This week was a continuation of my vacation with my parents and younger brother. I hope to write more about it in detail, but for now, here's the short version:
-We stayed overnight in Kaiserslautern, after just barely catching the last train home from Saarbruecken since our bus from Paris was late.
-We traveled to Ludwigsburg and visited the palace there, taking a tour completely in German. As if I didn't know this already, the tour confirmed that my grasp of German is still very basic. The tour guide was running out of time so she spoke very quickly. I wasn't sure if Carl Eugen had 300 children or 300 pairs of shoes.* The latter made more sense to me but when I inquired what he had 300 of during a lull, I learned that it was children. I wondered how he was able to get anything else done.
-Then we moved on to Stuttgart, where we attended the Canstatter Wasen, or Volksfest. It's similar to Oktoberfest. It was okay but I'm kind of over big fests.
-We took a tour of the Mercedes factory. It was free and quite interesting.
-Moving on, we stayed in Nuremberg for two days. I've been once before for class, but that visit was limited to two museums so it was good to further explore the city. My brother and I made a new acquaintance, a local guy, who was awesome and gave us a lot of information about the area.
-We attended the wine festival at Neustadt an der Weinstrasse. This was more of my scene.
-On Sunday, we visited the Roteweinfest in Ingelheim am Rhein.
*Other sources I've briefly read don't mention that many kids so I wonder if I'm still getting it wrong!
I always look forward to your weekly updates. I'm with you on the big festivals thing. Oktoberfest sounds like an absolute nightmare to me, and though I've been told the Stuttgarter Volksfest is nicer because it's smaller, no thanks. Luckily my husband and I agree on that - no crowds. If we pass four people on a Sunday walk, he starts grumbling about too many people... :-)
ReplyDeleteRegarding Carl Eugen, it's probably legend - the kind tour guides like to tell because it can't be proven or refuted - that he had 300 children, but he was definitely "spritely" and had many mistresses. I read that he acknowledged 77 sons - all from mistresses, 1-night stands, and so on. He had 1 legitimate daughter with his first wife, but she only lived 13 months. He must have had many illegitimate daughters as well, but he would have had no need to acknowledge them.
Thanks for stopping by! I drew the idea from your blog. When I was in the process of moving here, I was certainly curious about a week in the life of an expat would be like.
ReplyDeleteMaybe 10 years ago I would have loved crowds of drunk people and bad behavior, but now I prefer a calmer night with a group of friends.