What I did on my spring vacation...

Well friends I'm back from my break!

Where I went: 

My home base was Hanover, Germany. I took a day trip to Berlin, a 2-day trip with my sister to Bruges & Ghent (in Belgium) and I went on my own to Amsterdam for 3 days. The rest of the trips were in Germany, and selected in hopes of finding good weather. My sister and I went to Goslar (gorgeous day!) and Lubeck (not so much) and I did a trip on my own to Schwerin.

Traveling by train:
I used all 8 days on my Eurail pass and loved the convenience of just showing up and hopping on a train. It's possible to pay a bit extra to book a reserved seat, but not at all required. Once my train was so full I had to sit on the floor for a couple of hours, and once a kind woman let me have her seat while she visited friends elsewhere on the train, but the vast majority of the time there was no trouble with seating at all. Those trains are crazy punctual, and as my sister said, you just have to trust the timetable. If you are expecting a train to Brussels on platform 5 at 11:03, don't get on the one that is there at 10:50 or you might wind up going someplace unexpected! And don't wait around for an invitation to board when your train shows up - they often stay in the station for under 5 minutes. 

Clothes and Gear: 
I made some last-minute packing list changes (I ditched one cool-weather shirt and added two warmer-weather shirts) and my packing was nearly perfect. I could have skipped one of the short-sleeve shirts and the 3/4 sleeve sweater, but only because I got to do laundry twice. After all the agonizing I did over whether to bring my rain jacket, I guess I should be happy the first half of my trip *fully* justified its inclusion!


Food:
I managed to try several local specialties.
In Germany: In Hanover I had schnitzel, and in Berlin I got currywurst. In Lubeck (since it's near the Baltic sea) I tried fried herring - big mistake, crazy bony - and my sister got smoked herring, which was quite nice. Lubeck is also the home of a famed marzipan company, so I bought a little marzipan from them. We also tried salted licorice from a vending machine at the train station - YUK.
In Belgium: I had the famed waffles twice, but sadly concluded they're too sweet for me. In Ghent we found a local candy called "Noses of Ghent" that were cone-shaped things about the size of a nose. They're purple and a bit jellied inside and were kind of good but kind of gross. I also had some Belgian chocolate, of course! We had mussels for dinner, including fries with mayo. For breakfast our hotel included speculoos, a sweet spread made from cookies that is pretty yummy (Trader Joe now sells it labeled as Cookie Butter).
In Amsterdam: Fresh springtime asparagus is a big deal in that part of the world, and I had perhaps one of the best salads of my life at a randomly-selected cafe. It was made of mixed greens, walnuts, mushrooms, aged Dutch cheese, and asparagus. YUM. Speaking of cheese, I stumbled on a place that buys high-quality fresh cheese, ages it carefully, and wins awards for the results. I attended a wine/cheese seminar there and had a delicious time. The next morning I got to try a traditional breakfast offering in the Netherlands: chocolate sprinkles for your bread. They were quite good!

Drink:
Beer, beer and more beer. I took pictures and will post about that separately, but: Germany does some weird but tasty things to their beer! I had beer with lemonade in it while sitting in the sun in Goslar. In Lubeck I got to try "Berliner Weiss mit Schuss" which is a specific brand of wheat beer, with a shot of colorful sweet syrup poured in - that's the Schuss. You have to indicate if you want red or green syrup; red is raspberry and I really liked it. Green... is called woodruff flavor, but I don't know what that is. Suffice to say I wasn't a big fan, but it wasn't terrible. Finally, I tried banana juice in my beer - also delicious!

Sights:
Oh yeah, the TOURING thing. My sister and I usually found a Tall Thing (belfry) in whatever town we were in and paid to go up inside it. I did two free walking tours, one in Berlin, the other in Amsterdam (you tip the guide according to how well you liked it) - both tours lasted at least 3 hours! I took two canal boat rides, one in Amsterdam, the other in Lubeck. In Amsterdam I also went to the Van Gogh museum, the Anne Frank house (highly recommend it if you're headed that way), and caught the World Press photo exhibit.

And I walked and walked and walked and walked and walked. It was great.

...pictures to follow!

Vacation brain

You guys, I'm thisclose to being out of the office for 2 1/2 weeks!!! It's true that the first half-week is a work-related conference where I'm going to do a lot of standing, acting on my best behavior, and tons and tons of small-talking. But then on Wednesday evening I will be FREE.

I head to Germany on Thursday night, and have a rail pass for Germany and the Benelux countries. Belgium is going to HAPPEN! I've had a fair amount of Belgian beer exposure thanks to a local specialty pub, but I'm still excited to drink a dubbel in Bruges! I also hope to visit Amsterdam - I'll be there for the bicycles and canals, thanks - and of course want to poke around Germany a bit. It would be cool to set foot in Luxembourg since I have the pass and am unlikely to be there again... but we'll see if it fits.

The real fun has been packing for the trip: I'm getting four days of work-clothes (which I'll send home with a coworker) + 14 days of travel clothes into a backpack-style carry-on. I admit it's fairly bursting right now, but I'll cut the volume in half when I can send home the work gear, leaving me a bag that will be not-hard to haul. It's coming in under 20 pounds right now, I think, and that includes my day bag with travel books.

What I'm bringing for work
- 1 pair pants, 1 skirt, 1 suit jacket
- 2 pairs shoes, neither of which are particularly comfortable or wonderful for standing around in.
- 1 3/4-sleeve ribbed top (black); 1 lightweight long-sleeve shirt (purple). Both of these will continue on the trip.
- 1 cowl-neck top
- 1 sparkly wrap thing for the evening reception
- 1 scoop-neck tank top to go with wrap & skirt
- a small duffel bag to send all that home in when I'm done (except the two shirts that are continuing on with me)

What I'm bringing to Europe (including what I'll wear on the plane):
- 2 pairs pants: jeans and khakis
- 2 pairs shoes:  Keens, and Merrells
- warmth: a rain jacket and a zip-up lightweight wool sweater, hat and fingerless mitts, scarf/wrappy thing
- 4 tops: 2 long-sleeve lightweight wool shirts (dark purple and turquoise); 1 3/4-sleeve ribbed top (black); 1 lightweight long-sleeve shirt (purple).

for both parts of the trip: 
- pajamas: t-shirt & shorts
- miscellaneous toiletries, socks, etc.
- camera; ipod touch; cell phone (to be stored away until I return to the states); chargers & a plug adapter; two guidebooks; passport & rail pass; knitting project.

I am not sure how much knitting I'll do, but after having to make an emergency run from a bluegrass fest so I had some knitting on hand, I'd rather not travel empty-handed again! I have music, podcasts, and several books on my ipod touch, so I don't need to bring other entertainment. If it were to get lost or broken I'd be really upset but I could deal... I guess. 

If I get heartily sick of my belongings, I can jettison the pajama top (on the last day of the trip, that is!) since it's an ancient ratty t-shirt; my Keens are also nearing the end of their life and they can go too. They're not at the point of being uncomfortable or I wouldn't bring them, but the Merrells I bought were intended to replace them anyway. I think it's important to have a change of shoes, which is why I'm bringing the Keens at all. There's not much else that I would get rid of! I could MAYBE pare my packing by another shirt, but I'm okay with wearing one and packing three. I'll have access to laundry at least once, possibly twice, and could probably get by without doing it (absent any horrible spills).

You can possibly guess how productive my last day in the office is.

Sweater: finished!

I should've gotten a standing shot. It fits great!

Pattern: Aidez
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Ecological Wool, bulky on size 10 needles. It took EXACTLY 3 hanks, I had like a gram or so left (and an entire bonus hank I don't know what to do with but can't return).

Travelly goodness

I spent last weekend in Portland seeing good friends, hugging cute kids, dying Easter eggs, eating yummy food, and getting lots of fresh air. It was so lovely!

I'm getting semi used to my new camera. Its colors seem more saturated than my old camera, which maybe isn't a bad thing but does strike my eye a bit harshly. I think its red tones are even more vivid - check this one out:

Am I nuts?

Also, I really have to go over the instructions so I can use the macro mode better - I was having trouble getting a flower shot this weekend. I loathe that instructions are now on cd - I want a BOOK I can carry around and flip through at my leisure. sheesh.

Anyway, I'm off for more awesome travel soon, so I really better get on that.

Calendar: April

My apartment is in the back of my building and faces a hillside covered with trees and shrubbery. It makes for a pretty lovely view, especially when the plum trees are in bloom.

I confess I lived here a few years before I realized it was plum trees back there, and I have yet to actually harvest and use them! They are tiny; my friend and I thought they were some overgrown cherry before realizing they were in fact wee little plums.

Many years ago a coworker brought in a bud vase like the one in the picture above. Turns out it's from a particularly nice balsamic vinegar sold at Trader Joe's. I have an apple juice jar I like to use as well...when I remember to have flowers!

Retirement diversification thoughts and plans

I took advantage of a quiet weekend to deal with Life Stuff - taxes and filing, and also I finally made myself sit down and take a clear look at my retirement accounts. 

I've long understood it's important to diversify investments. And I've made stabs at it, but the pure truth is I have no idea what I'm doing. I had questions like: if I've got 21% of my investments in a large-cap fund, and another 20% in a broad market index.. is that basically 41% in the same segment of the market? I kinda think so, but I don't KNOW.

I decided I was going to rebalance yesterday - which implies A Plan, so I also knew I was going to come up with some sort of plan.One plan I'd come across recommended:
25% 500 fund; 25% Small-Cap; 25% International; 25% Bond  

25% in bonds seemed too high given my age, and since I don't own a home I thought I ought to invest in real estate using a vehicle called a REIT. Oh, and I had a bunch of mid-cap stocks for some reason... so that plan is a good starting point but didn't really fit my situation.

So now I have a plan. I admit I settled on it pretty arbitrarily, which on the one hand isn't so great, but heck, it's a plan. I'm taking some comfort from that. Here it is:

Large cap/broad market: 40%
Small cap: 10% 
International: 25%  
Bond: 15%
Reit: 10%

To achieve something close  to that percentage split I closed my mid-cap fund and added that money to my international and bond funds; I also transferred money from my small-cap into bonds. The Fidelity site (which is my work-sponsored plan) made it pretty easy to do all this once I decided what I wanted to do.

My monthly retirement contributions are with Fidelity, and I don't have access to a REIT there, so I've split the investments among broad market/small cap/international/bond. I'll have to rebalance regularly to keep the REIT where I want it to be, but I think I can do it annually and call it good.

Oh and I still have a broad market index fund I have to roll over - from a job I left nearly 6 years ago - but I did figure its balance into my percentages above. I'll just have to move it from broad market where it is, to a broad market at Vanguard, and call it good. One of these days...!

So is this so-called plan of mine total crap?

Marjolaine, completed! (and notes for next time)

In my last post I showed lots of assembly shots of the dessert I was making. I got the Marjolaine recipe from David Lebovitz' fantastic dessert cookbook Ready for Dessert. I'm not much of a cookbook buyer in this lovely day of online recipes, but I've made several from the book and it's littered with post-its for future reference!

So here is the marjolaine, after 36 hours of refrigerated resting:

You can't tell very well from my careful photography, but it's decidedly tilty. I'm not sure how I would improve that next time - perhaps trim the cake better before stacking.

Here is the final product:

That's actually a slice and a half, because it was all that was leftover and I am a piggy. If you just look at the longest rectangle shape in the center of the plate, that's what the marjolaine looked like. I served it with whipped cream/creme fraiche (whatever was leftover after the baking process: whip the cream, fold in sweetened creme fraiche) and ground toasted almonds & hazelnuts, since those were the nuts used in the cake layers.

It was fantastic. The wine group members loved it, and one said the result was on par with things her dad (a master German baker) produces - high praise indeed!

For future reference:

• It really is easy, and is best if you take 3 days to do the various bits. Starting on Sunday for a Friday reveal was perfect.
• I am not very skilled at caramelizing sugar (used to make the praline, used in the top layer). That was by far the most difficult step and I probably could have gone a bit darker, but got too nervous. Next time try to go just a trifle longer. 
• I might make the ganache in two batches next time - 1/3 for the cake layer, and the other 2/3 for the frosting. Reheating the ganache was not easy and its texture was a tiny bit off. 
• I used Guittard 72% bittersweet chocolate, because I thought the whole dessert would be quite sweet and wanted to offset it a bit. However I didn't love it mixed with the tartness of the creme fraiche, so next time I'll go a shade lighter with 61% semisweet. My local shop sells it for $10/pound which is the best price for the high-end chocolates I've found. I would also consider getting one of Trader Joe's big ol' pound-plus and chopping it up, but the discs in the Guittard box are very handy to work with.
• The trickiest layer to work with was the vanilla creme fraiche - the white layer in the middle. It was pretty runny, so I would work a bit harder to get it thickened and might consider researching additives like cornstarch or gelatin or cream of tartar to try to get it to stiffen better. Once it was refrigerated it was pretty good, but it was not easy to stack & wrap without the goo sliding out every which way.
• I would trim the edges of the cake before assembling to try to limit the tilt factor
• OR next time I'll cover the layers side by side, then stack & wrap quickly. That might be the easiest solution, actually. 
• I made this with a gluten-intolerant friend in mind - the only thing I had to modify was using corn starch on the parchment paper, instead of flour. The recipe itself is naturally gluten-free. 
• Next time I'll try making my own creme fraiche - apparently you just put some buttermilk into heavy cream, but that is a LOT cheaper than buying it already soured/thickened.
• The ingredients for the dessert ran about $25 - definitely the most expensive thing I've made.

To sum up: if you have time and patience, tackle the marjolaine! It's totally worth it.