The best Mexican food in Europe

After years of searching and seeking and finally coming to the conclusion that finding good Mexican food in Europe would be the equivalent of finding the holy grail, I am happy to say that we've finally found fantastic Mexican food--and it only took four years to find.

"Good Mexican food" is a subjective term. For me, good Mexican food reminds me of living in California, of tiny taquerias where no English was spoken and the food was spicy hot, homemade, and good, served by a nice, older woman who always remembered your favorite thing each time. It was the type of food you would eat before going out for a night of drinking as it would set the base to keep you ok all night, or the type of food you'd eat the morning after a long night of drinking, to bring you back into the world. It was comfort food extraordinaire, heavy and filling.

I have suffered too many bad Mexican food experiences in Europe to even list. The worst ones were probably in Germany, where there was no spiciness to the food and the nacho chips had a powered salty spice on them. (shudder)

So where is this lovely hole in the wall I'm sending you to? It's The Taco Shop in Copenhagen, Denmark. Yes, Denmark of all places. It's not as cheap as the taqs in CA (especially if you were to factor in the round trip flight from DE just for lunch!), but it is less expensive food by Denmark standards. For example, that's the number 16 nachos in the back of the photo, that plate was just over 5 euros. Also it is extremely filling food. We went for lunch and it was literally the only food I ate for the entire day.

We went to the one on Nr. Farimagsgade 57. It is very close to Israel Square (Israels Plads), so perhaps a 20 min walk from the Central Station. They speak very good English, and there are menus taped to the counter in other languages, including English. I would compare it in style to an imbiss in Germany, just a tiny little place where you order at the counter and can eat sitting on stools while looking out the window at the neighborhood people passing by. They do not do margaritas, or anything else alcoholic, but that could be a calculated move, to keep the customers eating and then moving on rather than sitting with drinks for a longer time. Oh, and if you go? Bring me an order of take away please.

the evil eye

Growing up as a product of the Philadelphia Catholic school system from ages 5 to 22, I learned early about the power of the evil eye. It started with Sister Roberta Ann in the first grade. She was 4'11" perhaps which meant she still towered among us first graders, although she was of a hearty rather than petite nature, a true Philadelphia Italian. She could have backhanded unruly children to the moon if desired and she would occasionally whack the wooden pointer on the wooden desk when excitement overtook the room, such as during a sudden snowfall or during the handing out of Halloween candy.

However, that was rarely needed as she had the evil eye. Nuns who were teachers had this perfected. In those days, classrooms had 40-50 children, so it was a necessary skill. (My how things have changed as I have been reading about requirements for small classes of no more than 20 in public school teacher contracts.) However, at that time, Sr Roberta would have the roaming or roving eyes, all day long in the classroom, out at recess, and everywhere in between.

The roving eye was like a gentle ocean wave. If all was going well and you were behaving, the eye roamed over you and on to the next child. God help the one who was not honoring the holy family with his behavior, however. Sister's eyes would alight on him, and it was almost like she could read his naughty thoughts in a bubble over his head. The evil eye was strong enough to melt glass or even steel.

If Johnnie had his hand poised to pull Susie's braid, he would suddenly feel the evil eye from across the room resting upon him. If he was smart he would re-direct immediately his efforts and the raised hand would instead tap Susie on the should to ask if he could borrow her eraser. The evil eye, pleased that a sin was averted, would return to its watch.

The evil eye was always watchful and ever vigilant. That is the only way that a nun could keep control of so many energetic children. I never recall hearing a nun yell. Why should they, no reason to if the evil eye was functioning properly.

Why am I telling you all this? Fast forward 20 some years from first grade in Phillyland and I am now in Germany. Yesterday was 'put out big items or whatever you want and we'll take them away for free' day on my street. Since getting rid of anything bigger than a used tea bag requires so much effort here, you can imagine how much stuff is stacked immediately in front of the house for the garbagemen.

In Germany, many people live for such days, as this culture has no problem with trashpicking and it's almost like Christmas, free gifts on every street! In the US trashpicking tends to be done quickly and under the cover of darkness, whereas here there is no stigma attached. Take your time and dig through the pile of items. They very carefully and neatly stack things up again when finished, at least as nice if not nicer than before. They may even put something in front of the pile that is nice, but not needed by them. I personally have no problems with what they do, recycling something is better than having it end up in the landfill.

Yesterday two children, perhaps 5 and 8 were picking through the pile in front of my apartment. Standing on my balconey, I could see them, but they didn't notice me. Everything is fine and good, until they started to pick things out of the pile, breaking the things, and then throwing them onto the street. I live on a tiny street that ends in the apartment driveway, so it's little used, but still people must drive on it. Nor is there reason to break something that someone could perhaps find in the pile and use.

I watched two or three throws each, and I must have out of reflex turned on the evil eye, in particular on the 8 year old who is certainly old enough to know better. He feels it and turns to see me watching him. He immediately drops his hands to his sides and drops what he was about to throw onto the trash pile. The little girl, however, chose to throw something a split second later. He starts to shout at her in that typical German way, loud shouting. She looks at him surprised at the sudden change. He then must have said more quietly that I was up there, as she turns and looks, like a deer in the headlights.

I now had the evil eye trained on both of them. He shouts at her, quick, we need to clean up the mess and the two of them scurry around the road picking up what they had thrown and putting it into a nearby trash can. They then hightailed it to their bicycles to hurry away.
The evil eye, I haven't forgotten it, and apparently I have the international version of it.

Final note: while I was writing this, I wondered what Sister Roberta was up to and if she was still teaching, as I do have nothing but fond memories of the first grade with her. A few years after I completed first grade, the sisters were called to a different school that needed them more, and we instead had non-religious vocation (Lay) teachers and lost track of 'our' nuns. However, through the power of google, I see Sister is still alive and well and serving religion. Click here and scroll down to see her.

there's no such thing as a free lunch...

unless you are heather in europe and it's a Monday in July in Copenhagen. As you may recall, I left almost three weeks ago for Bergen, Norway. I traveled from Koeln Deutz and took the train to Duesseldorf airport. It's actually very quick when you get the fast regional bahn, only 33 min. I was to leave from DUS to Copenhagen with a one hour layover and then a flight to Bergen.


I usually like to bring along some snacks to the airport, in particular fresh veg and fruit, but leaving early Monday morning carrying the tent and all would have meant that I'd be carrying for a few hours a salad purchased on Saturday afternoon, so I had visions of wiltiness squared. Plan B, Copenhagen Airport has nice (albeit overpriced airport) snack bars, called something like 'To Go' with fresh food including little salads, sandwiches, cookies, water, juice, etc. With an hour that would be enough time to pick something up to take aboard and eat en route especially as it's one of those 'meals/snacks for sale' flights.


Until the plane left late that is. We're all just sitting there during the boarding time and then leaving time with no announcement given. Correction, I'm just sitting there reading the free Times Herald, my Germanic brethren are sighing loudly and looking at their watches. We finally leave 25 minutes late, so my one hour layover was whittled down to getting off the plane and looking at the board where it said 'go to gate' and then getting there and seeing everyone already lined up and ready to board.



I was a tad disappointed to not get lunch, although it was my own damn fault for not bringing something. As you may remember, I don't do breakfast, except for coffee. I don't like food in the morning, and I never have. At one point I was dating a German and my lack of breakfast sincerely offended his delicate sensibilities. Although I was as equally appalled by him eating Kinderschokolade in the morning and trying to pass that off as healthy. That was the moment the door loudly slammed shut on the German dating scene for me. I don't mind if you like to have breakfast, and I'm even willing to compromise with a Sunday brunch at 11 and call it lunch.


But I digress. As I'm walking up, they are apparently repeating again a call for volunteers to forgo this flight and take the same one, just an hour and 45 min later. I had already seen the weather for Bergen and it was a 90% chance of rain, and rain covered most of the Nordics. I was already pondering what to do with the afternoon as I was staying in a hostel rather than a fancy hotel with say, my own TV and American channels, where I could whittle the day away.

And what does one get for one's inconvenience of sitting in grey CPN an extra almost two hours? A voucher for 150 EUR for a future SAS flight that can instead by cashed out for 75 EUR cash if I want, an upgrade to business class on the next flight (don't get excited, it's low budget business class), and a free lunch in the airport with a 150 DKK voucher (roughly 20 euros). Wine me and dine me.

I could have lived like a queen at the 'To Go' snack bar, but I went upscale for Italian at Gino's Pasta. It was like the Price is Right, I want to go 'as close as I can to the 150 without going over'. I had a nice little vegetarian pasta with artichokes, a side salad with pine nuts and a bottle of water for 142 DKK and it was a nice way to spend the extra hour.

am back

but with nothing to say. maybe later in the week.

Observations on my European vacation style

Since I transferred last year from being an expat to being a local, I picked up the German vacation allowance at our firm of 30 days, although last year was prorated down to 25.5 since I transferred in April. This year I came to the table with the full 30.

As as American who is used to between 13 and max 21 (and only because I vacation bought a week--the full given allowance was 14), to go away for anything more than 4 or 5 days was a serious adjustment. Last year, going to Iceland for almost 2 weeks cause me to get a bit stressed at the little details of the mail piling up and being out of the office for so long. Then I went to Lithuania for 10 days later and I still broke into a cold sweat, but not as bad.

This year I'm better into the proper mentality of things. I leave on Monday for Bergen, after enjoying CSD this weekend in Koeln. While I was on the American vacation mentality, to leave on a Monday would be wasteful--it was leaving the two weekend days on the table, when they could be spent somewhere.

I've also shifted gears a bit, and started the whole camping thing, something I didn't do in the US. When you're only going away for four nights, you can take a hotel, hostel, or Holiday Inn and it really won't dent your budget. Going away for 14 seriously tests that theory. My balance has been to spend my travel money on the transport so that I can go away to where I truly want to go, in this upcoming case it will be Bergen and the Faroe Islands. I bought a functional tent and sleeping bag that paid for itself during Iceland, and then upgraded for this trip as the conditions will be worse, although this one also pays for itself after two days of skipping a hotel.

For eating, I try to make a mix of things. Being vegetarian, I am perfectly happy to go to a local supermarket while on holiday and pick up a salad for lunch. In Holland recently, I found a bio/alternative outdoor market and bought bread, goat's cheese and a spicy salsa to balance things out and was delighted to eat it on a bench watching the Saturday shoppers on their way. So for lunch I tend to do something price wise equivalent to what I would do here in my daily Germany life.

I don't do breakfast, but I pick up a coffee somewhere. For dinner, I allow myself the freedom to go out if I see something that interests me. Alternately, if I find something local that the locals are doing, such as a Chinese place that they all go to for the lunch plate special, then I swap my dinner and lunch plans and do that.

Where I will not scrimp is my daily coffee and a drink at a bar if the mood so strikes me. I like to find a place to have my coffee, to ease into my day, and to do the map/tour planning so that I am set to go. I find I take a general decision in the previous night of what I want to do, but for the places I go where the weather is so unpredictable, I cannot make the final decision until morning, as well as I may wake up early or late and can then plan the final bus/train logistics and such.

As a solo traveller, I have had many interesting conversations when visiting a local bar; where I have learned much about the culture. Or while camping that often means going to the local supermarket and picking up a few beers and parking oneself at a communal picnic table where others of a like-minded nature will also meet to look at maps, write postcards, read, eat, and drink for a few hours after having been on foot for most of the day.

So the bag is now packed and ready to go, I'm off to Koeln to enjoy the parade and then perhaps a relaxing rest at the river since this is the first day in a long time that I have woken up and it's sunny. Today is supposed to be the only rain-free one for the next 10 days, so I plan to be outside to enjoy it to its fullest.

After today I hope to be enjoying the travels and not inside in front of a computer, unless the rain dumps down and chases me inside. Have a nice two weeks, I fly back late on Sunday Jul 22, and if all goes well, I won't be online before then, so try not to miss me too much. ;-)

the desk is packed

Since I came to Germany in 2003, this is the 4th time we've moved offices; I'm quite good at it. It's a lovely way to keep the clutter down, when you have to put all your office files and supplies in a company supplied box so that the movers will pick up your box at the appointed time and drop it at your new desk.

I've never moved in a US office, so not sure how it compares, but here it is actually very efficient (except for the part that it occurs during work hours so one loses a half or full work day--the movers are works council protected, you know, so they don't work weekends.)

Moves are arranged by the office so that multiple groups are going on the same day, I guess to fill the truck and keep the workers busy for a full day. In advance they deliver the cardboard boxes. Then, a packet of colored stickers. Each area moving has a different color and and the stickers have two boxes where you must write a letter/number combo that signifies the zone and desk area where the item should go. All things must go into a box, and the box gets a sticker.

Anything too big for a box--as long as you put a sticker on something, it goes with. Our plastic recycle bins get stickers. The coat rack, the potted plant, be sure to put on a sticker. Last time we were purple. For a few weeks, we were still peeling off purple stickers here and there.

Thankfully they move while I'm on holiday so it should be all re-assembled by the time I return, and sans stickers.

busy week - packing the desk

our office is moving to a different site, 10 min away by car. it's a satellite space, so no cafeteria there, so lunches will need to be packed or bought from the outside.

good incentive to pack something healthy, as to eat otherwise will require a trip outside the building where it's always raining each day, and that sounds like too much effort.

Cologne Pride 2007 is coming up this weekend

A reminder, Cologne Pride, or Christopher Street Day is upcoming in Cologne this weekend, with events having started last weekend, and the street fest over the weekend and the parade on Sunday July 8 at noon.

If you've only been to a US based Pride event, you must see a Europe one at some point. In particular I'd recommend the Germany ones if you live in Germany for a few reasons:

1. There is a dearth of those people who attempt to rain on the parade with their strict Baptist "you're all going to hell, sinners" sermons which sometimes turns into a police confrontation. The John 3:16 people are also light on the ground, but the clever few who are there put their signs into both German and English often. For some reason this makes me cackle aloud, seeing the dual-language signage. For some reasons the Germans cluck-cluck at crossing against a red light but have no problem with these folks being in town.

2. The dour-faced cranks who inhabit this country seem to lighten up for the weekend. I'm not sure if it's the presence of so much vinyl and leather or the rainbow leis, or simply that thousands of people come into Cologne for a party and bring their party mood. It reminds me of world cup, when Germany really put up a nice mood.

3. The parade is like Gay Pride in any other town, but it showcases a Germanized gay lifestyle. What do I mean? Anything that you are used to seeing Germans do--church, sports clubs, dance clubs--everything else they must do en masse and with their friends for life whom they have known since in utero, there is a gay German version. In particular, I was impressed last year with a male ballroom dancing club. It was hot as heck and they were dancing in full length formal outfits, putting on the full show. Superb.

4. In general it's a fun atmosphere. They give out trinkets to the crowd, and the drag queens will pose for photos. You can be as involved as you want. And the costumes and effort some people go to is spectacular to see.

It's worth a see if you're around Cologne. If you'd like to meet up let me know. I will be dragging D (who loathes parades in general) but will tolerate this one more than the others as no diving for candy is involved.