Where's the Best Food in Europe?--Woche 6

Lisbon

In keeping with our new family mantra, "Forget the diet!", we sure did enjoy this week!

Dan had a trip to Lisbon for work. The work part went well and he had a chance to meet with colleagues and potential Portuguese clients, but the highlight was the food! The Portuguese claim to have the highest per capita consumption of fish and seafood of any other European country and perhaps, the world. Dan's colleagues told him that the average consumption is somewhere around 46kg/person/year (that's 101 lbs. or, a whole lot of fish). Since I don't cook fish at home, Dan took full advantage of the chance to load up! He got to eat mussels, salt cod (which funny enough, comes from the Nordic countries, but is one of the most popular dishes in Portugal), fresh prawns, another fish he was unsure of the name, but the highlight was the octopus feast he had during his last lunch, before flying to Spain.

Dan thought that the food in Portugal was the best he's had in all of Europe so far, and is unsure about how the Portuguese have not developed an obesity problem like the Americans--maybe it's all the fish! We are adding Portugal to our list of family vacations for sometime in the future. Dan finished his business trip with one day in Madrid and then came home Wednesday night.

We realised on Monday, that the weather forecast for our part of the world on the weekend looked amazing, at 65 degrees. The kids also had Friday off, and since hockey is winding down, we didn't have games or practices on Saturday. We decided to go on a road trip to Prague. We headed out on Friday afternoon and drove 3 1/2 hours to Prague. We rented an apartment that had 4 bedrooms and could sleep 10, so we brought our friends, Liz and Csaba with us.

We rolled into town, just at dark. We stayed really close to the old town section of Prague. Prague is different from other cities nearby because it has a very new feel, with modern buildings and architecture, except for the old town, which looks very medieval. The architecture there is stunning. Walking through the streets is delightful! That night, we could even leave our coats at home and just thoroughly enjoyed walking around in our sweatshirts. We stopped at a local pub for dinner. Finding one that could fit our entire group was a little difficult, but we managed. The food was incredible. Dan and I shared a plate for 2 that probably had a whole pig on it (if pigs had chicken wings). The kids all enjoyed their chicken schnitzel and fries--all except Deagan who slept through dinner. Dinner here was much cheaper than Vienna. We headed home to let the kids sleep.

The original recipe

The next day, we woke to much colder weather and rain (so much for Monday's weather forecast). We had to make a pit stop for umbrellas and hats for the kids. We walked around the old town more and visited a chocolate museum. We were able to try their pralines at the end of their demonstration. Interesting note: pralines in all other parts of the world just means a bite sized piece of chocolate with some kind of filling. (The tour offered hazelnut nougat). Unlike home, pralines are not just pecans and caramel covered in chocolate, or caramelised pecans.

We wandered around and discovered that old town is full of crystal/glass shops, Czech garnet/jewelry shops, and marionette/puppet shops.  You could also find Russian matroshkas and fur hats.  While wandering we stumbled upon a Mexican restaurant for lunch. We had to go through an alley, down a flight of stairs, around the corner and into the basement restaurant. We had the best Mexican food ever, in this little back alley in Prague.  Everyone enjoyed their burritos, homemade mole enchiladas, and nachos.  They even had horchata.  Who would have ever guessed that you would find really good Mexican food in the middle of the Czech Republic???

We were reeling from our lunch, so we decided to do a bit of walking around and shopping to burn a few calories.  We ended up purchasing
some yummy dipping chocolate and some fudge from the chocolate shop.  The apricot fudge was so tasty.  Then we found some Czech crystal.  I bought 2 vases.  One is a contemporary cut, very simple in design, and the other is more of a classic style with the cut glass.  Now all I need is for Dan to bring home some flowers so I can show off my vases!  On our jaunt through town, we also came across something new.  We found a chess board for 3 players.  Since Dane is starting to get into chess a bit, we decided to pick up a small board, and figure out how to play!

After all that shopping, we happened upon an ice cream shop.  This ice cream was again, very good--certainly up to European standards.  The mango ice cream had huge chunks of mangoes in it.  We knew it would be good ice cream, when we saw that they had a crystal/glass chandelier hanging over the freezer. 

We stopped in a small mall towards the end of the day.  Deagan got bored and started throwing his new hat up in the air and trying to catch it on his head as it came down.  Although Dan told him to quit about 100 times, Deagan continued throwing.  When Dan realized that Deagan was no longer walking beside him, he turned around to find Deagan in a very serious conversation with a jewelry store worker.  Deagan was pointing behind the counter trying to explain in English that he had lost his hat behind her counter and she was looking utterly confused.  When Dan backtracked and finally could hear what was going on, it was very clear that she did not speak any English.  Since a lot of the workers we encountered also spoke Russian, Dan decided to bail Deagan out and give Russian a shot.  Sure enough, the lady spoke Russian and when she realized what was going on she laughed and laughed.  After handing Deagan back his hat, she explained to Dan that she thought he was asking her to see a very expensive (several hundred Euro) necklace that was displayed in the case.  She wasn't sure how he was going to pay for it and was not about to open the case for him as he didn't look like he had the money to cover such a purchase.  We all thought it was very funny and had a great laugh, but Deagan didn't think it was as cute as the rest of us and threw a hissy fit in the street in front of the mall because we were "making fun of him"
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Even the meringues were good!

After that, all our eating and walking, the kids (particularly Deagan) were worn out.  The rain did stop, after the chocolate factory, but the wind picked up and we were all still cold.  We decided to head back to the apartment.  We hung out there.  The kids played games on the ipad.  We visited a bit with our friends.  After awhile, we called it a night.  We got up fairly early on Sunday morning and headed back for home.

We got back to Vienna, just in time to shower and get ready for church.  Dyllan was asked to give a talk in primary, and Dane was asked to teach the lesson in priesthood for all the Aaronic Priesthood quorums.  It was an exciting day, as Dane was ordained to the office of a deacon and he was able to pass the sacrament for the first time.  Certainly a memorable day for all of us!

As for Prague, we felt like we didn't get quite enough time there.  We would have liked to have at least one more half day.  I think we will plan to go again.  It seemed to be cheaper and we haven't seen it all yet.  I think that Dyllan and Deagan have next Friday off too.  Hmmmm, sounds tempting.