70,000

For the last 2 weeks I have been working in a flower greenhouse. Through a Maas-family contact I was given the job with a single phone call at 9 pm on a Sunday evening..."Sure, Siobhan can start at 8am tomorrow morning!"

So, I work from 8 to 11:45am every day before heading off to my German class in the afternoon. For the first week I worked with Hostas, taking the moss off the tops of the 1-year-old bulb's pots and putting new soil and fertilizer into the pots. The following Monday, there were only a few carts of Hostas left, and I figured we were reaching the end of them...horray! Boy, was I wrong. When I showed up to work on Tuesday morning there were carts of Hostas everywhere.... Where did they come from?? How many were there? It ends up that the Hostas are kept outside all winter in their pots and staff were bringing them into the greenhouse during the afternoons when I was at my class. It ends up that there are more than 70,000 Hostas that need to be cleaned. (!!)

On Wednesday, my boss came up to me and asked, "Would you like to work with Hostas today?" (Which was odd, because usually he just says what I am doing today..) I said "Of couse." But he smiled and said that I would be doing something else that day... I think I laughed with delight! :)

Therefore, for the last 3 days I have been transplanting seedlings into bigger trays...again, repetitive work, but needing much concentration to avoid damaging the delicate leaves of the baby plants. I believe that we are done this task for now...

I wonder what next week holds...?

Austrian Deliciousness

While in Austria, I was able to try some of the "local flavour", and boy was it good!

My favourite had to be the Kaiserschmarrn. The dish is made of pancakes (with raisins and maybe some cinnamon) torn into pieces and served with powdered sugar on top and apple sauce on the side...so good!

The other dish that sounded better than it was, was Germknödel. It is a cake-like white dough in the shape of an up-side-down bowl stuffed with plum jam and smothered in vanilla sauce and topped with poppy seeds.

And of course, I tried the Weiss bier (a white, yeast beer) of the area (although I believe it comes from the Bavaria region of Deutschland).