We are in PARIS! I LOVE IT! IT’S THE BEST! Get ready for some great posts.

Until then, post your menus for the week! Remember, any menu goes. Fancy, not fancy, complicated, simple. ANYTHING. It’s time to share your ideas. 🙂

Here’s my breakfast menu for this week, because I’m not planning on cooking dinner…and I KNOW what I’m having for breakfast.
MONDAY:
– Pain au chocolat

TUESDAY:
– Pain au chocolat

WEDNESDAY:
– Pain au chocolat

THURSDAY:
– Pain au chocolat

FRIDAY:
– Pain au chocolat

SATURDAY:
– Back in the U.S…no more pain au chocolat. 🙁

SUNDAY:
– Cape Cod! (I’m having a boring summer, huh?)

Be sure to check out the last of my Berlin posts below!

For our last night in Berlin we ate at a German restaurant. We figured that was the best thing to do. Our dinner was yummy. I wrote down the German names for everything we ate, but I can’t find the napkin I wrote on. Bummer. We are in Paris and I really need to get out and see the sites, so you’ll have to settle for my American descriptions and misspellings!

I ordered a German flat bread (maybe schüttelbrot?). The waiter described it as “German pizza” and said his mom made it when he was growing up. It tasted delicious – light, but filling.

Nate ordered schnitzel with a mushroom sauce. It was also delicious!

Here’s our final ridiculously-priced soda in Germany. They even went over the 0.4L mark, so we got more for our money! Ha.

Thanks, Germany, for some great food! Off to France!

Berlin is full of pretzels and wursts (sausages). So much wurst, everywhere you turn. We really enjoyed it, actually. We always knew that if we were hungry, we’d be able to find a wurst for not too much money and be happy. So, on with the wursts…

Here’s currywurst. It was good. The bread it came with was not, but the currywurst itself was yummy.

Can you guess what they sell at this stand? Ironically, our worst wurst was from this place, but it was still tasty!

The wursts outside the Pergamon Museum were the best ones we had. SO GOOD. We got a bratwurst (grilled) and a bockwurst (simmered). The bread these puppies came on was awesome – very fresh.

Bottom line: our favorite was the BRATWURST!

We stayed at the Hilton Berlin. It was a great hotel in what is probably the nicest neighborhood in Berlin (think 5th Avenue in NYC). The room was nothing spectacular, but nice enough, and quite affordable as far as hotels go. I seriously loved staying there. The location was spectacular.

One of the best parts was the breakfast each morning. We couldn’t get enough. So many choices, everything tasted great. Here’s a quick tour around our breakfast each morning! 🙂

How about a little rührei (scrambled eggs), kartoffelrösti (hash browns), bouletten (meatballs), gebratene pilze (fried mushrooms) and kaiserschmarren (emperors’ pancake) to start you off?

Ah, the kaiserschmarren. This stuff was awesome. Sort of like a dry bread pudding, but that makes it sound not-so-great, when it was actually fantastic. I need to find a recipe for sure.

They had a great bread spread, complete with, you guessed it, pretzels. We were certainly in Germany.

Cheese…

…fruit…(those wild berries in front were SOUR…but good)…

…and MEAT (yup, still in Germany).

This was my least favorite part of breakfast. Isn’t the Hilton nice…they classify all the different foods into categories so the different breakfast “personalities” can quickly find the kind of food they want. 9 times out of 10 my food fell under the “Big Time” category. I already know I’m eating “bad” – I don’t need some stupid card on my table to remind me!

Despite the card, breakfast really was fun and we miss it!

If it wasn’t for this place, I don’t know what I would have done in Berlin! Internet was a small fortune at our hotel (one day cost as much as one month at home). This restaurant right around the corner had FREE Internet. Needless to say they got to know me. 🙂 (note – normally I could care less, but I actually WORKED a bit on this trip. sad, huh? poor jane. poor poor jane.)

So, if you’re in Berlin, it’s called Lagano. It’s sort of Italian-ish, yummy, inexpensive, they play techno music. What more could you ask for?

I think the most fun food adventure so far has been browsing the local supermarket. You really get a feel for the local food at the local market, that is for sure.

There were so many beautiful beans, grains, etc. I have no idea what any of them are, but they sure were fun to look at.

SO MUCH MEAT in a German market, but I think that goes without saying.

The mustards and jarred wursts were on the same aisle. Basically everywhere we turn we see mustards and wursts…the supermarket is no different!

Look at all that mustard! If I’d had any idea what that yummy sweet mustard was called that I ate the other day, I would have stocked up. Too bad I don’t speak German.

Okay, so we spotted this package of American hamburger buns. But they’re not just called hamburger buns, they’re called MEGA-burgers. We thought that was pretty funny.

The spice section (which of course I didn’t photograph) was of the most interest to me. I don’t know why the spices were so intriguing, they just were.

Loved the supermarket!

Just to warn you all, I may die of dehydration in the next few days. Because I’m cheap. Seriously, drinks of ALL kinds are crazy expensive over here!!! We ordered a sprite the other day. It was in this tiny glass and cost around $4 US. I still can’t believe it myself. I mean, the ASHTRAY is almost as big as the glass. Just to give some extra perspective on how tiny this $4 Sprite was.

Here’s a little traveling-in-Europe tip: buy soda and water at the supermarket and carry it around with you. You will honestly save oodles of money.

Another interesting observation: almost every glass we’ve used has measurements on the side. We always know exactly how much fluid we are drinking. What a relief, I was worried I might over-hydrate with overly priced drinks.

We lunched at a small cafe on the grounds of Schloss Charlottenburg yesterday. It was lovely. Nate ordered tuna salad on a baguette. We were curious to see how it would be prepared. It was pretty much straight-up tuna, no mayo at all. Nate said it was very good.

This was my lunch. It doesn’t get more “simple” than that. Seriously? They weren’t under-describing “wiener & baguette” on the menu, that is for sure. Pretty funny.

I thought this sign for the ladies’ WC was too cute. Very fitting at Schloss Charlottenburg.

Europeans have it so easy…$1.50 for gas? Okay, not really. When you convert everything to gallons and dollars it’s more like $9.00 per gallon! The craziest part is the the cars really aren’t that tiny here in Berlin. Run of the mill Mercedes, VW & BMW everywhere. I don’t know how anyone affords to drive!!!

Nate and I grabbed Bratwurst for dinner last night on the street right next to the Berliner Dom (which is stunningly beautiful, by the way). IT WAS DELICIOUS. The first bite had a very strong taste of rye, which was surprising. But it was very tasty.

We ordered some fries on the side, which I wouldn’t normally write about. But the ketchup is worth mentioning. It had a strong taste of paprika, which was also a dominant spice in my goulash on Sunday. A quite different taste from American ketchup, but very good. It’s fun when even the ketchup is different.

I don’t have time to post anything else right now, but I have some very yummy pictures coming your way…I can’t wait to get them up here!