who accomplished the impossible.

And found vla.

Vla is a dessert. It's also almost impossible to describe; it's vanilla, but it's not quite pudding, because it's better. It's much, much better. In Holland, you can buy it buy the carton. You can make vla flips with yogurt and fruit syrup. But. There's one terrible thing about vla. You can't get it outside of Holland.

Or so I thought, until I made an extremely delightful discovery here.

I was on a train with Anna and Wendy  on the way back to Kiel from Hamburg, and Wendy and I started planning out her trip to Amsterdam. I told her that she had to get vla. And Anna told me that you can get it in Kiel too. She told me what supermarket to go to, and where to look.

She was right.

And oh, was my backpack happy. I bought chocolate and vanilla party for a game night we had on Saturday, and toted it back in my faithful pink backpack. Seriously. Faithful - this baby's been around since seventh grade. Yep.

If I were a food photographer, I would have taken breathtaking pictures of our vla to share here; but I'm not. And they would not have done the vla justice. And that would be a sad thing indeed.

And in case this wasn't enough euro-cuisine taunting for you, here are the top ten hits around here (to date,) in no particular order:

1. Rote Grütze (previously mentioned, multiple times, I believe) - stewed sour cherries, red and black currants, raspberries and other red fruits, served with vanilla sauce.
2. Fresh Strawberries. (And not just because they are sold in cute strawberry huts).They're all Deutschland Erdbeeren, tiny and fresh from the fields.
3. Abendbrot - sliced rye bread, served with a smorgasbord of choices, including butter, gouda, camembert, scrambled eggs and chives, tiny shrimp (Krabben), sour cream with chives, herring salad, salami, mustard, and tomato and mozzarella spread. We eat some variation of Abendbrot almost everyday for dinner.
4. Pickled Herring Salad - (see above) it tastes just like it sounds... or at least, I assume it does.
5. Salmon or Halibut in Mustard Dill Sauce, served with vegetables.
6. Plain Yogurt, Honey, and Müsli, with Peaches or Apricots - this is breakfast every weekday. In a really good way. :)
7. Whole Wheat Bread - Apparently, Germany has more kinds of bread than anywhere else. Most are variations on whole wheat.
8. Ritter Sport Chocolate - RS released new flavors this year to celebrate their 100th anniversary. The whole gang loves white chocolate with coconut and crisped rice. Dear Ritter-Sport, that really was a brilliant idea.
9. Ice Cream. Of course.
10.  Rhubarberschorle. Okay, this one deserves its own paragraph. And a picture too.

There are appleschorles, and grapeschorles, and best of all, rhubarbschorle. Schorle is juice mixed with sparkling water, and North Germany is crazy about it. There's schorle at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And really, I can't blame them, because quite honestly, because I'm crazy about it too.

I found rhubarbschorle for the first time in a tiny Turkish shop in Hamburg where we stopped for dinner on Friday. Before I had even opened it, I wanted to take a picture, but was slightly deterred by the sheer number of people in our restaurant. I mean, who pulls out their camera and snaps a photo of their drink? Answer: I do! And I'm so glad that I did.

I was even more excited to find this for the second time, today, when we stopped by a cafe to grab lunch between classes.

I know where I'll be tomorrow before grammar class. :)