24 hours in Mexico City

24 hours in Mecico City

... exploring the 20 million people giant!

Back in the times when I went to school I had some -not many- but defenitly some favorite subjects. I gotta admit most of them featured the funniest, craziest or simply most attractive teachers at my school which made the subject more interesting itself. Geography was defenitly one of the 'attractive-teacher' ones! Anyhow he really did catch my attention - not only with his sexappeal, also with what he was telling us. I fell in love with the variaty on our beutiful earth. We got to know a lot about many countries, their food and people. 

Today I am still very concicous about the many cultures I am able to visit throughout my job. I am one of the lucky people that gets to travel around a lot and therefore I finally get to see all the coultres I knew on the paper in real life. Mexico City has actually been one of the most exciting places for me to see. The city is not known for any huge building or special places in first hand - but it feautres so so so sooooo many people living around the city center. When you get the chance to visit the city by plane - or even just take a taxi a little out of town - you get to see a ginormeous field of colorful housing. It seems to be an endless field of houses giving shelter to all these people who try to be as close to the city center as possible. 

What many people do not know is that Mexico City itself is way more industrialised than any area around. While many of the less developed countries show a huge difference in city-country-areas, Mecico City is seriously putting it all to the next level! Some of the capitals laws don't reach the outer countries within even two years. The case of gay marriage and pornographic cinemas, both more than legal in the center, are still not always allowed ot of town.

While Mexicans seem to be very conservative they are also holding on to many traditional habits such as traditional festives. Fun fact over here: the Mexicans themselves do not celebrate cinco de Mayo! It defenitly is an american holiday moresoever.

What the Mexicans do like to celebrate is Independence Day - September 16th. That usually was the day when the Mexican independence war started. There is a whole lot more to talk about starting with the mexican history but I seriously suggest you go ahead and go on the free walking tour! But let me start at the beinning of all events, aka. beginning of the day, aka. breakfast! 

 

As you may or may not follow my instagram you should've noticed that while I am travelling around I seriously loooove love love hotel breakfast. I love breakfast foods in general but hotels usually always have it all. It's heaven as a buffet. The hotel breakfast at Mexico City brings it all to a whole new level - Like when I hear I will be going to Mexico that month the first thing I can think of is BREAKFAST BUFFET! I am not kidding you guys you need to take the chance to try mexican breakfast foods! They are very originel, a little different yet very simple - just amazing!

With our stomachs all filled up my colleagues and I were finally off to the city center which can easily be reached by the subway. This not only may be an easy but also very affordable way to get to places. However it is defenitly not the safest way of traveling. If you are around with females only take advantage of the womens' part and don't use the underground when it got dark out already. While the underground travels only costed us around $ 0.20 per route the same way using a taxi might be around $5 if you split the check - so not too bad either.

As mentioned before we took part in a free walking tour. The tour gets off daily at around 11 (Mexican timing) in the morning and should take around 1.5 to 2 hours. After all we almost reached the three hour mark. Sounds pretty boring you think walking around for hours talking about history? Not at all I am telling you! Our guidance Diana did a great job! She was telling us all about history, Mexican people back than and today, problems, hopes and economics. Diana is a really smart girl giving a lot of detailed information about random stuff in perfect english within seconds. The tour was also offered in spanish. Plenty of times our guide tried to give us suggestions where to go, what to do, eat and drink while being in the city. This is why I would suggest you doing the tour at the beginning of your stay to have many more inspirations what to do afterwards.

If you do the free walking tour be so kind and not only leave a tip but as well a comment on their tripadvisor page.

One of the great suggestions Diana gave us was the Cafe Tacuba. After she was done with the tour we had to run straight over there to take a break and overthink all the informtion we just recieved AND relax our feet from all the walking and standing.

Cafe Tacuba is a traditional mexican reataurant cafe style on Tacuba road in the middle of the center. I would very recomment the place for a quick snack or even to go out to dinner. The food looked very amazing and was tastefully made with love.  The whole restaurant is very lovely, the servants are dressed up in a white nurse-like uniform wearing ginormeous hair bows. 

The second day breakfast was not as local as the one we had on the first day but not less good! We went to the cafe Toscano where you get freshly squeezed juice, as well as cut up fruit and continental breakfast options for little money. This place also offers a great variaty of coffe and hot drinks. 

   

My last advice for mexico city is to get your nails and eyebrows done. 

The place where I went was really

percised about doing my brows and

I have to tell I was never as satisfied

getting them done as back then - also you still do not pay a lot.

What are your favorite things to do in Mexico city? What do you like most about the town and outside the town? Let me know about your experiences!

.     .     .     Pequenos momentos, grandes recuerdos!     .     .     .

Birthday Boy Pancakes!

After a not so full month of work I decited to come home for a little - plus - it is my dads' birthday toay! I am more than glad I got off work today for being home to celebrate with my family. After numerous tragic events lately, it was a good vacation being surrounded by my loved ones those!

Anyways we got to make great memories again at my aunties birtday last week and are fully in for all the preparations to celebrate daddy's tonight! What's inertnationally the best way to celebrate anthing? Right. Food!

Currently we prepared numerous salads, garlic butter and bread to have with our BBQ goods tonight! So most of the preperations were done already early in the morning. 

Talking about the early morning we need to talk about them pancakes! As I am a well known foodie at my house of course I was in charge to create something special, tasty and by the way healthy to have for breakfast. Well ... no problem ;)

Luckily I already wanted to try a new pancake recipe - do you see how I am slowly overcoming my anxiety towards pancakes? Aaaaaaaand it turned out to be amazing! Perfect consistancy, perfect sweetness and look at them macros girl! 

This recipe I am showing you I found at Kais' Instagram - he does an amazing job at cooking and baking, I simply love his recipes!

Pancakes (feed around 3-4):

• 3 eggs , 2 eggwhites
• 150g quark
• 180g oats
• 60g protein
• 3 bananas
• 1 pck baking powder which I forgot and it still tasted great

1. Blend together all ingredients, add some liquid if you feel like you have to and bake them out in a slightly greased pan.
2. Enjoy a stack of pure deliciousnes! <3

.    .    .    it's always someone's birthday   .    .    .

Blastyourmacroswiththesepancakes

I am not often impressed. Even less often by Pancakes. To be honest I literally gave up o that topic... After trying it over and over to find -not even a perfect- maybe just a well working pancake recipe, that could also be halfway healthy, macrofriendly and with most protein possible - I JUST GAVE UP. Over and over I ended up with some sort of sad looking doughball in my pan - which I still wanted to eat - because I thought 'c'mon just 'cause it's ugly it's not going to taste shitty...'

Well... it did taste shitty. And the topic pancakes was well done for me - never again. I satteled for Waffles. These needed a lot less attention, you just pour in the freggin dough and wait for the pan to do it's job! Anyways waffles are just pancakes with abs, so that defenitly worked for me!

Just until last night happened. I literally have no idea what it is that remotivates me to try and have some pancakes. Well this time I was probably just craving them reeeeeally bad. Unfortunaty I was also short on my protein that day, having eaten a large percentage of carbs all over...

Thanks to the internet I scrolled around and found something that I would defenitly call 'The Unreal Recipe'. After all them fails I had to account I was a hundred percent sure this would never - ever - work. So I had to give it a try. 

Don't you dare judging me on my logic! It got me where I am today!

You might be guessing it - this giant single serve pancake which I got by deviding the ingredients by two was perfect! Perfectly well tasting ( allthough I gotta admit it defenitly does not taste like the sweet and sugary original - but for latenight cravings that will fit your macros it will do ;) , perfect consistancy and great size! It baked more than well and I almost had no work with it. The only con was that it turned dark very fast but that - I gotta admit - was my fault anyways.

You might have not been getting around noticing that I am mentioning the macros a shit ton of times. Well, attentively you! Are you ready for these? Well I'm gonna throw them at you anyways:

1 serving: 185cal 5.5 carbs 0.3 fat 33.2 protein!!

So if you - just like me almost every night- are a little short on your proteins by nighttime, you should defnitly try this! the great thing about pancaks is that you can top them with whatever you desire. This way hitting your fat or carb goals on the midnight snack isn't going to be hard either. I myself topped this little friend with some PB2 and crunshy homemade chocolate-nut muesli!

So enough of the talkig I am going to finally hit you up with the recipe for these beauties:

Single Serve Pancake:

• 50g greek jogurt
• 2 eggwhites
• half  a scoop protein of your choice

1. Heat up your pan while you are whisking up all ingredients.
2. Bake your pancakes to the desired - or even undesired- golden brown color
3. Enjoy your treat <3

.    .    .    Free yourself    .    .    .

Fresh and tropical summer salat

Well hello fitfam!

Summer has finally reached us over here at Germany so we might as well use them two days to make a lot of nicecream, cold berry refreshers and what would summer be without salads? I seriously don't eat anything else at all around summertime because to be honest - it's so damn hot I don't even want to think about warm food! So as soon as I came back from my last trip I decited to make a not-so-boring-salad. Apparently this actually-very-simple-salat turned out to be a damn-this-tastes-so-good-salad! So here I am - the nice person you know, sharing my new favorite salat recipe!

I actually wanted to go for pineapple instead of mango but all the pineaplles at the store just looked to unripe for the little sweet tooth girl I am. I defnetly think this was a great idea, still if you would prefer pinapple go ahead, try it and come back to leave me a comment on how it was!

... sorry for semi-very-bad-quality...

Tropical Summer Salat (Serves 2-3):

•  1 small can (160g) Corn
•  1 bound spring onion
•  1 salat heart (or any other salat you prefer)
•  1 mango 
•  4 celery sticks
•  200g peas ( I was using frozen ones)
•  8 slices chicken breast

•  1-2 Tbsp greek jogurt
•  1 Tsp mustard
•  a splash of apple cider vinegar and one picklewater
•  seasonnings to taste

1. Chop up all your ingredients as finly as possible. The key to this salad is that everything is very small, that way you catch a lot of flavor in one bite!
2. Drain your corn and mix it in with all the other ingredients.
3. Mix the ingredients for the dressing seperatly. I was using salt, pepper, red onion, garlic powder and salat greens to bring in a little spice. Also I added a splash of lemon.
4. Bring everything together and have yourself a delicious meal!

.    .    .    enjoy the sun, have fun    .    .    .

Huge Comeback!

Hello Fitfam!

Well how to start this one... maybe with saying SORRY for not having let you hear anything on my blog in like forever?! Probably. I seriously have no other reason than the truth: I just wasn't making any time for it. 

I hate when people say they couldn't find time or couldn't make time. It's all about priorities. And I set my priorities in a way that did not fit in any blogtime. But now I am back and I am all motivated to give you all the content I've been collecting the past months. 

I recently moved out of my parents house and into my new little own housing. I am still decorating a little here a little there but I am so overwhelmingly in love with my new home. I decited to go all white and just added a touch of copper. Whenever I open the door I feel great! It's just a pretty place to be and I cannot wait until all the unfinished pieces fit together.

I also did some changes on my workout plan meaning that I actually have a plan now! I am no longer wlaking around the gym like 'uhm what do you do with that?'. No I just discovered Whitney Simmons' YouTube channel - and that girl? She is bomb! She really knows what she's doing! Her workouts I think are very individual, creative and fun - yeah- FUN to do! I am so in love with her channel I actually wanted to share my obsession. So if you - just like me- never really knew what and how much of what you should do at the gym, go check her out, hit the like button and subscribe to stay tuned!

So taking all the new and fresh motivation I needed some space to share all of my happiness and all of my motivation. This is how I got back to my Blog! Sorry again for letting y'all waitso long but now I am back. I have a huge comeback in fitness, food, fashion and travel. I regained so much power and finally found my space. 

So you guys if you are interested in where this new energy will lead us let me know in the comments what you would be interested in hearing; would you like to see more travelling? More fashion? More fitness? Do you want to get to know me better? You let me know!

Write you soon, XoxO
Jana

.    .    .    always give it your all    .    .    .

24 Hours in Denver

 

 Hello and good morning Denver!

The day before packing to leave for Denver, USA I was checking on the weather. A solid 20°C was calling for a light jacket and some light T-shirts. Maybe I should pack another sweather just to be safe? A windbreaker would be great if I would find some time to visit the mountains?

Good thing I checked out Brittany Lessers snapchat that day! She lives near Denver and snapped pictures of the snowy landsacape. 

Well this is obviously the bad thing about traveling having to trust in weather predictions so I also packed my heavy iceblue winter coat for good measure! Right before takeoff my collegue just told me : 'There is no reason for complaining about the weather in Colorado for it changes within the next minute!' 

What can I say - she was defenitly right! Good thing that only counted for the temperature during our stay. The sun luckyly stayed out constantly - unlike the following days that were predicted to bring a lot of heavy snowstorms. Hopefully this has nothing to do with the icecubes I threw into the toilet by the end of the visit?!(An US-American saying calls for ice cubes in the toilet if you wish for a snow day afterwards - I actually just wanted to remove the remaining cubes off my cold drink before tossing the cup) But let's take it to the beginning!

The day was almost over when I reached the city of Denver - a long day just called for a hot soup and a good night of sleep. I was andering around to find any spot to have soup at which appears to not be too easy at 8pm downtown Denver on a saturday night. Some of the food spots close very early on weekends which -in my opinion- is defenitly okay and understandable, yet not too great if you have no other option than eating out.

Wandering around Downtown at night was quite an experience as well. Not only the big tower in the center of the town was glowing green (for St pattys day) but there was also a slight hint of a 'green smell' in the air. As Cannabis is to be consumed legally in the state of Colorado the smell on the streets sort of reminds me of the streets of Amsterdam.

I did find a fast food bakery -other than panera- called 'Corner Bakery' where I was able to enjoy a great soup before getting a great cap of sleep for the upcoming long day!

To start my morning right whenever I am in the states there is no place like Panera bread for breakfast! I really love the bagles and always bring some home with me. Although I also developed a habit in always having the Power Quinoa Oatmeal the day I am having breakfast there - I recomment to substitude the honey for peanutbutter and you will be in heaven! This time I also tried the strawberry pecan oatmeal - subbing pecans with PB again and the Chai Latte made with almond milk. Both of course have been amazing again - even though I only got to drink half of the Chai because I was so full! I kept the remaining part in my fridge overnight and added a cup of ice cubes (see where the came from) to it to make it a frappe and I really have to say I almost liked that version more.  So if you -like me - are not able to make it though the entire cup of Chai just leave it for the next day and it will be amazing enjoyed as a refresher!

By the time I hit Panera (around 8am) It was already as beautiful as cold outside. I was very very glad I packed my thick winter coat trying to keep away the freezing cold air as much as possible. I even had to ask a Panera worker if it was possible to wait inside until they open - it was THAT cold! I tried taking a picture of the great mountain view in the morning but obviously all I caught in all its clearness was the Panera logo. Denver itself makes a beautiful city to visit because from almost every corner of the streets you get a great mountain view! The city itself looks a little older and very beautiful. A free bus system takes you up and down the main street where all restaurants are located. It took me a while to find the really great spots but all in all I have to admit that I've eaten lots of great food - I will share the spots with you later on. On the mall street there are located several pharmacies, TJ Maxx and Ross as well a tiny mall featuring Victorias Secret, Bath&Body works, Forever 21 and many more. Overall you can get a great variety of things to buy by not even leaving the town.

But if you are that close to the Rockys why would you not leave the town to reach for them a little more? Right you wouldn't!

So around 9:30 I met some of my colleagues to hit the bus straight out of town towards Boulder - the town I already knew from following Amanda's blog. I was having high expectations of that area and I got to admit they were more then met! 

Even the Bus drive was worth the trip already. Apparently there is a fast and a slow bus depending on how many stations they were stopping - it took us around 40 minutes that , again, passed so fast while I was just looking at the mountains, enjoying the weather.

Boulder itself is a smaller old town featuring plenty of old little butiques and many trendy spots to grab a snack. We hit a spot called 'The old Chicago' to grab a lunch. The food was very good and well done, the servants were friendly while most of the time connected on their mobile phones.

Avocado Chicken Salad, no cheese, 

dressing on the side

After lunch we split in smaller parties depending on what everyone was up to to. One of my colleague - the same age as I - and I decited to enjoy the weather a little and wlaked around some beautiful park, some random neigbourhoods and the streets until we 'accedently' found the Bouder Teahouse. By this time we must've hit the 15-20°C already! Time to take off the coat and have a sip on the best frozen Chai latte I've ever tasted in my life! Yes, I obviously have an obsession but at least it's no alcoholic beverage ;) So if you ever get to visit this beautiful Teahouse in Boulder you have to have a try!

Teahouse Boulder

 We almost spent all day wandering around the streets of Boulder, shopping for some sweet TOMS - even though I could not find any my size. We collected some sunshine and listened to many street artists while we talked about everything and nothing at all. It was a great afternoon after all! On our way back we got off the bus at some shopping area to visit TJMaxx, Target and Wholefoods.

By the time we were back at Denver we - of course - were hangry as little lions again! We hit a place called 'Chili's'  to have a meal called 'bottomless Soup and Salad' that also featured a huge bowl of Tacos and dip. All the way satisfied we were ready to call it a day for the last time in Denver.

The last hours in the city were well spent on shopping a light spring dress and ofcourse again some food - I would really want to point out two more places to eat when being in Denver. One is called the 'Protein Bar' featuring lots of delicious, healthy meals - located on the upper end of the mall street (16th). The other one is more of a place to satisfy cravings : Santa Fe cookies & Co. This small and almost nondescript place gives you the feeling of standing right in the middle of grandmas baking place , only that not granny but a young girl is too busy baking for even taking your money. Self service for all kind of cookies and other baking goods for really small money - downstairs in front of starbucks just across the mall.

So here you have a small conclusion of a day I would always love to repeat again! I hope I was able to give you some hints and inspirations. Let me know what you think about this travel journey and if you'd like to see more of that! Have you ever traveled to Denver or live there? What are your secret tips?

When suddenly your sister starts reading your Blog ;)

As I promised my sister I would give her the recipe to this quick and simple breakfast or whatever time snack idea I finally got to write down everything on blog. Regarding the long list of ingredients you have to admit though that this defenitly is a complicated recipe! I'm just kidding. There is nothing more simple and yet delicious as a bisquit roll. Plus as I mentioned before you can have it whenever you are craving something sweet and cakey ;)

So here you are, the recipe for my delicious Bisquit roll, my love:

Bisquit roll (Serves one because you would not want to share) :

• 3 eggwhites
• 1 egg yolk
• 30g protein (can substitude for regular flour, coconut flour or grated nuts)

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Stiffen eggwhites in a seperate bowl.
3. Mix together the flour and eggyolk and slowly add the beaten eggwhites. Add in a little sweetener of your choice if you have more of a sweet tooth. I personally don't think it is neccessary!
4. Spread as thin as possible on a baking sheet and place in the oven for about 13 minutes.
5. Meanwhile you can prepare your stuffing. I like to stuff mine with fresh fruit and greek joghurt mixed with mashed banana. Sometimes All I do is PB&Banana - you can seriously go crazy with your stuffing!
6. Once your Bisquit is done - remove it from the oven and let it cool down a little before filling and rolling it.
7. Enjoy your sweet and delicious snack! <3

Extra tipp: If you leave your dough unsweetened you may also try to fill your roll with savory goods like sauteed vegetables or deli meat!

.   .   .   respect everyone   .   .   .