In what feels like a long time since I�ve updated, I find myself in a post-carnival, spinning world which also includes a bit of nausea. AKA– I drank way too much last night, and I’m totally hungover!
I didn’t quite finish the last post before it was time to head out the door, so I’ll do a day by day breakdown:
Friday Evening
About the only remaining thing to mention about Friday was that Andrea and I got dressed-up and went out for a nice dinner. We called ahead to a place which A hadn’t been to before, and then took the short trip to the restaurant (which was in a winery as a lot of the restaurants in the area are) in a town nearby. I had what I’m told is a pretty regional specific, classic German dish (lots of different kinds of sausage, sauerkraut, and fried potatoes), and Andrea had what turned-out to be the only vegetarian item on the menu, which was basically a big bowl of mushrooms with a few other things in it. My meal was really good, though I felt bad that hers was not quite what was expected. Following the meal on the drive home, we stopped by the “Worlds Largest Wine Barrel” (which was essentially a restaurant in a barrel) for coffee. By then it was already midnight, so that was the end of the evening since we had a long day ahead on Saturday, well, other than finishing the trek home of course.
Saturday
Though a very long and tiring day, Saturday ended-up turning out okay in comparison to what I thought it might be like. Our first stop on the path to Stuggart was by the train station here in Neustadt to get tickets to go to Paris, as well as a hotel room for our trip there. Because of various combined discounts, the train portion of the trip was around $160 Euros for the both of us round trip, which isn’t too bad I don’t think. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful at finding a hotel, but that’s something we’ll have to take care of today.
After the train station, we took the 1.5 hour drive to Stuggart with the goals of making it to the Porsche Factory & Museum, as well as meeting up with Andrea’s boyfriend, Hannan, for the evening. After figuring out what train route would get us there, we purchased a day pass for the train which was $8.50 (and seemed to be valid for multiple people) and headed to the Porsche factory. The compound itself is really quite amazing, but the museum itself is really not that great. It’s quite small, and unfortunately you have to book tours of the factory at least a couple of months in advance, so we kind of lost out. I was still satisfied however just for the experience in general. It’s surreal to see random Porsches strewn about a factory everywhere.
We also peered into a building where you can buy the cars directly, and there was a pretty impressive assortment of Porsche’s in there as well. In almost an ironic twist of fate, my camera batteries also died there, so I didn’t quite get to take as many photos as I wanted. However, all in all, it was well worth seeing and I didn’t feel let down at all despite those things happening. Needless to say I now have something else to be OCD about on the trip, which is remembering to bring extra batteries with me at all times.
With some purchased Porsche swag in hand, we headed back downtown to meet Hannan and a male gay couple which were his friends. The whole meeting “someone you dated in the past with someone new” wasn’t too bad really, just somewhat awkward, especially with the language barrier. It’s always been a non-event in the past for me, but there was just some strange and uncomfortable precedence about this time, not to mention being the 5th wheel of two couples. Anyhow, we went out to eat at some sort of “fast casual” pasta and pizza place, and then headed out for a night on the town.
The arts event we spent the night doing, called something like “kulture de stuggart”, apparently happens every 8 weeks. Its essentially all kinds of random things throughout the city which you can choose from a schedule to see, and once buying the entry bracelet for the event, you can attend any of them. (Editor’s note: I started typing this earlier this morning with a hangover.. went back to bed, and now its 2 PM). The events we attended were a Jazz session at an art gallery (I believe they were students of the local music college.. they were really good) some sort of display at an architecture building which was all different things done with lights, followed by seeing some sort of variety show which was all in German obviously, so it was all German to me. Given my intricate explanations, I’m sure it’s really obvious to the reader what I did, but it’s really hard to catch all of the details when you only speak maybe twenty words of the local language. Just imagine jumping on the train once every 45 minutes or so and going to a new place that you don’t quite understand what it is for five hours, and you’ll understand my dilemma.
By then it was after midnight, and both Andrea and I were completely worn-out, so it was time to drive back home to Neustadt. Neither of us could sleep since the day was kind of strange, so we ended-up staying up and talking until around 6 AM and catching-up with each other.
Sunday
Because we’d been up very late the night before, we didn’t get out of the house until around 4 PM to head to an Oktoberfest in Kaiserslauten. On the drive there, the road was closed because of what looked to be a really bad accident, so we had to turn around and take a different way. By the time we got there, the Oktoberfest was quite dead, and didn’t look that impressive anyway, so we headed to a carnival which was down the street.
The German version of a carnival is pretty much the same as a US Carnival, except ALL of the food and beer is amazing. Mostly we just went to get some food and beer, and for the general experience. An interesting thing I should have taken a picture of but didn’t think of it at the time was the “California Ice Cream” booth with all of this patriotic signage and the like. I guess personally, California would be towards the bottom of my list if I were to create answers for “Patriotic States” and “States Known for Great Ice Cream” in my own version of Jeopardy.
After walking around for a bit, we found the main tent which is where all of the beer is at, and where you can get some food while listening to a cover band play really bad American pop music, which apparently everyone enjoys singing and dancing to. Amazing. I had a couple of bratwursts in baguettes which were amazing as well, and Andrea had some pizza which also looked really good. To wash it down, I ordered a 1 litre glass of beer, of which I had two of. I ended-up keeping the glass, but holy shit, I can’t believe how big it is. That was easily the most beer I’ve consumed within an hour or two, and my pocket change thinned out a little as I hit the bathroom at least four times (it costs 0.30 Euros to use the toilet).
By the time I had drowned myself in 2 litres of a very good example of what a Pilsner should be (not that watery American shit), we stopped by another booth to get some Crepes, and then headed home.
When getting back to Neustadt, the drinking did not stop.. I had another 3 beers and some sort of German alcohol made from pears and apples. In trying to show me what a girl I am, Andrea had a whole lot of hard liquor. She put quite a bit down for a tiny human, but she’s currently paying the price for it as its around 2 PM and she is still laying in her bed and unable to hold food down. In fact, we’re both pretty hungover and aren’t really going to do anything today. I’d say I’ve certainly had a pretty solid German drinking experience.
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