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Allgemein Germany Recipes Summer

Summer time lemonades

So this summer in Germany is not as hot as last year’s (thankfully) but still hot enough to want some cold drinks other than water. And we were definitely not into going under the sun to the supermarket to buy drinks (and even less to get into the hot car to do so) so we took normal things we already had at home to make some nice – experimental beverages.

1. Watermelon – Orange – Basil

This one might sound odd but stay with me, it’s our favorite. The original version here was only Orange + Basil, which i know from my country and i kinda missed, unfortunately it was not enough to fill a glass and i added some watrmelon juice. NO.REGRETS ♥

We used no sugar but you can also add. Here the sugar for us was brought by the oranges. Also, the final color following this recipe is of a beatiful summer sunset.

Recipe:
2 Oranges
5 Big basil leafs
As much watermelon juice as you want.
1 cup of water

2. Watermelon – Cucumber

Another not-so-common mix but believe me it’s worth it.
For this one we used only Cucumber and Watermelon cause we wanted something refreshing and not so sweet.
This one might also taste great with honey, but the following recipe was ust perfect for a picnic by the beach on a really sunny day.

Recipe for a 500ml bottle:

1/6 of a watermelon
5 cucumber slices
1 cup of water

3. Watermelon – Lemon

Now a more safe mix: Watermelon lemonade with honey.
Every time we use lemon on a watery mix we try to use a bit of honey to avoid it being over acidic. This one is the easiest mix as you only need watermelon, lemon and some water, but let’s go to the recipe:

For this and the past 2 recipes literally mix everything in a blender and enjoy!

Recipe for a 500ml bottle:

1/6 of a watermelon
2 lemons (or limes)
1 cup of water
1 full tablespoon of raw honey

4. Classic Iced Tea

Another safe one! Here we made a tiny mistake and left the tea too long in hot water, so we reccomend that you leave it for just a couple of minutes (instead of like 10 as we did).
For this we used just hot water, one black tea bag and lemon so we think is one of the easiest to do as you might have all ingredients already.
Also it might taste better if you add honey or sugar.

Recipe:
1 black tea bag
1.5 cups of water (a cup is about 235ml)
1 lemon
Optional: 1 big tablespoon of sugar or honey

5. Green Tea + Honey

For green tea + honey the best is to add extra honey. Here we reccomend not going with sugar so all the mix remais as natural as possible (and so you get the best flavor out of the green tea). Truth is we are not into sweet green tea much, but the honey flavor here makes you feel like everything will be alright ♥

Recipe for 500ml:

1 green tea bag (with the possibility of chosing flavoured green tea if you need)
2 full tablespoons of honey
1.5 cups of water (1 cup is about 235ml)
you can also spice it up with a little ginger

6. Rose Hip – Lemon – Honey

This is probably the most difficult in ingredients to get so you can change the main the into any other red-fruit tea. Rose hip has different names in different languages. In German it is Hagebutte, in Spanish Escaramujo, Rosa Mosqueta or Rosa Canina. It is made with the buds, not with the flowers and gives a nice sweet taste to the mix.

Recipe:

1 tea bag of Rose Hip or any red fruit you can find
1 lemon
1.5 cups of water
1 big tablespoon of raw honey

For the tea mixes every time we speak of water it is the water you need to make the tea, not extra water 🙂

Categories
Allgemein Germany

Driving “The German way”

One of the many struggles of living in Germany is to move around the country. You have a lot of options! there are even some trains that take you near the country side… but germans are OBSESSED with cars.

Sometimes it gets confusing

So here i am trying to get my driving license. I already had a Costa Rican one but here in Germany it’s only valid for 6 months, after that you have to make the theory test and you even have to take driving lessons.

Driving in Germany is a whole new experience… it is normal to drive 130km/h in the highway and, when there is no speed limit sign, there is literally no speed limit. Of course there are recomendations, like not driving at +200km/h or something like that, but tell that to the cars driving on the left lane…

In my driving lessons i have learned that sometimes when you want to turn left even if it’s green for you there might be cars coming from the opposite direction that want to continue straight ahead, for which you have to wait in the middle of the crossroad and look for a chance to pass… if you stay in the middle of the street in my country i can only think of death lol.
Also the roundabouts… thankfully those are easier here. they are usually one lane only so everything is tiny, cute and clear… not like in Costa Rica that there are up to 3 lanes and you have to be EXTRA careful when changing lanes depending which exit you want to take.

But the main difference of them all… you HAVE to turn your head back every time you want to enter a road/ change lanes/ go backwards/ turn left or right… i don’t know how is it that there are not so many accidents. Maybe cause most of the people driving seem to have forgotten everything about the driving lessons after passing the test. The difference in Costa Rica? You are literally not allowed to use anything that doesn’t come with the car. You have mirrors, why would you risk your life and look back while on the highway at 100km/h?

Also… the signs are totally different. Also in Denmark. I guess is an european standard? most of the signs have no letters and some of them are so confusing even people who currently drives has problems remembering what they are. Like the pretty picture up there

Categories
Allgemein Germany Quarantine

Quarantine in Germany

Arriving a bit late to the subject here…
We did not have a “quarantine” per se here but more of a reccomendation to stay home, which we did. Thankfully Micha’s employer let them work from home so i had (have) him here with me.

I also saw my first snow during quarantine

Since we were not into going out we started a podcast! It is a project we wanted to do anyways and now we have the time. Currently we have already 14 episodes 😀 where we talk about the quarantine, and about living in germany in general. We even have one about gardening, cause Micha’s mom was sharing a lot of knowledge with us and it seems important to pass it on.

For us all this started in the end of winter, by March 13th and until around April 15th we started going out a bit more (other than just going to the supermarket). There is a river close from home so we sent there and to a cute lake full of duckies, swans and geese. This quarantine kinda increased my fascination with birds.

Duckies are really friendly, specially when you bring them oats 😛

We also learned new things and started a few new projects. We want to dedicate whole new posts for each so keep visiting us and make sure to also listen to our podcast (Marz & Micha in Spotify 😉 )

Categories
Allgemein Languages Learning German

Dengleñol all the way

In Berlin you can even speak spanish and most people speaks english too!

I’m gonna tell you a story about languages.

Languages are HARD. The older you get the harder it seems and i’m not preciselly a teenager lulz.
So, mi native language is spanish, thankfully cause i think learning spanish must be hell.
I learned english by myself as a teenager cause i used to be really good at languages, so i only needed the (really) basic things i learned in highschool, vocabulary i got while playing videogames (i used to play up to 8h when i was young) and a LOT of music in english, cause i personally don’t like music in spanish. So of course i still make some mistakes 😛
I went to italian, chinese and latin lessons but due to the lack of practice this knowledge died. I used to be specially good in italian but now i can only read… and i remember the numbers (?)

When learning german you also get to know their “pet names” which are… quite unique

Now i started learning German quite lightly as soon as i got my first job, cause german in my country is not only hard, is also expensive so i had to wait, but i was interested on it since i was 16 and got introduced to German metal music.
After 2 years of learning German occasionally on saturdays i’m here in Germany on the B1 level. Enough to live but still could be better. So… here is where the Dengleñol starts. Sometimes i forget words in german so i say it in english, other times i forget them even in english! and sometimes i want to use a word that i only know in spanish so i have to ask.
I think learning a new language makes you socialize you want it or not, cause sometimes you end up low-key even explaining that this new language is the 3rd you know so it gets mixed… and most people either find it funny, interesting or just don’t mind 🙂
Germans are really patient, at least in the west and the north, but i will update further about this later 🙂

Categories
Allgemein

About us!— is this how you start a blog?

Oh heeeyyyy

Hello! I’m Marz and i will be updating the blog more often than Micha. I used to have a blog when i was 18 and my worst issue was the bad phone company i was subscribed to and which carreer to chose for the rest of my life so we will see how this goes!

Join us in this blog while i’m discovering a new culture, ranting about our daily life, comparing Micha’s country to mine or just randomly giving details about our daily life because why not.