Week Six: They are Real! (And Wine)

Week Six: They are Real! (And Wine)

I've had a pretty fun week here! My travel is fairly limited by work of course, but beyond that I've had a lot of fun. No need to travel far to get the culture when you live in a foreign country! Let's see. The first most exciting thing this week threw me squarely back into 'This must be a movie!' mode. Who here has seen Mary Poppins?

All of you, I should hope! It's an excellent movie, and it comes in book form too, as I understand it. Now here's a better question: Who here has not seen a chimney sweep?

We all loved Bert, and let me tell you, I have met a chimney sweep! Mind you, we don't have a chimney here, but once a year, a chimney sweep visits every German household. We pay ten dollars a month to cover this once a year visit, and his whole job is to come in and check the heating.

Well, there's something up with our heater apparently. So I get to see a chimney sweep, not once, but twice this year! Twice!

I am very excited. I cannot wait for the second visit. It does help that our chimney sweep is very nice, and very cute.

Let's see...next happened a wine tasting, which was much more fun and a lot less drunk than I thought it would be. In our area of Germany, mostly white wine is made, though there's red wine made too. I got to try eight types of wine, and I think there may be a second wine tasting in the future, where I actually buy some wine.

It was a lot of fun, even for the non-drinking under the legal age sister of mine. She had tons of fun watching after two little kids, and is going to make a great baby sitter I can tell. I had lots of fun watching the presentation and talking with our guests afterward.

Mind you, I hated every single second of preparing for a bunch of strange people I don't know coming over, but in the end it turned out alright. Still very awkward, but alright.

We tried seven types of wine, learned about the process, and how wines are graded. This all being German wine...I only know the meaning in German! Sorry guys.

The wine we tried was from 2008-2009, and was all produced at the vineyard it was grown at. All of them were white wine except for one, a blush. This particular winery apparently prefers making sweeter wine. Then again, white wine is normally sweeter!

We did learn that the sweetness, like the alcohol content, all depends on how it is produced, not necessarily what it came from. There was on halfdry, which was good, one medium, which I liked, two mild, and three sweets. They were all very good, and in the end, my dad, step-mom, and I determined which ones we liked the best and bought enough wine to last a very long time.

We also learned that wine is best when it is younger than 15 years old, and that it takes experience to actually enjoy older wines. Once it is in the bottle, it no longer ferments, but after about 10-15 years the taste begins to change.

At the end of the wine tasting, we all had a particularly delicious treat, if we wanted. After beign warned that it was extremely sweet, we were allowed perhaps a shot full of ice wine.

Mmmm, delicious. I loved it, and yes, that is one of the bottles we bought. It's an amazing wine, and one I hope to have on my next birthday, though then I'll buy my own bottle!

One Final Byte: Sisters fight and adore together, to parents' horror.