Austrian Cheerios

We just got back from what the Dutch call 'winter sport' or what Americans call a 'ski trip' to Austria. We rented an apartment that was described as having a kitchenette, so I had low expectations for cooking/baking. Surprisingly, it had a real oven and a decent stove! But what I'd like to talk about is the cereal. It is fun to see different options in the grocery stores. The first store we stopped at was called Spar. Aside from the odd practice of it closing during the lunch hour, we found a version of Cheerios that I had not seen before here in Europe.

I'm sure you folks in the USA have access to these at any local grocery store, and perhaps they are not new to this area either, but I had not seen them before now. To translate these are "Corn, Oat, Rice, Wheat" Multi-grain Cheerios and they are not so sweet, which is fabulous. One of my biggest complaints here is that the available Cheerios are all drenched in sugar.

Furthermore, these were more like regular USA Cheerios, soft, with a tender crunch that would never break your teeth. Yay! Too bad the drive to the nearest Spar is 10.5 hours from us.

Even though this is a food blog, I feel inclined to share a few photos of the fabulous skiing in Austria.  Here was our gondola ride on Thursday:

 

Here I am posing with the local mountain-top chef- "Happy Rahmbo."

 And the crazy solar phenomenon we were lucky to see on one of our favorite runs:

 

We think this is a "Sun Dog" but we aren't sure.  Any budding astronomers out there?

Mike and the sun dog. It was really amazing to see... and to ski! Special thanks to my mom for babysitting so I could ski for the first time since 2007. And Dina (2 years, 10 months) even tried skiing!
Her first time she was more interested in the magic carpet than actually skiing.

The second try she said everything was fine but after we finished we noticed this item in the ski boot:

One of her wooden toys- a bon-bon, was inside her left boot. She never mentioned it, and we even asked her if they felt okay! Here she is, skiing just fine, even with the bon-bon boot.

The next day we tried it again, sans bon-bon, and her performance was amazing. I guess the bon-bon in the boot was really holding her back. We were so happy she loved it!

Go Dina!