Kale with sausages...aka Grünkohl mit Pinkel

Hei ther my Finnish friends and friends of culinary specialties,

in Lower Saxony and other regions of Northern Germany, after some frost we eat a local specialty which has some intersting ingredients and looks really unattractive but tastes very delicious.

The kale is a special sort of green/brown kale that is (as you can see in the picutre below) a huge plant that at least we have in the garden in huge quantities. It is picked and washed in the bathtub or whereever there is a lot of space. Then you cook it with pre-fried onions, lard and some stock for hours and hours....Then you add some pig-loins I think and the sausages.
The kale will reduce so much that about 3 big buckets of kale will be in one pot.


The sausage that mostly comes with the green kale is Pinkel/Brägenwurst- a sausage tradtionally made of pork, pork belly and pig or cattle brain. It might be eaten raw or stewed with the kale for loooong.

There are many Kohlfahrten, organized by clubs in my area. Your footballclub or the old people's welfare organization would organize tours where you walk around/to some village go to a local restaurant and eat a lot of kale with sausage and drink a lot of schnaps and beer. There are even kale-festivals in the Northwest of Germany near Bremen and Oldenburg.

I can only recomment to try this specialty when you are in Germany between Decmber and February.

I PASSED....

There isn't too much to say, but I passed business mathematics at least. Probably also Investment/Financing but there are no grades online yet...

MY GOD, that was really close to getting kicked out of school. Not too smart an idea to let it come to a thrd attempt! BUt it's over. Am finishing off my thesis now and then I basically graduated (((c;

Thanks for everybody to think of me, talk into me, reassure me and keeping fingers crossed last week!!

Lari's housewarming party

Although it is now 2 weeks ago, I thought I'd give a short report about a funny housewarming party and the whole day- which was less fun altogether! It started with learning maths or investments, as all my days started during the last 4-5 weeks )c: Then I heard that my granny fell from her bike and broke her upper arm...

The housewarming party was in Hamburg where we drove by car. Katharina and Dennis car brought also me andMareike to the big northern city (c; In Hamburg we went shopping for a little while and just to "have been in Hamburg". We had a little incident there- one of believed the car got stolen from the parking house (it wasn't me!). A lot of excitement there and afterwards in the packed streets with some strange kid who couldn't drive and then came to us complaining....grrrr

Anyways, Lari's appartment is really nice and they did a great job with colors and furniture! the food was reallllly great and really an awful amount was self-made. Iw as really surprised, had I never known Lari was so talented- or rather interested at all. Maybe it's mostly her boyfriend...mhh?!

So, we had a really nice evening, even though Lari mhhh kinda suffered from too much alcohol and went to bed doing what really drunk people do already at 22:30 or so!! But it was good seing old friends- I
haven't seen Lari for more than 1 year! And in my head and heart is still the highschool time when we all saw each other every day..(Never claimed to be good in letting go..) So, there are some pictures of the party and of my pretty birthday-flowers. For the funny trash bins and the fridge-poetry you may have to use the full-size AND a dictionary (c:

One down - one to go!

Hei there,

today I did my investment/financing exam and I think I passed. Never easy to say when it was too much stuff again for 2 hours and some questions that I didn't even full yunderstand because we certainly NEVER talked about it in class!!

Most importantly it's over. One priority 1 task on the list! One down - one to go!!! But with me and my problematic relationship with maths...

But it's the only last chance I have, so I better pass (c;

So, if you ever have a hand free on tuesday, 17. february- keep your fingers crossed! 9-11 finnish time! Ooohkay?!

Playing the lottery

I have played the lottery for the first time in my life. There was a jackpot of 35 Million €!!!!!! So, I know the possibility to get hit by lightning is higher than winning the lottery, but paying 3€ and a SLIIIIIIIIIGHT chance of winning something at least lured me very much.

So, I played three games- meaning three fields of 49 and you cross 6 numbers of each field (just for those who are as virginal as I was before.

The upshot was - 2 people won the jackpot and I didn't have one number correct in all three fields....Now I might believe this lightning statistics a little more :D

SCHWÜBLINGSEN

52° 25' N, 10° 8' O

-aka the source of all good and evil-

Schwüblingsen...Jouni would say "Bless you"...(c:
The village where I grew up, my parents live and that I love and hate. There are 610 people living here of which I probably still know more than 50% and of which some are really lovely and others scare me and I don't want to know what they do at night!!

The first official document about its existence is from 1053 (Helsinki 1550) and our church has been build in 1305! There are houses that are about as old as Helsinki and some familie names are here for many centuries, which also accounts for some typcial characteristics of the people living here (maybe in many small villages).

Schwüblingsen is most known for a gold-coated late gothic wing-altar in the chruch, a couple of bigger farmers spezializing in eco-friendly farming and having small shops and events on their farms. Also, a pretty devasting tornado in the summer of 1997 destroyed about 80% of all the nice old trees that very much shaped the "outlook" of the village. For a short time, Schwüblingsen was famous and "sieged" by tv-teams! Otherwise, we got some of the earliest spring-potatoes in Lower Saxony....Mhhh. you see... But as a child it was really great to grow up, we got woods arounds, lakes where we could ice-skate in the winter and my father was the trainer of the childrens gym-group (c;


When you got a car-great. One of the biggest Autobahn is only 5 Minutes away, Hannover about 30 km If you don't - you're screwed. A sloohoow bus goes once an hours to somehwhere in particular..There were only 3-4 younger kids my age and either they didn't like me and mobbed me or I didn't like them for a good reason (like they were mean to me (c:..)

An half an hour bus ride to another village was the daily procedure for most of my school years and that is where I had my friends as well. But nontheless, I love this village and the church and the peple and it is my Heimat (c:

Some impressons of the livelyhood:


Hannover, which is the biggest town around is a very beautiful, modern city but still has a lot of ancienct charme and houses, vast gardens and parks and is at least as well connected as Helsinki. Some impressions from the summertime from a roof terasse where we watched the soccer european championships quarter-final: