We arrived home safely on Sunday afternoon after the weekend in Bavaria. We had an excellent time at the Aerosmith concert and even got the chance to go backstage to watch them be inducted into the Walk of Stars in Munich’s Olympic Park. There were about 50 fans who got to participate in this event so it was really very exciting. Talk about being star struck. We could have left the venue after this and still be totally happy with the overall concert lol. We were only slight fans before this…now we are much more devoted. 🙂

From there we got to walk backstage and into the hall where the concert was being held. We ended up about 10 rows back from the main stage and two rows from the middle of the catwalk and kept thinking to ourselves how amazing it was that we could actually see the band, see what they were playing and watch them performing with our own eyes. There was no need to use the huge screen on stage or squint in an attempt to see something that may or may not be there. Definitely an excellent concert. Hopefully they will be coming back to Europe on another tour. They may be in their 50s but those guys can still rock. They may even be better now than they were back in the day.

The rest of our weekend was very nice as well. We grilled with Stefan’s parents on Thursday night and his grandmother came over also. Stefan got a very excellent gift from his parents: a De’Longhi Nespresso Le Cube in silver.

They just call this a Nespresso Le Cube C185 in the US. There’s no mention of it being from De’Longhi. I think there are also a few other manufacturers making similar machines for the Nespresso tabs. Although this is not the most economical way to make espresso and you certainly end up paying more in the end…and it’s certainly not “authentic” since a machine is doing all the work…it tastes great and the consistency is perfect. There is always a nice stiff foam on every cup, the temperature is just right and it literally takes on a few seconds. A nice feature of this machine is the cup warming rack on either side of the machine. Very handy 🙂

I can tell we will be using this a whole lot. After dinner last night we had a quick Roma espresso (one of their heavier flavors which would be awesome in a cappuccino or a caramel macchiato). We’re working our way through all the flavors to find our favorites. Thankfully there is a Nespresso shop next to Stefan’s new office so we can get the tabs without too much hassle. In many cases you have to order them online…which is also not much of an issue for us.

Since Stefan’s dad is a bit Weber grill fan, we bought him the same Weber chimney starter set which we purchased for Stefan a few weeks ago. It was an early birthday present to himself and he found that it really did make an impact when getting the fire started. He also fell in love with the Weber charcoal and grill starters which came in the set he bought. The coals actually burn up to 4 hours which is a vast improvement over the stuff you can buy here in Germany. Sadly Matchlight hasn’t made it to us yet and we don’t have any Army connections to shop at the PX & commissary anymore. Just terrible.

But this little chimney is quite simple. You load the charcoal in the top and then set the grill starters in the bottom. Because the chimney is cone shaped inside, the fire starts reaching up through the coals fairly quickly. Once the coals are all starting to turn, you just dump the chimney over into the grill. They even make mitts which go nearly up to the elbow which you can wear and prevent yourself from burning yourself in any way. The handle on the chimney and the assistance bar work pretty well on their own though. This is another little device which I am sure we will be getting a lot of use out. It’s just really unfortunate that Weber charges an arm and a leg for their products over here!!