Here's my collection of smoothie baggies:
I wish there was a way to package them - and my supplement & medication pills - in a way that wasn't so wasteful and didn't use all that plastic, but when traveling by plane, I need to keep the weight of my luggage down as well as make the packages small enough to fit into my small bag.
I also packed another bag of snacks which I picked up at Charlie Brown Farms, a local store:
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| I think it has way too many raisins in it. :-( |
I ate most of this bag while on the plane from LAX-DUS, and finished it up when I was in Karlsruhe.
I already posted about what I ate at my cousin Anneliese's house after I landed in Germany. I was at Anneliese's on Wednesday & Thursday nights - which includes Thursday & Friday mornings. For breakfast each day I had shaker smoothies, plus scrambled eggs and bacon. Thankfully, "low carb" is also "a thing" in Germany, so they understood what I needed. They were a little surprised that I still eat as many vegetables as I do, but I get that reaction here in the USA, too. I explained that while I try to eat things I know to be low carb, I also try to pay attention to nutrition & am not obsessive about it. 1) Ya gotta live; and 2) the benefits of vegetables outweigh the "carb cost", especially considering how much fiber most veggies have!
On Friday morning (Sept 22), I hopped on board a train to Karlsruhe, where my friend KatRyn Howell and I taught and conducted for the German National Handbell Festival. What fun!
The hotel where we stayed included complimentary breakfast, which was traditional German-style, meaning it was a buffet with scrambled eggs, bacon, a large selection of cold cuts and sliced cheeses, mueslis, yogurts, fruits, and of course bread. I avoided the bread and the muesli, but ate the eggs, bacon, cold cuts, & cheeses to supplement my shaker smoothies.
The festival fed us lunch and dinner on Friday & Saturday, plus lunch on Sunday. For the most part, I was able to eat the salads and the meats from the sandwiches which they served - though I'll be honest and say it hurt my heart to have to discard the amazing German breads; that stuff is GOOD!
For lunch on Sunday, they served pizza. It was either eat that or don't eat at all, so I had a couple of slices of Hawaiian pizza. Yum! :-)
After the festival, I stayed in Karlsruhe another day and hung out with my friend Antje from Hannover. We enjoyed a hop on - hop off bus tour of the city (though it was the last bus of the day, so we couldn't "hop off" - we called it a "hop on but don't hop off" bus LOL).
Monday evening, I took a train to Luxembourg. Why? No reason other than that I had never been there before! :-) At the Karlsruhe train station, I picked up some sliced cheeses and some cold cuts and ate those on the way. My hotel was right across the street from the Luxembourg train station, so I had no trouble finding it.
My hotel also included breakfast, and it was the same typical German buffet, so Tuesday morning I had scrambled eggs and bacon, cold cuts and cheese, as well as my shaker smoothie.
I had done some research before going, so I headed over to the city Tourism office via bus and got a map for the self-guided "Wenzel Circular" walking tour. It was awesome! After the walk, I stopped at a cool little eatery for a late lunch. It was called Oscar's, after Oscar Wilde. I had their lunch special, a chicken cordon bleu in a mushroom sauce which was served with fries and a salad. I ate the salad, but not the fries. I also had a local beer!
After eating, I headed back to the hotel to relax for a bit. I eventually decided that I wanted to head back out and do a guided tour of the Bock Casemates. The guide was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed myself!
After that tour, I found a grocery store right by my hotel and stopped in there to grab some things for dinner. I got some Babybel wax-wrapped mini cheeses, as well as a "BLT" salad with a Caesar dressing. It was basically lettuce, tomatoes, bacon (duh), as well as feta cheese & boiled egg. Yum!
When I checked in, the hotel gave me a voucher for a BOGO glass of wine offer, so after finishing my salad and cheese, I headed to the lounge and enjoyed two very nice glasses or red wine.
The next morning (Wednesday), I had the complimentary breakfast, plus a shaker smoothie, then checked out of the hotel & left my luggage there (on purpose!). I took the bus back to the Tourism office and got a map for a self-guided "Vauban circular tour", which was more strenuous than the Wenzel tour, including a lot more hill climbing and stair climbing. I regret nothing! :-) It was an awesome tour and I'm glad I did it! (Also I did a bit more climbing that was really necessary because I took a wrong turn a couple of times because something looked interesting...)
After that tour, I took the bus back to my hotel, and stopped in a nearby restaurant for lunch. I had a chicken Caesar salad and a cup of tomato soup. Then I went back to the grocery store to pick up some snacks for the train, then back to the hotel to get my luggage, then to the train station to wait for my train to Düsseldorf. I had some Babybel cheeses, plus some mixed nuts.
Luxembourg was a beautiful city, full of rich history and a diverse population. I heard Germany & French all around me, but also some English and a variety of other languages I couldn't identify. I would definitely go back and recommend it to anybody. Thoroughly enjoyable!
My cousin picked me up at the train station and we enjoyed a glass of wine before bed.
Thursday, we went over to the nearby town of Wuppertal and rode the Schwebebahn, which was a lot of fun! It soars over the street and the Wupper river and makes you feel like you're flying. It should be noted that it's not a "tourist destination"; it's the basic city train in Wuppertal!
After the Schwebebahn, Anneliese took me into Düsseldorf proper so I could visit the newly-reopened Aquazoo. I love to visit aquariums -- I've been to the National Aquarium in Baltimore twice, the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago once, the Newport (KY) Aquarium twice, the Kaiyukan Osaka Aquarium three times, the Monterey Aquarium a few times, and the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach once. The Aquazoo was a smallish facility and had been closed for 2 years for renovations. Maybe they just haven't gotten their live animal collections back up to previous stocks, but they were a bit disappointing. Their informational exhibits were wonderful, but many of the tanks seemed to be quite sparse in terms of both flora and fauna. Maybe I'll visit again the next time I'm in Germany to see if it's improved.
While waiting for Anneliese to come pick me up after work, I went to the café in the nearby park. They didn't have anything low carb, so I just had a pizza with bacon and onion, plus a salad.
Thursday evening, Anneliese and I went to a lecture by famous satiric Carnival float maker Jacques Tilly, who is a friend of my cousin. He was speaking as part of a lecture series at a church within walking distance of Anneliese's house, so we just walked over there. He spoke all in German, of course, but by this time I understood almost all of what he said. Even if I didn't get all the individual words, I certainly understood the gist of the lecture and enjoyed the slide show of his art floats.
For dinner, I had scrambled eggs and bacon. It's easy, it's fast, it's delicious, and it's low carb. win-win-win.
Friday & Saturday, Anneliese and I ran errands and prepped the community Garden House where her birthday party would be on Sunday. I ate salads and eggs, plus cheese and cold cuts.
Sunday at the party, I ate what I could - mostly chicken in a tomato sauce, cold smoked lox, cheese, and vegetables. I did have a small slice of birthday cake for dessert because it was a celebration! :-) I didn't have any alcohol because I had a very early flight on Monday morning (a story for another time).
Monday I flew from DUS to SVO (Moscow) - a 3.4 hour flight, then from SVO to LAX - a 12 hour flight. I ate what I could on the plane, but mostly relied on the 2 apples and several cheese sticks Anneliese packed for me. <3
Brianne picked me up at LAX and after we got home, she prepared some beans & weanies for me. After eating, I was completely and totally exhausted, so I went to bed at 6pm and didn't wake up until 9am Tuesday! 15 hours! But, I'm not really feeling the jet lag - I mean, I'm a little tired, but not narcoleptic like I sometimes am after returning from an international trip!
Tuesday morning, I weighed myself & discovered that I actually lost a little weight while I was gone!
Yay me! :-)
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