added some thyme for additional flavor. Half an avocado with some cress and parmesan sprinkles. Some mini bellpeppers on the side. And this delsious looking sandwich is: Whole weat toast with serrano ham, grilled brie, arugula, an egg sunny side up, parsley, chives, cress and a little bit of parmesan. Probably THE best breakfast I've ever made.

So yeah, breakfast was a huge success.
I was so incredibly full that I couldn't eat lunch and had to take a nap instead =) foodcoma ftw.

When it was time to make dinner I still felt so full but I knew it would take me some time to prepare the next great thing.
Let me show you what I made.








  What you see here is italian white bread with

  garlic and scallions, some arugula I needed to put in a  pan for a super short time. I was

  surprised how much  it shrank.  Seriously, you think mushrooms are bad?  Arugula shrinks even

  more. Need to remember this  for the next time.

  And I added some parmesan.

  This was the appetizer.
















So this delicious piece is:

Pasta with

grilled chicken,

arugula, tomatoes (without skin),

garlic,

a creamy tomato sauce

and of course, some parmesan.

It's almost ridiculous how easy it was to make. Once you make it, you will never need

instructions again.

Definitely a wonderful dinner.








I think I am off to a great start into my New Year's resolution. Looking forward to cooking a lot more new and exciting recipes. I will try to keep you posted.
See you then and Bon Appetit!

so this happened today

I'm back...literally

Hey guys, long time no see.
Sorry about the late update but I haven't been feeling like myself or actually I've been feeling exactly like myself. Back to the old sicko. I had a couple doctors visits and there are more to come.
All I wanna do is sleep and even the 12 hours I get like daily won't make a difference.
I just feel overwhelmed with all the things that are coming my way. It's just quite a lot to deal with right now and I can't wait for the next break.
But let us get to the more fun things.



 One thing showing on my testresults was that I had a vitamin D dificiency so I decided to get some much  needed sun.
 On friday I got up super early, got some groceries and then laid down in my garden.
 I only get sun there til noon, so being an early bird is crucial.
 On sunday I decided to move further away from the couch to get some sun.
 I checked google maps to find a lake and the "Teufelssee" was close enough to get to with my bike.
 It was a pretty exhausting ride since it was kinda up hill for 3 miles.
 Also the weather was twisted, in the shade it was very cold and in the sun it was almost too hot.
 But after half an hour I made it to the lake and it was quite beautiful.
 One thing that kinda threw me off:
 Everyone was naked.
 The naked people weren't young and attractive as someone might wish.
 Most of them were over 60 and they looked fried.
 I don't understand: When their skin is already leathery and saggy, why tan more to make it worse?
 But there was an easy solution to the "problem": Don't look.

 The lake however was empty. Cause it was still too cold and I think it might not be safe to put your skin into that water.

Looks pretty though.

I think I spent two hours just chilling on the grass. I didn't take my blanket or any snacks, so the two hours were the maximum I could handle without comfort or food =) I actually bruised my ass somehow. But I got a nice tan and I hope the vitamin D issue disappeared.

It was fun and I will definitely be back - better prepared of course.

So that was basically the only thing going on last week. Lame, I know.

Today I woke up at 7am but I didn't mind. I had therapy at 11 so I had all the time in the world to get ready. It was the first session after my trip to the states. We basically just talked about my visit and what happend, especially on the plane and other public transportation, since that seemed to be my biggest problem.


 After that one hour of chatting I had to go to the "Berliner Tafel".It is a place for the "poor" where you can get  food for 1€. I only had 2€ left, so it was important that I check it out.
 It was the saddest and most uncomfortable thing. A while back I posted a photo of a church when I got a little  lost. The whole thing actually happened in exactly  that church. So I went in there (and did NOT melt) and  waited. I had no idea how it worked so I just stood there and tried  not to smell anything or look into other  peoples eyes.
 I felt so bad. Most of the people looked really poor and way hungrier than me. Who am I to take their food?  But this time I had no other choice. I asked a woman what I am supposed to do since it's my first time. She  seemed super annoyed that she had to  talk to me. A man took over and told me I had to register first. So I left  the (waiting) hall and went into the main part of the church, where I had to wait.When you register you will be  asigned a color. Every color has a different time (when you need to come to wait in line). The times switch every  month, so everyone gets a chance to get the good stuff. So I waited til I got called and while I waited I looked  at all the poeple in line to get their food. Taking the picture was kinda hard. I felt weird being in a place to get  free food waving my Iphone around.
 I got called, showed them my income and I was allowed to stand in line. They had clothes too, but I skipped  that. I didn't want to take more than I really needed.
 At the food stands you can't just take whatever you want. you tell the person responsible for one food area how  many people you need food for and then you get the correct amount. Sometimes you have to make difficult  decissions, like: 1 apple OR 1 pear, 1 orange OR 1 lemon.
 I chose poorly cause all my fruit had already gone bad =(
 But I won't dare to complain about a bag of food for 1€. Here is what I got.

It's lettuce, green onions, green asparagus (which I'm really excited about) , avocado (spoiled), one pear (spoiled), canned mushrooms, a lemon, carrots, tomatos, a piece of pineapple (spoiled) , mini bell peppers (my choice, I didn't want the big ones) , chives and a chili thing (I think). It's not bad at all for 1€. Obviously those things won't last for a week. But the point of the "Berliner Tafel" is to save a little money on certain (healthy) things and buy the other stuff at the store to cook something with the free food you got. I think it's a wonderful organisation and if I didn't feel so bad and uncomfortable being there I would go there every week to get my vegetables. Doing that I might actually be able to afford the glasses that I need cause I'm blind as shit.
We'll see how it goes.
Sorry I don't have more interesting things to talk about. But like I said, I wasn't feeling all that well.
Keep your fingers crossed they will finally find whatever is making me feel this ill.
I will keep you posted on any interesting events. See you later.

It's the weekend, I'm about to have me some fun

Hey guys, how was your week? Mine was wonderful. I had such a good time and it was so refreshing to actually enjoying myself in Germany again. I realized it was (partly) my fault for just sitting at home, feeling sorry for myself. Who knew I just needed to step outside and DO.
So let me tell you what I actually did.
Usually a night means I'm online playing games with friends on teamspeak. Some of those friends live in Berlin too but there are a couple who live pretty far away. One had to come to Berlin for work and some of the teamspeak people wanted to meet up - including me.



 There was only one problem: On the day he was here - tuesday - there was a giant thunderstorm coming up. If  you have read a couple posts before you know I'm terrible with humitidy. Thunderstorms in particular fuck me  up.  I literally faint sometimes when lightning strikes.
 My friend Klasi works pretty close to where I live and he suggested we take the train together after he gets off  work. That was the plan. However I felt so shitty and went to the doctor. They took so much blood which made  me even dizzier. In the early afternoon I took a nap to see if my body could overcome its "mood" by resting. No  such luck. I canceled cause I felt like was dying. Around 6 I decided to start dinner and I went outside to get  some herbs from my garden. I noticed that the weather wasn't THAT bad. Sure it was humid and kinda gross  but it wasn't Florida. I spontaniously decided "Hey, I can do this. Fuck anxiety". So I texted Klasi to see what  time we could meet to take the train together. He had already left work but offered to wait for me.  Unfortunately I had no makeup on and wasn't prepared at all to leave right away. So I hurried like I've never  hurried before and met Klasi at the subway station. You expect the subway to be a little cooler since it's  underground. It was not. We switched trains and tried our luck upstairs. We got a little breeze at least. We met  the other two guys (Thomas and Ref) at our favorite burger place "Burgers Berlin". We sat outside, watched the  storm and got a little wet. It was so cool to finally see Ref. I have never met him in real life, I only knew his voice  from teamspeak. We sat there for a while and talked and laughed - laughed and talked. Even with the crazy  storm (and my slight fear of lightning) it was a really fun night and I couldn't be bothered by the little shitty  things. Life tested me on the way back. I still had an hour on the train ahead of me...alone. And lucky as I am  there were problems with the tracks which caused a stop and go - more stop than go. So the entire thing took  even longer, BUT it was okay. I did not freak out. No problem for Jen (anymore).


The only problem I had was that I was wearing summer clothes and fliflops when the night had turned into rainy autumn. Rain and flipflops are a bad combination. I actually didn't really care cause I was so happy and extremely proud of myself since I pushed through my fears and my not well being.

On wednesday Ref was still in town and texted me if I was free in the afternoon. I only had one seminar so I had time. This time we were meeting up in my hood, close to my school. I suggested to walk around in the park til Thomas arrived to meet us and then all go to a cocktailbar. Our timing was great cause it was happy hour - which means get two drinks for the price of one.




It was a nice spring(ish) day so we sat outside. I haven't eaten cause I came right from school and so the one mojito I had (I shared my two with Thomas) really got me drunk. It was a happy drunk - a really fun drunk. Again, we talked and laughed - laughed and talked but parted ways a little earlier than the night before. I actually got the chance to make the dinner I had started and didn't continue 24 hours ago.
It was chicken wings with rosmary-honey-mustard-potatos and garlicsauce.

YUM!!!

Thursday: The plan was to get up super early and meet my friend at the train station to go to a barbecue. It was a german holiday where people usually just get wasted and ride their bikes (not so much bikepart in Berlin). Check it out, we call it "Männertag" or "Christi Himmelfahrt".
Anyways. My biological woman clock went off and I felt like shit. It wasn't happening for me. I was pissed. I really wanted to go cause I loved my new outgoing self and forcing myself to not being lazy actually worked and made me happier. But man, I got the cramps and they were bad. All I did that day I did horizontally. And to get the estrogen on another (higher) level I watched "Sex and the city" (show not movie) with a hot-water-bottle on my belly. After dinner it got even crazier. I now present to you: The Ultimate Period Image.
A grumpy pimplefaced woman in sweatpants and her hair in a bun goes to a movie rental store JUST to get icecream and a diet coke instead of a dvd.
It's unbelieveable how fast I can be when there is Ben & Jerry involved. Eating that giant bowl of icecream was insanely satisfying.

Friday was a less painful day. My good friend Mot agreed to come pick me up for the weekend. Back to the roots.

It was good seeing him again and the ride was really fun even though the navigation system fucked us.
When we reached Cottbus I tried to remember when the last time I visited was. I couldn't. It must have been years and years.
But I still recognized certain areas and buildings but for some reason the city seemed emptier.
At Mots place I got super excited to see the new kitties. They are just the most adorable little cats.


Just look at them. The grey one is Hanni and the white one is called Hercules. They are gorgeous and extremely soft and fluffy.
The entire place looked great and I immediately got the feeling of:  "I'm not leaving".
The terrace is my favorite part of the apartment. You guys know how much I love gardening and plants in general, so this was like heaven.

That night we ordered pizza and relaxed. Relaxed in those things:

Those are the most comfortable kind of chairs existing. They can transform into somewhat of a bed. Well not really, but you can definitelly lie down and sleep on it. Trust me - I tried, and succeeded.
For saturday we actually just had food plans. We wanted to go to this restaurant we ate years before called "Kartoffelkiste". I ordered the asparagus with sauce holondaise called "a pound of asparagus". I did not know it was literally a pound. There was NO way I could finish it.

It was delicious. After dinner it started to rain and we traded going out for icecream for icecream at home. My belly was rioting. WAY too much food. The rain actually helped with our night plans. I don't think any of us actually wanted to step outside and do something.
Back to the comfy chair it was. More TV, more relaxing. This might sound lame for most people. But for us it's the funniest thing. We make comments (mostly hilarious) about what we see and crack up. We might be a little silly but in that area - we are made for each other. We used the Ipad for those funny photos...you know what i mean those effects that make you look extremely ridiculous. By the way, I set the new record for ugliest photo EVER. I will not show it to you because there is "look how funny is this ugly picture of me" and "oh my god I can't believe this is you, I'm gonna change my entire believe system after seeing that - it's so ugly". This picture... I have no words.
Anyways, our night was a lot of fun, I haven't laughed this hard in a long time - my belly was on fire.

On sunday we just really had foodplans (again). We were also supposed to help planting flowers on Mots grandpas grave. For some reason the entire thing was surprisingly upbeat and the cemetery was beautiful.

After that we went to a restaurant called "El Toro" and had tapas.

Let me tell you what you see here: curry chicken, fried feta cheese, meatballs and tomatesauce, mozarella sticks, shrimp in a honey sauce and pork with bacon. The dip was a garlic sauce. The BEST garlic sauce I've ever had. OH MY GOD it was good. The rest of the food was good, not great. It was also quite expensive. 3 bucks per tapa (is that singular?) and that's just on sundays. Some of those are usually even more expensive. In the big picture it's tough to finish all of it but if you focus on the detail: for 3 bucks each tapas bowl should have been filled a little more.
After filling our bellies we went back to the apartment and took a nap.  =)
What a weekend. This time I actually enjoyed the laziness. Around 4 Mot drove me back to Berlin and I was actually kinda sad to see him leave. The weekend seemed way too short and I already miss him.
I can't wait to see him again and laugh til my tummy hurts.
I have to say it was a really fun week and I need to chase that feeling of social activities induced happines.
Hopefully there are more to come. I will let you guys know.

FOOD PORN

Hello people,

this blogpost is just about food. Like I said, I wanted to eat better so the last couple days I tried out a couple new things. Let me show you:






 This is definitely something I'm gonna eat a lot in the future.
 It is absolutely delicious.
 I got inspired by the sandwich I had at Porta a while back in Asbury Park:
 Let me tell you what you see here:

 - german bread
 - avocado
 - 1 egg sunny side up
 - Schwarzwälder Schinken (ham)
 - a piece of grilled camembert
 - french dressing

 Sandwich heaven. It's so good and I advise you to try it.














The next little piece of yummyness was also inspired by the United States.
When we stayed at the Venetian in Las Vegas I used to get these really tasty parfaits.
And now I tried to make it myself.


What's in this parfaiction?
- greek yogurt
- strawberry jam
- cereal (granola works too)
- honey


All that stuff layered twice and you get this tasty breakfast.
Obviously it's not THE healthiest breakfast, since the sugar is real.
But hey, better chubby and happy.

This might be my favorite dish right now. I'm so glad it's asparagus season here. It's super easy to make too. Prepare your favorite pasta, throw some green asparagus in the pan, brown it a little and wait til it softens. You can also cook it a bit before hand but I prefer it the pan way. Add brown button mushrooms (I used 3) and let it sizzle for a bit. For the sauce I used heavy cream and a little bit of gouda cheese. It takes about 30 minutes to make and it's delicious. This is actually one of the only meals I made without a recipe. I just found a picture on tumblr and tried to figure out what it could be. I came up with this version and I'm super happy with it. I already had it 4 times this week, I just can't get enough of it.

 Now to my last piece of magic.
 I told you before how the german Starbucks doesn't have my favorite tea.
 The lemonade iced black tea.
 I thought: "Well can't be too hard to make myself".
 It isn't. BUT it takes a while.
 Since Germany also isn't big on lemonade, I had to make it myself.

 How I did it?:
 - 5 lemons plus zest
 - 1 orange plus zest
 - a small cup of sugar
 - 2 liter boiling hot water

 I filtered the entire thing, cause I'm not a big fan of pulp.
 After, let it cool in the fridge.

 For the tea I used 1,3L and three teabags of darjeeling black tea which I already had at home.
 I added three tablespoons of sugar and let it cool.

 After everything was nice and cool i mixed both together. 60% black tea and 40% lemonade  with a couple icecubes.
 OH MY. It's addicting.
 I gotta be careful cause that stuff has a lot of sugar. That might be why it's so addicting. But  I'm telling you, it's so freaking good, you have to try it.






Hope you enjoyed this foodporn post and maybe it even inspired you to try some of it. Guten Appetit!

I'm still here

Hey guys,

so I decided to keep this blog going. It's been almost a week since I have left the US.
Couple things happened overhere, so let's get started.

I used the weekend to kinda settle in. I didn't experience any jetlag but I wasn't back to my german rhythm either. I basically chilled a little and did what a good housewife does: cleaning and shopping for food.
On saturday I did what you are never supposed to do, I went grocerie shopping with an empty stomache.



 I bought so much stuff.
 I told myself to eat better after leaving the States. Better for me  doesn't necessarily mean healthier.
 It just means something else than toast and butter. More fruit and more  veggies.
 So I went a little crazy and yes, I bought nachos and ice cream too. I  think I spent like 16 € which isn't bad at all.
 The only thing missing was the asparagus. I checked 3 stores and 2  were  out, at one store the asparagus was 14€/kg. Are you kidding me?  I mean, it was an organic store, so everything is more expensive there  anyways but that was just ridiculous.
 It was white asparagus and I wanted the green kind. Basically because  I'm somewhat lazy when it comes to cooking. White asparagus just  needs too much prep time, which annoys me.



I was trying to find someone to hang out with  but everyone was busy, so I went to my happy place, which is the "Schloß Charlottenburg" right by my apartment.

They're doing some construction work. Ususally it looks way prettier especially with some sunshine going on. In the "Schloßpark" is a little area where all the squirrels live. That time I only saw one and it ran away so quickly that I couldn't take a picture. After all I had a nice afternoon walk.

I also used the weekend to clean up my garden. Like I mentioned, the japanese knotweed was growing like crazy and other weeds felt pretty comfy too.
It was fun to dig my fingers into the soil again, I really missed gardening. Here you can see the before and after pictures.

before

after

all the weeds I pulled

So those were my weekend activities.
On monday I met my friend Gina to stroll around at a tiny version of a fashion avenue. It was good seeing her and she really seemed to like the present I brought back for her from the states. We cought up on recent events and felt like starbucks. Then came a disappointing moment. The german starbucks does NOT have the tea I like so much. I was so pissed that I didn't get anything at all. But I still got a chance to spend my money. Of course I had to stop by at KIKO. It's my favorite makeup store when it comes to non-high-end products. The nailpolish was on sale, 1 for 1,90€ , you can't beat that. So I bought two. Let me show you:

I am in LOVE with the darker one. On the first picture it almost looks red. But basically it looks like the universe on your nails. I adore it. The other one is a nude shade. I tried it on my fingernails at the store and put it on my toenails at home. I prefer it on my fingernails, it's not really poppin on my feet.

After my little rendevous I went straight to the "Zoologische Garten" to meet my friend Norman. I was close to starving and I refused to spend money on food when I have a full fridge at home. Norman was nice enough to give me some cash for Dunkin Donuts. I was wearing my D.A.R.E. shirt and the guy at D&D really loved it and I got my donut for free with a "come back soon". Ego restored. =)
After my little snack we went to a Biergarten. Usually I don't enjoy them since I don't drink beer but it was such a nice day to sit outside, so I didn't mind.
It was national Star Wars day, so the present I brought Norman was just perfect. It was a coffee mug that has a button to stir your coffee automatically. It has a picture of darth vader and it says "the force is strong with this one". I think he loved it. Normans friend joined us and we got ourselves a nice german bratwurst. YUM!

Around 7 we all went home. I used the nice weather and walked a bit more instead of using the train. I was pretty proud of myself that day, cause usually having two unrelated social activities would stress me out, especially when I have to take the train. But this time it worked out well and I had a good time.
On tuesday I went to class and finally tracked down my green asparagus. I wasn't feeling a 100% and ditched my lecture and cooked a nice dinner instead.
Wednesday I had a class at a building which is close to where my friend works. So after listening to Taoism and Buddhism I went to see my friend Klasi at work. Behind his building is a nice place to sit right by the river.

I started to get a bad headache. I thought eating something would help but unfortunately it didn't. I still had an hour til my next class started but I didn't have any aspirin in my bag so after waiting for a bit I decided to go home before this headache could turn into a migraine. Luckily it didn't.
On thursday I got up at 5.30am cause I had a class at 8am. It was my first week but school already started in april, so I missed a couple sessions. So this week I tried to still get into classes. This particular class on thursday at 8am had no room for me. Of course the one day I had to get up super early was also the day I got send home. LAME. I had a couple things to pick up that day, so I walked around a bit to kill some time until stores opened up. Yes it was that early. On my way back home I got a tiny bit disoriented and found myself at an area I haven't been before. I noticed this pretty church and just had to take a picture of it.

Can you tell I love taking pictures of random things?

One of the things I bought was a lipstick. Of course, makeup, I wouldn't call it a sickness but it's definitely a slight addiction. I just wanna have it all.


The lipstick is by essence in the shade "nude love". It's definitely my lightest shade. I love the light pinky tone and how it's nude without giving me a sickish look. For 2,50€ - NOT BAD. I just started wearing lipstick on a regular basis and I love how it can totally change a look.


So those were my 6 days back in Germany. I had a good first "week" and I'm glad I got to see so many friends already. I'm excited to see what will happen the next couple weeks. I love this more outgoing Jen. I'm not gonna lie, this blog also makes me go out more, so I think it's a good thing.
See you guys soon.