Go Blue. Christmas

Go Blue. Zoo in home town

Since one squirrel says more than 1000 words, here a short overview of local fauna.

Go Blue. Go Green.

Our first Christmas tree. Charlie Brown's one like Scott said. And was very disappointed after I cut off few dried branches, because apparently it lost its Charlie Brownness then. I even had to google - seems that Charlie Brown could only afford a very sad pine tree branch. With one decoration. Anyway, we picked up and cut our own tree. Scott cut, that is.

 

With David Zinn art.

Jim lives 8-minute walk away form us and makes our December trips to the store much brighter and more colorful. On the picture there is already the teddy bear number 2 this year, because the first one was just stolen one night. 

First time ever made gingerbread dough from scratch. Was very good :)

 

Christmas views from the last 6 years.

Go Blue. Detroit.

Made a quick trip to Detroit on the weekend too, to have brunch in my all time favourite brunch place. Their Bennys are so delicious that before having even a bite of food or coffee I'm ready to get dressed, put on some make up, drive 45 minutes and then wait another half an hour to get seated just to have those eggs. It's a perfect combination of crunchy bun (which they call English muffin), cream cheese, salmon, capers, poached egg and sauce hollandaise.

We also had a short walk on the Winter Market.

Go Blue. DIY - Peppermint Mocha

Scott wanted to stop by in Speedway for the gas and while pulling in, I noticed that they have Peppermint Mocha for 1.19. Since usually Speedway’s coffee is pretty good (my husband sometimes brings me some in bed in the weekend mornings), I went in to get one. I could see myself choosing a cup, pushing a button and getting the hot peppermint drink with lots of foamed milk. But guess what? Turned out that it’s hands-on coffee making. They had the “recipe” ON the wall and so I started making my own coffee - 2/3 cup of freshly brewed Columbian coffee, 1/3 cup of hot chocolate, 1 tbls of peppermint syrup and something else. Didn’t turn out very good - I won’t aim for barista roles.

Go Blue. The immigrant with no luggage.

Since someone has booked a 6am flight again, the day started at 4:30am and by 5:20am I was already through the security and on the way to the gate.

A second after the take off, where you could still recognise faces on the ground, a voluminous lady decided to stretch her legs and despite the order to return to her seat, walked up and down the aisle to cockpit and back.

In the gate in Frankfurt while waiting the Detroit flight to start boarding, Lufthansa crew offered the amazing opportunity to grab the last few free seats in the business class. The upgrade from where rabble like me was sitting, was mere 900 euros. Also few seats next to each other in the Economy Plus had unexpectedly become available and for that seat I would have only needed to pay 350 euros. I decided to pass on those amazing opportunities. However, had they looked more closely into their passenger information and sold the upgrades like “In the cheapest tickets area we have 10 babies travelling today, but for only 900 EUR we have a Business Class seat available in piece and quiet” they probably would have had significantly more success. Add that there is a bunch of people with us today who is using left hand instead of toilet paper and the restroom floor would look more like a shower cabin, they would have had people grabbing those upgrades on the fly.

There were three kids sitting near me, out of whom one was screaming 6 hours of the 9 hour flight. Almost every time, he started to scream, both others felt the team spirit as well and started their choir too. Restrooms, as already mentioned, were so overflowing that I didn’t even want to step in wearing my sneakers. Then again the kids, who walked in the restrooms barefoot, must have thought that Wow, what a well cleaned floor it is! Toilet paper as well as hand towels were a novelty to several fellow travellers, seeing as the used paper had been crammed in every possible hole. Among other also into the toilet seat cover dispenser.

Very wisely I had chosen my seat in the front part of the plane and after getting off the plane, some speed in my step did give me a decent place in immigration line. After getting the audience of the immigration officer I answered some question, got my stamp and was already pleased to have such a smooth process this time. But don’t celebrate before getting out of luggage area, right. I walked bast the luggage belts and right near the customs, 3 border guards were standing. One asked, if that’s all the luggage I have. I was carrying a medium sized backpack and a crossbody. Once he heard that yes, that’s it, he wanted to talk some more. Turned out that the reason for that wasn’t to get tips on travelling light. I had to answer questions like where I come from, where I go, how long I’ll stay and how am I going to live THREE weeks with so few items only. I patted myself on the shoulder that I had to take some items Scott had left behind, because otherwise I would have probably considered taking a purse only. He also wanted to see my passport and know how much cash I have. I had 10 euros. Anyway, got my passport back and could enter the country.