knoedeling

Last night we went to my aunt's house in Livermore to visit their family and Oma, who is still visiting from the East Coast. She made a delicious all-German dinner, complete with Knoedels and Gluehwein! Nolan was broken in to delicious German food and drink, and we fought over the last Knoedel, which is a sort of potato dumpling that you MUST eat with gravy or it's a little...well, look:

Apparently my dad calls them "sinkers" because they sink right to the bottom of your stomach, haha!
And the Gluehwein was fantastic too! Hot mulled wine is a tradition at Christmas in Germany. Literally translated it means "glowing (as in heat) wine", and it is delicious!

And apparently in the shop windows you see this flashing instead of "hot coffee" or whatever we have here:


(it blinks if you click on it!)






Also while browsing around I found this and you know I can't resist anything Twilight!


There is this phenomenon on sidewalks and escalators here, where you walk in a certain direction. I know this isn't a shock for any of you fellow city-dwellers, but on sidewalks: you walk on the same side you would drive on. On escalators: if you want to just stand there, you stand all the way to the right so that people can pass you on the left. Like on the freeway. Common sense. I mean I guess it isn't if you don't drive, but it seems to be ingrained. So it's always a little bit of a shock when a.) someone barrels into me on the street and I am tempted to yell "stay out of my lane!" or b.) random chick on the HUGE bart/muni escalator is looking around blankly while standing on the LEFT side and blocking traffic and people behind me are like, flipping ME the bird for not moving. Sweet.

I guess that is all for today. Still no pics. I actually HAD the camera in my hand this weekend while I was sitting AT the computer. But alas, no cable to be found. Sad, too, because we have an EXCELLENT video of my dad hula hooping on the wii fit. So close, yet so far...

Also, I am just about done with this cold weather. For Christmas, Nolan got a Brookstone alarm clock that does all sorts of things, from my dad, whose name is Bob. Normally that has nothing to do with anything, except the alarm clock is also called the "Bob". See for yourself here. His reasoning would be so that now, Nolan can take Bob everywhere with him. Bob will wake him up in the mornings. Bob will sit in his office with him. They both thought that was pretty hilarious. ANYway, so we check Bob every day to see how cold it is in our house. Yesterday when we woke up, it was 46 DEGREES. INSIDE. I KNOW.