Life lesson from a Luxembourg woman

Inspirational message for women, as seen while driving through Luxembourg City:

If you can not read it, the sticker says "Well-behaved women seldom make history".

And the driver seemed like she's living up to her word, judging by the serious 4x4 she was driving, somehow unconventional for well-behaved women.

Bowling alley in Foetz, Luxembourg

X-treme Bowling is a bowling alley located just 15 minutes drive from Luxembourg City centre (exact address being 11 rue du Brill in Foetz, Luxembourg).

We have been there several times with some of our friends and here are some of our impressions:

- though is has 20 bowling lanes, it seems pretty crowded on Saturday evenings, when we usually go. Thus, it is strongly recommended that you make reservations in advance

- playing is rather expensive: EUR 6 per person per game during the peak hours of Saturday evening. They have a price list on their website, but our guess is that it is not up-to-date

- drinks are cheap for Luxembourg:
                - Bofferding 50 ml beer: EUR 3.5
                - coffee / tea: EUR 2.0
                - 40 ml whisky / gin / vodka / Campari / Bailey's: EUR 4.0

- you can also have some snacks: hotdog / cheeseburger / small pizza: EUR 3.4

- poor ventilation system: after 2 hours and a half spent there, our clothes were full of cigarette smoke

- the music is played too loud and you have to yell to talk to the persons next to you.

As a conclusion: we are not very happy with the place, but we did not try another bowling alley yet. Hopefully, there are others in Luxembourg better than this one.

New car registrations in Luxembourg fell by 10% in 2009

The National Office of Statistics STATEC, has announced that new car registrations in Luxembourg have fallen by 10% in 2009, from approximately 52,000 cars registered in 2008.

Thus, the crisis has claimed its toll also on the car dealers in Luxembourg in 2009.

The good news is that people living in the Grand Region of Luxembourg seem very interested in the current AutoFestival. Since we published the article on this subject, around 20 people read it daily coming from search engines.

Accordingly, there are signs that the crisis is over and now, with more security regarding their job, people feel that they can afford a new car.

iPad, or the road to Idiocracy

All the fuss about the recent launched iPad, makes us think of a comedy called Idiocracy.

To summarise, Luke Wilson, an average American guy, is subject to a hibernation experiment and wakes up 500 years later in a world where humans had become so stupid, that he is by far the smartest one alive.

Well, if iPad will become a hit at this level of price and technology, it will be a clear sign that we are heading full speed towards the Idiocracy world.

It is an expensive device with limited utility, which is neither better than a laptop, nor it is a phone.

It is so less practical than a laptop, as you would have at all times one hand busy holding the thing. Trying to write something will prove painful for your back, as you would have to stay bent over the screen, to see what you're typing.

Though it looks like an iPhone, it's not a phone. You will start wondering by now: then, what it is it?
It's nothing. The sad thing is that we have to write this article about it, hoping that it will remain nothing...

We believe that it is the ultimate experiment from Apple. They must have thought to themselves: if we manage to sell this piece of crap, then next time we'll just sell empty boxes called iBox and for sure our fans will fill out 2 year attendance lists just to get their hands on one of them for USD 1,000.

Autofestival 2010 Luxembourg

The Autofestival 2010 will officially open on January 30, 2010 and will last for 10 days until February 8, 2010.

Practically, Autofestival has already started, judging by the adds of car dealers promoting their best offers for this season.

What is Autofestival ? It's the yearly sales period for the cars. The way we look at it:. you have the sales for clothes, furniture, home-ware, etc. The same way, you have the sales period for cars.

Basically, during this period, all car dealers and banks will have promotional offers for cars and loans, so that people would be lured into buying a new car.

Moreover, most of the dealerships will be open Saturdays and Sundays until 18:00.

Here is the list with the main dealers of cars in Luxembourg:

www.autopolis.lu - for Opel, Volvo, Fiat,  Suzuki, Honda, Chrysler, Chevrolet, Dodge, Jeep

www.autodis.lu - for Hyundai and Isuzu

www.mercedes-benz.lu - for Mercedes and Smart

www.volkswagen.lu , www.audi.lu, www.skoda-auto.lu , www.seat.lu

www.bmw.lu,

Yoghurt muffins - recipe (including photos)

Here below we posted a very simple recipe for muffins. After you´ll try this recipe, you´ll never buy muffins from supermarkets again.

It was the first time we´ve prepared muffins as we were missing the tasty muffins we were eating during our December 09 trip to London.

Now we can say (without modesty :) that our muffins are the best.

• ingredients

          - 400 ml of simple yoghurt
          - 100 ml of sunflower oil
          - 3 eggs
          - 100 grams of sugar
          - 300-350 grams of flour
          - dried fruits
          - 1 lemon
          - 1 spoon of baking powder
          - 1-2 spoons of honey
          - 1 packet of vanilla sugar
          - a pinch of salt

• separate the egg yolks from the whites

• whip the egg whites with the packet of vanilla sugar and half of the quantity of sugar

• mix the egg yolks with the remaining sugar, and then add the yoghurt and continue mixing

• add the honey over the mixed egg yolks and continue mixing

• add the sunflower oil, while mixing

• pour the egg yolks over the whites and mix them well together

• add the baking powder, which has been previously mixed with the juice of a lemon

• finally, to complete the composition, add the flour gradually, while mixing continously. Add a pinch of salt

• normally, it is better to use muffin cups ready made. But since it was the first time we baked muffins, we did not have those around the house. So, we improvised them from aluminum foil

• pour the composition into the muffin cups only half-way up, to allow the muffins to rise while in the oven

• bake them for 30 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius

Bon appetit !

Vote for the chance to win a city car

During the Auto Festival which is taking place now in Luxembourg, you have the chance to win a city car if you take part in the competition from www.autovumjoer.lu

The competition is organised by Saint-Paul Luxembourg s.a., the group which publishes the newspapers La Voix and Point24.

Basically all you have to do is to vote for your favourite car in 6 categories and you are automatically entered into the free prize draw.

Competition open until February 9, 2010.

Good luck !

Travelling in Europe: by train or by car?

We were just talking with some friends the other day about the high prices of train tickets in Europe.

The conclusion was that, as a general rule, in Europe is much expensive to travel by train than by car.

And the situation is more absurd if you think that train was supposed to be the main (or the only) means of transportation for the poor.

Here below there are some comparisons between the prices of train tickets and the cost of going by car.

To keep things comparable, we looked for a round trip during this week-end for 2 adults for distances of approximately 160 km:

Germany:

Trier - Bonn. Train costs EUR 108, while car costs only EUR 26

France:


Metz - Strasbourg. Train costs EUR 92, while car costs only EUR 54 (out of which you can save EUR 24 if you decide to avoid the highway and take the national road. That would increase your journey time by an hour)

 

Italy:


Milano - Verona. Train costs EUR 32, while car costs EUR 42 (out of which you can save EUR 17 if you decide to avoid the highway and take the national. That would increase your journey time by an hour)

Italy is apparently one of the few countries in Europe where it is actually worth taking the train.

Spain:


Valencia - Albacete. Train costs EUR 89, while car costs EUR 30

Belgium:


Arlon - Charleroi. Train costs EUR 78, while car costs EUR 27

Netherlands:


Maastricht - Utrecht. Train costs EUR 47, while car costs EUR 28

Of course, one could argue that we did not include in our comparison a proportional part of the costs of owning a car (purchase cost, insurance, maintenance, etc.). And that would be true.

At the same time, one would have to consider that we did not also include the additional costs of transportation from the railway station to the final destination (hotel, family, etc.). This would also increase the total cost of transportation (bus, light train, subway. Taxis excluded, as they would kill the budget).

And this is only one of the reasons we never take the train. Others would be:
- the car is much more comfortable than the train
- you can stop when you want, where you want
- you can leave home when you want and come back when you want

How to prepare homemade pizza - recipe (including photos)

If one day you want to prepare a pizza by yourself, and not order it, we share with you this delicious recipe :

• Ingredients for dough:

          - 400 grams of  flour

          - 2 spoons of sunflower oil

          -250 - 300 ml of warm water
          -1 teaspoon yeast
          - salt

• Ingredients for the topping

          - 1 onion
          - cheese
          - mushrooms
          - 2 eggs
          - tomato sauce
          - 200 grams of olives
          - 150 grams sliced tomatoes
          - 100 grams ham
          - 100 grams sliced sausage / salami

• Put the flour, the yeast , the sunflower oil, the warm water and the salt in a bowl and mix them well. Once all ingredients are mixed well, cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel, and let it rise

• Put the dough on the table and spread it with a rolling pine until it becomes as thin as you like

 

• cover a pizza pan with oil or melted butter and spread evenly the dough in the pizza pan

 

• Add the toppings in the quantity you prefer: ham, sausage, mushrooms, olives, tomato sauce and sliced tomatoes, sliced onion

• Spread cheese on the top of the pizza and bake it for 20 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius

 

Bon appetit!

 

Young coconut palm in Cora Bertrange

Being born and raised in the continental Europe, we have never had the chance to see a young coconut palm rising from a coconut:

We've taken the photo above yesterday in Cora Bertrange.

Factory Shopping outlet in Messancy

Update 2014: A while a go we wanted to see if something change...and the things changed indeed. The prices weren´t so high anymore and you could find something ....if you look carefully.


 Today we went to IKEA Arlon and, since we were in the neighborhood, we decided to take a detour to Factory Shopping Messancy, to see if something has changed in their pricing policy since the new owner took over.

During the 2 years we have been living here, we've been to this outlet a couple of times and we were always disappointed by the offer and especially the high prices, even during the sales periods.

We lived the same story again today. High prices, low discounts, few people in the stores and even less those actually buying something. This is how depressing the outlet looked around lunch today:

Our advice is to avoid going there, as it would be a waste of time and money.

Try instead the outlet Marques Avenue in Talange, on the highway to Metz, approximately 50 km away from Luxembourg City centre.

How to find the best hotel rates online

When planning your hotel stays, we strongly recommend www.trivago.com

As you can see in the picture above, Trivago is basically a search engine through booking sites.

So, there is no need to perform separate searches on Booking.com, Hotels.com, HRS.com and so on. Trivago will do it for you and will show you the  rates offered by all those well-known booking sites.

For example, when searching for a 2 night stay in Luxembourg for the period January 22-24, 2010, the following results are returned:

Once you decided on the hotel, you just simply click on the link for booking site of your choice and then make the reservation.

Autosalon 2010 - car show in Arena Trier, January 23-24, 2010

This week-end you can visit the 3rd edition of the car show that will be held at Arena Trier:

Practically all car brands will be present at the show, with local car dealers presenting the last models and the best offers they have.

The show will be open from 11:00 to 18:00 on Saturday and Sunday, January 23-24, 2010.

The address of Arena Hall is: Fort-Worth-Platz 1, 54292 Trier, Germany

For German speakers, further details can be found at  ‎www.arena-trier.de

 

Creme caramel - recipe (including photos)

Refreshing and mouth watering dessert.

• ingredients:

                   - 10 eggs
                   - 300 grams of sugar
                   - 1 liter of milk
                   - 2 packets of vanilla sugar

• in a bowl, whisk the eggs with half of the sugar and 2 packets of vanilla sugar. When blended well, add the milk and continue mixing
  

• melt the other half of the sugar in an oven pot and slowly swing the pot so that the melted sugar covers several centimeters of the walls of the pot
  

• once the melted sugar has a golden brown colour, set aside the pot so that the sugar will get cool and transform into a crust on the walls of the pot

• pour the composition of eggs and milk into the pot and bake it in the oven for 30-40minutes at 170 degrees Celsius

• when it's ready, it should look like this:
  
  

Bon appetit !

Rating movies on imdb.com

While looking for new movies on www.imdb.com, we realised that there are a lot of films that we have already seen.

However, for some of them we completely disagreed with the average rating they had, so we set up an account and started giving ratings.

It is actually fun to be able to express your opinion about something (this is the reason we set up a 5 star rating system on our blog also).

We are reviewing the movies starting with 2009 going backwards, and so far the ones that received our highest appreciation are:

• Twilight (2008)

 

• Passengers (2008)

 

• Bolt (2008)

 

• In the Loop (2009)

 

• Revolutionary Road (2008)

Special concert at the Conservatoire, Friday, January 22, 2010

A special concert honoring the best students of 2009 from the 3 Luxembourg conservatoires (Luxembourg City, Esch / Alzette and Ettelbruck) will be held on Friday, January 22, 2010 starting at 20:00.

Even better, they will be accompanied by the Philharmonic Orchestra of Luxembourg.

Free entry. However, a reservation must be made at the following phone number: 47 08 95-1

Details can be found at www.cml.lu

Vakanz 2010 - impressions from the tourism fair

Yesterday we've spent a couple of hours at the tourism fair Vakanz 2010:

Here are some general impressions:

- for a Sunday morning, there was a pretty big crowd of visitors

- judging by the number of bags with brochures carried around by visitors, people seemed to be more interested in their next vacation as compared to last year. This could be a sign that the crisis is coming to an end

- the prices of vacations offered was considerably higher than what you can buy online at the German tour operators (TUI, ITS, FTI, etc.)

- the representatives of some participants were overzealous, while others were simply indifferent

- the stands of the bigger tourist agents in Luxembourg (ULT, Sales Lentz, Luxair Tours) had organised lotteries where visitors could win various vacations / cruises

- compared to last year, the number and variety of promotional items was reduced


To conclude, the tourism fair is a good place where you can get useful ideas / information about your next vacation, but is not the place to buy your next vacation.

Is it true what they say about meetings in Luxembourg ?

Luxembourg, as a recommended location for corporate meetings:

Courtesy of the Government of Luxembourg

Nutella sponge cake - recipe (including photos)

Easy to prepare and delicious home made dessert.

• ingredients:

                   - 6 eggs
                   - 100 grams of sugar
                   - 200 grams of Nutella
                   - 200-250 grams of flour
                   - 1 packet of vanilla sugar

• separate the egg yolks from the whites

• in a bowl, whip the egg whites with the sugar and the packet of vanilla sugar

• in a separate small bowl, mix together 3 spoons of hot water with the Nutella chocolate spread, so that it becomes fluid

• pour the egg yolks over the whites and mix them well together with the chocolate

• to complete the composition add flour gradually, while mixing continuously. Add a pinch of salt and 2 tea spoons of melted butter / margarine

• pour the composition into a round cake pan
  

• spread on top some almond and / or pinoli (pine kernels) and bake the cake for 20-30 minutes at 150 degrees Celsius

Bon appetit !