Change Your Life

"I have been told that an adventure is part of a human's living spirit - the thrill comes from new experiences, encounters with different faces. I have finally conquered my thirst for adventure by coming to an exciting new place rich in culture. I now understand what students mean when they say studying abroad will change your life."
~Danielle Pramick

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Breakfast in Germany

I love cereal. I really love it. I’ve had cereal for breakfast almost every day for my entire life. So when I went to the Lebensmittelgeschaft (grocery store) for the first time, I was excited to scope out the cereal stock. I went through quite a few boxes, but here are some of my favorites. Unfortunately I couldn’t find pictures for each of them.

Nougat Bits – the greatest cereal ever. Better than Cap’n Crunch with Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms marshmallows. The cereal pieces are chocolate flavored, but each one has an air pocket inside filled with hazelnut nougat. It’s kind of like eating chunks of chocolate infused with Nutella. I killed about 12 boxes of this stuff during the semester. The grocery store was out of stock of it for about 2 weeks at one point, and I felt as if I were dying inside a little more each day that I was without Nougat Bits.

Mini-Zimtos – The German word for “cinnamon” is “Zimt.” These were kind of like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, only they seemed to have found a way to get more cinnamon sugar to stick to the cereal pieces. Although trumped by Nougat Bits, Mini Zimtos held a close second in my book.

Fruchte-Müsli – Müsli is a mix of oats and other stuff (in this case, fruit pieces). While it isn’t loaded with sugar like Nougat Bits and Mini-Zimtos, Müsli is really tasty, and is even better for you.

Schoko-Müsli – Same concept as the previous one, but replace the fruit with chocolate pieces.

There also were equivalents of American cereals, such as Frosted Flakes and Smacks knockoffs. They weren’t too bad.

That’s mostly what I ate for breakfast. Europeans don’t value breakfast as much as Americans do, so while I was having my cereal-fest, my roommates would usually have cold cuts on a few pieces of bread.

Weekends meant no class, and thus sleeping in and having the time to make a big breakfast. If I was feeling particularly cereal’d out, I’d make eggs, sausage and cheese. The Germans make great sausage (Bratwurst, Bockwurst, Weisswurst, Würstchen, Currywurst…and the list goes on).

Now I’ve gone and make myself hungry…bah…

--Posted by Dave Hardison, IES EU Program, Fall 2007

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