Sok and Precles

"Sok" is said just as it looks – sort of like “sock.” But it means juice. And the juices are amazing here. The selection is huge, from the normal orange, grapefruit, tomato and apple to pomegranate, raspberry, black currant, cherry, banana – yes banana juice – carrot, peach, pineapple, and some I haven’t figured out. Then they have mixtures of different juices...and then they have nectars…which I haven’t tried yet, but probably have pulp. I’m planning to try them all. They’re great alone, but also with a little poured into my kefir in the morning if I don’t have any raspberries (the old woman selling them at our tram stop hasn’t been there lately…guess the season is over). And, yes, they are all just on the shelf and not in a refrigerated case because of the way they are processed and packaged (irradiation?). Milk is on the shelf in the same type of package (though we refrigerate the juice and the milk once we open it at home).

Then there are the big, warm precles (pretzles! - the 'c' is pronouned like 'tz') that are sold in stands on almost every corner in town. They are sort of a cross between pretzels and bagels…a very good snack to have with you on long walking tours through the city.

We’ve already started on second rounds at some of our favorite restaurants, though we try to hit mostly new ones. Even eating out every day I don’t think we’d get to all of them. We haven’t been to any of the more expensive restaurants yet, though some meals have turned out to be more expensive than planned (like the time John ordered trout and found out the price on the menu was by weight, not for the whole dinner and the bill was about 5 times what we thought it would be). A common dish at many restaurants is sole on a bed of cooked spinach. It’s been good everywhere we’ve tried it. And even though beer is the most common beverage, we have been able to find some good house wines. Tonight we had our first Polish pizza at a place down the street from our apartment (figured we had to check out the pizza before our kids come to visit) and we both liked it - thin crust, very little sauce, nice toppings. All in all, the food here has been great - it's a good thing we're doing so much walking!