Road trip stop #3: Colmar

A short (hour) drive across the border from Freiburg to Colmar, France, the Capital of the Alsatian wine region and surprise bit of trivia fact: hometown of the sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi, who designed the Statue of Liberty.

Colmar has had a tumultuous history with many different rulers (Sweden briefly during the 30 Years War, France when conquered by Louis XIV, back to German rule during the Franco-Prussian War, back to France after WWI, to Nazi Germany in 1940, then back to France in 1945 when liberated by the Allies). Consequently, it along with much of the Alsace region has a strong German heritage. The German influence can easily be seen in the architecture which looks more German than French. Also the Alsatian dialect has German origins, but is unfortunately an endangered language that is declining with the population decline. However, we heard more German spoken in Colmar than French!

Wine, cheese, and Germans

Road trip this weekend! Luckily for me, Das Mädchen forgot to put me on the car insurance. Woohoo! No driving for me!! Except for a close call at a traffic circle, I'd say I could get used to being driven around Europe.

Having left HDH at MY first thing in the morning On Saturday (i.e., shorly after 10am) we drove to the Black Forest. Three hours with a quick stop over at TK Maxx, and we arrived in Hinterzarten. Fun though it was, I think it's safe to say there is no need to go back to either.

 But Freiberg is a heck of a town! University city and the sunniest town in Germany. That's not that impressive a stat, though. It's sort of like saying someone is the best baseball player in Germany. (coincidentally, Heidenheim has a really good baseball team). But nonetheless, we had sunshine and 90 degrees all weekend. I'll go back to work Wednesday with a good Irish tan (read: sun burn).

Sunday evening and the best food we've had in a while. Maybe it was a really good Indian chef. Maybe it's because it was absolutely anything other than traditional Bavarian food. Hard to say. Either way, we left fat and happy.

Road trip stop #2: Freiburg

Beautiful, sunny Freiburg... a city which boasts the most sunny days in all of Germany. (According to meteorological statistics, the city is the sunniest and warmest in Germany and holds the German temperature record of 40.2 °C (104.4 °F))

I loved it before I even saw it...

and I have to say, Freiburg did not disappoint. We left with the thought that we could easily spend more time in this charming city...

the magical Walt Disney world of Freiburg! (it doesn't even look real! but I promise this is a real picture -I took it!)

Road trip stop #1: Black Forest

We have a 4 day holiday this weekend, thanks to a Bank holiday on Tuesday and a bridge day Monday, yay for Germany! So we decided to take a road trip to the Black Forest, a visit to Freiburg, and a dip into France to Colmar and back home. 

So, the true first stop was actually here: 

Our Town

It has been 2 months already!  Looking through the posts, I realize that we have pictures of all of the places that we have been so far but none of our town! So I must confess, I don't have any pictures of the town itself as it is not really a tourist town and I feel a little weird snapping pictures that will clearly mark me as a tourist... (I will try to inconspicuously take some in the future.)  But we do have a castle! So I have a lot of pictures of the castle and... a lot of pictures of Kiwi on our walks and bike rides around the town! So please enjoy...

this is the trail that runs behind our house

Nuremberg Part II

So yes last weekend we went to Nuremberg but we had such a great time that we decided a return trip was necessary and this time to stay the night!

Our hotel was a European chain hotel and well located on a main shopping street.  The room was simple, clean, and comfortable but quite interesting under the eaves of the building with a steeply slanted ceiling and steep spiral staircase to get up to the room. 

Der Junge taking a rest

our hotel

Kiwi also taking a rest and enjoying the sun from the skylight

So the food that we both miss the most is Mexican.  And we try in every "larger" city to find Mexican restaurants. Nuremberg actually has 3 in its old town.  During our stay we tried 2 out of the 3...  "Chilis" was the closest but we still have yet to find a satisfying Mexican restaurant.  Mexican food is just not supposed to have green beans and carrots in it!  Bet you can guess where we will be eating on our visit back home in August...

"Mexican" food and German beer of course!

Dinkelsbuhl

Last weekend was so fun and we had planned to go to Dinkelsbuhl this weekend and Nuremberg is only a short drive from Dinkelsbuhl so we decided to go back and see more of Nuremberg too! See next post for Nuremberg.

A little history....

Waste management

This post is about trash. It deserves an entire post as it is an entire PROCESS!
Recycling/waste management is a very serious affair in Germany.
We have 5 waste containers. Five!
(...and I do support recycling but we recycled in Baltimore and it was a "single-stream" recycle which was so EASY!).  This system does collect more items then we would have recycled in Baltimore.  It is a good system once you can finally figure out which trash goes where (I still have to refer to the instruction sheet!).  They encourage recycling by having you pay for your "black dustbin" trash which is everything that is not recyclable.
We sort our trash inside first and then transfer it to the larger bins outside and there are 4 different trash collectors that come for each specific type and they come on certain days of the month and it changes every month.  So... there is also a separate calendar for when the trash pick-ups occur!  The glass bottles/jars and tin must be taken to specific glass depositories that are on the side of the road throughout town and they must be sorted into brown, clear or green glass and tin. Whew!

Instruction sheet

for "bio-dustbin" or kitchen waste (i.e. food, eggshells, hair, feathers...)

"yellow bag" (light-weight packaging: plastic bottles, yogurt lids, milk cartons....)

yellow=wastepaper, green="black dustbin" (non-recylable trash), brown=glass bottles/jars

Zeppelin Field

I came upon the photos below while researching the events that occurred here and wanted to include them as they are just mind-boggling to imagine. They really don't fit in with the tone of the previous posting. But it was so eerie and sobering to actually be there that I wanted to include this post to reflect.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Down the Rabbit Drinking Hole

The Story of Nuremberg, Part I

As a surprise to the weekend, we took our first trip to Nuremberg. In fact, some colleagues of mine were in 

town for the weekend and we decided to take a day trip and tour the historic city. 

Lets just be honest, the story starts with a picture of the central church that looks like this....

... and ends with a picture of the same church that looks like this....

...and this is approximately in line with the memories of the evening.

We started the day by driving to the location of the old Nazi Rally grounds, the Zepplin Field and the location of the Nuremberg Trials. Though sort of a creepy feeling to walk around the area and standing where Hitler stood, it was a nice day to walk around and absorb some history. Der Hund had a nice time trying to do some (in the voice of Brad Pitt from Inglorious Bastards) Nazi Huntin'.

(Full disclosure: The history presented below is best described as an "Irish Truth". It is a good approximation of something that could have reasonably taken place under a given set of circumstances. And while the story is heavily researched, the facts included therein are not.)

The lake is man made by the Romans to supply drinking water to the city of Nuremberg in the 3rd century BC. The area was turned into a fair ground for the 1904 Worlds Fair. Then, circa 1930, Hitler took the area as a staging point for some of his first huge Nazi Rallies. The Colosseum, modeled after the one in Rome, was to be the center of the Nazi government. As the war turned out of Hitler's favor, funds ran out and the Colosseum was never finished. It was used at the end of the war as the location of  the Nuremberg Trials.

Want to know how to kill the vibe of a perfectly good town festival? Put it at a former Nazi rally point!

Central of the Colosseum. This is the site where Hitler made Mussolini and Stalin fight to the death. Stalin won, but only after making Mussolini chase him around the perimeter of the Colosseum for 2 hours while yelling "Bet you can't catch me!". Eventually Mussolini collapsed from exhaustion, much to the delight of Hitler. Stalin boasted for hours. This, in turn, sparked the Cold War.

Der Hund: Nai Hunter

Der Hund watching out for Nazi's

 Der Hund getting an affectionate reward (foreground) after scaring a Nazi away (background).

Following a trip to the Nuremberg Fairgrounds, we took a trip around the walled part of the old city. Here we sampled the local cuisine which is, as it turns out, mostly beer. Or, as is my understanding..

Die Kollegen using Google Maps to "Find Closest Tavern"

Walking to an Underground Beer Lair.

After a delicious lunch of Nuremberger Sausages (read: Jimmy Dean's Breakfast Sausages) we toured the castle. 

And so, after a day where the ratio of TtB ratio (tours to beers) was well less than a normal batting average and steadily declining, we found ourselves at the last bar of the night. As a general atmosphere, this bar goes down in history as one of the stranger ones I've ever been in.

It was here that we ran in to, somewhat to my surprise, the Easter Bunny. Hearing us talk, he arrived at our table speaking perfect Queen's English with a thick Easter Bunny accent (or maybe it was German). In the tradition of bachelor parties in German, he asked us to buy a small bottle of alcohol- less than the volume of a shot- for 10€.

Being my father's son and, maybe as importantly, his father's grandson, I decided the vibe was right and the BAC was high enough to have fun with this guy.

"What? Ten Euro for that? And, wait.... who are you anyway??" I asked incredulously.
"I'm the Easter Bunny." he replied without hesitation.

Touche, I thought.

"I'll give you one Euro for it!"
"10 Euro, but I'll eat a carrot" he said as he pulled out a hidden carrot. To that point in my life, I never knew that rabbits had pockets The carrot appeared as if it had been freshly picked by Wilbur himself out of Mr. Abaler's farm. .

Where did he get that carrot??

"Are you kidding? I'm the f----- Easter Bunny- that's what I eat. Anyway, they brought a whole basket of them." he said gesturing to his entourage who was, not surprisingly, holding a basket full of carrots. "Now 10€ or not?"

"Eat 3 carrots and I'll give you 5€" I counter offered.

"No good. Three carrots for 10€". He held firm.

"Five carrots, greens and all, and I'll give you whatever coins I have in my pocket."

"How much do you have?"

"I don't know" I replied. "You'll have to eat 5 carrots, greens and all, to find out."

After brief consultation with his handlers and some further negotiations they decided it was possible if they could see the money, but not count it.

"No good." I said. "But I'll tell you what-  I'll shake whatever is in my pocket and let you listen" I said. I pulled the money from my pocket, being sure to keep it in a tightly held fist. I politely asked (read: yelled over bar noise to the DJ) to hold the music for a second. Much to my surprise- the music stopped and low hum fell over the bar.

Shake. Shake. Shake.


"I dunno dude" I said "If it's all 2€ coins, we could be talking about about 30€. Or, it could be a whole bunch of pennies and not even a Euro." Honestly, I had no idea how much was in my hands.

Shake. Shake. Shake.


"Okay," he said. "Three carrots, all the greens, whatever money is in your hand, and you get the booze."

And so it was. For a mere 6,43 € I got 10 minutes of entertainment and a shot of peppermint flavored schnapps from a plastic bottle later. Pretty good deal if you ask me.

Der Hund: official carrot eating judge.

Kiwi goes on Holiday

While we were in Barcelona, Kiwi went to Das Bellende Hotel (aka The Barking Hotel!) and she had a blast!  The owner was wonderful and made us feel really good about having to leave her.  Even though we don't speak German (yet!) and she didn't speak English, she was willing to trade emails with us (thanks again to Google Translate) and it all worked out.  She also made us a CD of pictures that she took of Kiwi during her stay.  Kiwi will definitely be staying at this Hotel again! Please enjoy, we had so much fun seeing these and they definitely explained why, upon returning home, Kiwi slept for a good 3 days straight!

that toy will be destroyed in minutes

I had no idea she could do that!

that is prowess!

aww, that's my baby dog!